Five Things I Wouldn't Be Without

This article on LinkedIn set me to thinking: which five items would I not travel without?

It's a great question. After a while, I realised my answer really depends on what's being asked. Things I'm never without, or articles I always carry when I travel away from home? So I'll answer both. In this article: which five things am I never without? (In the next: which five items I never travel without.)

1. My Android smartphone

OK, I admit it, I'm a geek. Well, you knew that from the title of the blog, so it's no surprise, right? But I'm a real tech geek too; always have been. So not only do I carry a smartphone (currently an HTC Desire Z, because I never want to be without a proper keyboard), but it's an Android phone - of course! - and I write new apps for it when I've a spare moment.

The thing is, it's the hub of my business life. The calendar syncs with Google (using a Gmail email address no-one knows but me), so that I can see my calendar whether I'm at a PC, on a tablet (my Google Nexus 7 is wonderful!), or just have my phone. I use Catch Notes to store my thoughts, information I need to capture, and other sundry bits and pieces that run my life. It's my first port of call for email - it has no problems juggling seven mailboxes! - and if I need to relax, the Kindle app's ready and waiting for me. I might switch to a different handset, but there'll always be an Android in my pocket.

2. My memory stick

Not just any memory stick, either: a 64GB USB3 stick. I don't carry stuff that's business-critical (at least not unencrypted), but it has my music collection, a bunch of PC and Linux software I use regularly, and a whole load of other data I need to hand. The cloud's all very well - and Adeptium Consulting, my consultancy is proudly an Amazon Web Services partner - but it takes forever to download tens of gigabytes, ten forevers to upload that much, and it's clearly not feasible to do that on a mobile phone connection, or someone's home broadband with a usage limit. The internet infrastructure simply hasn't caught up with Big Data volumes, or even Moderately-Sized Data volumes, so for the time being, sneakernet (these days with a USB stick rather than a floppy disk) still reigns. I'm thinking of getting an encrypted stick, possibly the iStorage DataShur, but I'd like it to be USB3 capable.

3. My glasses tool

About seven years ago, I came to the painful realisation that I needed reading glasses. I now have more pairs than I can count, yet never seem to have a pair to hand. So I suppose that one of my items ought to be my prescription glasses - let's face it, I'd be stumped without them - but that's a bit mundane and obvious. Also, they're now so much part of me now that forgetting them would be like leaving an arm behind.

However, there's one item that's pretty much unavoidable, once you're carrying glasses, and that's a glasses tool. I like rimless specs - I'm not all that vain, but it's one of my indulgences - and they always seem to need tightening up. So on my keyring there's my glasses tool. The centre part of the body unscrews to show a tiny cross-head screwdriver at one end, an equally diddy flat-blade at the other, and there's a nut spinner at the far end of the tool. I've been surprised how many other things I've fixed with it, too...

4. A pen

As you'll have gathered by now, I write. As a left-handed writer, I prefer to use a keyboard, because writer's cramp - pushing a pen, not pulling - is a swine, and even I can't read my writing a month later, unless I've written in B L O C K C A P S. However, I never quite got out of the habit of making sure I've always got at least one pen with me, and preferably several. If nothing else, it means I can do the Sudoku puzzles in the Metro and Evening Standard papers when I travel through London!

5. My pocket meds pack

Unfortunately, I'm a migraine sufferer. For anyone who doesn't know: migraine is not a headache. Headache is just one of many migraine symptoms, and sometimes not the worst. But I'm a businessman and a techie, and I need a working head for both of these. So I carry a little blue pocket meds pack. Inside it you'll find a couple of doses of rizatriptan - a medication that can abort a migraine if taken quickly enough, or considerably reduce its severity if not so early - ibuprofen, and paracetamol (acetaminophen, for USAns) or co-codamol (paracetamol + codeine).

Other migraine sufferers might be interested to know about some preventative therapy I'm using these days: Berocca (or its Tesco equivalent), magnesium, zinc, co-enzyme Q10 and large amounts (100-400mg daily) of riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2. The whole lot together seem to boost the efficiency of neural cell mitochondria, and this can help a lot of sufferers of classic-type migraine. The riboflavin dose may seem excessive, but it's a recommendation from UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the body that advises the UK Government on medicines and therapies.

In the next episode...

...Five Things I Never Travel Without!