Welcome to the Urban EDC Showcase! Each week, we feature one member from our community and the gear they rely on everyday. Want to be featured? Submit your gear photo.
For this week's feature, we chat with the irrepressible Nick Shabazz (@nickshabazz) from Southeastern Michigan. Nick is a research scientist specializing in the processing of sound and speech, and he does amazingly informative gear reviews on his YouTube channel. Read on to find out all about Nick's choice of daily carry, along with his rationale behind each item!
Featured Tools:
- Knife 01: Shirogorov NeOn Lite
I carry a different knife every day, usually, either from my permanent collection or a loaner I'm carrying for review. Today I had the NeOn, which is a great mix of small, lightweight, durable, slice-tacular, and mechanically excellent. But any other day, you might find a Grimsmo Norseman, a Chris Reeve Knives TiLock, a Spyderco Slysz Bowie, or a Smock SK23 Custom.
- Light: Jetbeam RRT01 Vinh-Mod
This is the best EDC light I've found. Lightweight, bright, and rotary-controlled, so you get exactly the amount of light you want and no more. Add in a nice, HI-CRI tint, and I'm a happy man.
- Watch: Casio Oceanus
This is my favorite watch ever. It may not be the most flashy, or the most fancy, but hot damn is it compelling. In fact, it's so good it's boring. It charges from the sun, sets itself from the atomic clock, and I barely need to touch the thing. So it just lives on my wrist, pretty much 24/7, and tells me the time quickly, accurately, and at a glance. I've tried spinning-gears mechanicals, and they're just not worth the cost, price, and inaccuracy to me. Your mileage may vary!
- Phone: iPhone 6S Plus
I had the very first iPhone. I went Android for a year (around the Galaxy Nexus), then I went back because I wanted my phone to just work, and Android wasn't quite there. The iPhone isn't the best phone imaginable, but it's pretty decent, and gets out of my way. This is what films all my videos, too!
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Pen: Kaweco Lilliput
Fountain pens aren't ideal for EDC in some ways, but this little guy bucks the trend. It's durable, collapsing into a little silver capsule. It's handy, it writes joyfully, and overall, it's a gem. And there's a certain joy in producing a tiny fountain pen in public. - Wallet: Bosca Cardholder
My wallet has shrunk over the years. Every time I've changed wallets, I've removed cards. Now I've just got a license, insurance card, work ID, ATM card, credit card, a check and a $20. Delightfully compact, and everything I need.
- Keyholder: KeySmart
This is a beautiful thing. My keys are exactly where I want them, always, and I can identify the right key by touch alone. They're silent, they're compact, and nice and dense. And it lets me carry my seven keys, even the oversized ones, without even thinking twice. If only my car key were small enough to live in there, too.
Background:
I was always a gear nut, for lack of a better term, and I've always had a mind towards function and preparation in what I carry. But I only realized that "EDC" was a thing that people thought and talked about around 2008, when I found /r/knifeclub and /r/edc on Reddit. That inspired me to up my game a bit more, drove me to appreciate the subtle mechanical and functional joys in the EDC and pocketknife world, and to get deeper into the philosophy of it all.
My biggest hobby is gear review, over on my YouTube channel (Plug!). But aside from that, I'm a computer geek, and love playing with new software and optimizing my computing world, as well as walking in nature and waving to squirrels and birds.
Favorite EDC Tool:
It's hard to answer that as for me, gear comes and gear goes. My phone is the most essential part of my EDC, as I can't do large parts of my day without it, but the NeOn or Norseman are much better made tools, and the Oceanus is better at "Just working" than anything else in my life. My favorite gear, then, is probably my wallet, because I don't ever have to think about it, it does the job perfectly, and I don't even consider switching it up. "Boring", in EDC, is usually code for "excellent".