Review: OtterBox Utility Latch

Here is a piece of kit that came to my attention following a comment by one of my readers after my review of my iPhone case . Up till then, my iPad has been naked tech, no case, cover or guard. It still lives in my CSI folder which in turn lives in my messenger bag but doesn't do anything for it when I'm -using- it. So here is what I have added to give me some more security and functionality. This is the OtterBox Utility Series Latch . The basic idea is that four elastic loops attached to a nylon webbing backing hoop over the four corners of the device. A loop of nylon tape gives an attachment point for the included S-clip.


That however is just the beginning, that nylon backing is a platform for a variety of very clever accessories. The webbing itself features a wide handstrap with removable padding that can either be gripped or slip over you knife-hand style. Because the central webbing is square, and the elastic loops are all equal, the device can be held portrait or landscape, as best suits your needs. Each corner of the webbing hosts a plastic tag with an eyelet, through which I have fed a length of shock-cord, purely as an extra place to secure any documents I get handed in meetings I don't take my CSI folder to.
Those tags are designed to take the accessory baggie that comes with the Latch, which is itself billed as a "angled stand" and performs this task well, with twin S-clips to again give portrait or landscape proppage, but I found it to be awkward to carry around with this in place, and have relegated it to my messenger bag, for when I need it. The included accessories are pretty cool in and of themselves. A rain-cover made of elastic hemmed waterproofed rip-stop. I'm not sure how useful this will be in a big wet, but for times when I am without a bag to store my device in, or when I know I will be in and out of a drizzle, or something.

The narrow shoulder strap will let me go hands free in a slinging fashion, should I desire, or offer me a platform to write on if i balance one edge of my device on my belt buckle. Seeing as I can type one handed on my iPad, and use the big S-clip to secure it to my holster-harness or riggers-belt I haven't had much use for this either. The wide elastic belt, however, I am very much looking forwards to using. It affixes through the main-body webbing, where the yellow nylon can be seen in the top picture, and becomes either a thigh-strap (for pilots, drivers, or boring meeting Angry Birds players) OR it can be fitted to the back of a car seat head-rest, for running back-seat movies and games for little people amusement. A very cool feature, with a lot of potential. The buckle end is sturdy, and the hook-and-loop fixture is long enough to fit a variety of legs I think.

Whilst I cant say this is a ruggedising or especially protective piece of kit, and I have had a couple of occasions where the elastic loops have slipped, and lost full grip on my device, which was a bit scary, I like how well it fits my grip, allowing me a much more natural tap-tap-tapping stance, without having to white-knuckle as I wander about reading my ITS Tactical App or browsing for more toys. A relaxed body responds to change much faster than a rigid one. One thing it does do to protect my device, is that the elastic loops act as spaces for me screen, padding and buffering its contact with whatever I put it down on. No more gran of sand scratches!.

Review: Multitools

I did a quick poll at work to see who had a multitool, and if so, what they carried. Bearing in mind I'm now working of of the ICT department of a specialist hospital, here is what we came up with. Out of 14 people, we have 5 multitools in total. I in fact carry two, but we'll get to that. In my straw poll, we determined that there were two of the lightweight Leatherman Kicks one of the Leatherman PST Original tools and my two, a broken Bucktool 360 and a 5th Gen Gerber Multitool (which I have had all kinds of trouble finding a reference for).

I'm going to do a flying review of each of these, to give an idea of the range of features I have to work with around here in case of zombie apocalypse whilst I'm at work (or if the power goes out).



The Leatherman Wave has a very lightweight feel to it, as I mentioned above, and features only a single drop-point blade, wide and narrow flat-head screwdrivers, a can opener, a lanyard loop and a half-wide Phillips head driver. Needle nose pliers with a wire cutter make up the pointy end. A nice feature is the polycarbonate grip liner, which softens the edges of the notoriously bitey Leatherman fold-out handle. The half-wide Phillips head allows the attachment of the Removable Bit Driver accessory) which is cool, if you have one. Inch and cm rulers along the handles are great. However, I didn't think there was enough "tool" to this one and I was dubious of its hardiness.





Next up was the Leatherman PST Original. The PST includes the same drop-point blade, wide and narrow flat-head screwdrivers, a can opener, as the Wave, but also features a small flathead (small enough for fixing glasses) and a rounder Phillips head driver on a nice long haft. It also features a hefty double sided file, which is an awesome addition to any multitool in my opinion. No Lanyard loop means you can't dummy-cord it, but I'm sure you, good reader, wouldn't need that as often as I do ... Again, needle nose pliers with a wire cutter make up the pointy end. Leatherman's "fold out" style exposes the users hand to the backs of tools, and the edge of the frame whilst using the pliers. I guess I have soft hands, as I don't like this.




Onto the Gerber: This was a hand-me-down gift from a very dear friend with whom I was staying after I had an unfortunate turn of events. Amongst other things I had broken my multitool (see below) and he was kind enough to pass on his spare. I love the Gerber design. Instead of the "fold out" of the previous two, the needle nose pliers and wire cutter pointy end is accessed by a click and release "flick-out" style. This leaves the users hand protected from the internal tools whilst using the pliers or cutters. It also opens with a bad-ass "schnickt!" when flicked hard. Yes, it's sad that that impresses me, but it does. it also locks the pliers into their active position. Tool compliment is similar to the PST, with a drop-point blade, wide and narrow flat-head screwdrivers, a can opener, and a small Phillips head driver and a double sided file. It also features a hefty lanyard loop, which I have a split ring fitted to (and is generally carabinered to a long cobra-weave paracord cord. The can-opener features a small flathead at its tip, which puts it back on par with the PST. It also however, features a serrated sheepsfoot blade, which I greatly appreciate. perfect for slipping under straps and webbing and cutting without the worry of stabbing the contents. I like having this option. Yes, I seem to have chipped the tip of the drop-point. It may have something to do with why the tool is now dummy-corded. Again, see below.

Lastly is my old and abused Bucktool. This tool features a unique double-swivel opening method, which does a few things. It allows the user to pick which side of the internal tools they want to access, (a feature the Gerber lacks) but leaves the contoured hand-holds outwards when any of the tools are extended. This leaves the user with a problem however, if you twist your wrist in the same direction as the hinges swivel, the tool tries to fold itself up. Annoying when struggling with a bolt, I can assure you. All the internal tools are lockable, with a press-button release. The sides of the handles have icons indicating which tools feature, which include; on one side three different flatheads of differing width and a drop-point blade which includes a third of the blade being serrated. The other side are two half-wide Phillips heads and a can opener, and another of those serrated sheepsfoot blades I'm fond of. The needle nose pliers and wire cutters at the pointy end show however, what years of abuse can do to your tool. At some point I can not even recall, one side of my pliers snapped off. I simply opened them up one day and one side was missing. Luckily for me, my awesome friend had a spare on hand, and I relegated the broken-winged Buck to my CSI folder (or did when I added that to my collection).

Multitools. They are awesome, have many features, unique drawbacks and advantages. Know your tool, know your needs. Most of all, don't use your expensive multitool as a hammer or a pry-bar if they aren't designed to! That way leads to embarrassing looking broken tools.

Review: Petzl Shunt

Following on from my post yesterday on the Ascension rope ascending device which I use to go up ropes whilst strapped into my climbing harness or for hauling things as part of a pulley system along with the gear in my in-car bug-out-bag I thought I would tell you a little bit about another piece of cool climbing tech that I acquired to give me some safety and utility whist getting into tall places, out of deep holes and spanning chasms. So, here we go: this is the Petzl Shunt rope clamp. Another piece of excellent engineering from these people, it's frame is made from machined aluminium, and the internal smooth, sprung cam is likewise aluminium.This means the whole piece only comes in at 188g, for those conscious of how much gear they are hauling. The Shunt is designed to be either a one or two rope device, but Petzl make no bones about the safety precautions around this. it will take a 10-11mm single rope, or 8-11mm double rope.The ropes must be the same diameter, and either be a loop of the same rope, or a single strand. Hooking onto two different ropes is highly discouraged in their safety guide. They also recommend that a figure-8 ring is applied above the Shunt by  double carabiner-ended quickdraw webbing, giving you a two-stage system.

 So, here's how it works. Rope is fed into the device by pulling the sprung "tongue" out of the body, and into its almininium shell such that the tongue will be facing "in" towards the wearer. The "tongue" can then be released and will snap closed. A carabiner is then fitted through the large hole, and attached directly to your harness in most instances. When a load is applied to the carabiner, the rounded cams bite down onto the rope, pinching it and providing a hands-free stoppage on the rope. I use 11mm static rope, as I generally use it as a fixed line and not as a free-climbing top-roping safety line type deal. Petzl tell us that the Shunt will hold a static load of 3Kn (which apparently equates to 305kg(force)) on a single rope and 7.5kn (760kg(force)) on a double strand of 11mm rope before slipping.

In dynamic situations, it fares worse, with a 60-70cm slippage at 3-3.5kN on a single 11mm rope and a potentially unstopped slip at 1-8kN under testing conditions of a 2m, Fall Factor 1 drop for a me-sized 80kg accroding to Petzl. Sobering, but remember, this is a locking ascension device, rather than a dedicated fall-arrester, it is designed to slide up a rope, then hold you before the next slide up. That said, in the event of a slip and drop, it will take the weight , pulling the cam tight against the rope and doing its job to the best of its ability, as long as you just LET GO and let it, Likewise, it will NOT work if the "tongue" is impeded by your body, a wall, or anything else, it must be free to pull down to work. This has a cool feature in reverse, though, in that it will allow you to descend in a controlled fashion by squeezing the body of the Shunt towards you, releasing some of the tension of your load on the "tongue" and the rope will slip through. Letting go again will halt your descent. Again, combined with a figure-8 this allows secure, controlled movement on a rope. I also use mine in combination with my Ascension rope ascending device. (Shh, don't tell Petzl)

There is a small hole in the back of the "tongue" that I have attached a dummy-cord through, because, let me tell you, the springs in this are snappy, and I have had the misfortune of it "sproinging" out of my hands as I was getting ready to fit it to a rope. Fortunately for me this happened whilst I was testing the unit and familiarising myself with its use, rather than dangling from the sky somewhere. Better for me, better for whoever might be below me. Again, this is a really useful piece of kit, not without limitations, as the manufacturer very diligently points out in their manuals (PSA: read them, pay attention and familiarise yourself with all climbing kit before putting yourself or those around you at risk). I've had a lot of fun with this, without yet dropping out of a high-hide like Ian Malcolm.

Review: Petzl Ascension

I thought I would return to some of my adventurous kit, rather than the more military style gear for a little while. I've always been a scrambler, and a climber. Getting into high places and up tall things has been lifelong past-time. When I started to get into wall-climbing, and saw the cool kit available, I started expanding my collection of tools to get me up and down safely. I've already covered my climbing harness One such tool I've added to my armory is the Petzl Ascension which is a spectacular piece of engineering.The frame is made of a hard-anodised aluminium, which are colour coded for left and right handed use (the off-hand version looks exactly the same, but flipped.

It features a chrome-plated steel cam with bitey teeth with a nylon catch and a rubber over-molded plastic grip. It will take anywhere from an single 8mm rope all the way up to a 13mm, and the design of the cam includes a vent to self-clean muddy or icy ropes. For those who have never seen or used one of these, the idea is simple. with the rope fed into the bitey-cam's jaw, the sping-loaded cam is pressed against the rope, but due to the angles used, doesn't bite down when the rope is pull (or pushed) from top to bottom. It bites down when weight is applied bottom to top.



What this means is that when you are going "up" the rope, it moves freely, but doesn't move backwards. A safe method for ascension! Better still, the clever folks at Petzl have included a variety of attachment methods, to make this a very versatile tool. A small hole in the base facilitates a lanyard or foot-sling, (which -massively- improves the efficiency of my ascents, I've found). The main hole at the bottom connects to your harness in regular ascents, but between this, and the double set at the top, this piece can act as part of a self-belaying system or a hauling system, in conjunction with other similar tools.

This is not the kind of tool everyone will need or want, and does take some adjustment to not only use efficiently and safely but I've found that for hauling gear, or scooting myself up a fixed line, I couldn't ask for a cooler piece of kit. Its mountain-rugged, and hardy enough to take a 4-6kN fall, depending on the thickness of the rope you are using, and be sure to follow the Safety guide instructions as it has some limitations, especially with regards proper attachment and positioning. A very good piece of kit to have for multipurpose climbing utility!

Review: Optimus Terra Solo cook set

Time for another Giftmas present review. Like I have said before, I was a very lucky critter and have already reviewed my Sea-to-Summit Alpha cutlery set and Light-My-Fire meal-kit so I wanted to get around to the other loot that came my way. This is the Optimus Terra Solo Cook Set. It consists of two main pieces, a 600mL pot with pouring notches and measuring marks (in both mL and oz), and a fry pan that doubles as a lid. Convection. It works and its real! Putting a lid on your cooking is a considerable energy retention method and  I have found that when out adventuring, you don't want to be running out of fuel with half-cooked noodles. The set comes in a drawstring mesh bag, which enables it to be washed and dry out easily but at the same time keeps it tightly contained to reduce clanking and wear on the surfaces.


This set is 2-piece hard anodized aluminum and are fitted with plastic covered steel arms. The frypan has a spring locking type handle, which feels pretty sturdy, and I expect will hold a load over a fire quite well.Being only a small pan, I don't think you could spread out a whole rasher of bacon, but you could always "chop and stir". That said, it is deep enough that you could also use it as a small pot, for cooking up a variety of tasty vittles.

The larger pot has a deeper body, and the addition of a pouring notch on the left hand side is a great addition, and is subtle enough that it doesn't detract from the lines of the pot, or reduce the capacity in any way.  The folding handles are sturdy and the spot riveting seems solid. On the larger pot the handles wrap around the body, canteen mug style and store right out of the way. High speed-low drag, to borrow the term.

One awesome aspect of this setup is that the combined pot and pan are wide and tall enough to contain a standard 100 g/4 oz gas canister and a collapsible stove so that you get two pots, fuel and a fire source in one handy package.

I'm really looking forwards to my next camping trip so I can whip this bad-boy out and cook my self some delicious noms in a jiffy whilst my camp-mates eat pot-noodle. Ahh, the sweet smell of victory through better technology! At 200g, this lightweight piece of cookware could well mean the difference between eating cold raw food or contaminated water, and hot nutritious possum and dandelion stew, with boiled crater water to accompany.

Home Front: Hospitals

Here I am, sitting in Emergency with my partner who has injured herself after a domestic fall. She's ok, just a bit bruised and very sore. I am no stranger to hospitals, as not only have I worked in them for the last 13 years, but have also had my fair share of visits to them. Mostly for myself, but also for Triceratops Girl, and a variety of other loved ones who have pranged, stabbed or plagued themselves. Both Triceratops Girl and Tactical Baby were hospital born, one Au-natural, the other planned Caeser. Hospitals are centers of medical excellence and care. They have the best infrastructure, the best people and the best setup for not only treating the sick, and the broken but also usually have on-site laboratories, morgues and research facilities of one kind or another. However, like any service, they have their limits. Hospitals, and especially hospital Emergengy departments take the brunt of a hospitals everyday traffic from the public. When GP clinics close at the end of business hours, the worth ey might ordinarily take spills over to ED. Which is why I find myself in my third hour of a waiting room. We walked in, as these weren't blood-gushing or screaming injuries, and at a major metropolitan hospital like this one, the ambulances keep coming.

Why am I covering this? What's the importance? Supply and demand. In the event of a major disaster, hospitals have policies in place to mitigate the loads placed on them by this kind of thing. Patients are re-routed to other facilities or discharged early to make room for an influx of casualties. However, if you look to wide-scale disasters, covering multiple catchments it's likely that those regular policies will be overwhelmed.

Considering the expected waiting times on a weeknight at a major metropolitan hospital for a relatively minor injury, which is annoying but harmless, imagine the delays expected in a disaster situation when ED's are continuously swamped with multiple casualties. That is just for relatively "simple" situations like catastrophic weather as seen in the Hurricane Katrina, Cyclone Yasi, Indian Ocean tsunami or the Great Eastern Tsunami.

Couple this with either hospitals being directly affected by the disaster, either being in the brunt of the disaster, being cut off from major services as a result or worse yet, being an epicenter of a biological disaster, where sick people are clustered and congregate, potentially compounding infections and exposing those skilled workers and carers to the same debilitating condition. (The picture to the side is a Geiger Counter, as seen wall-mounted in the entrance ways of most major metropolitan hospitals I've been to in Melbourne)

Four hours in and we've had an x-ray, a brace fitted but are still awaiting a Dr's final assessment. We've seen bleeding and aggressive drunks spraying blood and obscenity. I sit here, in an otherwise calm, well lit, orderly hospital, very glad that we have such a well run system.

If it all goes to crap, and it's all Code Brown, this may not be as readily available so, be prepared to look after yourself, and yours when the time comes. Common sense, some knowledge and training can make all the difference in a crisis. Something we should all aim to achieve.

Review: Platatac 60 Round mk1 pouch

Here's another pouch from Platatac, as I start to round off my collection of accessories from these guys, and this one is again from the bundled pouch deal they did a while back. I had a look back on their site, and I think this must be the Mk1 rather than their newer Mk2 60 Round pouch, as it differs slightly to what is currently on display as the 60 Round pouch. Just a FYI. This is a bang-up and sturdy pouch. without the bells and whistles of some of their other pouches, for those who just need something to get a basic job done. This pouch differs from the other Platatac pouches I've reviewed previously, like the SR-25 double mag in that the cover-lid is made of a wide band of seat-belt type webbing, rather than their regular Codrura material. This gives it a slick surface, and no edging seams, except at the bottom, where it is hemmed to reduce snagging corners.


The standard twin press-studs and hook-and-loop act as closure methods and a looped tab acts as a draw-assist as common on most of these guys pouches. The side-walls and back of the pouch return to the Cordura 1000D material standard in almost all of their pouches, and this pouch features a wide band of elastic material to both compress out of the way when empty, and also to give a snug fit to whatever you have loaded into the clip. Obviously, I don't have rifle magazines to load into mine, and I've filled this one out with NERF clips to simulate the load you might expect to carry with it. Make fun of me all you like, I don't mind! Consider that my Blue Gun equivalent.

The back of the pouch again features the twin PALS/MOLLE attachment system that is seen in the FUP pouch. This again supplies the rock-steady attachment to your harness or pack without any fiddly extra clips. All-inclusive. modular construction. Brilliant.

The addition of a belt-loop at the top of the pouch, much like found on the other Platatac pouches gives a really good feeling that all this family pouches were constructed with a lot of forethought, and with the intention of offering the user a variety of options. I wear mine right on the belly of my MAC armour carrier sandwiched between a FUP pouch and a SR-25 pouch, as I'm still evaluating how best to set up my rig for the gear I carry. It is usually empty when I am out at Stargate Lasertag LRP and compresses down quite a lot, but I have taken to loading my pouches up with NERF clips and doing "magazine swapping" as my tagger reloads, which has been a fun addition of realism.

All that said, this is a sturdy and simple pouch, I'd stake my safety on its construction and would be interested to get my hands on the Mk2 Pouch to compare the improvements.