GBAtemp's everyday carry/grab bag.

[FAST6191]

So wasting an hour on youtube that I probably should have been writing something for here or in general and I click on a few everyday carry and get home bag videos. After simultaneously being in stitches and great alarm at some of those with a survival bent (the people that are already gone I do not care about but this guy seemed fairly with it) I thought why not copy it for GBAtemp.

So then GBAtemp what is your wandering around gear and what is in your general bag if that is a separate part of it? If you feel the need to have a ready bag or worse by all means share, if you live in a place with real weather than carry on but I figure most of us do not.

Myself basically nothing. I will more often than not have keys as I have not got around to using code locks which means a small torch and a 1m tape measure.
I do not have a mobile phone, I do not have a watch*, I do not tend to buy anything when out and about so no wallet and having ID on your person is fairly needless in the UK by the age when one could grow a beard.

*I gave up paying attention to the time years ago, it works well.

I am down to the one bag again for my actually doing something bag. It consists of a few livecds and OS install discs, some electrical tape, a network cable, a silly long network cable, a USB cable, a microUSB cable, a VGA cable, kettle lead plus fuses, cloverleaf power lead, some canned air, some contact cleaner, a multimeter, a couple of razor blades and a reasonably complete watchmakers through could put in some torque screwdriver set (security bits are included). I also have a 4 gig USB drive of wonder (read whatever startup program changing tool I have that week, a copy of combofix and a copy of gmer and if I am feeling generous a bunch of stuff from http://driverpacks.net/ ), sometimes a USB wireless card and a "can format if necessary" USB drive. It tends to be wrapped up in whatever nice climbing bag the climbing shop has in every 8 or so years that I find I need a new bag.

Anything else is an extra I grab when I get called/emailed with a request to appear somewhere. Despite computer fixing being as much watching percentage bars as it ever was I have stopped taking my DS or PSP with me.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Well I definitely don't have a whole bag dedicated to stuff like that. I've got a 64GB USB drive that holds various OSes and programs, an 8GB USB drive for when I need to use one of the liveCD OSes, and that's about it.


I do have my emergency bag that's a bit more practical than stuff like that, I carry around an old book bag with 4 bottles of water, a box of granola bars, paper towels, a towel, a pack of 5 lighters, and about $50 of cash.

 

[Veho]

The indispensable junk I haul around at all times is: watch, keys, mobile phones, card pouch with my various IDs and debit cards (wallets are too big and bulky to carry in the pocket),some cash (when I have any ), pocket knives, chewing gum. Everything else is optional.

 

[The Pi]

Keys. That is all.

However, my school bag looks more of a bag a paramedic would use. More pills (both prescription and not) than books and a first aid kit as well (which I do actually use pretty often).

Other than that I just take what I need at the time like money etc.

 

[Silverthorn]

My keys, my watch and my swiss knife. That's what I always have with me whenever I go out.

 

[FAST6191]

On first aid kits and pills, assuming you do not have a condition that requires regular ones or are otherwise not a haemophiliac, I am not quite sure how useful such a thing is*. I fully agree everybody should know basic wound cleaning, dressing and many would do well to know the basics of head trauma and whatnot but the bigger part for me is pretty much a binary one of "do you need to go to a hospital or similar?" or "stagger home and clean yourself up" none of which are especially aided by having a few scraps of bandage and a bit of medical tape (though I must confess electrical tape usually serves that role and on a few others there might have been some superglue involved).

If you are going to the woods, a field or far enough away then I would quite agree that sticking a kit in the car or in your gear is a tremendous idea. Also if I am going out skating, biking or climbing and there is a use to being about to wash, disinfect, patch up and carry on with the day without having to scratch it when the first fall happens but that is still not quite general use. A similar case is made if you actually do things with proper tools (I would not go play mechanic without a kit) but we are still not in walking around territory.

That said having seen various police and other such people tasked with it attempt first aid the case could be made; my favourite was on a follow the police show where one was helping someone that was fairly properly stabbed..... by trailing the compression bandage all over the floor and then placing it in the wound.

*on short holidays that can change and things to cure headaches, the shits, the lack of shits and some decongestants are fairly essential.

 

[pyromaniac123]

Swiss champ knife, gloves, mobile phone, keys and another folding knife with a bottle opener built into the handle.

 

[iFish]

I usually keep on me / in my bag at all times(This when I'm out during the day, not just college):

1. Nexus 7 OR iPad
2. House keys
3. Wallet
4. USB flash drive(32GBs)
5. Ritalin
6. Pen and paper
7. My phone
8. Ear buds
9. A micro USB cable and Apple 30-pin connector.
10. And my Vita OR 3DS.

I know carrying around all that seems awful but I have my bag with me all the time, and most of that stuff comes in handy. I didn't mention all my college books mainly because I usually empty that out of my bag before I do anything else. I prefer to carry a bag compared to just using pockets mainly because my wallet is kind of thick(even when empty) so I don't like that bulge in my pocket. But you also never know when you're going to buy something and need a place to put it.

 

[FAST6191]

Oh yeah I suppose it technically counts. If it is cold enough that I bother to wear a hoody (the all of two months a year that happens) it will usually have a set of work gloves*, a buff and a larger tape measure in the pockets.

*they are warm, they do not wear down that fast, are cheap as anything to replace and were it not for the lack of finger/wrist protection I would even use them on a motorbike.

 

[The Pi]

On first aid kits and pills, assuming you do not have a condition that requires regular ones or are otherwise not a haemophiliac, I am not quite sure how useful such a thing is*. I fully agree everybody should know basic wound cleaning, dressing and many would do well to know the basics of head trauma and whatnot but the bigger part for me is pretty much a binary one of "do you need to go to a hospital or similar?" or "stagger home and clean yourself up" none of which are especially aided by having a few scraps of bandage and a bit of medical tape (though I must confess electrical tape usually serves that role and on a few others there might have been some superglue involved).

If you are going to the woods, a field or far enough away then I would quite agree that sticking a kit in the car or in your gear is a tremendous idea. Also if I am going out skating, biking or climbing and there is a use to being about to wash, disinfect, patch up and carry on with the day without having to scratch it when the first fall happens but that is still not quite general use. A similar case is made if you actually do things with proper tools (I would not go play mechanic without a kit) but we are still not in walking around territory.

That said having seen various police and other such people tasked with it attempt first aid the case could be made; my favourite was on a follow the police show where one was helping someone that was fairly properly stabbed..... by trailing the compression bandage all over the floor and then placing it in the wound.

*on short holidays that can change and things to cure headaches, the shits, the lack of shits and some decongestants are fairly essential.

I do need regular ones. Only 3 of them are actually essential for me to have on me when I'm out for longer amounts of time but I'm carrying enough boxes and bottles to just add in a bunch of analgesics to the mix for when I need them. (I'm also staying between two places just now, so I have my sleeping pills as well)

I'm prone to cuts for reasons I won't go into and having the kit is useful for me. So I don't ruin white shirts, end up in hospital all the time and get infections (I've had an infected cut before and it isn't pretty)

I'm a little strange when it comes to this I guess.

 

[FAST6191]

That would fall under the remit of good reason to carry such equipment. Afraid another part of my logic would read "do not wear a white shirt" though, however seen as I usually find myself rolling around on dirty floors throwing cables around and generally getting covered in muck a white shirt is not the best choice of attire anyway.

 

[Sicklyboy]

As far as living necessities go, since I tend to travel longer distances in my aging car ('95 Infiniti G20, "long" being the occasional ~400mi drive from home to Pittsburgh for a week or so), I usually keep a drawstring bag with a change of underwear, socks, (beat up) jeans, thermal shirt, tshirt, sweat shirt, (winter or mechanic) gloves, hat, my logger boots, all in my car, which also has my automotive necessities - spare oil, brake fluid, trans fluid, power steer fluid, coolant, WD40 + CRC silicone spray, drain pan, bandaids/first aid kit, jumper cables, tow rope, 50' (shitty) braided nylon rope, (shitty) bungee cables, plenty of general tools to fix my car in a pinch.

I also work at a farm 3 days out of the week and most of the stuff outside of the clothing ends up being useful in one way or another on any given day of the week when I'm there, between needing to lube gates/doors, fix things, tie things up, jump my car when I leave the lights on for three hours without noticing... that stuff. (that's a 65mi drive, too, each way)

As far as my TECH survival bag, it varies per the job, but it tends to be a Win8 bootdisk, UBCD, Hiren's BootCD, (16GB flash drive on keychain that is supposed to have Ubuntu installed on it, but isn't working for some reason, need to look at that along with adding the files from UBCD and Hiren's for an all-in-one solution), my phone, microUSB (to use my phone as small storage if I need to), 500GB external drive if needed, and any other disks or parts that I think I'll need based off of the job at hand, ranging anywhere from spare video cables, PSUs, video cards, adapters, soldering equipment.

 

[FAST6191]

I am probably supposed to say "oh for the days when you could fix your car with such tools" but frankly ODB is not that hard to handle and a 12V/ground probe/tester does quite well too. I am not sure I would stock a full set of fluids but I have not done east US that much and the west "never more than about 20 minutes run or limp home distance from either a walmart, an O'Reilly/napa or even a general mechanic" might differ here. Indeed about the only things I will keep around aside from the token 1000ml of engine oil are radiator water and windscreen cleaning fluid.
That said if you play on the farm, know enough to use all that and my experience of the maintenance levels of farm equipment is anything to go by then I dare say it is probably quite useful there.

 

[Sicklyboy]

I'm glad to say that I've never actually needed to use any of my fluids while on the road, they're there as a peace of mind thing. I do have a slight power steer leak, had a brake leak (bad caliper), and the coolant in case I ever need to emergency remove the thermostat if it sticks (but it's got a new one)

As far as the farm maintenance, I leave most of the machinery maintenance to the owner, but I could take care of small stuff if needed. Luckily never ran into anything too major here either. Had to duct tape a hole shut on the water bucket for a llama once, which is still holding quite nicely, lol.