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Gadgetry To Go

Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing asked one of my favorite questions today:

I'm interested in hearing what kinds of gadgets you carry around and find indispensible (sic). [...] What do you carry and why?

The QuickTopic has been alive with commenary. Here's my annotated inventory:

Black Rolfs leather wallet

Standard wallet usage: cards, money, receipts, temporary holding place for business cards

Passport

I've gotten used to using my passport as my primary source of ID pretty much everywhere I go.

Handspring Visor Platinum with 8MB Flash Module and Backup Module

I use the Visor for a small number of things these days, and almost always in "read-only" fashion. You don't often find me entering data into it directly, which I used to do all the time. Instead, I use it to look up phone numbers, keep track of passwords (one of it's most critical functions), and as an alarm clock.

Small Moleskine squared notebook

General memoranda finds its way into here. I have a small lined Moleskine notebook that I use as a day journal, but it hasn't been accompanying me everywhere for a while now, whereas this has. The elastic band, paper quality, and back folding pocket are great.

Motorola T900 Timeport two-way text & email pager

Was my primary contact device before activating my mobile phone, and is still handy due to email capabilities.

Sanyo SCP-4000 Sprint PCS mobile phone with JABRA EarSet hands-free headset

I have the cheapest plan Sprint offers in San Francisco, which has been enough for me so far. The quality is usually pretty good, but doesn't hold a candle to my Motorola Timeport tri-band GSM phone, which is still in Toronto.

A pen of some sort, currently an inexpensive Parker Jotter loaded with a fine point, black ink refill

I'm a pen fanatic, so I'm always carrying something. Before the Jotter, which I just bought last week, it was a Pilot Explorer, and before that, I was actually carrying around my Rotring 600 Fountain Pen (I have a thing for fountain pens too). I decided to go with the more pedestrian Jotter because it's not too expensive to replace, it's a click-pen which is easier to deploy in quick just-in-time real world use, it's a ballpoint so I can press down on carbons, and it doesn't look too bad. My main complaint is just that it isn't always ready and wet to write (like most all ballpoints), and occasionally I need to go over my first letters to make them clear.

An inexpensive non-locking caribeaner with all of my keys on it (I have far too many)

Nothing special here. I had this lying around because I rock climb and although it is rated to bear load, I only used ever it to hang light things off of. It functions much better as a makeshift key chain

Small (5" by 3") brown Oxford lined memo book

Bought this when I bought the Jotter. It doesn't replace the Moleskine, but I'm using it for quick and dirty notes, whereas the Moleskine I hesitate to use for such trivia. I'm not sure why I stagger things like this.

Victornox Swiss Champ Army Knife

Somewhat bulky and heavy in my pocket, but very useful. My main complaint has been finding a way to keep lint out of it, which it attracts prodigiously.

I also usually wear a watch, taking if off if I'm typing for a long time. I have a HP 48 GX, like another poster in the QuickTopic mentioned, but I don't carry it around all the time. I have a Canon S100 which I used to take with me everywhere, but the focus system hasn't wanted to work correctly since June. I'm trying to get into the habit of taking my Yashica T4 SuperD with me, even though it's bigger, and people are surprised to see me using an actual film camera.

I carry way too many things. I know this. I envy friends of mine who carry less, and I often try to pare down to "bare essentials", but usually I find myself without something critical or handy. I wear jackets when the weather doesn't really dictate in order to have enough pockets in a load bearing configuration across my body. Because all these things are stuffed into my jacket, I rarely check it at restaurants or clubs, which is annoying.

Busy Week Recap

Busy week.

Sunday I attended Joi Ito's cocktail party and dinner in Palo Alto, along with and thanks to Ross Stapleton-Gray. Numerous attendees wrote blog entries about it: Chris Prillo (who came right up, said hi and introduced himself: very refreshing and appreciated), Gnome-Girl, Frank Boosman, Kazuya Minami. I'm curious to know where that photo of me drinking wine at dinner taken by Barak Berkowitz with a ridiculously small camera ended up. I really enjoyed the event and thank everyone I met and talked to for their hospitality and conversation.

Monday night I stopped by The Studio, which, since it is my first studio and has no other name that I know of I am deciding to capitalize. I paid my first month's share of the rent for March and hung out with Fred Crimi, chatting about music, Buddhism, Thailand, Kurzweil synthesizers, Utrecht, Prauge, German border gaurds, steganography, and loads more that escapes me right now. The Studio is near Turk and Taylor streets, thus part of Tenderloin Ground Zero, which is an area that the SF Chronicle always tends to refer to as "lively". I like to describe this characterization of the neighborhood as "generous obfuscation". Having said that, there are noticeable upsides, such as the really good nearby Vietnamese place Fred took me to, after hearing me reminisce about being introduced to Ginger in Toronto.

Tuesday afternoon, I ran into a friend outside my building and found out that he moved back up to San Francisco in early January from Los Angeles. I chatted with him for a bit, and then met him after work. I had plans to attend a dinner, but catching up with him trumped those plans, since I haven't seen him since briefly last summer at a conference. I ate with him and another friend of his at Tommy's Joynt on Van Ness, which has been pointed out to me but which I hadn't set foot in until Tuesday evening.

Wednesday I was home sick, the cold that I had started to notice Monday and Tuesday finally escalating. I slept through most of the day, only going out for Indian food with Vipul around 8:30 PM for dinner. Came back and promptly slept more.

Thursday was busy at work, until then things leveled off in the latter part of the day. Thursday night I had dinner with Joe Wasson at Lori's Diner. We both agreed that it would be a killer pad to live in if you could change some of the seating areas into living spaces, bedrooms, entertainment rooms, etc. but keep parts of the diner intact with all the retro 50s decor. Joe and I stopped into Virgin on the way back, where I hijacked his original intent to purchase the English version of TATU's album and made him buy a small sampling of electronic artists I considered to be fundamental: David Holmes, Leftfield, and Future Sound of London.

Friday saw me waking up early in the morning in a coughing fit, which continued until just before noon, when my cold drugs finally kicked in. I didn't want to stay home another day this week, so I did as much work as I could until I felt able enough to come in and not eject a lung on to somebody. I got in at about 2 PM, thanks to a ride from Tom.

I fell asleep sometime around 11 PM, only to wake up around 2 AM. I think I may take some NyQuil and try to get up in a few hours.

Blog Hiatus

I put the blog on hiatus for a little while, but if you're reading this, it's back, such as it is.