My dad is a packrat. His attic is full of boxes just in case he needs to return something; he rarely throws anything away. I turned out nearly opposite. I mainly accredit this minimalist trait to having no space while growing up to store any of my own stuff in the house. After living here in Palo Alto for 8 months, being content with the location, and having plenty of open space; I realized that it is kinda sad that the only thing I’ve bought is a television. It is pretty big, I guess, but still doesn’t seem to be enough. My closets are relatively empty, my trunk has nothing in it besides a soccer ball, and I have more parking tickets than towels.

So, I got bored of being so non-material this week, and I decided to go slightly out of character and buy a couple cool things, and it felt good. My first purchase came while sitting at my computer drinking a jug of water (if there were one thing my packratless trait didn’t apply to, it’d be jugs of water). A friend of mine, Narendra, had recently recommended that I check out the KOR ONE Hydration Vessel, which, regardless of its life saving benefits, is wicked sexy looking. I had it bookmarked, but hadn’t given it a thorough inspection. So I read about it, and decided that I buy into the hype that my water jugs contain nasty stuff that eventually washes off and causes a slow and miserable death. Thinking of how uncool it would be to die from water jug poisoning, I bought one. We’ll see how it goes, it should arrive next week sometime.

My second purchase came after walking to work from my car and realizing that my backpack is terribly uncomfortable. I have to park about 100 blocks away from the office because all the other parking lots with permit spaces have 6 month waiting lists. I love the walk, I just don’t love my backpack. To solve this, I decided to grab a small messenger bag from Second Wind Sails, somewhat similar to the one pictured below. Mine doesn’t have numbers, or anything on the front for that matter, but still looks pretty cool. The bags are made mostly from recycled sailing materials and are supposedly super comfortable. If it doesn’t help my backpack discomfort issue, at least I will have something unique to show off.

Second Wind Sails Bag

I am going to make a list of other problems I have that can easily be solved if I just look for them. Regardless of if I decide to get anything else, I am wicked pumped to get some packages in the mail.