I'm No Flashlight Expert

This is going to be a preface for some posts I'll be doing in the future about flashlights. I don't have a lot of technical knowledge on flashlight. I mostly just care whether they light things up, are easy to use, hold up well over time, are a good size, etc. I don't care so much for the type of emitter, exact runtime numbers, and things of that nature. I've been trying to find some reviews of certain flashlights recently, and they're all very technical and filled with random jargon. I use my gear. I don't buy things solely because of their specifications. I'm not sure what type of audience reads my posts, but I'm guessing you all are just users too. As long as something works for what I need, I'm fine with it. That is sorta my philosophy for everything in life. I don't care for reviews that go on and on about what type of emitter and show graphs of what happens when a flashlight is running for 72 days. Yes that last part is an exaggeration. Still, I don't see the use in knowing those sorts of things. For example, all the reviews I've read on the Olight S10R Baton II fail to mention how stupid the UI is. I never knew Olight doesn't make some of their clicky lights very user friendly. Maybe it's just a few of their newer lights, but it was still something I was unaware of. Had I known this, I definitely would not have bought that light. I like to do lots of research on gear. It saves me a lot of money in the long run. When I get something that is disappointing/doesn't perform as well as it should, I get very angry. People are so wrapped up in specifications that they fail to talk about the real world use. Anything can look good on paper. Once you actually get in your hands though, it better be just as nice. I guess the point of this post is to let you all know that my flashlight reviews specifically will be talking about my real world experiences. It's not like you go out in public and think "oh dang, this XP-G2 emitter is really what makes this flashlight great." I don't even know the emitters on most of my flashlights anymore. It's just meaningless for the person that needs gear that simply works. Anyways, don't expect my reviews to be focused on meaningless things anymore. I think my actual experiences with gear is more important than certain specifications. I'm not afraid to bash gear if it sucks or is overhyped. I'm not a flashlight expert by any means. However, I do hope what I have to say about lights will give you all a better insight into whether you should get something or not. I shouldn't be the only person you listen too, but I do think I give an interesting and slightly valuable perspective on gear. Prepare for a lot more reviews soon! Thanks for looking!

Gear I'd Like To Try Soon List #1

When I enter a new school year, I typically can't carry any of my gear. This year is extremely different than the past 10+ years of my schooling, because I finally don't really have any restrictions on what I can carry. Sure I can't carry certain things, like a 15" blade, but at least I can have something. Luckily, everything I carry is small anyways, so I don't ever have to worry about keeping my EDC to certain restrictions. Anyways, with all that said, now I don't think I'll lose interest in EDC since I can carry my gear all the time. That's given me more motivation to try different gear, because I know that it'll get carried. In the past, I may have carried my gear for 2 days of the whole week. It's kind of a waste to buy tons of gear if you're only going to carry it for way less than half of each week. I'm on the hunt for perfect gear for my EDC now. Here's a short list of some stuff I'd like to try in the near future. I'm hoping some of these things could potentially be part of my "perfect EDC."

Nitecore Tip
Nitecore Thumb

These Nitecores appeal to me, because I love the Tube I have, and both of these are just better versions of the Tube.

CRKT Folts Minimalist
SOG Snarl

Both these blades seem interesting, because I feel like I've never given neck knives/small fixed blades a chance in my carry. I've heard good things about both, so I figured I'd start with them.

That's all I've got on my list to try at the moment. I'd like to do some more research on the gear that's out there, so the list will probably grow. I'm hoping to try this stuff out after I review all the new stuff I've gotten recently. Thanks for looking!

What I've Been Binge Watching Recently: Beginning of September

I absolutely love Netflix. When I get into new TV shows, I binge watch pretty much the entire thing in the span of a short amount of time. I didn't really start any new shows over the summer, but now that I'm here at college, I've started a few new ones. Watching stuff on Netflix is just a nice way to escape from the real world for a little bit. I'd like to do these sorts of posts to let you all know what exactly I've been watching recently. You may or may not be interested, but I think it'll be cool to talk about. Maybe you'll be able to hear about new shows or tell me ones that I should watch.

The two shows I've finished recently were season 1 of Stranger Things and seasons 1+2 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I found both to be pretty entertaining to watch. I'd say Stranger Things was definitely my favorite of the two. The plot is incredibly interesting and creepy. The cast was well- rounded. It's something I recommend to everyone. I can't wait until season 2 is out.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was extremely funny at times, but very dull at others. I still enjoyed watching it. I just wished they had spiced it up a bit more. Season 1 was better than the 2nd one in my opinion. If you want to watch something funny, keep this as an option. I wouldn't say it was the best, but it was still cool.

I've got a whole lot more shows to watch, so I'd like to keep doing these sorts of posts in the future. I really like that I'm able to show all my interests on this blog. It keeps me from getting burned out on posting. I'll keep doing the knife and EDC posts of course. There's going to be a lot of cool posts in the future. Thanks for looking! If you ever have any suggestions for what I should watch, feel free to let me know.

Finally Moving Towards Rechargeable Batteries

One of my goals as of recently was to only use rechargeable batteries with my flashlights. I've held off on doing this for such a long time now. I've finally managed to pick up rechargeable batteries and even a couple flashlights that are rechargeable themselves. It seems like it will be a great move in the long term. I'll no longer have to go out and buy batteries. Instead, I can just recharge the ones I have and call it a day. There's quite a few rechargeable lights on the market right now, which is good to see. I picked up the S10R Baton II from Olight recently, and the biggest factor that drew me to it was the fact that it was rechargeable. I've also got the Nitecore Tube as one of my rechargeable lights. Both are great lights, and I'm glad they're in my collection. I've been getting into flashlights more and more, so it's good I'll have some options as far as batteries go. I just got these Eneloop batteries in, and I'll have to see how they perform in my lights. Buying rechargeable batteries or lights may cost more money initially, but over time, you'd definitely save a ton if you use your lights a lot. Stay tuned for more posts regarding flashlights. Thanks for looking!

My Gear Storage At College

As I've been getting new pieces of gear recently, I realized I didn't have a good way to store all the gear I wasn't carrying. All the gear I originally brought with me easily fit in my little EDC pouch. I just threw the pouch in my backpack and didn't have to worry about any additional storage. Unfortunately, in my huge amounts of free time at college so far, I've managed to spend some money on new gear. I wanted to find an easy and cheap way to store my gear in my dorm room, since I have my Pelican 1120 sitting at home. I bought some plastic containers to store my food and discovered they are the perfect size to store all my tiny gear. I apologize if any of the following pictures kind of suck. Here's what I'm currently working with as far as storage goes.

As you can hopefully tell, the plastic container holds all my extra gear with no issues whatsoever. My actual EDC stays in the black pouch and all the rest goes into the container. I really like this setup. If you have some extra Tupperware type containers lying around, I definitely suggest you try to use them as gear storage. The plastic is nice, because you can easily see what exactly you have in the container without having to necessarily open it. I think I paid like $2 or $3 for 5 of these small plastic containers. It's a great and cheap way to store your gear for sure. Thanks for looking!

New Gear Purchases Part 3

I've finally received all the gear I ordered, so here is the last part of this little mini series I've been doing. To end it all off, I've got two pieces of gear to show you. Those two pieces of gear are the Kershaw Half Ton and the Kershaw Cinder.

The Half Ton is a pretty old knife and not talked about too much anymore. I've always wanted to try one out, so I figured I might as well just go for it given the low price. It seems pretty neat. I need to loosen the pivot before I can carry it though. I'll try to talk more about this blade when I get around to carrying it. I do really like the color of the scales. I don't believe I've ever had any red knives.

I'm actually very excited to carry the Cinder. After taking it out of its clamshell packaging, I was immediately impressed. It is definitely a lot smaller than I expected. It's very comparable in overall length to the Spyderco Ladybug, but the blade is a lot shorter. I love knives in this tiny size range, so I'm thinking it will get a lot of carry. I really like the design, and the ergonomics are surprisingly great considering the size.  It's a really solid knife so far. I think this will be one that you'll hear a lot about. It's pretty new, and for the price, less than $10, it's a great buy.

On a side note, I just realized a lot of the new knives I got are from Kershaw. I'm not typically a fan of them as a company, because I've found that the quality of their blades is not always the best. I guess I wanted to give them another shot, so I picked up a few of their smaller blades. I'm hoping those three blades will change my mind about Kershaw as a company. Thanks for looking!

New Gear Purchases Part 2

Here is part 2 of my recent gear purchase haul. I picked up a CRKT Squid and Thrunite T01. Both caught my eye because of their low prices and small size. I haven't even used either one yet, so this post will be fairly short. I can't carry the Squid yet, because the pivot came too tight and I don't have my torx driver to fix it. I also can't carry the T01, since I didn't bring any batteries with me. I'm hoping to get these into the rotation soon. I like them so far, but I can't make too many judgments until I actually carry either. I should have two more pieces of gear coming in the mail within the next day or two. After that, that will be the end of the new purchases. I went a little crazy with all this shopping recently, but luckily the majority of the gear was very inexpensive. I'm already thinking that most of it will be traded or sold in the future just so I can keep trying out new gear. Stay tuned for more posts on these pieces of gear. Thanks for looking!

My College EDC: Backpack Dump

Here's the whole overview of what I've got in my backpack for college at the moment. I don't think the contents will change too much. I think I've done a pretty good job of not carrying around a lot of unnecessary things. 

So for the purpose of this post, I'm only going to show more in-depth photos of the items that are interesting. As far as school items go, I've got my computer, planner, notebooks, folder, etc. That's very basic stuff and not too interesting, so I'll only talk about the cooler items. I also always have a water bottle with me.

Here's a closer look at some of the more interesting things in the bag. On the left side of the photo, I've got my calculator, iClicker, and an Anker portable battery. I've got a variety of cheap pens, mechanical pencils, and a Sharpie. I don't bring any of my nice pens with me to class, because I don't want them to get stolen or lost. I've also got an EpiPen for my nut allergy and pepper spray for self defense. I keep an extra small Moleskine Volant to write quick notes, things I have to do, grocery lists, etc. Some headphones and a couple flashdrives are also in the bag for obvious reasons. Last but not least, I've got some Post-it notes and a hairband. I haven't used either yet, but when I really do need them, they'll come in handy for sure.

This is everything I've got in my EDC camera pouch thingy. I'm still playing around with the setup of this pouch. The only items that will stay in it for sure are the Spyderco Ladybug and Victorinox Classic. Those two items get far more use than any of my other gear. The other objects are subject to change as I try out new gear or need different things. At the moment, I've got these items in the pouch as well: Olight S10R Baton II, Wenger EvoGrip 11, Gerber Shard, and Fisher Bullet Space pen. I've got some additional gear that I can rotate, so maybe I'll try to change the items up on a dailyish basis.

That's about it as far as my backpack goes. Some days I'll need extra things, but this is the base setup. I'd like to do a video of it eventually, just so you all can get a better idea of how all this fits in the bag. I'm not sure when I'll get around to that. For now, I hope you enjoyed seeing this sort of post. Thanks for looking!

New Gear Purchases Part 1

Quick side note: sorry for the kind of crappy picture quality that I've had these last few posts. I'm still trying to figure out the best setup in my dorm room to get good photos. Bear with me, I promise I'll figure it out soon.

These three pieces of gear are just a few of the things I've purchased recently. I've got a few more things coming in soon, so there will be several additional parts that will be posted once those come in. The three items you see in the photo are the Olight S10R Baton II, Kershaw Shuffle, and Olight I3E. I've been looking to upgrade parts of my EDC and just try out new things in general.

The S10R is definitely the piece of gear I was most excited to get. I wanted to get one really nice flashlight, and I think the S10R is the answer to that need. There's a couple of things I'm not liking about it initially, but I think I just need to get used to it. It's a very cool light for sure. I love the form factor, and the fact that it is rechargeable.

The Kershaw Shuffle is something I wanted to try for fun. I like small knives and have heard some interesting things about it. I honestly don't think it will stay in my collection long term though. I love the color, but that's about it. One thing I've noticed is that Amazon ships out the knives with the pivots really tight. I've gotten two blades from them recently, and both have insanely tight pivots. This kind of gave me a bad first impression of this blade, because I can't even open it one-handed. Normally the tight pivot wouldn't be a huge deal to me. However, I totally forgot to bring my torx driver, so I can't loosen up the pivot. I'll either just buy one or wait to carry these blades until I get home for Thanksgiving.

I wanted to try the Olight I3E, because it was cheap, small, and purple. I want to review more gear on here soon. I thought it'd be a good idea to start getting cheaper items to review, so it's less of a hit on my pocket. This is a pretty neat light for the price. It's pretty bright, coming in at 90 lumens. I'm impressed with it so far. It's definitely a good option for a keychain or backup light.

As I get to carry this stuff some more, I'll be sure to keep you all updated on how I'm liking everything. You can definitely expect to see reviews and videos on it all in the future. Thanks for looking!

What I'm Currently Reading: September 2016

I'd like to do these sorts of posts occasionally to talk about some of the books I'm reading at the moment. I'm not going to be doing much talking about how I actually like the books, because I haven't started them yet. These posts will mostly just record what I have to read next and maybe introduce you all to a new book. If I end up really liking any of these books, I'd probably do a whole separate post on them. I absolutely love to read, and I'd like to keep finding ways where I can talk about books on here.

Here's just a quick side story on these books. I've only started The Heart and the Fist. I've enjoyed it so far. The author's stories are very entertaining and interesting to hear about. The other four all managed to catch my eye when I was strolling through Barnes and Noble. I haven't really heard of them at all, so hopefully they're pretty good reads. Thanks for looking!

The Books
The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL by Eric Greitens

When to Rob a Bank: ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

The Fever by Megan Abbott

Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone by Bo Burnham

Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown