Every Day Carry

So as anyone who knows me knows I have become rather addicted on every day carry gear thanks to Uncrate.com and then Everydaycarry.com ! I know the concept is to be prepared for anything with what you carry and certain folks take it to different extremes. Having worked in IT for several years I realize I carry a lot more along with me than the average Joe as I always need to be ready to log in from no matter where I am. The balance I have been seeking is to keep it as light as I can while keeping the fullest set of features.

My day to day back pack is the Booq Boa Squeeze which gives me plenty of storage while holding it snug to my back, of note, I prefer the original with the felt lining throughout compared to the newer version which has better pocket placement but the felt is easier on my gear.

For my computer I carry the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 which is a very compact form factor for a device that can easily replace a laptop, tablet, and a PC. I started off with the lowest spec which is an I3 1.5 GHz with 64GB SSD and 4GB RAM. I basically chose this level as I wasn't sure what my level of commitment was going to be.  Frankly I couldn't be happier and I still haven't put together my home workstation yet. As accessories I have the Surface Pro Type Cover, Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter,  Surface Pen, and the Arc Touch Mouse Surface Edition.

As for my reading material I carry the Kindle Paperwhite which has been a pleasure to use and though Im still not certain I like the constant back lighting I am very fond of the device as a whole.

Additional items;

• Monster Outlets To Go 3 USB Very compact multi-plug with a USB outlet.
• Motorola Power Pack Slim 4000 Great emergency backup batter also works to charge multiple devices while charging it.
• WD My Passport Ultra Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive 1TB I have been carrying a passport drive along with my other goodies for as long as I can recall. They arent bulletproof but they are very solid.
• Senz Smart Umbrella The best option for emergency weather proofing if you havent seen one of these umbrellas I highly recommend checking them out as they are guaranteed not to get destroyed in high winds,

 

My most effective diet

BREAKFAST:
1/2 grapefruit or 8oz unsweetened juice.2 Eggs any style2 Slices of baconBlack coffee or tea, no sugar

LUNCH
1/2 grapefruit or 8oz unsweetened juice.
Salad and or raw veggies (any dressing, {not low fat or fat free})
Meat (Cooked any way)

DINNER
1/2 grapefruit or 8oz unsweetened juice.
Meat (cooked any way) Vegetables (any green or red, may be cooked in butter or Seasoning or a salad as above) Black coffee or tea, no sugar
(opt) 8oz Tomato juice or skim milk

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. At any meal you may eat until you are full, and you can not eat anymore. You must eat the minimum listed listed at each meal.
2. Do not eliminate anything from the diet, especially don't skip the bacon at breakfast or omit salads. It is the combination of foods that burn the fat.
3. The grapefruit is important because it acts as a catalyst that starts the burning process.
4. Cut down on coffee, it affects the insulin balance that hinders the burning process. Try to limit to one cup each meal.
5. Don't eat between meals, if you eat the combination of food suggested, you will not get hungry.
6. The diet may eliminate sugars and starches. Fat does not form fat, it helps burn it, so you can fry food in butter and use butter generously on vegetables.
7. Do not eat desserts, breads and white vegetables of sweet potatoes. You may double or triple helpings of meat, salads or vegetables. Eat till you are stuffed. The more you eat the more weight you will lose.
8. There may be no weight loss in the first 4 days, but you may lose 5 pounds on the 5th day. You may lose 1 and 1/2 pounds every two days until you reach your goal.
9. DRINK EIGHT 8oz GLASSES OF WATER EVERY DAY. 1/2 GALLON.
STAY ON DIET 12 DAYS AND STOP FOR 2 DAYS
Works out great to start on a Monday because you will have every other weekend off of the diet.

ALL SOFT DRINKS NEED TO BE DIET AND CAFFEINE FREE.

YOU MAY NOT HAVE: White onions, potatoes, celery, peas, cereal, carrots, corn, starchy vegetables, bread, noodles, rice, potato chips, pretzels or fruit or diet dressing.

YOU MAY HAVE: Red onions, bell peppers, radishes, broccoli, cucumbers, green onions, leaf spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, chili (no beans) mayonnaise, any cheese, hot dogs, cole slaw, regular salad dressing, green vegetables, 1tsp nuts, dill or bread and butter pickles.

Motorola Google Nexus 6

So I decided to upgrade my cell phone and knew I wanted to stick to Android and have been troubling over what to get. I was focused on the 4 headliners well one of the four not so much as I haven't been a big fan of the Samsung Galaxy or Note, so it was the LG G Flex 2, the HTC One M9, and Motorola Nexus 6.

I decided on the Nexus 6 even though I was worried about the phablet like size but I knew hardware wise it was plenty of phone for me and I wanted the pure android experience and my ocd box could get checked as I wanted a Motorola phone since I had the Moto 360 watch.

So far the phone has been amazing. I'm hooked on the large screen as an asset not a liability and now that I've manhandled this phone for a couple of days I believe that it is as large as a phone can get and still be called a phone. Once you hit seven inches you're officially a tablet despite what you call yourself.

All in all its a great phone and I'm very happy with my choice!

Smith & Wesson M&P Shield 9mm

So I recently made up my mind to get a decent home defense firearm, I figured my Beretta .25 wasn't likely to fill the void should I ever really need a firearm for protection. So I went to the store with the intention of getting a Glock but as was my experience with other Glock guns it was hard for me to grip it properly. I mentioned this to the gentleman helping me out and he suggested I check out the M&P Shield and it was a match made in heaven.

The single stack magazines cause the grip to be much more narrow and fit me a heck of a lot better. It was almost as if the gun was made for me. Its very compact and would be easy to conceal if I were to ever get a CCW.

My range experience with the gun was great as I was plenty accurate putting together solid groupings and really giving me a lot of confidence in this gun, It was a great purchase and I highly recommend it to anyone out there looking for a new gun.

The Queen Mary Scots Festival and Internation Highland Games XXII

Had a great time yesterday at the Scots Festival the Queen Mary puts on every year. It was kind of a last minute decision to go but I am glad I did. The weather was beautiful a little on the warm side but beautiful. The setting on the Queen Mary grounds always makes me a little melancholy as I wish the spruce goose were still there. There were plenty of bagpipe playing, Highland Gaming and lots of shopping. I even picked up a sport kilt with the Black Watch Tartan since I haven't been able to find a Menzie Clan Tartan.

All in all it was  great day spent having fun. We didn't stay for the concerts in the evening having tapped out to the sun by around 4:00. Next year I'll make a full day of it.

Kershaw Ken Onion Leek Pocket Knife

So as I have been admiring everydaycarry.com on a regular basis now I noticed there are some common popular goodies that many folks share.  Almost every post contains a preference for a pocket knife. Mine happens to be the Kershaw Ken Onion Leek. Its amazing in all aspects of performance as it opens very quickly with a flick of a finger called speed safe. I love the look of all stainless and it is very light so its comfortable clipped to my pocket or loose in a front pocket. I highly recommend it for every day use.

The Five-Minute Journal

So despite all my prior efforts to be a good journal keeper I have failed in prior attempts. I have plenty of barely started Moleskine notebooks to vouch to that fact, they get much better use as notebooks in my hands. Then I saw a recommendation for the five minute journal and as usual started doing a little research and decided to give it a try.

Basically the concept is based on positive psychology basically focusing on positives in ones life. It probably doesn't even take 5 minutes to write in every day and its comprised of a morning section and an evening section. In the morning they ask you to write on three things you are grateful for, three things that would make today great, and a daily affirmation statement. In the evening you write down three amazing things that happened that day and how could I have made today better.

Interestingly it has been a really positive experience. Things that would have been stressful to me before no longer are as I know I'm  documenting them in my journal and therefore cognizant that they need progress made on them. Its weird but the concept becomes a cycle in your life and you look forward to it.

Jaybird Bluebuds X

Im not usually one to write about something as a Bluetooth headset but these Bluebuds have been rather polarizing for me. They are great for listening to music but honestly seem pretty crappy for holding a conversation on. I use them almost exclusively for the former so I've been rather happy with them and that is the main reason I purchased them was as headphones and indeed they function surprisingly well in that capacity. The sound quality is really good, the battery life is substantial so whats not to like? Then you get a phone call and forget your wearing the Bluebuds because they are very comfortable as well and suddenly t he person on the other side of the line can barely hear you. Maybe I'm not wearing them in the proper position but damn if these worked well for taking calls they truly would be the ideal headset.

The Madrid Darby

What a great game today! I'm always amazed by  the crowd energy for a Darby game in Europe and especially this one as the Atletico Madrid fans were wild. The energy fueled the Blanco y Rojas to a dominating 4-0 victory over Real. It makes things interesting in the league table too as Real could only be 1 point in front of Barcelona if they can win tomorrow and 4 points in front of Atletico Madrid making it close for the first time in a long time.

Sling TV

Let the revolution begin. Today I got my Sling TV invite. Sling TV is the cord cutters dream that basically should kill cable if it weren't providing the internet to watch Sling TV. Anyways the product is really good ESPN seems to be in better than HD I was really impressed watching the Clipper game not with the Clippers they were flat but the video quality was great. I bought a pay per view movie tonight on it and the performance was less than stellar at home but that is more to with my damn cable internet! Sorry ADD kicked in. Anyways the offering is fairly limited but has most of the channels I enjoy and for $20 it seems to be fairly priced but I'd like to see a few more channels for the basic package.

Today is upgrade day or so it seems

Apparently I'm anxious for punishment as I upgraded my phone to lollipop this afternoon, battery life seems to suck or at least my watch's reading of the battery must be. Also I'm upgrading my surface pro 3 to Windows 10. Its the second time I'm trying it was a rough experience last time around but it intrigues me and I have another primary device so what they heck.

I actually started this post yesterday and figured I'd update it with my day old experiences. So Android Lollipop upgrade on my HTC One M7 took a lot longer to load than any upgrade in my recollection. The battery life still seems somewhat bad as I'm still using my Mophie which I have a love hate relationship. Love the better button on the top of the phone, definitely love the extended battery but hate the extra bulk... Other than the battery life issues I'm enjoying the upgrade.

As for Windows 10 round two has been far more present as everything worked swimmingly this time around. Didn't have to reconnect anything other than my Bluetooth headphones either.  I've been fiddling with it most of the day. While it is a bit different from 8.1 trying to mesh tablet and desktop modes to make everyone happy I'm not sure how much I'm sold. I like it but it is different enough that I have a learning curve AGAIN! Id just gotten to where I was comfortable with We'll see so far it runs very well but I may be at an advantage because I'm using the Microsoft Surface Pro 3.

Choi Min-sik

So I happen along the movie Lucy while browsing around on the new Sling TV. I keep saying I know that evil Taiwanese gangster who looks Korean to me only to find out it's the same well aged actor from Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and recommend it besides I'm just a big a fan of Scarlett Johansson  and heck Morgan Freeman for that matter too. I don't want to tell you too much of the story but if you haven't seen it I recommend it!

The Bulletproof Diet after one month

So I have been on the diet for about a month and have to admit I am convinced. While I didn't see 1 pound a day weight loss but I have have noticed a huge change in my energy and consequently my mood. It is rather expensive for the food and you will basically live in Trader Joe's, Sprouts, or Whole Foods. I having been rather spoiled am having to get used to cooking my own food which is new and what started as a huge inconvenience has actually become fun, as long as I don't procrastinate.

The diet is similar in ways to the Paleo diet emphasizing healthy fats, lean grass fed pastured meats, and lots of vegetables. There's even an assortment of desserts you can cook. The exercise portion focuses on once a week weight training of the 5 core movements so basically you do one to exhaustion hop to the second to exhaustion and so forth. Takes me about 15 minutes at the gym and the reccommendation is to do it once a week to allow your body to recover. Other than that you should walk as much as you can in your daily routine.

All in all oddly enough its been a very pleasant experience which isn't something I'd say about many of the other diets I tried. I'll update you on the weight loss next month so far its been about 7 pounds which isn't bad it just isn't a pound a day either. I expect now that I am used to the fasting component that my weight loss should pick up now. 

The Mod Laptop Case

Bad Ass Case if youre a well off apple junkie...The mod laptop case from thisisground has to be one of my more favorite cases check it out at http://thisisground.com/collections/mod/products/mod-laptop it has a compartment or retention strap for just about anything you could need to carry with you namely your macbook, iPad, iPhone in the whole compartment in neat package. Its an expensive solution at $575.00 but if you have enough for all the gear they demo in them you probably have enough for the bag!!!

Back in the saddle again!

So I have finally come full circle returning to where I once started blogging. I originally started with my first Blog here. It was before Google bought the company and things have changed a lot. Next I moved on to Greymatter which was hosted. That was the high point of my Blogging activity. Since then I messed around with a Tumblr account but never got super caught up in the medium. Im going to give it a shot again and see how things go, I really enjoy writing and I am a firm believer that writing is like any other skill if you dont practice you cant stay sharp.