Got another video for you guys, this time showing how to use an Aerowave Zipper Pull Whistle. Using them is pretty easy once you have a couple of simple tips:
Woodsmonkey has a couple of new articles up featuring some of the items I sent their way. Their articles are fantastic (even when they aren’t linking to my stuff), with much more depth than you will see on most sites. Garrett, the lead simian, has a review of the revisited classic BKT BK11, better know as the Becker Necker. He shows some of my capsules and my favorite way to use them, storing tinder. As an added bonus, that tinder is fatwood shavings, one of the best and easiest way to start a fire.  The Necker itself is still a slick little knife and I am happy to see it back in production after Camillus bit the dust.
The other article is from Tim and discusses zipper pull survival, which is adding small items to the zippers on your jacket or anything else with a readily accessable zipper so that you always have the items you need when and where you need them. The concept is a great idea, and even though I do not take it quite as far as many people I seen (your zipper items should not wear more than the jacket
to which they are attached), I still like to have a whistle and LED light available when I need them. Having items like these might seem silly to the fast and light crowd, but a few extra grams of weight are fine by me if it means faster and easier attention grabbing and stuff finding. Granted, I usually have a headlamp on at night, but how about peering into a dark pack or tree nook during the day? A dim (compared to the rest of my flashlights) LED light is also really nice to have attached to my sleeping bag for finding my Burt’s Bees in the middle of the night or “what the hell just landed on my face” inspections.
If you have something small and light that you find yourself using on a regular basis, consider attaching it to a zipper pull instead of burying it deep inside your pack.
Got a new product in the store that I am excited about. Of course, I am excited about pretty much everything I sell, so take that with a grain of salt.
It’s the Cord Lock LED Light from Black Crater. I saw these little guys on an upcoming gear blog, and immediately emailed Black Crater to get in on their first order delivery. It is an LED light with three modes: low, high, and flash, but it also has a great feature of being a cord lock that you can attach to anything cord shaped. Of course, you don’t have to attach it to anything if you don’t want to. I already carry a nice pocket flashlight, but I still took a few of these for myself and attached them to jacket zipper pulls, sleeping bag cinch cords, backpack cords, and anywhere else a bight little LED light might be useful. OK, that’s everywhere, in my opinion…
