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Glock 19, 2 extra mags with floor plate extension. Kershaw ao knife, novatac edc 120 lumen flashlight. Blackberry 9700 with bes and free data roaming, nexus one w local sim. Keys w led flashlight. Identity card holder w 4 id cards and credit card and eagle cash card. Wristwatch. Hat w 100 bill inside, sunglasses.

Usually also either a vest or one of two shoulder bags with first aid and mags, sat phone, laptop and or iPad or kindle dx, some snacks, cisco console cable. Bigger bag (3 day assault pack or one size bigger) for trips, and spares in my car or the truck, and my trailer. I have a good point and shoot in most bags or on armor, and I have etymotics or ultimate ears canal phones. I also sometimes carry a canon in a dedicated d slr bag.

In civilization, largely the same, except sometimes ruger LCR 38 and or a sig mix and match with the g19 in some combination, or just knife and flashlight if carry is unadvised. Also I carry a wallet instead of ID holder.

2 comments

From your bio : "Currently doing defense IT/medical contracting in the middle east."

Holy crap.

Have you been in any firefights ?

Aside from people ineffectually shooting at my aircraft, not in years. I have had mortars land vaguely nearby though.

Almost involved in 3 possibly fatal car accidents in Kuwait earlier this year though, but luckily I am a fairly competent driver and swerved around or braked ... Riding a motorcycle in the USA would he great preparation for driving a car here.

Please do an AMA somewhere, I'm sure you have tons of stuff to say and that should be pretty interesting imho

I think it would be super boring. I myself would not read a documentary account of my life.

Technically, it's basically either "learning how to do increasingly advanced satellite tech/eng work in the field, starting from a strong IP networking and sort of college ee/rf background" at the same time the industry itself was developing (late 1990s-mid 2000s). Also, political crap trying to deploy linux based servers on windows/activedirectory centric networks, with multiple layers of policymakers involved in every decision. Very very little worthwhile technology. The only people in the overall government space doing commercially-normal interesting tech seem to be TIGR, and for mostly-awesome (but still inferior to b2c webapps, by a mile!), Palantir.

On top of that, the whole sealand thing from 2000-2002, and anon ecash stuff in the caribbean from 1995 (mit) through 1999 or so.

Then, learning more about defense contracting and how the military works, having zero background to start, from 2003 onward.

And the "going to iraq thinking it would just be reconstruction and a technology land-grab, and it turns into a shooting war after the war itself is done" thing.

Combine that with generic startup things with somewhat more fraud and logistics problems than you'd face in the US, and living in a mix of crappy (iraq, afghanistan) and boring (5-star hotels in dubai and kuwait).

If you're interested in the war part, actual soldiers have way more interesting stories from iraq or afghanistan. For the tech part, the technology itself is really boring. For the military psychology part, just read catch-22 and slaughterhouse five.

Plus, writing it fully accurately would make me either look dumb or naive most of the time, and there are OPSEC and liability concerns detailing what other people have done or failed to do.

I think the most workable solution would be some kind of "techno-thriller" set in relevant places, but fictionalized.

Seriously, you can skip the whole tech part & just talk about your life. I'd buy the book. A good story can be written by just artfully stringing anecdotes together, just go ask Malcolm Gladwell ;-)

Do you write an online journal, or something?

I would love to read it no matter how infrequently you update. I think that you should think seriously about writing; your life would make for one hell of a memoir. It could even become an alternative career left to be pursued someday down the road.

If a well written book describing a life like that comes out then I would buy it hands down.

"milbloggers" are much more interesting to read -- you can check michaelyon-online.com and freerangeinternational.com and find stuff linked from there. Generally someone who is on a 4-15 month tour blogs about it while there, and sometimes it is really interesting. Usually the people doing interesting stuff don't have time, though.

I blogged for a while (but it was all password-protected due to OPSEC issues). Then I mainly switched to just use quora.com to replace most of my other "recreational" computer time.

Could be hard to get into the grocery store/movies/mall with that stuff. Coffee shop, not so hard depending :)

I think my concealed carry permits in the US are good in about 40 states (WA NH NV UT FL NH OR ME MA). Aside from CA and NY, I basically avoid the others (IL WI IA NJ mainly).

It is slightly crazy, but I think I am going to Strongly Encourage that everyone in my next startup get concealed carry permits, plus own firearms, even though it is not at all core to the business -- mainly because friday afternoon at the range once or twice a month might be a fun team-building exercise.

Cocealed Carry is good in private establishments? I didn't think it was. Except Starbucks, of course.

Absolutely. It varies by state. In most states most private businesses can't prohibit concealed carry; in other states they can, but only with specific language on a certain size sign. Plus, if you violate, it's just "please leave". There are legal prohibitions against carry in certain places under state law (usually bars, schools, sometimes government buildings), and there are federal prohibitions at airports. Not carrying when you're going to be drinking, or at a place like a club where people will be bumping up against you, is probably a good and prudent idea.

If it is concealed, no one should know. Open carry IMO is a bad idea in a lot of places, and not something I would want to encourage. That is what Starbucks seems to have a problem with. Open carry is bad because it makes weapon retention a much bigger problem, plus it negates the "no one knows who MIGHT be armed" value of citizen concealed carry. Also, if I were doing open carry, I would feel obligated to carry something like a $3500 Les Baer 1911 or a Colt Python, vs. a $500 Glock.