Things I carry almost every day, as of late December 2022

Pocket items: pocket constitution, phone case, and wallet

Here we see things I carry in my pockets regularly.

To the left is my phone case, with two bandaids in it. This is a stand-in for the phone (a Pixel 6) that the phone case usually encases (I was busy taking photos with it). I keep two bandaids between the case and the phone in case I need one—which does sometimes happen. I find my phone useful for the normal things one uses a phone for. As of this year, I’ve started using it in lieu of a credit card, which feels very cool and 21st century.

At the top right is a pocket constitution made by Legal Impact for Chickens. I received this at an Effective Altruism Global conference, during the career fair. What actually happened was that someone came up to the booth I was at holding the pocket constitution, I noted that it looked cool, and they were kind enough to offer it to me. Unfortunately, I have never knowingly met anybody from Legal Impact for Chickens. I have not actually used this pocket constitution, but I carry it anyway in my winter jacket’s inner breast pocket since (a) it fits very unobtrusively and (b) it seems cool to carry around a pocket constitution.

At the bottom right is my wallet, a Bellroy Slim Sleeve. I very much like the material it is made of: called “baida nylon”, it is pleasingly canvas-like. Unfortunately I do not know how to faithfully convey this to you via the internet, but you will have to take my word that this is one of my two favourite purchases in 2022, ranked by my tactile pleasure in interacting with it.

Open wallet

Here we see the wallet open. On the left is my student ID card (with my COVID vaccine card tucked behind it out of sight), with a collection of folded bills tucked behind it. On the right is my Alcor membership card. Behind the right card is a tab that can be pulled to reveal more cards.

Wallet cards revealed

As you can see, there are several cards stowed away: on top are emergency medical instructions if I am found dead, to prepare my head for cryogenic storage, and below that is:

my WeWork card
my health insurance card
my public transit pass
my state ID card, and
my credit card.

All in all, I like the way this wallet lets me store many cards with very little space. But this is not all that is in my wallet.

A surprise hidden in the bills

Inside the bills, I have hidden away two items. The first is a Purell hand sanitizing wipe, useful when I touch something gross and want to disinfect it (or when something gross gets on my clothes). The second is an Eisenhower dollar coin—a Christmas gift for me this year, I like its size, heft, and image of an eagle landing on the moon with the Earth in the background, and plan to use it for flipping, scratching, and other coin-related needs.

I also have a backpack. It is a 21L GoRuck GR1 in ‘Coyote brown’. I chose that colour rather than black, which I would normally choose, because for this line of backpacks the inside is the same colour as the outside, and I wanted black items of mine to be visible against the fabric of the backpack. I chose it because:

it is only just large enough to hold all items I might use in a day (or take with me on a weekend getaway) while not being too large to stow underneath an aeroplane seat
it appears to be made of sturdy materials with reliable stitching
it does not have large amounts of pockets etc. that I do not use
it opens top-to-bottom in a clamshell fashion
it is waterproof enough for my purposes

All in all, while it is a new purchase, I am tentatively satisfied with it.

Here is a picture of it from the front, with high-vis features to avoid me being hit by a car at night.

Backpack front

Here is a picture of its back. You can see a zippered back compartment: designed to hold laptops, unfortunately my laptop is too big for it. I instead keep paper and masks there.

Backpack back

Here it is from the side, where you can see its top handle.

Backpack side

And here it is fully open, packed as it usually would be.

Backpack open

Next, I will show pictures of things stored in the backpack.

Water bottle

Here is the water bottle I use—a 32 oz Takeya Actives Insulated Water Bottle with Spout Lid. I quite like it: the lid screws on and off in a way that makes leakage not an issue, and the material is pleasant to interact with. It is the other of my two favourite purchases in 2022, ranked by my tactile pleasure in interacting with it.

Whiteboard marker bag

Here is the first of two bags you see: made by Origo, I use it to hold a large number of Expo whiteboard markers. You never know when you will find yourself at a whiteboard without workable markers in sufficient number, or without enough colours.

Lunch bag

Here is the second bag, which contains things I bring with me to lunch:

Purell hand sanitizer
Supplements
- Green-lipped mussel powder
- Vitamin D (to be discontinued once this bottle runs out)
- Omega-3
- Creatine capsules (much more pleasant for me to take than creatine powder)

The presence of the bag makes it much easier for me to take these with me to lunch at work, where I can remember to take the supplements and sanitize hands before eating.

Laptop and charger

My backpack also contains my laptop and laptop charger. The laptop has a number of stickers on it: going clockwise from the top-right, it advertises:

CHAI, the research group where I work
EAGxBerkeley 2022 (actually held in Oakland)
Shure, a company that makes microphones, some of which I use
Monero, a private cryptocurrency, and
CS 188, a UC Berkeley course I TA’ed in 2021.

Headphones

I also carry around Sony MDR7506 wired headphones in the pouch they came with. The pourch also contains the warranty for the headphones, as well as an adapter that fits them into other types of audio recording equipment.

This concludes the things I keep in the main area of my backpack.

Charging supplies

In the lower mesh pocket of my backpack, I keep wirey things, most of which are good for charging. Going clock-wise from top left, we have:

An Anker power brick
USB-A to lightning cable
Wall to USB-C converter
USB-A to USB-C cable
Wall to USB-A converter
USB-A to micro-USB cable
USB-C to USB-C cable
Headphone splitter (inspired by one time I wished I had one, have used it hardly at all since)
USB-C to lightning cable

These satisfy all of my charging needs.

Top pocket

Finally, the things I keep in the top pocket of the GR1. Left-to-right, I have Aquaphor lip repair ointment, which I use on my lips when chapped (I am told that it does not cause later chapping, unlike ChapStick), another Eisenhower dollar (in case I need two), 10 Bicycle dice (in case I need to come up with a password), and pens:

Uniball vision, in green, purple, and black. My favourite pen. I originally just had black, but branched out to green and purple in case I needed to mark students’ work with pen while TA’ing. I did not, but I find them to be nice highlight colours.
a CHAI pen.
a pen that doesn’t explode when it’s in an airplane in the sky (the Uniball vision does, which it one of its two major failings, the other being that it doesn’t write on some glossy materials).
two sharpies, in red and black.

This concludes my presentation of my “everyday carry”. I hope it gives you inspiration for ways of carrying things and things to carry that make your life more convenient.