I love my iPad. It rules… I use mine at the house and rarely take it on the road. That said, I know a lot of fellas are using them as laptop replacements and, as such, need a way of getting it from one place to another. Enter the coolest damned iPad cases ever.

I’m a sucker for old military bags. I use an attache from WWII as a briefcase, an officer’s dispatch case for my camera bag, and tons of other vintage canvas bags and artifacts for other uses. Vintage military stuff is just made so damned well… and feels so damned good… It’s all very hard for me to resist.

In any case, I stumbled across a little online joint called Mohawk General Store. They are located on the west coast and feature some pretty cool military bags that they’ve cut up and repurposed. I expected to see crazy boutique pricing, but they are actually pretty reasonable. If you are looking for a unique everyday bag, check them out.

I love tool rolls. I have old WW2 issued rolls in all of my cars. They compactly carry just about everything I need from a bolt turning aspect and keep rattles to a minimum. I’ve always kind of wondered why tools rolls lost their popularity. Apparently, so did Timbuk2… They released their modern take on a tool roll earlier this week. I think it rules.

Details here.

A single entrepreneur or a group of like minded folks get together with a glow in their eye and manufacture something that makes the world just a little bit better simply because passion drove them to do so. You can tell these companies by the detail in their work. It goes into their marketing. It goes into their packaging. It goes into their product. They beat customer expectations in every thing they do not because they see profitability in it, but because their work is that personal to them. I know, it sounds like a load of bullshit… But it does happen.

Rickshaw Bagworks is the perfect example. Admittedly, I know nothing about the company. I don’t know who started it or why they started it or if they are having much success in the market at all. I do, however, know that they are a passionate group of folks and I know that solely from my buying experience with them. It went a little like this:

I had heard that Rickshaw made a pretty nice iPad sleeve and browsed to their site to buy one. Once the deed was done, I noticed that they also make a Moleskine Portfolio and decided that I had to have one of those as well. I emailed the company and asked if it would be possible to amend my order. Within minutes they responded and made it happen… Custom fabrics, colors, and all…

The next day, I got another personal email from an employee that stated that my custom bags had been manufactured and were shipping. Something about that email sang to me – it wasn’t a form email. It was an email from some chick sitting at a computer next to my new Rickshaw bags – admiring them and seemingly excited for me to enjoy the same view as hers. It was unexpected and unusually satsifying.

A few days later my Riskshaw bags showed up in a… well, Rickshaw bag. To save paper and be green, Rickshaw ships all of their items in a custom made nylon bag with a shipping label sewed on the face. A perfect little color coordinated zip-tie locks the zipper. You know when you get a brand new laptop or iPod from Apple and you get that incredible feeling as you open all of the glorious packaging? Same thing here… And it’s nylon. How rad is that?

Inside the mailer were the custom made bags that Rickshaw had made for me as well as a label with a return address. You simply place this label on the outside of the previously mentioned nylon goodness and then hand it over to your UPS man. Presto… Green mailing. Brilliant.

And then, there are the bags… Again, laced with passion. All of the stitching is perfect, the fabrics are great, and it’s so damned obvious that there has been a ton of thought put into the little details. As such, this one is more suited for a video review. Enjoy it:

To get your Rickshaw Moleskine Folio, just cruise on over to their site. They run about $50.

Looking for something incredibly overpriced, but almost justifiably cool for Christmas? Check out Temple Bags. Essentially, they take vintage WWII military materials and repurpose them into pretty bitchin’ bags, wallets, key chains, etc… Sure, it’s expensive. But damn, it’s cool.

Check it out.

I love Moleskine notebooks. Beyond being excellent note takers and mini-organizers, they just feel so damned tactile. I use them for car journals, “to do” lists, and many other tasks. I seem to have them sitting around all over the place.

Rickshaw must like them too… They are a small company based out of San Francisco that focuses on hand crafting bags and organizers. Their latest is a small and water-proof job based around protecting a Moleskine notebook. The interior boasts a clear business card holder, secured zippered compartment, four pen sleeves, a padded flap to protect the journal’s cover from the pen clips, and clear rear pocket.

They are available for $50 in a variety of colors. Get yours here.

Carrying a DSLR is a pain in the ass. I carry mine in a CountyComm mine bag as part of my day pack system. It works well for me, but I realize not many people has to carry as much stuff as I do when I travel. Incase just might have an answer for you… Available in the essentials only-sized carrying case or a bigger sling pack, both bags feature zippered interior and exterior pockets, adjustable camera and lens compartments, side stash pockets, adjustable shoulder straps, reinforced nylon handles, and weather resistant nylon construction to keep your gear safe and sound. Check em out.

I’m a bag whore. I have bags for just about every occasion. Going on a two day trip through the air? Got it covered. Going on a four day trip on the ground? No sweat. Back and forth from work? I got a bag for that too…

Of course, the only problem with this is that I end up jockeying a lot of gear between the bags depending on what I have planned. Inevitably, I forget to move something or other to the “bag of the day” and find myself living without. For a gear guy, that sucks.

So for the last few months I’ve been on the hunt for a “do everything” bag. Specifically, I needed something that wasn’t too bulky to carry my laptop and office accessories to work everyday, but was also expandable enough to carry my office goods as well as a couple of days worth of clothes for when I headed out on the road. After a ton of research, I settled on the Spec-Ops brand “T.H.E. Pack.”

The yellow liner aids finding the gear you are after in low light situations.

T.H.E. Pack was designed primarily for military use, but the essence of the tactical bag made it perfect for my civilian use. Through the use of compression straps, the bag is capable of being very compact. However, once these straps are relieved the bag can expand to hold as much as 2550 cubic inches of gear.

The system is also modular. Through the use of extensive MOLLE webbing through out the bag, I can add various pouches and other compartments that not only help me organize my gear, but add capacity to the already capable system as well. Frankly, it’s glorious.

A pack in the field loaded with pouches from various manufacturers. I love MOLLE.

And, of course, the bag was designed to be used a lot harder than I will ever use it. It’s constructed of 1000D Cordura Nylon – the toughest and thickest Nylon available. Combine that with double layering where it counts, HUGE #10 sized zippers, and a whole lot of other shit designed to make the bag last a lifetime and you have one hell of a platform for an EDC bag.

The one shortfall of using a military bag as an EDC bag, however, is the lack of little convenience items that the typical “office bag” might include. Things like pen and pencil holders, cell phone pouches, iPod compartments, etc… just aren’t there. It’s not a huge problem, but the little office doo-dads rattling around in your pack can be a bit annoying. I found the solution through another Spec-Ops accessory.

The “Pack Rat” was designed to position gear for “immediate and instinctive use.” In other words, if one our servicemen needs a flashlight, he needs it now and the Pack Rat helps make finding and grabbing one more efficient. Essentially, this little bag is an admin pouch that organizes everything from pens and pencils to batteries and cables. The best part? It was designed to be housed perfectly by the lower outer compartment of T.H.E. Pack. Yet again… GLORIOUS.

A fully loaded Pack Rat.

So what we end up with is a system of sorts. Combining the Spec Ops T.H.E. Pack (man, I’m tired of typing that) with the Pack Rat creates what is, at least to me, the perfect every day solution for carrying gear. I carried the pack to work all last week and marveled at it’s light weight and diminutive size as it housed everything I need to create a mobile office. Proving versatility, I then added a couple of MOLLE pouches and packed the bag for a three day vacation. Not only was I able to pack my office, but I was also able to add three days worth of clothes and toiletries, a small tool kit, and a complete DSLR camera setup with multiple lenses.

Put shortly, this bag is the answer. It’s gonna cost ya though… T.H.E. Pack runs about $200 while the Pack Rat adds another $50.

Enjoy the review:

Triple Threat Tactical is ran by a guy named Jim Rosario… and that’s about all I know about the bag featured below. Jim posts occasionally on some of the more covert forums covering tactical gear and is known to be a pretty talented guy, but his site is under construction and the rest of the business is pretty much shrouded in mystery. Word on the street is that the “High-Speed, Low-Drag” bag will sell for around $499. Expensive? Yes. Cool? Yes.

Check it out:

Bill is a craftsman. He creates a line of very high quality cases for both knives and watches. Each has received rave reviews all over the internet. More recently, however, Bill has been busy developing and producing something he likes to call “Bill’s Urban Wallet.”

The Urban Wallet is a pocket organizer that houses a folding knife, a set of business cards, credit cards, and cash – each with it’s own dedicated spot. With the pocket organized with the Urban Wallet, more weight can be carried more comfortably and items are easier to reach in a pinch. That’s the idea anyway… and we found that it worked pretty damn well.

Check out the video review:

You can get yours at edcknives.com or shoot Bill an email and order direct for around $21.