Inventory:
- one(1) messenger bag
Thought I’d start my Taking Inventory series with something I always like to have with me: my (current) Bag of Holding from Think Geek. Oddly enough, they don’t sell these anymore, as I discovered when I thought it’d be nice to link to it on their store, only to find they no longer offer them. But, I can certainly tell you that I remember getting this bag for $15 as a replacement for its predecessor and have been impressed with how well it holds up.
It has a velcro surface on the front where you can put velcro patches (as pictured). I don’t have any patches, so it currently only sports the D20 patch it came with (in reference to D&D, where the bag get’s its name).
Other than that, it’s your standard messenger bag, mostly: has 2 main compartments big enough for books or laptops or what have you, but its main feature is that you can carry it as either a messenger bag or a backpack.
I almost never do that, however, since all the pouches and sleeves inside the bag compartments tend to dump their contents into the inside of the bag when carried as a backpack (a.k.a. sideways). You don’t lose anything, but you have to do some reorganizing afterwards.
Speaking of which, lets see what I’m lugging around in this thing.
Inventory of messenger bag: front zipper pocket
- one(1) Digital Zone™ draw-string pouch containing:
- one(1) Juicebar DO10-JB Pocket Solar Charger
- one(1) ~24″ long mini-USB cable
- one(1) ~24″ long USB cable with four(4) adapter heads: micro-USB, 3DS, and two(2) others I don’t know the size for
My wife got this for me years ago. I kinda like it, and found its many adapter cable heads more handy than the fact that you can solar charge the pack itself. according to the review site I found for this thing, looks like I still have everything it came with. I’m not sure how much my wife paid for it, but I think it was around $40 or so.
- one(1) case containing Apple earbuds with audio jack
- Apple earbuds with Lightning plug in a binder clip
- one(1) ~9″ long micro-USB cord – white
- one(1) ~20″ long micro-USB cord – black
- one(1) ~3′ long Lightning cord with wall plug power adapter
- one(1) screwpop™ screw-driver/bottle opener combo tool
I’d forgotten that the little screwdriver keyring thing was also a bottle opener. That thing used to live in our bathroom after one of our shower knobs got stripped out and we had to keep re-tightening it to turn the water on and off for a while.
- one(1) carabiner badge reel – translucent grey
I remember getting the carabiner badge reel back when I worked downtown at SunTrust. I think it came in a pack of three or something. Pretty sure I either gave away the other ones, or they broke on me.
- a business card from someone at Adobe
And I remember getting that card from the guy from Adobe when they were giving a presentation to the UX dept at SunTrust to show us the wonders of their brand new product “Adobe XD”. A product we use at my current job quite a bit. Funny how something like a business card can remind you that even software you’ve used for years actually had to start somewhere, and you were there for the PowerPoint pitch!
Makes me wonder if the first PowerPoint presentation was about PowerPoint…
ANYway, that’s the front pocket. Let’s see what the front compartment holds for us.
Inventory of messenger bag: front compartment
- one(1) Impact Partnership branded 5×7 moleskin notebook – blank
One thing I just know I’m going to be finding a lot of while going thru everything I own is the shockingly high number of cool notebooks and sketchbooks and binders that are either completely blank, or have a grand total of, like, three pages used. I love the looks of notebooks, and always feel like I’m ruining them by writing in them. Need to get over that.
This one is one I got from my current job at Impact Partnership. I’ve really enjoyed working here, and they are a fun and inspiring bunch.
- one(1) Bud Light “Dilly Dilly” beer coozie
Heh, I remember someone at SunTrust giving these out. Must’ve been during the Super Bowl that year. 2017-18, methinks?
- one(1) deck of cards with 4 jokers
So a while back I had found an interesting book called “How to cheat at everything”. Sort of a gigantic memoir of a con artist that went thru every con you could conceive of: from cheating at cards to dice, carny games, bar bets, how mail fraud works, how lottery scams work, the pigeon drop, change raising, 3 card monty, and on and on. It inspired me to buy a bunch of decks of cards to try my hand at learning shuffling techniques and deck marking.
Never actually got around to any of the “cheater” stuff, but did end up with plenty of decks of cards, so there’s that.
- one(1) big binder clip
- one(1) pencil pouch for a 3-ring binder containing:
- travel pack of Kleenex
- advil travel container with 12 tablets of generic ibuprofin
- one(1) tube of Neosporin
- two-pack of Alka-seltzer with 2 tablets each
- two(2) tablets of Imodium A-D
- one(1) moist towlette
- one(1) band-aid
- one(1) Shout wipe & go
- two(2) Lactaid tablets
As you can see, the pencil pouch is my little first aide kit. probably need to replace the moist towlette, as I doubt it is still “moist”. Probably going to want more than one band-aid too…
- Blue expandable folder containing D&D character sheets and notes
So, as you can probably guess from the fact that I am carrying a bag from Think Geek called a “Bag of Holding” that I happen to play D&D. This folder has stuff from my current (been on hiatus for months, so.. ?) 5th edition game and my stuff from a 3rd edition game I was involved in a year or two ago. Our DM (Dungeon Master for those unfamiliar) from that game ended up moving out of state, and we sort of gave up trying to reignite that campaign. As for the current(?) game, we’ve been on break ever since two of our party had a baby.
That’s …the human people who were playing the game had a baby, not the characters they were playing had a baby…
Not sure I needed to clarify that.
- one(1) pleather zippered wallet (of sorts) containing:
- my passport
- a pair of old-school paper red/blue 3-D glasses
- small Field Notes graph paper notebook – blank
- velvet pull-string pouch for Kinivo bluetooth headphones
- lens cleaning cloth
- blue index card from the mail for renewing drivers license
- W-2 from 2018 for Impact Partnership
- receipt for driver’s license
- a MasterCard for my parent’s account in my name – expired
- a Debit card from my bank – expired
This item should also have my checkbook in it too, but I took it out and put it on the piano next to the front door ever since I got a landscaper. Since I pay all my bills save for that thru a banking app, no need to really have ready access to the checkbook anymore.
I do find it funny that I had this with me to renew my drivers license and thought the passport was going to be enough proof of my identity.
Heh, oh past me, you sweet summer child you.
Nowadays, you need proof of citizenship, proof of residence, proof of employment, etc. etc. Hence the W-2 slip. Sheesh. I had to go back to the DMV twice that time to get my license renewed because of all that.
- pocket one:
- small red velvet pouch containing three(3) sets of polyhedral dice
- snack-sized ziplock bag containing one(1) ’emergency’ set of polyhedral dice
- kneaded eraser
- two(2) paperclips bent to resemble lockpicks
If you didn’t already know I played D&D from the folder, the first pocket contents illustrate that quite well, methinks.
Also, I also like to watch Modern Rogue. I met Brian Brushwood when I went to one of the Amazing Meetings in Vegas and have been trying to catch up on some of the stuff he’s been up to. One of those things is learning about lockpicking, which I haven’t tried yet, but was curious enough to make these lockpicks out of some paperclips.
- pocket two:
- one(1) double-tipped Sharpie – black
- two(2) yellow highlighters of different styles
- one(1) ballpoint pen
- two(2) mechanical pencils of different styles
- one(1) unsharpened #2 pencil
- one(1) empty PEZ dispenser – Puss n’ Boots from Shrek
- pocket three:
- one(1) ~4″ long sharpened #2 pencil
- one(1) left-handed ballpoint pen
- one(1) BIC permanent marker – black
- one(1) cigarette lighter – transparent green
- one(1) folded photocopy of my passport
- one(1) tube of super glue… probably solidified by now
- one(1) little plastic box for a SunTrust pin (not included)
- credit card sleeves:
- two(2) Home Depot gift cards totaling ~$125
- zippered back pocket:
- one(1) ~6′ ethernet cable
- one(1) IOgear 4 port USB micro-hub
The left-handed ballpoint pen was a neat little item we found at Disney World, of all places. Amanda and I go down to WDW quite often, and one time while shopping around Disney Springs, we spotted a little Left-handed kiosk that had all manner of stuff that would make Ned Flanders proud. We picked that item up along with a few other cute nick knacks, so be on the lookout for them when I get to inventorying the kitchen.
Okay, on to the last section: the back compartment
Inventory of messenger bag: back compartment
- one(1) Adobe branded notebook that has actually been used
Got this at SunTrust and actually *GASP* used it! There are actual notes in an actual notebook! Look like project and meeting stuff from my time at SunTrust. Also noticed interview notes for when I got to interview a couple Voice Actors from Red Dead Redemption 2, so that’s nice.
- one(1) fuel-rod kit containing:
- fuel-rod portable charger
- ~3″ long micro-USB cord
- ~3″ long Lightning cord
- micro-USB to USB-C adapter
- two(2) extra fuel-rod chargers
so, we go to MomoCon a lot,my wife and I. Last year, we even volunteered there and hosted a couple panels: we both did a Zelda panel, I got to interview the RDR2 peeps (see notebook above) and she… well she got to interview (and piss off) the current voice of Donald Duck!
You would not believe how much of a sour curmudgeon that guy was.
ANYway, MomoCon is at the Georgia World Congress Center, and while they were there, this company called Fuel-Rod set up these kiosks all over the place that let you purchase a kit (see above) for having a phone charger with you AND allow you to swap out spent ones for freshly charged ones at the kiosks.
Well, we discovered that the kiosk we tried to switch out the charger on was jammed, but I managed to get it Un-jammed and *POP* out come two more chargers out of the thing. So, I had that going for me, which was nice.
- one(1) Amazon Kindle PaperWhite
- one(1) 8½” × 11″ graph paper tablet
- one(1) iPad mini 2 in magenta faux-leather case
This is technically my wife’s iPad. We got it for her so she can take notes and other things while on the go doing video game journalism when at Conventions. Her iPhone is doing that job now, as she has most of the stuff she needs on that, and we used to use the iPad as a cue card reader, but since she switched to doing her videos on her phone, she uses a teleprompter app for that now. Don’t know how or why I ended up with the iPad, now that I think about it…
- zippered pocket:
- one(1) Toshiba pocket USB hard drive – 1TB
- MagSafe 2 power adapter
- MagSafe to MagSafe 2 Converter
- ~4′ long Thunderbolt cord
all the stuff in the zippered pocket is a nice build-up to the piece de resistance…
- internal sleeve:
Saved the best for last: my current laptop was a nice gift from a friend of mine who works in I.T. and happaned to have noticed an unopened, still-had-the-shrinkwrap-on-it Macbook box sitting in the corner of his company’s storeroom. Nobody knew who ordered it, but it was already 5 years old, so he let me pick it up. Fortunately, it is able to run the latest software (Catalina, at the moment) when my last laptop couldn’t make it past El Capitan.
What I like about it the most is that it still has all the plugs in it for HDMI, USB, SATA, and other stuff. If you follow Apple products, you’ll know that their current models only have USB-C ports. So, not only did I get a great replacement Macbook, but didn’t have to pick up a bunch of USB adapters and whatnot.
So, that’s my bag, baby.