Recommended EDC Gear of 2019

2019 was one of those years where I wasn't as active in the community and hence didn't try much new gear. Still, I always love doing these annual recommended gear posts to highlight some of the things I got a lot of use out of. I apologize in advance for the photos. I just shot them on my phone since I don't have my good camera with me currently. Without further ado, here's the gear I loved carrying in 2019.

The biggest item in this photo is my current backpack, the Jansport Recruit. I picked this up probably two years ago now to replace an Osprey bag I wasn't a fan of. It held up great during college and now serves as my work bag. I've always been impressed with Jansport's quality, plus it fits everything I need and has two water bottle pockets. I highly recommend it if you're looking for a simple backpack that doesn't stand out too much.

Now to get into the smaller things, there's two tech items and then two actual EDC tools. The newest addition is the Fitbit Versa 2, which is a smartwatch that has all of the health/fitness tracking features that Fitbit is known for. Despite only having it since Christmas, it's already become a new favorite. I'm big into tech and always thought it'd be neat to have a smartwatch so I can see notifications, control my music, track health, etc. It's been awesome so far! The other tech item is a pair of bluetooth headphones, the Jaybird X3's. I've had these for at least a year and much prefer them to wired headphones. It's so nice to not have the cord get stuck on things or tangle up. Battery life is good enough for me, and they're comfortable to wear for long amounts of time.

Like I said at the beginning, I didn't buy much new gear this year and was content with carrying what I've got in my collection. Back when I was in school, I didn't have a ton of knife usage, yet I would always be reaching for a flashlight and small multitool. The Victorinox Classic and Lumintop Tool AA are my go-to options that haven't left my EDC pouch in quite some time. They definitely got the most use out of all my gear in 2019. If you don't own a Classic, you absolutely need to get one! It has far surpassed my favorite knife, the Spyderco Ladybug, in terms of usage, because of the extra tools like scissors, a screwdriver, and tweezers. The Lumintop Tool AA is a great flashlight with over 500 lumens on high. I love the purple body and green tailcap combo!

I did have the opportunity to try a bunch of new gear at the beginning of the year thanks to some generous viewers and the passaround group I'm in. Of all that loaner gear, one knife stood out to me the most, which was the Bestech Reticulan. It was easily the best knife I tried in 2019 and is still one I need to add to my own collection.

I didn't have a single complaint about the Reticulan. It has such a unique design, is the perfect size for me, flips incredibly well, and comes in a few different colors. I love what Bestech is doing in the smaller size range, since not many companies consistently put out smaller options. It'll probably be one of the first gear purchases I make this year once I downsize my collection.

That wraps it up for my recommended EDC gear of 2019. I'm looking forward to seeing what stands out in 2020. Thanks for looking!

Reading Goals For 2020

Hey everyone! I hope you all have had a great start to 2020 so far. With the new year comes new goals and expectations. I don't usually set any specific resolutions for myself; however, I do like to set some reading goals since I track my reading stats. I try to keep them relatively simple so I don't stress myself out too much trying to hit them. I ended up with three main goals for the year.

My first goal is to read 150 books. I've read over 200 books the past few years when reading was practically all I did in my free time. That obviously didn't leave me with much time for other hobbies, so this year I'm cutting my goal down to 150. That seems a lot more manageable with me working full-time now. Hopefully that leaves me with some extra flexibility to get back into playing video games, hiking, photography, etc.

My second goal is to try to be more balanced with what I'm reading. I want to make sure I'm not just reading from the same type of authors. I enjoy hearing about other people's perspectives and always end up learning things I hadn't considered before. The author's gender is one aspect of this goal, though I'd also like to try to read a more even amount of fiction/nonfiction and books based outside the US.

My last goal has been a goal of mine for a few years which is to read all of the physical books I own. I desperately wanted to accomplish this before I moved out of my college apartment, just so I wouldn't have as much to move out. Unfortunately, that never happened. I've still got about 40 or 50 books of mine that I need to read. I also want to try to read all of the books on my Kindle. I've hoarded a bunch over the years that I've never gotten around to actually reading. I'm the type of person that keeps checking out more books at the library, even though I've already got a healthy stack to go through. This is probably the goal I'd like to achieve the most out of the bunch.

That's about it for this post. I wanted to keep it short and sweet, since it primarily serves as a way for me to speak these into action. Hopefully I can knock these out of the park before December 31 hits. Thanks for looking!

Spyderco Para3 LW Thoughts

If you've been keeping up with me for a while, you'll know that I absolutely hate Spyderco's Paramilitary 2. I think it's an extremely overhyped knife that I would never want to personally carry. When they announced the Para3 in G10 a couple years back, I wasn't all that interested due to my hatred of the PM2. However, when you throw FRN scales on there, you've got my attention. I can see the appeal of the Para3 LW, but it's still not my favorite mid-sized EDC option. It's a good knife, don't get me wrong, yet still not one that I'd personally want to carry. The Ontario Rat 2 remains as my favorite mid-sized option I've tried.

The Para3 LW is essentially just a shrunken down version of the PM2. I always hated the weird blade-to-handle ratio of the PM2 and was happy to find that the Para3's didn't look as bad to me. I think the handle is still slightly too long though, but that's a minor subjective gripe. It's a simple and straightforward design that would function well for EDC. I'm not in love with the black scales but am sure more color options/sprint runs will be out in the future. I didn't have any quality problems with it, plus it's made here in the USA if that's important to you. The centering was perfect, it was very smooth, and it seemed to drop shut pretty fluidly. 

One slight annoyance I have with the design is the way the lanyard and screw tubes are done. I wasn't able to get a decent photo, but unlike most of Spyderco's FRN knives, there's no backspacer that helps conceals the screws and lanyard hole. They instead opted to only have tubes which look a little cheap and odd to me. That does help save on weight, yet it didn't look the best in my opinion.

The blade is about 3" long with CTS-BD1N steel. I'm not a steel expert, but it was more than sharp enough for my needs. The choil take away a bit of cutting edge, though I do like the flexibility of having it there. The thumb hole is oddly large on this knife, which adds some more width than I'd like personally. I carry everything in the waistband since I have no pockets, so the slimmer the better. It's performed as well as every other Spyderco I've tried. No major complaints here.

FRN is easily my favorite handle material. I love how lightweight it is, how it can be virtually any color, and has a good amount of grip. It's so nice to see Spyderco producing FRN versions of their already popular knives. They do the best plastic handles of any knife company I've tried. I'm a big fan of the compression lock since it's so fun to play with and easy to close one-handed. Mine was very smooth and dropped shut with no problems. I didn't have any lockup issues at all either.

The ergos are comfortable without or without using the choil. I didn't feel any hotspots whatsoever. As you can see in the photos above and below, I can fit a full-four finger grip whether I'm using the choil or not. The edges of the handles are perfectly rounded which makes it melt into your hand. There's some good jimping on the thumb ramp and choil to add some extra grip as well.

I could still fit a comfortable four-finger grip on the handle even if I chose not to use the choil.

It carries well thanks to the FRN, no liners, and very light weight (only 2.4 oz.). The wire clip is Spyderco's best clip in my opinion, so I was very excited to see them use it on this knife. It's perfectly placed right at the end of the handle, making it carry deeply with practically nothing sticking out of the pocket. The larger Spyder hole adds a bit more width than I'd personally like, which led to the knife digging into me when I carried it in the waistband. For you guys with actual pocket space, that shouldn't be a problem at all.

The Para3 is relatively affordable for a Spyderco, coming in at $91. For that price, you're getting a solid knife with decent materials. You could argue that you could find a Kizer or some other knife in the sub $100 range with the same or better materials. Still, I don't balk at the price tag.

I'm happy Spyderco is expanding their FRN and mid-sized knife lineups when it seems like everyone is just focusing on 3.5"+ titanium framelocks. Like I mentioned at the beginning, the Ontario Rat 2 is still a better knife in my opinion, even if the materials aren't as great. It's a third of the price and is just as comfortable in the hand, sharp, great quality, and even smoother. If you think the PM2 is too big for you, the Para3 LW is a decent option for EDC. It's just not one of my favorite choices personally. For a budget knife, I do believe there's more exciting options out there. Thanks for looking!

What I Watched: 2019

If you saw one of my recent posts, I did a wrap-up of what I read in 2019. I've watched a lot of good TV shows and movies and thought it'd be fun to do a similar wrap-up post for those. There's a decent bit of bad/mediocre things I saw, so I'll probably just stick to my favorites of 2019. Without further ado, let's start with TV shows.

My absolute favorite show that I saw this year was Atypical season 3. It follows the lives of a family where the son is on the autism spectrum and is going about his life as normally as possible. The parents have a lot of their own drama, and the sister is hilarious. I binged this over the course of a day and hope a fourth season happens. I never rewatch shows, but honestly I may end up rewatching the whole series this year. It's that good. There's a few other Netflix originals I enjoyed, like One Day At a Time season 3, The Punisher season 2, You season 1, Dead to Me season 1, Mindhunter season 2, and When They See Us. I'm also a sucker for true crime/cop shows and liked Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 3 and The People v. OJ Simpson season 1. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is one of my favorite comedies and is still a series I need to get caught up with. I own the first three seasons on DVD and want to get the rest soon to complete my collection. One Day At a Time is another hilarious family drama that unfortunately got canceled. Dead to Me was probably my second favorite of the year, which is a dark comedy that focuses on a widow trying to figure out who killed her husband in a hit and run. If you like comedies and crime-related shows, you can't go wrong with any of these.

As far as movies go, the one that pleasantly surprised me the most was Game Night. A group of adults attempt to have a murder mystery party that ends up taking a turn for the worse. There were lots of twists and turns and funny moments throughout. Knock Down The House is a documentary on Netflix that focuses on a group of women that ran for the House in the last election. It was a really neat look into politics and leaves me hopeful for the future. A few things I saw on Netflix were Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and Let It Snow. The first one has Zac Efron perfectly playing Ted Bundy, and the second one is just a cheesy, feel-good Christmas movie that I ended up watching with my family. Spider-Man is my favorite superhero, and I was very impressed with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It was cool to see an animation style that was different than what animated movies are typically like. I also saw a few movies that were adapted from books, like Crazy Rich Asians, A Simple Favor, and The Hate U Give. All were well-done and entertaining to watch. Finally, I watched Halloween from 2018 and thought it was a great reboot of an already classic film.

That about wraps it up for some of the things I watched in 2019. Now that I'm finally done with school, I hope to catch up on some TV shows that I haven't gotten around to watching yet. Thanks for looking!

What I Read: 2019

Hey everyone! Happy New Year's! I majorly flopped on doing my monthly reading updates since the summer. Instead, I wanted to do a 2019 wrap-up with some of my favorite books and statistics for the year.

Since reading is my main hobby, I set a goal of 200 books and ended up reading 249, with 77 of those being graphic novels and the rest being novels. Graphic novels don't take that long for me to read, which does inflate my overall count some. I read most of my books on my phone through the Libby app and had a breakdown of 50 physical books, 197 eBooks, and 2 audiobooks. 173 of the books I read were fiction, while 76 were nonfiction. The last stat I track is the author's gender, with 147 books written by males and 101 written by females (1 extra one was written by a team from a news website). This isn't as evenly balanced as I'd like and is one thing I want to focus on improving in 2020. Across all of the books, I ended up reading 65,848 pages.

For this post, I wanted to talk about 10 of my favorite books I read in 2019. These all ended up getting 4 or 5 star reviews from me. My average rating this year was about 2.5 stars, so these 10 are all standouts that impressed me in some shape or form.

There were three books that I rated 5 stars this past year: Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon, American Predator by Maureen Callahan, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Whiskey in a Teacup is a lifestyle book that has an aesthetically pleasing mixture of recipes and home decor ideas, along with tidbits about Reese's life. I didn't expect to like it as much I did, but it was such a well-done book. American Predator is a true-crime novel that had me completely entranced. Maureen Callahan has a great writing style that's easy to read with a good flow. It uncovers the crimes of one of the "most meticulous" serial killers of this century. I had never heard about him before and think Callahan provided enough details without going overboard. I love true crime as you may know, and it's one of the best ones I've read in a while. Lastly, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was another one I didn't expect to like as much as did. It's mostly focuses on the drama/romance of a fictional actress that wants a reporter to write a tell-all book about her life. Like Maureen Callahan, Taylor Jenkins Reid writes in such a way that makes you want to keep on reading. I liked the main character, Evelyn Hugo, more and more as I learned about her life.

Moving onto some of the 4 star books, the only graphic novel to make the cut was Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. It's a fantasy story that had fantastic art and an interesting plot. One other good true-crime novel I read was I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. This book focuses on the Golden State Killer, who was actually caught in the past couple of years. McNamara unfortunately passed away before the book was published, so it didn't read as fluidly in parts since other people had to get it finalized. Still, I enjoyed it and liked learning about her investigation process. I've wanted to read more of Stephen King's works and was very impressed by Misery and 11/22/63. Misery is a weird book but had me rooting for the main character by the end of it. 11/22/63 is a neat time travel story about a teacher going back to stop the assassination of JFK. It was long, like most of Stephen King's books are, yet it felt warranted due to how crazy the plot became. Another book I read with a presidential theme was Fear by Bob Woodward. No matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, it's such a fascinating look into the past few years of Trump's presidency. It was well-written and had me engaged throughout, which I can't say about some of the other political non-fiction books I read. The final two books for this post are The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson and Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The Vanishing Stair is a sequel in a YA mystery series about a death and some odd happenings at a boarding school. A lot of YA can be badly written with cheesy dialogue, yet that wasn't the case for this one. I'm interested to see where the series goes and think the newest one comes out in a few weeks. Lastly, ending it off on another Taylor Jenkins Reid book, Daisy Jones & The Six. This follows a fictional band and their rise/eventual breakup. It tells their story through each of the band members and other people's perspectives. I didn't think I'd like that at first, but it was interesting to see how some of them had conflicting views on certain events. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a phenomenal writer and one that I'd like to read more of this year.

Those were just a few of the memorable books I read this past year. I should have another post up in the next few weeks about my 2020 reading goals if that interests you. I read a lot of great and not so great books this year. It's always fun to look back at these and see what sparked my interest at the time. I definitely recommend checking out any of these if you're looking for some new reads! Thanks for looking!