WARNING- THERE ARE SOME NSFW BITS IN THIS POST THAT THE CENSOR WON'T BLOCK- READ ON IF YOU DARE!
Yesterday I was the VICTIM of a drive by
Random
Act of
Kindness from some of you out there, and I promise, if I find out who you are, there WILL be retribution!
In fact, this kindness arrived on Friday, however I didn't know about it until yesterday, but more on that later.
It all started with a post in the
Miscellaneous Sales Forum in which I was looking to trade or buy a Maxpedition Neat Freak organizer/man purse. I have a lot of random gear that I use at work- things like temperature probes, chalk, measuring tape, calipers etc in addition to normal things like rubber gloves, tablets, power banks and notebooks. I use my tablet and phone pretty hard at work, and because I didn't have anything "right" to carry them in, they were all strewn about the living room, and I'd often forget something, or just opt not to bring it. The Neat Freak seemed like the perfect answer- small enough to be unobtrusive, large enough to hold everything, organizer pockets to keep everything straight and the MOLLE panels to add other space/things s necessary.
But, I figured, if anyone had one lying around unused (I have many Maxpedition and other bags, many of which are very good, but take a back seat to ones I like better, often for no tangible reason) that they would be willing to part with in favor of a tool, SAK, pocket knife or anything else I have lying around.
Some of you misguided miscreants (a term of endearment coming from me, I assure you!) decided to take advantage of this and team up to get me a brand new Maxpedition Neat Freak, and I will say that it has turned out to be everything I hoped it would be, even if I didn't instantly love it because a bunch of you put your hard earned cash into doing something nice for some smurfhole in Canada.
As great as the bag is, (not to mention the generosity of all of you), the card really put it over the top for me.
I knew it was coming- I was given a tracking number last week, and when I last checked the tracking it said the package would arrive on the 30th. Then yesterday I got a note from one of the conspirators telling me to look for it, as it had been marked delivered. I found it on my front step, absolutely soaked through by the biblical level rains we have been experiencing the last week. I guess I should have been checking more often- sorry about that to everyone involved, and thanks to Nix for paying closer attention to it than I was!
Fortunately, the Neat Freak was in a giant Ziplock bag inside the box, and was unaffected by the wet- of course, Maxpedition bags seem to shrug off water like it didn't matter anyway, but still, it was nice not to have to wring it out before playing with it!
Since it came from all of you, naturally the first thing that had to be done was to make sure all of you were represented. The Multitool.org patch was a bit too long, but the Swiss Army Knights one fit perfectly- as if Maxpedition knew how big they were and made the bag specifically for it.
I also immediately began packing stuff into it- I literally stopped doing work on my house to pack things into the bag. Unfortunately, because of the afore mentioned biblical level rains, it was too dark to take even slightly decent photos yesterday, which is why you are all only hearing about it today. If that is upsetting to you, I apologize, but you will have to take it up with God and/or the local weather girl.
My trusty, all weather Rite in the Rain notebook went in the front mesh pocket, both because it doesn't give a damn about the weather any more than the bag does, and because it gets used more than anything else (except possibly my camera/phone) when I am at work.
In the furthest back pocket went my backup notebook, my temperature probe (yellow black thing), a SOG Baton Q2 (knife, flashlight, screwdriver), a Spyderco Mariner (I'm a
marine surveyor, so it seemed only fitting!), an Olite T20 and some black nitrile gloves. Some more standard latex gloves will be added soon as well, and one of the other pockets will get a small tape measure, and probably a hunk of chalk.
The divider panel got my Fisher Bullet and a Sharpie. I will probably add some backup pens and probably also put my calipers in this panel. The opposite side of the panel is velcro, and I may put my
Maxpedition Entity Series Utility Panel there if I need additional pockets. I'm not 100% sure yet, I'll decide on that when/if I need it. I don't actually need it in the
Entity 27 backpack I have, so we'll see if it is needed or not. You can see it in the pic below, but I have since taken it back out.
This is the front inside pocket, just inside where the mesh pocket and Swiss Army Knights patch is. I put my tablet there as I use it a lot at work- I developed spreadsheet forms so I can take notes on the fly and input them into the forms on the fly, and email my reports immediately on completion of the job before I even leave the site, which makes my clients very happy. The tablet also serves as a backup camera in case my phone battery dies before the job finishes (like I said, I use them hard!) and, since it is also connected, I am not dependent on wifi. It's a cheap Samsung 8.4" tablet in a heavily padded case, so it should resist a certain level of destruction, but if it doesn't then it's easily replaced, especially since everything is backed up online 5 minutes or so.
Here's an overview of how it all fits together. As I said, I need to add a few more things, including a tape measure, additional rubber gloves, some charging cables and a new battery bank (they never seem to last with me) and a few other things. I have some metal calipers but will probably get a plastic set so I don't have a repeat of
The Great Wingman Incident.
Lastly, some business cards in the outside pocket, behind the patch. These are perhaps the most required piece of equipment in any business these days, so it's important to have many of them, and that they are easy to access.
Now that you have all seen what is inside, I want to take another moment and let you all know just how much this means to me. I really do appreciate it, more than I can ever tell any of you, on the forum, or in person. Thanks to each and every one of you for helping to make this forum, this community, what it is, and an even bigger thank you to those of you that were involved in this most awesome gift.
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