But not anymore! I’m in the process of integrating this into my EDC, but I do forget it an awful lot. It’s a companion to the travel pen from earlier.
It’s an old, damaged notepad faced with cardboard from a cereal box, a topographical map and hockey tape, if you’re curious.
I had an uncle who worked for the Canadian Department of Defense back in the 1970s. I inherited two things from him: my name and this suitcase.
what’s in the box? find out below the cut!
I’m so glad you asked.
Apparently ice is slippery. On the upside, I didn’t get a bone fragment, I didn’t break my styloid, or my scaphoid, which are much more difficult to manage, and when it knits up, I should have a superbone.
Plus, now I get to learn guitar like Jeff Healey.
I’ve been dabbling in leatherworking, and some of the results shoddy, some are solid but totally unremarkable, and some are almost worth talking about. Here’s a thing from the final category. Last year, I sat down, watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and constructed this.
This was “sewn” with needles and a pair of pliers. I broke a lot of needles, and I have since bought a leatherworking awl. the leather is from a strap for a bag that fell apart. It’s not spectacular, but in the spirit of archiving things, I thought I’d post it.
It’s also not part of my EDC, because I’m not a maniac.
Syntactic pleonasms aside, check out my watch.
I got a Casio Water Resist for free because a damaged one was returned to MEC while I was working there as a bike mechanic. The vinyl strap was torn, but the piece seemed okay, so I heavily modified it. let’s zoom in.
First, I removed the straps and drilled out the mounting holes. The body on the watch is soft, tough plastic, and I selected a drill bit just the diameter of a bicycle spoke. Then, I cut the spokes to length and screwed them in with a pair of pliers. The spokes have an extruded thread, so the fit is exceedingly strong. I took rollers from a bike chain to connect the strap.
The strap is recycled polychord of some description. I don’t know. I found it in an alley. It’s roughly 11 feet of continuous rope, and, for reference, the retroreflective bits always had a rusty yellowish tint to them, it’s not purely wrist sweat. I wove it according to this instructable, although my chord was a little bit stiffer and didn’t settle as nicely. I also had to improvise a little when I couldn’t fit the chord around the pins, hence the chain rollers. The clip was salvaged so long ago I have no idea what it was originally attached to.
So, it’s a bit janky, I guess, and won’t win any awards for Exceptionally Elegant Design, but it’s basically indestructible. So far, it has been frozen, drown, coated in sawdust, crashed off a bike, and smeared with superglue which was subsequently sanded off. And, most importantly, it knows exactly what time it is.
I had an eco-friendly recycled-paper pen that got wet. Now I have a travel pen. First part of my every day carry series.
I have a big trip coming up, and because I have compulsions I scarcely understand myself, it became important to have a folding toothbrush to fit in my toiletries pouch. I got a free brush from the dentist with a tidy little green bristle cover, and then something happened. 
My brain, overloaded by watching the Red Green show and Mythbusters on Youtube while I should be preparing for an exam, decided to take things into its own brain-hands.
It’s a really easy project. You need a toothbrush, one section of collapsible aluminium tent pole (cut off the top and it fits into the bottom), a hot glue gun, various files and sandpaper, sidecutters, a pipecutter, a knife, and a problem in your brain where you think this is a good use of your time when you should be studying for your exams.
Cut the “tongue” of the tent pole down by about half, and then cut the top part off and the bottom part off. File the edges for smoothness. Snip your toothbrush with the sidecutters, then trim it with the knife until it slides into the pole. Afix with hot glue. Tell yourself this is important preparation for your trip.
Saves no space or weight! The whole project should distract you for about ten minutes. more, if you blog about it.
This shelf is made from my actual childhood toboggan. The back half and one entire slat was destroyed in a crash, so I took it completely apart, cut everything nice and square again, sanded it, stained it and screwed it back together. The supports are salvaged from an IKEA shelf. This has been loaded to capacity with books and cooking supplies but now it hold my art supplies and the head of a fabulous creeper piñata that the talented Veronica Tamani And Josh Weber made for my birthday.
You can check out more of Josh’s crazy projects here. The man knows his way around a CNC machine. and the isle of Catan.
Part one, of course, is the viking helmet.
![DSCN0922[1]](https://i0.wp.com/blindfishindustries.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/dscn09221.jpg?w=212&h=159&ssl=1 "DSCN0922[1]")
Blindfish Industries 