I've Found My Perfect EDC Gear...Now What?

After getting into the EDC scene a few years ago, I think I can finally say I've found my perfect gear. I have a handful of items that I absolutely love using/carrying and can't see how anything could come along to replace them. When I first got into the concept of having an EDC, I was still unaware of what I really needed in my gear. I didn't know I loved my small gear or that I loved having colorful stuff. This made me buy tons of different things in all sorts of designs to narrow down what I liked and didn't like. I'd say I'd first find a gem in like every 5 purchases. Years and years later, I've found that I've finally hit a stable point in my EDC where I'm pleased with the specific pieces of gear I'm carrying and my EDC as a whole. What is there left to do after you find your perfect gear? I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and for us gear nuts, I think that's to keep buying new stuff.

I think on one side, you keep trying new gear in hopes that you find something better than what you consider perfect. Maybe the more practical approach is to stop your gear buying, because there's no point since you've already found your perfect stuff. We're all gear nuts though, so it's kind of hard to not buy anymore cool gear. I recently got an Ontario Rat 2 and didn't expect to love it as much as I have. If I had written off buying new knives forever since I love my Ladybug so much, I would've never tried out this sick knife. Interests change over time, so it's completely possible that you love one thing during the month but hate it the next. Plus, you never know you'll like something until you try it. Perfection is a really weird concept overall. In theory, nothing is ever truly perfect so there's always something better out there.

I'll probably scale back my gear buying in the future, but there's way I'll ever be able to stop buying gear completely. It's nice to keep adding solid pieces of gear to my rotation. In order to find those solid things though, I find that I have to try tons of things before I find the few gems. My standards are super high nowadays since I know what my perfect gear looks like. Back in the good old days where I found a gem in every 5 purchases, I'd say currently it takes me about 10 purchases to find something I really love. If a piece of gear has a few minor quirks, odds are I'm not going to keep it since it's less than perfect. I buy a decent amount of gear, so if I were to keep everything, my collection would be full of crap that I wouldn't want to carry regularly. I used to like keeping a huge collection of knives, but now I like to have a smaller collection with more quality things I really love. That's kind of why you all always see me bash knives a lot. If it's not a knife that is as good as my Ladybug, it's not good enough for me to keep around. A lot of the blades I try aren't terrible by any means. They just don't really fit my standards anymore. I used to be very lenient with how I felt about certain knives since I didn't know much back then. I can be more picky now, simply because I've tried so much.

I'm not sure if any of that made sense, but I think the biggest point is that my standards have obviously risen since I joined the EDC community. I've tried hundreds of pieces of gear by now, so it's only natural that I like different stuff now than I first used to. I've gotten to the point where I can really pinpoint exactly what I want in a knife/flashlight/multitool/etc. If you've been keeping up with me since I first started doing all this knife stuff, you've seen a lot of my tastes change and develop. That's a really cool journey to me, and I'm really happy I know what I want in my gear now. I hope you enjoyed reading all this. Thanks for looking!

New Knives From Blade HQ

I wanted to treat myself to a few new blades, so I ordered these three from Blade HQ. I figured I'd do a quick post on my initial impressions of each.

So what kind of sparked this whole order was getting an Ontario Rat 1 on loan from a fellow knife YouTube guy, Hydra572HQ. He is letting me borrow his black Rat 1 that you all saw in the last post on here for a project he's doing. I'll be carrying it for a few weeks, give my thoughts on it, and send it on back to him. I was really surprised at how cool of a knife it was when I got it earlier this week. I liked it so much that I immediately bought one for myself and the smaller brother, the Rat 2, to do a comparison of sorts. Boy am I glad I did. The Rats are probably some of my favorite blades I've tried in a little while. I'm so impressed with the quality that you're getting for a $30 knife. Check out my last post if you want to hear my first impressions of the Rat 1. I picked up a pink Rat 1 for myself, and I'll probably end up throwing it in my hiking bag. I've heard these blades can take a bit of a beating, so I figured that'd be a good use for it. The only thing that's different about this Rat 1 is that it isn't as smooth as the black one I'm trying. It may just need to be broken in/lubed up, so that's something I can easily fix.

Onto the Rat 2, holy crap I think I'll like this knife a lot. I'm not sure if getting it after the Rat 1 made a difference, but for some reason, the Rat 2 feels so small to me. That's honestly a good thing since I love my small blades. I think the slimmer design helps a lot too. Something awesome about both Rats is the rounded off edges on the handles. It's a smaller detail, but one that I really appreciate. The Rat line already has killer ergos, and those rounded edges only make them feel like they melts into your hand that much more. This Rat 2 is even smoother than both Rat 1s and is so much fun to open and close. I love the OD green scales as well. I really don't have many complaints about the Rat 2 initially. I can already tell that I'll love carrying it. I'm kind of mad at myself for not picking one up sooner. I thought it'd be yet another overhyped knife, but nope, I do think this one will live up to hype.

I wanted to get one knife that wasn't a Rat, so I decided on the Kershaw GTC Hops. Someone I follow on Instagram really loves this knife, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's an interesting knife. I wasn't expecting to like it all that much since it's spring assisted. Honestly though, I like the action on this knife a lot. I think what's throwing me off is the design. There's nothing wrong with it by any means. It's just so different than what I typically carry. It has good ergos and for the $25, the quality is great too. I also really like the blue accents it has. There's a few minor things I don't like about it, like the weird cutout on the flipper and a jagged spot in the finger groove. I don't necessarily hate it right off the bat, but I definitely don't like it as much as the Rat 2. I think it'll be fun to try out. We'll have to see if it sticks around.

That's about it for this post. Stay tuned for more posts and videos on these blades soon. I'm very excited to carry all of these. Thanks for looking!

Ontario Rat 1 First Impressions

I got this Ontario Rat 1 on loan from Logan at Hydra572HQ yesterday. If you've never heard of him before, he runs that YouTube channel and reached out to me about helping him out with a project. I'm not sure how much I should say about the project initially, but basically, he wants to help give some other knife YouTubers a chance to review some blades. Buying knives can get kind of expensive as we all know, so he's hoping to ease the pressure for other knife people and give them a chance to try new knives. I don't think I captured his whole idea for the project with just those sentences, so watch out on his channel for a sort of intro video for the project. I'm really excited to help him out with it, as his channel has always been one of my favorites to watch. Check out this link to see his channel! He posts tons of sweet reviews and testing videos of all sorts of different knives and gear. Anyways, let's jump into some of my first impressions of this knife.

This knife is insanely popular in the knife community, and honestly I can see why. Sometimes overhyped products can be a huge let down. I really do expect to like this one though. Upon first putting this knife in my hand, I noticed how crazy good the ergos are. These ergos remind me of the Spyderco Native 5 I had. This knife just feels so good in the hand. The edges of the handles are rounded off, so this knife almost melts into your hand without it ever digging into you uncomfortably (unlike the PM2 I had). I did a ton of cardboard cutting after I first got it, and it performed extremely well. I'm hoping to pick up a Rat 2 soon, so I can do a comparison of sorts between the two. This Rat 1 is just slightly too big for me for EDC. I do see myself picking one of these up for hiking and getting a Rat 2 for EDC. One other thing I'll mention is that I'm surprised at how smooth this knife is. The action is just amazing. It flicks out so flawlessly and smoothly. We'll see how my time carrying it goes, but I fully expect to say a lot of good things about this knife. I can always kinda tell how I'll dig a knife when I first get it, and I feel really positively about this one. I'm really glad Logan gave me a chance to try this out! Huge thank you to him! He's done some sick videos, so go check out his channel! Stay tuned for a post with my thoughts on it in the coming weeks! Thanks for looking!

What I Read: July 2017

I haven't read too many novels this month. I've been kind of busy, but mostly I haven't felt like reading all that much. I've got about a month before I go back to school, so I'm trying to have tons of fun and get a lot done before I go back. I read 15 books, so that puts my total for the year at 72. Two of those books are real books, while all the rest are graphic novels. I've really gotten into graphic novels this summer, so I've started a couple of series of them.

One book I finished this month is Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. It was a super long book full of lots of information on the Manson murders and the trials that ensued. I'm fascinated by true crime stuff, so I absolutely loved reading this. It took me forever to get through, but I'm really glad I read it. I had heard of Charles Manson before, yet I never knew how much he was involved in. It's written by the prosecutor in the trials of Manson/the Manson family and puts forth all the evidence and arguments that were made during the trials. If you're interested in true crime, I definitely think it's worth a read.

The other actual book I read was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I liked it for the most part. Some of the chapters didn't really click with me, but I did like the story overall. It was full of adventures and shenanigans and threw a little Tom Sawyer in there too. It wasn't the best book in the world, but it was pretty decent. If you're interested in classics, then I say give it a read.

Like I said in the beginning, I read a ton of graphic novels this month. I finished the Locke & Key series, and I really dug that. I'm also two volumes into the Ms. Marvel series. I started and really enjoyed The Woods Volume 1 and Paper Girls Volume 1. There's a few other graphic novels I finished, but they weren't necessarily ones I really loved. I definitely recommend you check out all the graphic novels I just mentioned. They are all great stories with sick art! That's it for the month of July! Thanks for looking!

What EDC Gear I'm Bringing To College #2

I start my second year of college in a little more than a month, so I've started figuring out what EDC gear I'll be bringing. My situation is a lot better this year, as I'm living in an apartment off-campus in my own room. I don't have to deal with sharing my room directly with a roommate, so I feel a lot better about bringing more of my gear. I'm pretty much bringing my entire collection with me, because why not. Here's a general overview of all the stuff I'm bringing. It's definitely overkill, but I'd rather have all my gear with me so I can keeping doing videos.

These are the two ways I'll be storing my gear. The Pelican 1120 case is how I've been storing the majority of my gear. I took out the foam insert and just throw all my gear loose in the case. I've also got my EDC pouch, which holds the few things I need every day.

These are the odds and ends that I'm bringing. The Zippo is cool, so I figured I'd bring it with me. I don't think I'll get a lot of use out of it, but it'll be fun to play with. I've also got a Res-q-me, which I really need to put in my car. I'm bringing along a pair of scissors, my screwdriver to fix my knives, and the Spyderco Sharpmaker rods for sharpening.

Pen wise, these are the pens I've had in the 1120 for a while now. From left to right, I'm bringing the Parker Jotter, two Zebra 301s, Fisher Cap-o-matic, Pilot Metropolitan, and Fisher Bullet space pen.

Here are all the flashlights I'm bringing. I've got the headlamp I bought from Amazon, Spotlight Speck, FourSevens Preon P1, Olight i3E, Thrunite T01, and Nitecore Tube. It'll be nice to have access to a solid rotation of flashlights again. If I'm being honest though, I'll probably just carry the Preon P1 all the time. Dang it. I also forgot to include my FourSevens Preon P2 in this. It's in my school bag right now, but I'll have that as well.

And last but not least, the most exciting part, the knives. This is pretty much my whole knife collection at the moment. The two fixed blades I'm bringing are the Esee Izula and Mora Eldris. I'm hoping to do a lot more hiking/camping, so I should get a lot of use out of these. Multitool wise, I'm bringing the Wenger S11 (don't know if this is the exact name or not), Victorinox Alox Bantam, Leatherman Squirt P4, Victorinox Classic, and the Gerber Shard. Onto the knives, I'll have the Boker Subcom, Spyderco Cricket, Spyderco Ladybug, Kershaw Cinder, CRKT Jettison, Cold Steel Mini Tuff Lite, and Kershaw Launch 4. 

That's everything. This is how everything looks when it's stored in the case. Some of this could change between now and the end of August. If anything, I might buy a few things, but there shouldn't be any drastic changes. I still will be uploading videos and posts while I'm in school, so stay tuned for that. Thanks for looking!

My Skateboards

I think I mentioned last summer that I'd do a post or video on all my skateboards. I obviously never got around to doing it then, but it's better late than never. I've been into skateboarding for a few years now. I probably got my first one when I was in middle school. I don't do much regular skateboarding with tricks and all that. I mostly do longboarding or cruising. Without further ado, let's get into all my nice skateboards.

The longboard on the top is a Sector 9. This was my first quality longboard. I used to ride it a ton, but now I don't so much since it's so huge. It's a solid board overall, and it was a nice thing to learn on.

The second board in the photo is a Landyachtz Dinghy. I picked this up last summer to cruise around my college campus. It turned out that my campus has too many stairs, so that plan was a wash. I still enjoy cruising around my neighborhood with it. It's not the most compact, but it is a lot easier to carry around than the longboard.

The last board I've got is a Penny board. You can't be into cruisers if you don't have at least one Penny board. Honestly, these were super mainstream, and that kind of turned me away from mine. It's a fun and easy board to ride around. I dig that it's super compact, so you can take it with you anywhere.

So yeah, those are all of them. I do have a few crappy Walmart boards that got me into skating, but those aren't worth mentioning. I'd say my go-to board these days is the Landyachtz. I love the graphic, and it's such a smooth ride. Hope you enjoyed seeing something different! Thanks for looking!

SOG Snarl First Impressions

Someone I follow on Instagram was selling a few blades, so I figured I'd pick up this SOG Snarl from them.  I've always been interested in trying out the Snarl. The Brous Blades Silent Soldier has intrigued me since I got into knives, but it was way too expensive. When SOG came out with this budget collaboration of the Silent Soldier a few years ago, I knew I'd have to try it out eventually.

My very first impressions are not the most positive. The ergos are weird, and I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to hold it. Am I just supposed to use the holes, not use the holes at all, or use a combination of the holes and handle? I'm sure as I get more use out of it, I'll find a way to hold it that is comfortable to me. This knife is also a lot heftier than I expected. The blade is super thick, almost too thick for me to carry. It's a pretty heavy knife, so I'm not sure how I'll like carrying it. The sheath is nice, and I dig the belt clip attachment thing. At first glance, I thought I might be able to move the belt clip attachment to do vertical carry, but I don't think that's the case. I don't like the idea of having to carry this knife horizontally. I've never carried a fixed blade like that before, so maybe I just need to give it a try. Other than those few things, it seems like a decent knife. I don't necessarily see it sticking out, but it should be a nice opportunity to try a smaller fixed blade. I'd like to pick up a few more small fixed blades, so maybe this purchase will jump start that. Stay tuned for some more posts on it in the future! Thanks for looking!