I felt more like Q from James Bond than ever this week, but I wanted to make sure my dad was properly equipped for his trip to Jamaica. He is gone with a church group to build a school building in a week with nine other guys, and before he left I tried to think of everything he could possibly need without adding too much weight. It's a nice island out on the tourist fronts, but a third world country up in the hills where we've done work, so I was trying to reflect on my time there, as well as consider what he was going there to do.

For starters I bought a roll of Gorilla Tape for him to put in his luggage. Then I knew he always took a fanny pack, and while waning in fashion popularity, it is probably the most utilitarian way to go, so whatever. He couldn't find his so I picked one up for $5 at the store. I knew the MacGyver-approved basics were the first to include, so I flattened out a 10 yd roll of black Duck tape for the pack. Then in a ziplock I included a pen, small notepad that I ripped all but 20 pages out of (for carpentry math purposes), 5 strike anywhere matches, 5 paper clips, ~50 ft of kite string, a flattened roll of toilet paper, 3 rubber bands, a 3AAA LED Dorcy waterproof flashlight,



and of course a SAK. The first time he went, I sent the Tinker I had taken on my trip. He left it on the island where it was most likely grabbed by a local who was helping and "borrowed" it (think Thief of Budapest). Then the next year I sent a Camper (since it has a saw) and told him to leave it with one of the American permanent missionaries down there if he was going to leave it with someone. He did, and this year he said he just wanted something sharp, that he wasn't big on it having a million blades, then he mentioned he'd just take his knife. I made him a custom SAK that he carries sometimes, but I cringed at the thought of him taking this and it possibly suffering the same fate, there's only one in existence and I made it from 3 separate SAKs:



So I told him I could put together whatever tools he wanted, and he sounded totally disinterested. I've never figured out if he's too simplistic to want to fumble through the knife to try to find a blade, or if he is just too humble to want me to put effort into it. It's strange that he reminds of of Mac in his extreme creativity with the mechanical universe, yet he seems indifferent to a tool that he asks me to use pretty often when I'm around with mine. Anyway, whatever the case, I asked him if he just wanted a leatherman since it would be pliers and possibly more useful. He said "oh sure, yeah that'd be great!" >_< I'm thinking wow, you have to open the pliers just to get to the implement you need, then close them again just to use it, then repeat to put the implement away, and he seems to think that's more appealing and simple than a SAK! I gave him the Leatherman:



before he went to sleep and set out to slip a SAK into his luggage as well. So, I took a Huntsman I had since that seems to be a pretty balanced SAK for travel and being out in the sticks, and I replaced the corkscrew with a phillips since I didn't think a bunch of church people would be likely to have wine around That made it a Fieldmaster, something I am considering carrying now if it makes it back (probably won't though) .



I added it to the other stuff, surprisingly it was as light as I had hoped. I didn't tell him about the waist pack with all the gear in it, I simply slipped it into his luggage the night before he got up at 3 AM to take off. I knew if that SAK was going to make it there it had to be in his check-in bag and not the carry on! So, I can't wait until he gets back to hear if all of the things I sent were dismissed as junk and left out of the pack, or if he ends up making a band-aid from toilet paper and duct tape, or saves someone's keys from a crevasse with the string and paper clip. My whole logic was that I'd rather him be prepared for the worst and not need the stuff than hear a story about some disaster that something simple could have helped to correct. Hopefully he will be the hit of the trip and see the merit of being prepared for the worst. I will report back when he returns!

Good choices for your dad hope he uses them all and thinks of his son while there.

Will be interesting to hear if had to use nay of that stuff.

Keep us posted.

Well, as promised, I am reporting back now that my dad has returned. The knife blade had lots of nicks in it, so I am supposing he got use of it, but even if he needed a tool on the knife, he'd use the knife blade first It always stupifies me that my friends will carry a single blade knife and try to use for a screwdriver and ruin their blade, then give me a hard time for not carrying a "real" knife.

Anyway, aside from that, the only notable use he made of anything was the duct tape. I sent Gorilla tape ($10 a roll- not cheap!) and it paid off. You'll have to read this twice to make sure you read what you thought you read. A poor woman in the community had a refrigerator that was rusting out at the bottom on the door, and the bottom hinge was no longer mounted to the door because so much of the metal around the screwholes was rusted out. The upper hinge still worked, and they had a hinge with them by chance, but couldn't screw into the metal because the metal was so thin it would not hold. Well, my dad got out the gorilla tape, that's right, duct tape, and taped the hinge to the fridge and then to the door, rather than screwing it on, and apparently, it worked terrifically! They are working on setting her up with a used fridge, but in the meantime, the duct tape is holding its own there

I told him as I gave it to him, "Dad, if there is anything I learned from 7 years of MacGyver, it's never go into a third world country with cheap duct tape." Turns out, Mac's strategy came through for my dad! Not quite the grand story I was hoping for of duct tape saving the day, but it exceeded my expectations in the bizarre department, performing for something I never would have guessed it would be up to the challenge. Well, that's +1 for duct tape!