Posts made by mclaincausey

Depends on the crab IMO. I find stone crab claws to have a fine ratio of effort to payoff and they, Dungeness, Snow, and King are so delicious on their own they don't need any help from the likes of Old Bay (mustard sauce or butter delicious but entirely optional). Just in terms of the taste of the flesh of the animal, IMO blue crab doesn't compare to those and that's why it needs a little help from Old Bay (Chesapeake) or Zatarain's (Gulf Coast). Same thing with crawfish: a bit of effort for a little meat, and most of what you're tasting is the boil.

My buddy got me this custom forged carry knife and custom sheath for my birthday. Love it!!

@Graeme said in Luggage Bags and Packs:

The ULA packs look great. I've been tempted by an Ultra Node as a lightweight travel pack.

That is basically a miniaturized and roll-topped version of what I have. Get it!

The Ultra is rigid and that structure I think is helpful especially in this rollmop format. The Ultra Mesh makes for excellent, adaptable storage. I am just starting to see a bit of wear on my Mesh because the bottle I travel with has a hard bottom edge though.

@Anesthetist Yeah I am in the same boat--they are very well-built and I suspect they would stand behind them if anything happened but what a huge pain in the ass it would be to ship it back for an indeterminate timeframe, and Dyneema is not fundamentally a lifelong material. I am not sure whether and how backing leather with Dyneema changes that, but abrasion damage and degradation/delamination are real threats to it if you aren't careful with how you use it. You can patch it pretty easily but the lovely aesthetic is then marred. So if you win the lottery for this one, you're spending buy it for life price on a beautiful piece of kit that may or may not stand the test of time, and as stated above takes a couple of steps back in some of the little subtleties that make the bags so great. That said, as stratospheric as the price is, I don't think it's misaligned to the craftsmanship and materials. I've seen plenty of much more expensive bags in this thread.

My way of managing making mine last as long as possible is then only in travel scenarios where I don't expect to be roughing it. My Daypack will come with me on the plane and to meetings. My ULA can come with me on light backpacking as well as travel, so I love it for that. But it will never give me the feels that carrying a Rofmia does or look as good doing it.

@Graeme those look fantastic and are gorgeous!

I’m glad I got my Rofmia bags, accessories, and wallet when I could. The Carryology hype will make that really hard and I don’t see them scaling the operation to the increased demand. I find myself reaching for the ULA more than the Backpack V2 for > Daypack use cases. The clamshell and slightly larger volume win out in terms of functionality. But darn the Backback is a sexy bag. Kind of a “safe queen” now with the Dragonfly

@Graeme their products are absolutely works of art. Something about them just feels really special.

As for luggage pass through, the best one I’ve seen is on my ULA Dragonfly, where it’s just back padding decoupled from the back of the bag and hard to notice unless you’re looking for it, and it comes with a nice hidden, quite spacious pocket for passports and such. You can customize Rofmia bags and ask them to add the pass through and I didn’t do so on either of mine.

The Alfred Lansing account of Endurance is so good. It really dives into a lot of detail about the day to day experiences of the mission. Have you read that one @Giles ?

You iron chefs never fail to impress.

Kalbi here with Kim Chee, a gochujang sauce, and an Asian slaw.

@Graeme beautiful bags. But they’re taking a step back in terms of the practical simplicity that makes Rofmia great.

For example, they use a very nice stretch material in the pockets built into the interior of the clamshell lid. I love the up cycled Japanese workwear garment fabric in theory, but for practical purposes that pocket will be more rigid and less adaptable to ebb and flow capacity with a stretch material that can “borrow” volume from the main compartment.

The other step back is having rigid leather bonded dyneema water bottle pockets. The sort of stretchy neoprene like material with a band at the top for support that is being replaced is literally the best water bottle pocket I have experienced. It will firmly hold small and very large bottles equally well. I can’t see this matching that.

That said, beautiful bags. But I have no fomo.

Love my new Pumas

@Giles enjoyed so much I’m now listening to Endurance by Alfred Lansing, as it is free on Audible. It’s much older and will be much different with less modern context but still should be a good one and enjoying in the early bits.

I have also added Trafalgar

Another one I just read, and this one is free to Audible subscribers, was *The Four Percent Universe * by Richard Panek. This one was about the discovery of dark energy and dark matter and the race to publish that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. Two groups of scientists using different methods effectively tied in that endeavor and were awarded Nobel prizes for it.

@Giles what a damn book was Finding Endurance.

Shackleton was a high caliber human being. An unbelievable story. I welcome the author’s personal biographical details and broader observations as well.

I saw they went to Rofmia but hadn’t heard why. I’m sure it’ll be nice. I’ll just have to live with my bags and accessories

Duxedo today. 2nd time in a few days I’ve busted out a pair of the 22oz paraffin coated duck after letting them sit in the closet far too long. Not as cardboardy as I expected them to still be. Probably the most rigid IH fabric I’ve encountered.

Torn ACL. They’ll be fortunate to have Parsons back in the first third of next season. Very sad.

High risk high reward move and they got burned.

Rest in peace Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer. What an unbelievable tragedy.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/rob-reiner-ldead-obituary-1235483876/

Great day for orange and blue teams. A great day overall of football. The injuries were a drag but high drama games!

Epic party for sure, thanks again for the hospitality my friend! @Mizmazzle

@SourPower @Mizmazzle and wife throw a heckuva cookie party! great hangs