The Keyboard-Commando's EDC

GrifNK said:
I never said that it wasn't used as an insult, just that I don't see it as one. Past that, refer to my comment on how seriously insults (in general) should be taken. Either way, this is hardly the time or place to argue about how people live their lives and do/don't take offense from things coming from seperate sects in their lives. YMMV
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Best of luck with that. Enjoy the site.
 
Also I carry in my car a backpack with a 9mm, 2 spare mags, spool of paracord, lighter, a Columbia fleece jacket, a katadyne personal water filter, roll of duct tape, flashlight, leatherman, and a tactical tomahawk. but that shit stays in the car...
 
All right, all right already.... If "Keyboard Commando" is now an insult, then you are henceforth to be called "Chairborne Rangers" :D

I have a Maxpedition EDC bag as a Man-Purse. I have a bunch of stuff that's with me, without hanging on me or filling my pockets.

I've used just about everything in it from time to time... not every day, mind you... but from time to time I've called upon much of the stuff.

I carry a flashlight in it. Folk'll pack an umbrella when there's a 30% chance of rain, but not a light when there's 100% of darkness. Weird to me.
 
jackknife said:
The whole modern knife thing is an obsession that is way out of wack. There is nothing in our life as urbanites that need more than a small penknife. The rest is Chinese paratroopers fantasy and a artificially driven market by the knife mags and forums. I watched my old man go through his whole life with a little Case peanut. I watched other men do the same. Growing up in the years just after WW2, everyman who had pants on had a pocket knife. And it was always some small two blade penknife or little jack, about 3 inches closed. And in the 1950's, a knife really was needed. Packages didn't come in plastic, it was wrapped in heavy brown paper and bound up with the white cotton twine that was the ubiquitous material of the day.

Life has not changed much since I grew up, except that even more people now live in urban environments, and in the world of the office cubicle, not much more in needed than our fathers and grandfathers needed.
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Excellent! Well said.

As a sidebar, this forum often seems to emulate the emo society, with a dash of millennials thrown in. Someone is always making sure that they are offended.

When I was a keyboard commando, a desk jockey, a cubicle monkey, an office dweller, a white collar weenie... I loved it! I was warm in the winter, cool in the summer (I did get hot sometimes going to the truck to go to lunch or go home), stayed dry when it rained, and never had to work in mud all day. I didn't have a million little cuts on my body, stink from hours of sweat, work on my hands an knees, climb ladders. work in dangerous conditions, etc. And a 9 hour day was the norm, with just a sprinkle of 12 hour days in the mix, and almost never a weekend. Two weeks PAID vacation, too! Yessir, I had it going on.

Actually, my fellow tradesmen admired me for leaving the trades! Sadly, both institutions I worked at closed down, and I went back to the trades. Sigh... to be a ninja keyboard master again...

Anyway, I agree with your post. My personal experience of about 11 years of riding the desk let me rethink what I was carrying. In the trades, I had a lot of edged tools like box cutters, chisels, my huge folding Browning hunter, and my favorite old CASE copperhead. Out of the trades, I discovered a whole new world to small cutters. I carried a Kershaw Whiskey Gap, Another tiny one blades Kershaw with rubber handles, a Gerber Silver Knight, a Buck Prince, and a tiny stockman. I loved it!

They cut my cigars, opened the priority shipping boxes, cut strapping tape, and did a lot of other cutting chores with ease. Maybe once in a very great while did I need "more knife" or cutting edge. I appreciate the fact that a small knife disappears in the pocket and scares no one when they see it. I am not the guy that cuts up hamburgers, or other food with my knife as I don't want that crap in my pocket, and frankly, my knife may have been used for something a while back that I forgot about that could grow nasties on the blade or pivot. And plastic knives are so convenient.

I got so used to having a little bad boy cutter in my pocket I still carry one. I have a group of larger knives that do their job that I carry every day, and in my pocket is still one of those knives that do their job. When the time comes I can no longer work in the trades full time, I will gladly start shopping for something like a medium stockman and the ZTs Spydercos, Kershaws and other large work knives will get left behind unless hunting or hiking.

Robert
 
Velitrius said:
All right, all right already.... If "Keyboard Commando" is now an insult, then you are henceforth to be called "Chairborne Rangers" :D

I have a Maxpedition EDC bag as a Man-Purse. I have a bunch of stuff that's with me, without hanging on me or filling my pockets.

I've used just about everything in it from time to time... not every day, mind you... but from time to time I've called upon much of the stuff.

I carry a flashlight in it. Folk'll pack an umbrella when there's a 30% chance of rain, but not a light when there's 100% of darkness. Weird to me.
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That is hilarious, I'm stealing it.... I serve in the 82nd Chairborne :D

Nothing wrong with a little well-meaning self depreciation.
 
jackknife said:
Well not to call your 'hand' (bad pun) but I've got 70 plus year old arthritic hands and if I were to open a lot of packages, I use the right tool for the job. A box cutter. Cheap, ubiquitous, and has easy blade changes.


But this is a knife site and we like our knives. BUT...again it's wants vs needs. We are obsessed over knives, go to knife based web forums to talk endlessly about our knives, spend way too much money on knives, and in short, are knife nuts. So we make up excuses to use our knife, and think our knife is way more important that it really is.

The whole modern knife thing is an obsession that is way out of wack. There is nothing in our life as urbanites that need more than a small penknife. The rest is Chinese paratroopers fantasy and a artificially driven market by the knife mags and forums. I watched my old man go through his whole life with a little Case peanut. I watched other men do the same. Growing up in the years just after WW2, everyman who had pants on had a pocket knife. And it was always some small two blade penknife or little jack, about 3 inches closed. And in the 1950's, a knife really was needed. Packages didn't come in plastic, it was wrapped in heavy brown paper and bound up with the white cotton twine that was the ubiquitous material of the day.

Life has not changed much since I grew up, except that even more people now live in urban environments, and in the world of the office cubicle, not much more in needed than our fathers and grandfathers needed.
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Although I agree otherwise I will disagree on one point sir, food use. Specifically apples. I find I need a larger blade than that on my SAK Rambler (same size as your classic) for my lunch uses. An apple is far more comfortable to cut with a 2.65" cutting edge from my experience and I eat two a day (to keep that doctor well, well away). :)
 
EDC usage. Everything in my kit is essential. I suppose I could get by with the multitool and no knife, since my Leatherman has an s30v blade. But I prefer the size and ergos of having a larger, dedicated blade with a better handle.
* Flashlight: weekly
* Knife: daily
* Multitool: weekly
* Lighter: rarely
* CCW: never, except for range practice. :)
 
Velitrius said:
All right, all right already.... If "Keyboard Commando" is now an insult, then you are henceforth to be called "Chairborne Rangers" :D

I have a Maxpedition EDC bag as a Man-Purse. I have a bunch of stuff that's with me, without hanging on me or filling my pockets.

I've used just about everything in it from time to time... not every day, mind you... but from time to time I've called upon much of the stuff.

I carry a flashlight in it. Folk'll pack an umbrella when there's a 30% chance of rain, but not a light when there's 100% of darkness. Weird to me.
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thats cause cellphone has flashlight built in nowadays.;)
 
Mobile desk job here, wearing a suit, but moving around the location a lot. I typically have my EDC in the car during work hours, which is very accessible, and it does get used more days during the week than not.

The one day you don't have it is guaranteed to be the day you will need it.
 
When I first moved from field to office (all those many years ago) I hated it. I would get headaches and have to go for walks twice a day just to breath some fresh air. Now I hate going out into the field. All that annoying weather, dirt, poisonous plants, and bugs. It might also have to do with the fact that I basically only go out into the field nowadays when there's a problem to solve.

What occurs to me now, though, is that when I was NOT a desk jockey, I carried much larger, specialized blades and tools. A mid-sized folder, small flashlight and multi-tool wouldn't have cut it. I needed machetes, brush hooks, spades, steel probes, large prybars, head lamps, and a full tool box.

The only people for whom these small, general-use tools are appropriate are those who don't use them every day, like me.
 
My EDC needs are completely taken care of with any 3inch folder sturdy enough to shred cardboard boxes. But I almost always carry 3.5 to 4" folders like the ZT 0550, or the Contego, etc. I definitely overkill it, but the enjoyment factor is high.
 
My job involves opening lots of packages and boxes of supplies, as well as breaking said boxes down for disposal, so I use whatever knives I'm carrying quite a bit throughout the work week. Granted, I don't "need" a fancy automatic or a Cold Steel XL folder to accomplish these tasks, but I use them anyway, because I'm a knife knut. I also work alone, so there's no one there to give me grief for carrying a scary tacticool knife, and I live in a place where I can legally carry whatever knives I want. Life is good. :thumbsup:
 
I alternate between sitting on my butt ar a computer and loading/maintaining digital printers, folders and print finishing equipment.
I make regular use of my SAK Explorer, Leatherman Surge and Olight baton flashlight. I keep a lockback box cutter for the harsh cuts and to use like a pocket able xacto.
There's usually another traditional knife somewhere on me that I mostly use for hang nails and break time whittling and a host of other tools and such in my backpack that get updated for next time as a need presents itself.

It's probably overkill but I do tend to use it all so I'd rather have it than not.
 
My main EDC knives are a Victorinox Pioneer and Executive SAKs. I use features on each of them often enough every day to warrant carrying them. I also use them a lot at home, too. I prefer the Executive's size over the smaller Classic-sized SAKs.

For my one-handed folder, I also normally have been carrying a large CRK Insingo or sometimes small Inkosi. But lately, the one-hand folder I've been carrying/using has been a 3" bladed David Boye cobalt boat folder, the one with the leaf-shaped blade. I use whatever one-hander for slightly heavier cutting than the SAKs, though they could handle much of that as well. I also occasionally need the Boye folder's marlin spike to loosen overly-tight knots. I certainly don't carry any one-hand folder as an exercise in ego, but because I like them and have found uses for them. Also because I don't talk knives with anyone in person, so nobody really knows or cares exactly what I carry.

I'm certain I could get by with less. For 10 years, I survived overseas and back home with only one knife, an old Victorinox Spartan SAK.

I also carry a mini prybar, a JetScream whistle, and a Freedom photon microlight on a separate keyring from my keys. I don't need those everyday or even very often (the whistle almost never), but they are so light and easy to carry, and sometimes I do need one of those items. That's why they're there.

Jim
 
As a Science Samurai, I can tell you that the answer is...Smatchet!!!

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(The answer to every knife-related question is Smatchet)
 
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