It’s a bank holiday, so have a cheap and easy blog post whilst I spend the day doing other stuff.
Yeah, I know this blog doesn’t update daily and that isn’t how any of this works, but this is my website and I’ll lie if I want to.
This blog post contains links that aren’t affiliate links because no one would pay me for this garbage.
The backpack
I use the LTT Commuter Backpack. It’s a pretty good backpack, actually. Does precisely what it says on the tin: is a backpack, is well suited for carrying stuff whilst commuting.
I’ve owned a few ‘tech’ backpacks over the last decade. I carry a lot of tech, for one, but I also like having lots of distinct pockets in my backpacks.
That way I can give everything its own little nook, and when everything has its own little nook it becomes easy to find them again later. When you have a system like that, it’s pretty easy to just reach in and find what you need without even looking, and I value that.
It being of really quite good build quality and having lots of neat little features (hidden AirTag pocket! RFID-blocking passport pocket! carabiner hook thing!) just makes it even better for my needs.
The outermost pockets house medications for easy access, Olive (in squirrel plushie guise), and an umbrella I bought at Marks & Spencers for £30 over a decade ago. That thing is the hardiest brolly I’ve ever known. You get what you pay for, I guess.
Big tech
I’m still using Soarin’, a 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro that I bought nearly five years ago now (it was my first ever bought-it-upon-release Apple thing ever, I think?)
It’s kind of insane how freakin’ good the Apple Silicon Macs have turned out; my MBP honestly still feels as fast as when I first bought it and it’s never struggled with anything I’ve thrown at it. The fans don’t even need to turn on most of the time.
It’s stickerbombed to hell and is showing its age slightly, with the anodised aluminium space grey-ness starting to fade in the sweatiest areas of the palm rest.
Accompanying this is Lopin, the significantly newer M5 iPad Pro, replete with Magic Keyboard and Pencil Pro.
Why both a MacBook and an iPad Pro, you may wonder? Good question. Gold star for you. ⭐
When I’m out and about, my MacBook is pretty much a pure work machine. It’s where I do development work, Photoshop things, run slide decks, that sorta thing.
The iPad is more of a hybrid work and media consumption device. The smaller size makes it super handy for using whilst on public transport, yet with the accessories is versatile enough that I can do a decent amount of work with it too—even development work, provided I can remotely access a machine and remember Vim commands.
It’s actually pretty rare that I take both of these with me at the same time, but sometimes I do, so I think it counts.
Smaller tech
Not in my bag except when it is, is Beizel, an iPhone 16 Pro. It does everything that people use phones for. I use it caseless because I like to live dangerously (and I like the handfeel). I think the Camera Control button is neat. I don’t have much else to say about it.
If you didn’t catch on by now, I’m kind of an Apple ecosystem critter, so naturally I use AirPod Pros as well. I might actually die if I don’t have good noise cancelling and these, more than any other in-ear phones I’ve tried, do it for me.
Keeping all these things running are not one, but two backup batteries.
The main one is a chonky Belkin BoostCharge 26K, because I figured I might as well go as big as airlines will let me. The output isn’t super high, but it’s just about enough to trickle-charge Soarin’, should needs demand it.
I also have an iPhone MagSafe Battery Pack. It’s kind of rubbish, not even capable of fully recharging my iPhone, but it’s good enough to eke an extra few hours out of Beizel and vastly more convenient than having a cable running to my pocket.
Speaking of cables, I keep them all together in a Bellroy Tech Kit bag. £55 for a bag for cables may seem extravagant, but being able to hold all the gadgets needed to use the other gadgets, plus some extra, in a surprisingly compact package is worth it to me.
Tools of the trade
A more recent addition to my bag of tricks is a Swiss Champ multitool. I’d call it an ‘army knife’ but saying I’m carrying a knife makes cops freak out a bit. (Yes this is legal to carry in the UK. I’ve checked multiple times.) It comes in useful more often than you might think.
I carry a small Moleskine notebook, a variety of Uni-Ball Eye Fine pens (my favourite kind of pen; it writes so smooth), and a Sharpie because you always need a Sharpie the most when you don’t have one.
Miscellanea
- Reusable shopping bag
- Tissues
- Face masks – One reusable, one disposable
- Hand sanitiser
- Prescription medications
- Painkillers
- Antihistamines
- Travel sickness medication
- A padlock – Another thing that weirdly comes in useful more often than you might think
Even with all of that, the main compartment of the bag is mostly empty a lot of the time. I can even fit a small shop’s worth of groceries or a day or two’s worth of clothing in there if I’m going on a short trip.
Stuff switches in and out as requirements demand, as you might expect, but otherwise… that’s what’s in my bag.