Keychain Thingie

I made a new leather leash thingie thing today.  :)

Here it is in action.

It's definitely more comfortable than being clipped directly to a belt loop.  I don't know why, it just is.  Doubles as a leash wherein I can tuck the keys portion into my pocket but still have it attached to my belt for easy retrieval.  :D

Keychain Carry Update (135/365)

I decided to go back and do a 2 chain carry.  :)  My keys are on the NiteIze Key Rack and my tools are on the Kaijin fish hook that I'd received from an EDCF member.  :D

A closeup of the keys on the Key Rack...

A closeup of the Kaijin fish hook.

I really, REALLY like this key hook.  :D  Super special shoutout thanks to that member*.  ;)  'Tis a GREAT birthday gift.

On this fish hook, I have:

1. Uncle Bill's tweezers
2. Purple TEC Glow Fob (Thanks, KAMM!)
3. Fenix E01
4. Mr. Sharkie
5. Pico Widgy
6. Hohner harmonica

There are a few things I could add/remove from the Kaijin, but I like it fine as is right now.  Any more additions and it'll become extremely bulky...

* I was never sure how people felt about other people knowing about them gifting gifts.  I guess I try to keep it on the downlow so that other members don't await handouts.  But no worries!  I did not forget who gifted this to me.  :)

Monkeys in the Barrel (047/365)

Teehee!  :)  I found this little thing at Party City the other day while I was getting some small goodies to make my Halloween goody bags for this year's trick or treaters.  For $0.59 or so each, I picked up a few to give away and kept this purple barrel for myself.  It's actually a pretty hard game to play!  Or maybe it's because my monkeys have deformed hands, who knows.  :P  I think the most monkeys I've linked together so far is like 6.

The barrels come in various colors, including purple, red, blue, and green.  I think yellow is there too, but I can't remember, as I was only interested in the purple one for myself.  Each barrel comes with 10 monkeys.  I think it's hilarious that it's called "Monkeys in the Barrel," since it's a knock off of "Barrel of Monkeys."

I think I'll rid the barrel for now and stick all of these monkeys into my Altoids Game Tin.  It kind of defeats the purpose of getting a purple barrel, but maybe I can use it to store something else on my keychain instead.  Though it's a little large for EDC.  :)  Blurple's modeling the barrel for size comparison.  :P

EDC Losses (004/365)

I see now why the members over at EDCF always forewarned me about these Nite-Ize Key Racks.  :(  Today after work, I looked down at my key rack only to find that one of the clips fell off.  No biggie, right?  Except that attached to that little s-biner was my TEC Glow Fob and my Pico Widgy bar, both of which were gifts.  :(

A sad day for the EDC world.

I am, however, glad that it wasn't any of my important keys...  But still, ya know?

Duct Tape Keychain Fob

The other night, I couldn't sleep.  While tinkering with my box of odds and ends, I came up with the idea of making a fob that carries duct tape so that I could have it wherever I go.  It partially came from the fact that though I have items that I EDC, duct tape was the one item that would have come in handy at that morning's photoshoot, but wasn't on my person.

On the far right is the final product!  I'd wrapped 3 feet of duct tape around the barrel of a pen, then scored and broke the ends off with a razor blade.  I then looped gutted paracord through, attached it to my carabiner, and knotted the ends so that it wouldn't fall off.

I'd felt like a genius until I started searching around, only to find that I wasn't the first to think of this.  ITS Tactical had written a post similar to this back in September 2011.  There was also a YouTube video of some fella who did the same.

HOWEVER.  The difference between mine and both of theirs is that my duct tape is free-rolling on the pen barrel.  Theirs is directly taped on to the paracord, which I thought was... inconvenient.  I like the way my duct tape comes off the roll.

Why do I do it this way?  I try to keep my wallet with only the bare essentials - some form of payment, driver's license, school ID, and some bandages.  That means the flattened "wallet" carry with duct tape wrapped around an old card is out.  I didn't want to carry any loose rolls, so just carrying around a mini roll (unless it's in my backup kit) is out.  That little keychain rides on my belt loop daily (or jacket pocket).  This just seemed like the more practical way for me to carry duct tape.  Girl pants don't offer versatile ways of carrying anything, really.

**BONUS CONTENT**

haha As a bonus content, here's a shot of my electrical tape "pills."  That's two feet of electrical tape wrapped around empty ballpoint ink barrels.  These get thrown into Altoids kits and my schoolbag EDC.

Meritline "Fauxton" Keychains

As you may or may not know, I love getting random little "toys" from Meritline.  Their items come within 3 weeks from China (?) to CA and are only a couple bucks.

This time around, I got "fauxtons" (photon lights) for $1.29 shipped, for a pack of 5 (assorted, random colors).  It was brought to my attention on EDCF and BLF forums on 27 March 2012.  The product was bought that same morning and here I am now, the afternoon of 13 April 2012 with the items in my lap.

I like them a lot considering the cost, brightness, and size.  I love that for a keychain light, these things don't get in the way.  I used to carry a MagLite Solitaire on my keyring, but it proved to be a wee bit too bulky for my liking and not at all bright, even on a brand new battery.  I think the best part of it all is that these fauxtons have actually got an On/Off switch, whereas most similar products have momentary On/Off switches (you have to continue to hold down the pressure in order to keep the light on).

These items don't feel particularly flimsy, but not exactly "robust" either.  But at the cost of what, just a little over $0.25 each?  I'm quite happy.  You can't get too much with a quarter these days.  The reviews on Meritline said that some of the customers' lights came DoA (dead on arrival), but all of mine worked perfectly fine.  Let's see how they hold up.

I'm kind of glad the majority of my colors are white though; it's easier for me to hand these out to friends with such a neutral color.  I hope these go on sale again soon!

Sharpie Mini Modification

I've been trying to find a pen to add to my EDC keychain for a little while now.  But I haven't found anything to my liking.  I've tried the mini Bic mod, but I didn't like it since I had to also modify the cap in order to make holes for it (easily done with a hot paperclip, btw) and then a small lanyard through those holes to create a "chain" to attach to the keychain.  It just looked blah.  And those Fisher Space Pens and such were just out of my price range.

I already had a Sharpie Mini hanging on my EDC keychain and I had found another at school the other day.  Too bad it was dried out.  But I decided to take it home with me anyway.  After a thorough cleaning and a restless night, I came up with a mod.  Taking the idea of the Sherpa (I'll explain that at the end!), I went ahead and took apart my Sharpie (using pliers) and dug through my pens box (promotional pens, mostly) and tinkered away.

This is the Sharpie Mini taken apart.  The ink was dried and those ink parts are now useless in this mod, so toss 'em.

Here are a couple of the pens I'd taken apart to see which would fit best.  It turns out that most retractable pens cannot be used in this mod since they lack that little lip at the tip of the pen that would "catch" onto the opening of the Sharpie and keep the ink section snugly in place.  Think Bic Stic and the like.  I happened to use a no-name promotional pen one.  I did, however, find that the refill from the Uniball Signo 207 worked as well, but jutted out a wee bit too far out.  But because of the thick ink barrel, it fits pretty snugly in the Sharpie's body.

The regular ol' ballpoint stick refill fits snug as a bug!

See?  The Uniball sticks out too far.  :(  Actually, when the cap goes on, it will actually push the refill back in up until where that white part of the refill begins.  So if you end up using the Signo refill, know that you'll have to adjust it to that point before snipping the ink barrel.

I was just lining everything up so that I could get an idea of where to snip off the excess ink barrel at.

Slip the refill in, snap everything back together, and we're good to go!

Though I don't particularly like ballpoints, let alone the cheap stick type (though I have quite thoroughly enjoyed writing with the Bic Cristal 1.6mm), this will do in a pinch when I'm pen-less and in need of a writing instrument.  Oh boo, fountain pens, for not being able to handle carbon copies!

With all that said, back to the idea of the Sherpa.  The reason I mention this is because the Sherpa is made to accommodate and house a Sharpie perfectly, as well as some other pens listed on their site.  This means that the tip of the Sharpie and the tips of those other pens that the Sherpa accommodates should be the same size for it to snugly fit in the Sherpa housing.  So by all means, I'm assuming that whatever pens that works with the Sherpa will damn well fit a Sharpie Mod since their tips should be of the same or similar enough size without jutting out.

Have fun.  :)

Sriracha on the Go!

Finally, my wait comes to an end! I can finally have sriracha sauce wherever I go.
I've always bright a small Nalgene squirt bottle with my lunches, but I've always wanted one on my keychain for those unexpected restaurant visits when I just need/crave that extra blast of spicy goodness.
The first time if actually thought about it was during my trip to Arizona when I'd stopped into a kitchen gadget store. There was this little bottle of something on a keychain and I'd just thought it would be perfect to carry sriracha around in. However, at over $6.00 for the thing, I deemed it not worth my purchase and carried on. However, the idea was always in the back of my mind.
When I'd come back from my trip, I kept going on Google to see if there were any keycha with tiny bottles.  No matter how many different search terms I'd tried, none of then populated with what I wanted.
Fast forward to this sleepless morning. I don't recall exactly what I was doing or even thinking about, but my mind eventually rested upon hand sanitizer bottles. Then I recalled making like paracord "caddies" that attached to keychain carabiners not too long ago. (They're also known as "germ grenades around the Interwebz.") For whatever reason, I'm not sure what triggered it, I'd figured the little one ounce bottles of hand sanitizer (in this case the Bath and Body Works one) would be perfect for my long awaited plans to come to life.
Lo and behold, the Sriracha Bomb was born.
It's on a lanyard for now, but if I can find the teenier Purell bottles (I think they're half ounce bottles), I'll throw the Sriracha Bomb on my keychain instead.
I'm quite the satisfied person right now. I think I can finally drift off to sleep. I'm going to have to regardless since school starts in about 2 hours!