Knolled (not including spare razors and the phone cord)

Bagged

Upgraded Dopp Kitt Bag

Here’s a 2019 update for my dopp kit.  I finally decided to add a handle to the dopp kit bag with d-rings on either side.  As usual, here’s an updated stock list for the bag.

WilzGear Semi-Custom Dopp Kit (minus the handle that I added).

• Bag 1:
  • Travel Tylenol
  • Travel Motrin
  • New-Skin
  • eye drops (I grab these from the dopp kit even when not traveling as they have an expiration date)
  • lint roller
  • Q-Tips & Pointed Q-Tips for cleaning helix piercings
• Bag 2:
  • DSC razor blades & handle
  • shaving mirror
  • tweezers
  • tonsil stone puller
  • emery board
  • floss
  • small bandaids – new-skin has trouble sealing a fresh cut as my blood pushes it out.
  • toothpaste
• Bag 3:
  • Tin for medication – melatonin, zyrtec
  • Swiss Army knife
  • fitbit charging cable
  • short usb charging cable.  I’m a big fan of wireless charging pads but for compactness I just have a spare cord.
  • 2 port usb charger
  • 4 flame butane torch
  • bottle opener
  • Laundry Mat quarters
  • hair brush
• waterproof ziplock (TSA Regulation sized)
  • isopropyl
  • shampoo
  • handsanitizer
  • 50 oz of tide soap will do 32 loads.  This equates to 1.56 oz of tide per load.  3 oz regulatory bottle will do 2 loads, 3 if you stretch.
• Left loose:
  • tooth brush & tube
  • beard cream (in a 2oz tub)
  • soap in a sealing food container

Thanks for reading!

“Two is one, one is none” algebraically equates to “two is none.”   I call rubbish on the whole idea.  When I was younger, I would have been a great boy scout.  I was always prepared, because I always had everything.  I’m now triple the age which strangely, simultaneously shows both how old and young I am.  I don’t like carrying everything everywhere anymore and my experience is I always take to much anyway – “if you’re not worrying about the ounces you’ll be crying about the pounds.”

2015 EDC

2018 Carry + Knolling

For my daily EDC, there’s a few things I always carry – cellphone, lighter, flashlight, tape measure, knives, and wallet. My keychain is kept light, both by pairing back the keys and modifying them to be smaller.  My EDC today is almost exactly the same as my EDC from 2015.  This is tried and true gear, tested, and carried for over 20 years.  I have quite a boring life – back and forth to work.  If I do find that I’m missing from my daily carry, I can either buy it, borrow it, or wait it out.

I feel like building is a “true EDC” is fairly easy, assuming you can follow step 2 of the steps below:

1. Add things to your carry
2. Get rid of them when you realize that you don’t use them.  You will apply this to 9 out of 10 things you decide to add to your carry.
3. Bonus rule: Multipurpose is multisuck and not a reason to have a something of anything.

Building a kit … organically is much harder for me.  I tend to get an idea to build a kit for something, then start adding extra crap without having used the kit.  A specific example of this would be when I built a fairly expensive kit of tools to take shooting when I realized that 95% of my practice is done no more then 5 minutes from my work shop.  I don’t need a socket set and allen keys and more – I need to walk back in the house, lock it in the bench, and start working.  Oops.  Even the volunteer kit for my ham club suffers from to much rule one and not enough rule 2.  My shack in a box kit and my desk tool kit is being built with a different mindset of that experience.

But what about kits that God forbid you use?  I carry an an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) after deciding that having a CCW and not carrying an IFAK was a tad unreasonable – I’ll go out on a limb and say that using a IFAK is the more likely of the two and the least restricted as well.  How do you test and prove what is needed?  The best suggestion I have is to follow the guidelines of Tactical Combat Casualty Care.  There are a number of companies that will sell you a kit.  I recommend going with kit from ITS Tactical (as I’ve used their customer service which is top notch). I’ve heard good things as well about Dark Angel Medical’s training and Kits.  Buying kits from either will provided you with the enough to handle the two main “field killers” – extremity bleed out and chest wounds.  If you’re worried about how guns kill people learn how to save them, or at least keep your own ass safe.  The mind is the ultimate weapon, and the director of all else.  Returning fire is another mindset all together.

I wrote the previous paragraphs to set the stage to discuss duplication in kits.  I keep both travel sized Tylenol and a travel sized Motrin in my dopp kit.  I’ve also added them to my IFAK to make it more practical to it being part of my extended daily carry.  Another duplication I often see while traveling or building a kit is pens & pencils, and knives.

My concern with duplication is several:

1. Duplicating consumables is double the things to mind.
2. Double the items is double the weight and space you’re using for the same thing.
3. Double the things to lose somewhere.

With that in mind, I try not to duplicate items in my carry unless there’s a significant reason to do so.  Originally I thought that I would end up removing the pain relievers from my IFAK, but now I’d pull them from my dopp kit first.  If I go anywhere with a bag, I grab my IFAK.  This means if a headache (as I usually get on Saturdays) decides to be worse then usual I’m prepared regardless of if I’m traveling or partying.  In this case, I’d argue that duplicate them isn’t a bad idea as they are both consumables.

I wish I could submit to you, the readers of the blog, a good rubric for when and why to duplicate an item, but I can’t.  In the end, I can only reference the three steps and suggest that you, as the minder of the ounces and carrier of the pounds, be ruthless when deciding what to remove from your bag.  For most of us, if there’s a real problem a quick stop to Walmart or Target and you’ll be back in business.

Dopp Kit Mark I

If you haven’t read the Traveling Well: Dopp Kit post, you may want to head back in time to late 2015 and check out the configuration of my first Dopp Kit.  This post mainly provides an update about the contents of the iterated Mark 2 dopp kit, aka an S^3 bag (google “3s’s” if you don’t get it).

Building this kit out is what made me pose the questions of my previous post, Traveling Well: Kitting Gear. The thorny duplication subject specifically applies to the tylenol and ibuprofen that duplicate within my tcc kit.

Knolled

Bags within Bags!

All packed up

I’ve dumped items that I’ve never used in the last four years (here’s looking at you needle & thread), or items that I’ve went to a different version of (I trim my beard and hair using a full sized, wall plug trimmer now).  I upgraded the soap container to something that seals.  I keep a fresh tooth brush in the dopp kit, and change the one in the bathroom with it when I return.  That way I don’t have to worry about a moldy toothbrush in my dopp kit.  I’ve added a container of quarters so that when traveling I have change for the laundry mat.  Being able to wash clothes allows for less bulk while traveling.

When I travel, I don’t keep the bag in the bathroom where it will get wet and nasty.  Instead, I lay out a hand towel on the dresser or desk in the hotel room.  As I use items from the kit, which is kept near the towel, the items are laid out out on the towel to dry before being returned to the bag.

• Bag 1:
  • Travel Tylenol
  • Travel Motrin
  • New-Skin
  • lint roller
  • eye drops (I grab these from the dopp kit even when not traveling as they have an expiration date)
  • Q-Tips
• Bag 2:
  • DSC razor blades & handle
  • shaving mirror
  • tweezers
  • tonsil stone puller
  • emery board
  • Laundry Mat quarters
  • floss
  • small bandaids – new-skin has trouble sealing a fresh cut as my blood pushes it out.
• Bag 3:
  • Tin for medication – melatonin, zyrtec
  • Swiss Army knife
  • fitbit charging cable
  • A copper zippo with a butane insert
• waterproof ziplock (TSA Regulation sized)
  • isopropyl
  • shampoo
  • handsanitizer
  • 50 oz of tide soap will do 32 loads.  This equates to 1.56 oz of tide per load.  3 oz regulatory bottle will do 2 loads, 3 if you stretch.
• Left loose:
  • toothpaste
  • tooth brush
  • hair brush
  • body lotion
  • beard cream
  • soap in a sealing food container

Bag 1 & Bag 2 refer to these breakout bags.  Bag 3 is a bucket boss zipper bag I had handy.  They are stored with everything else inside my WilzGear Semi-Custom Dopp Kit. Most of these are sundry items from Wal*Mart (do they even care about the star anymore?). I’ve linked where appropriate for online items.

Thanks for reading!

If you know me in real life, you know that I am, ahem, a heavy tea drinker. My brew of choice is Adaigo’s Ceylon Sonata. It’s like drinking English Breakfast on steroids. I’ve also found that it helps keep my allergies in check. I’m not sure if its a benefit of the tea, hot water, or placebo effect. Either way, I’m grateful for a way to reign in the allergies that doesn’t involve a controlled substance.

Psuedophedrine. Jesh people.

But how to drink tea (especially loose leaf tea) while traveling? More, how to travel well when doing so? Keep in mind that I buy my tea two pounds at a time to save on shipping which keeps my tea at 12 ¢ a cup. That’s a 3 month supply, btw.

I found a few options:

• Tea Bags (53¢, which is good, but expensive and defeats the purpose of ordering loose).
• Bags your own (17¢ total cost, more reasonable).
• Bring a tea ball (Basically puts the cost at the base 12¢ price).
• My method …

While any of the methods work, they aren’t exactly what I would call elegant or compact. Having somewhere to store a tea ball can be difficult and they don’t like to dry. Other methods (ahem, tea bags) are good for a single cup and you’re left wanting more. Its nothing for me to drink 6 cups or more on a day off, so ordering individual tea bags is right out (even double brewing that’s an extra $1.23 a day).

My “Travelling Well” method utilizes a few parts:

• The Adagio activiTea.
• No name tin from amazon. It holds 4-6 teaspoons of tea.
• A teaspoon trimmed to fit inside of the the tin.
• For longer travels, a secondary tin is useful. This was the method I used on my South-Eastern tour last summer. When the square tin ran out, time for a refill.

There are two ways to brew with the activiTea. The first, and Adagio approved, is to put the leaves in the top cap above the strainer, and lay the activiTea sideways to brew (they say upside down but I’ve found that sideways works better). The second, and my method, is to put the leaves in the bottom of the glass mug, add hot water, and then screw the cap and strainer on.

When you’re ready for a cuppa, you get out the tin, and scoop a teaspoon into the activiTea via either of the above methods. Drink as you’re ready.

Bonus Round: Teas I recommend:

• Adaigo’s Ceylon Sonata Of course. English Breakfast on steroids. Strong and dark.
• Adaigo’s Lapsang Suchong. Not for the faint of heart. Brew carefully, and enjoy the smokey taste. Regarded as a lesser cuppa in China they’re happy to sell it to “foolish” westerners. Foolish or not, my cup of choice for thinking.
• Adaigo’s Forest Berries. A fruity blend for the fruits out there. I like this on occasion with honey. A definite change from the above cups.

Ahh, the dopp kit.  A staple of every well constructed travelling kit.  If you can’t be fresh and clean after a quick shower, what’s the point of travelling?  I’ve posted my kit to give those who want to travel well ideas what they should include in theirs.  I’ll also include some of the reasoning behind my decisions.  My last trip has introduced yet another iteration of the kit due to the experiences of that trip.  I think its important to revise your kits based on your experience using them.

Contents from left to right, top to bottom:

• Target Hawthorne Khaki Dopp Kit bag (which is washable).
• Random Tin, containing:
  • Alcohol Wipes and Bandaids
  • DSC razor blades, Swiss Army knife, hair ties
  • Sewing Needles, razor oil, chapstick,
• Shaving Mirror (hard drive platter), razor handle
• Toothbrush, toothpaste
• Hair roller, Beard trimmer
• Pointed Q-tips, thread, folding hair brush
• Q-tips, ear dryer fluid, soap box, baby soap for cleaning piercings, isopropyl alcohol in sprayer.
• Shampoo, conditioner (removed after my last trip – what hair I have left doesn’t require conditioner), mouth wash.

The sewing thread and needles are in case I need to fix something up on the road.  Or drain a blister, which is how I used them last.  Apparently its a bad idea, but I sprayed isopopyl on everything (after taking a hot shower), threaded the blister, and then went to bed.  Blister was drained when I woke up.  The small tin is one I got with a wallet years ago.  It keeps all the small bits together so I don’t have to worry about losing them.

I actually use a hard drive platter to shave when I’m home.  It hasn’t rusted yet, nor has it scratched despite being dropped numerous times over the last 6 years.  Since I had some hard drives to securely delete, why not?  My beard trimmer is actually powered by AA batteries.  I don’t like rechargeables I can’t replace the batteries in and I don’t want to have to wait for a trimmer to charge, especially if I’m trying to road trip. Dollar Shave Club actually has pretty good razors, and they last quite awhile. If you use the link to subscribe, I’ll get a fiver out of the deal.

I chose the tooth brush container based on ease of cleaning.  I keep my q-tips in these containers, also from amazon.   All the other toiletry stuff is from walmart.  It works well enough.  I dry my bar of soap before I put it away.

I keep all the travel-sized fluids in the TSA-required 1 qt ziplock baggie.  Not because I want to fly but to make sure nothing can leak and result in a few hours cleaning the kit from a leak a ziplock can prevent.  The added bonus is that if I do have to fly, I’m ready without much effort.

Anyway, this is my dopp kit.  I’m not a follower of Art of Manliness on their kit. I prefer to keep my Tylenol and eye drops in my messenger bag or backpack (depending on which one I’m using). As for money, that backup should already be in your cash capsule. Personally, I think its wise to travel with about $100 in cash in a money clip. Sometimes its easier, sometimes its safer, sometimes its the palm grease you need.

Welcome to my new series, "Traveling Well". During this series, I’ll share some of the tips, tricks, and techniques that I’ve discovered that make my life so much easier when on the road.

I should note that I refuse to travel by airplane anymore as a result of the TSA. In short, I feel that the TSA does not utilize legitimate security practices but instead practices Security Theatre. But, in a quest to travel well, here a few tips gleaned carefully from the four flights I have made.

Gum

Buy a pack and stow it whenever you fly. Chewing gum is the easiest way to keep your ears popping to adjust to the pressure changes. My first flight was made without gum. Second flight was with gum from the airport. I bought gum at walmart before my third and fourth flight and stashed it where I could get to it easily. I can’t stress the importance of this tip. Its why babies cry during a flight – the pressure changes hurts their ear drums and they don’t know how to release the pressure. Babies don’t develop the ability to swallow about 6 months.

Shoes, Socks, and the TSA

I’ve read countless article talking about how nasty the TSA terminals are and how you should wear socks through the gate.

Those nasty germs they’re so worried about? They’re on your shoes which get put in the bins. The same bins that you place your backpack and your laptop in.

Yep. They’re is a serious logic flaw in how wearing socks will insulate you against those germs.

And that nasty you don’t want on your feet so you saved yourself by wearing socks? Now, when you put your socks on, you’ve transferred the germs to a warm, moist, dark environment that you’ll never wash. Its the inside of your shoes. Now, everytime you put those shoes on, you can relive the fun of flying!

So, if you want my advice, tuck your socks inside your shoes as you go through the body scan. Put them back on when you reach the other side. At least those germs will be contained inside your socks. (Or lay out a clean pair on top of your bag to change into on the other side of the gate and baggie the old ones.)

I guess you could have skipped this part, but, oh well.

Fluids and Baggage

• This was a tip until I didn’t learn until my flight out to California. While you’re not allowed to take fluids through a TSA checkpoint, empty (or borosilicate glass) bottles are considered acceptable by the TSA. Exploit this. Instead of buying overpriced water once you’ve passed into the DMZ, just take an empty bottle and fill it at the drinking station that most airports have as a manner of convenience.
• If you’re the kind of person that checks a bag (I am, have to bring my knives somehow) make sure you pack a change of clothes in your carry on. What if the airline loses the baggage that has all your clothes in it? All you need is a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Its a small amount space in your carry on for a day to recover from lost baggage.
• Traveling with a dopp kitt and liquids and such may seem challenging, but it isn’t. All that is required is that your 3 oz containers fit in a 1 quart zip lock baggie. I have 5 3 oz containers in my baggie. I keep my dopp kitt in my carry on for the same reason as keeping a change of clothes in my carry-on. How easy is it through the gate? Zipper one on my bag (which I have to open anyway) opens to my dopp kitt. Zipper two opens dopp kitt (left open as well), and then I remove the 1 qt baggie and set aside in the tray. Boom. Shame on my for the small bottle of purrel that I left clipped to my bag.
• Another tip for baggage is, pack for accessibility. This is one I learned on my flight to California. I had crammed my Goruck GR1 to capacity. I realized after flying that there were only a few things I wanted on my flight: my netbook, tablet, headphones, and my ActiviTEA. Because I had stuffed my GR1 with thought to placement and capacity instead of accessibility it made it very hard to get to what I wanted without creating a jumble in my GR1. That jumble also made it very hard to get it closed when it was time to disembark. Next time, I’ll tuck the netbook and such into my messenger bag and pack that as well as my goruck.
• Well versed travelers know that on checked baggage, you never leave the strap on. Another bit that I learned from experience that I wished I had known first. I traveled with my duffle and the carry strap was ripped off. Fortunately it was the stitching that failed, and after a little repair at home everything was back to fighting form.

Clothing for Comfort, Not for Business

Flying is an interesting experience. You’re hustled into a shiny aluminum tube and shot hundreds of miles per hour across the US in said tube. As you can easily imagine, there’s not alot of space. I find window seats the roomiest, though there are those that disagree (or course). And be prepared to sit for the duration of the flight. Pacing the isle is not an accepted activity.

When I made my first flight at night, I made a mistake in assuming that the cabin would be heated. Nope. And I had stowed my hoodie in such a way so that I couldn’t get at it. That was a cold flight to Vegas. On my return trip (flown in the morning), I wore my hoodie. Thankfully, the plane wasn’t packed and I was able to remove it because flying at day is significantly warmer.

The lesson is that flying at night is cold while flying at day is hot. Makes sense – being high in the sky, you have less atmosphere to keep the heat down during the day. And, at the night, less atmosphere to keep the heat in. With that in mind, dress in layers. You want to be able to remove them in the cramped confines of the cabin, so I suggest a tshirt during the day and a long sleeve at night, with layers that split down the middle – jean jackets or similar so that you can easily adapt to your environment.

Bonus Tip: Craft Beer

Getting beer home was another fun experiment from my final flight. Of course, this had to be checked baggage. How I managed it was to purchase an aluminum tool case from Harbor Freight, place the beer inside, and then utilize enough of my t-shirts to pack them tightly. To keep the latches closed but allow the TSA to pop the box open without trashing the case, I took and wrapped around the case with electrician’s tape making sure that each latch was covered and kept closed by the tape. Simple, effective. It survived the baggage handlers with no problems, and the tape wasn’t removed upon arrival (but your milage may vary on that!)

So those are the few tips I have for you on flying. While I don’t mind the actual flying (in fact, I find take-off exhilarating), I can’t stand the TSA’s incompetence. While I may not have the money to fight the TSA, the air lines do. And when we make the airlines loose money because of the TSA, they will take up our cause.