Best New Stuff in 2023

I tend to justify a bunch of random splurges around Christmas-time, so some of this bleeds into the first two weeks of 2024. My blog, my rules! I really like Matt Mullenweg's annual What's in My Bag posts, so this is my version of that. I only traveled for 4 weeks this year, so my version is more about new stuff I bought that didn't suck (roughly in chronological order).

My wife tells me I buy a lot of stuff, but I'm constantly trying new stuff to make little optimizations. If something turns out to be not-that-good, I don't mind throwing it away or donating.

Bowflex SelectTech 840 Kettlebell (x2)

(+my Kettle Bell Roulette spreadsheet that makes me my weekly workouts)

I wrote about this a little bit already. This was my main way to do resistance training in 2023. I started the year doing two sets of 6 different exercise, three times a week.

I haven't fully figured out what I'm going to do for 2024 yet, but these will likely be a part of my routine (leaning towards 3 sets of 6 exercises, 2x/week).

ROK Naked Portafilter

2022 was my "year of cold brew," but in 2023 I started making my peace with hot coffee and watched a bunch of James Hoffmann YouTube videos. Switching from an old, never really cleaned, enclosed filter to this guy was a big upgrade!

My electric coffee grinder doesn't get fine enough for espresso (cheap OXO model), but I brought back a ceramic Hario hand grinder from Japan. That grinder doesn't make the list because hand-grinding is a pain in the ass, but it has been nice upgrade from "pre-ground espresso in a shitty old filter" at the beginning of 2023 to "fresh-ground coffee from Hawaii in a clean filter" this morning in 2024.

Slack Block

I tried a bunch of new health stuff in 2023 (new Fitbit, lots of massage rollers, tons of new supplements/probiotic-type things) and most of them were duds.

I ordered this from Rogue Fitness, but they might just be a distributor. I love my Indo Board that I bought in grad school almost 20 years ago, but it takes up a ton of floor space. This thing is (1) tiny and (2) awesome. It makes me want to use my standing desk more and works well with the kettle bells.

Unfortunately it's put away right now while the new puppy is in "eat-anything-I-can-reach" mode.

Angry Goat - Dreams of Calypso

I started a Heatonist subscription during the pandemic and have kept it going for a few years. This one does a lot of great stuff that's perfect for me: very hot, Carribean flavors, Greek mythology theme, trashy mermaid on the bottle. I've given this as a gift to several people already and will keep it stocked in my kitchen.

Pau Hauna Big EZ Angler

In 2022, we did around 30 miles of the Chattahoochee (different sections, not all at once). This year was a lot more random!

My blow-up paddleboard sprang a leak right around the time I paid off Intro Maker, so I decided to treat myself to a "real board". I don't have these posts to look back on from previous years, but the Yakima SUP Dawg would've also made this list. The solid board + always-installed rack made going for quick paddles a lot easier this year.

It's a little less durable than I would like ("Ricochet technology" my ass) and I managed to put a few holes in it already, but patching a solid board has proven to be a lot easier than a blow-up board. I also took it blind down a new stretch of river that ended up being a little more whitewater than we expected.

• Me: Want to go paddle at <calm lake nearby>?
• Friend: There's a put-in a couple of miles from my new house. Want to try it?
• Me: Ok!

Many hours, a couple of portages, one crack in the board, and a snapped fin later:

• Me: Hmm maybe just the lake next time.

(It was fun, but I'll bring a kayak next time.)

Olukai Mio Li

My go-to shoes the last few years have already been OluKai – I bought a pair of their (expensive) leather flip-flops down at Appalachicola Outfitters a few years back and buy a new pair every one-to-two years now. They're comfy and hold up pretty well! I was also wearing their mesh slip-ons, but wanted something a little more tennis-shoe-y for going on all-day sightseeing trips in Japan and Taiwan.

I like their shoes because they're designed to have the heel stomped flat, so you can use them like slippers if you just need to take out the trash.

The tennis-shoe version is a lot better than my old mesh pair – you never really need to tie the laces as your foot just slips in/out and they look a lot nicer.

The 8-year-old has been smashing whatever tennis shoes we buy him and wearing them just like mine, so we broke down in Maui and bought him a matching pair in his size.

Hario V60 (Olive Wood Pour Over Set)

Espresso was my gateway drug for coffee, but I never had much of a taste for "normal" brewed coffee. I switched to mostly cold brew a few years back because (a) it tastes good, (b) it won't burn the shit out of you if you need a caffeine fix, and (c) it's easy to make a large batch the day before. One upshot of the big health kick I've been on (aka exercise + going to sleep at a reasonable time) is that I'm not a caffeine zombie in the mornings.

Japan and Taiwan had basically no good options for cold brew (lots of vending machine coffee, but it all tasted pretty bad). Taiwan had a bit of "cold drip" which looked cooler than it tasted, but most everywhere we went just had "normal coffee." We swung by a Hario store in Japan and their V60 kit was a bit too big to pack back (I did get the bar towel there, though!), so I just waited til we got back to order one.

Travel Kit

My job is fully remote, so I'm doing a lot more work travel for meetups and planning. My main back pack is a huge North Face hiking bag with a laptop sleeve, but it's basically the size of a carry-on. I typically also use it as my hiking bag, so I've noticed a pattern the last few years: I would either bring a shittier day-bag so I didn't have to unload all the tech gadgets or just vomit cords/cables wherever we were staying to free up the hiking bag.

I bought this BagCom laptop sleeve in Taiwan and have been adding accessories: a flatter Anker Macbook charger (that is also a USB charging hub), a bunch of short cables, some cute notebooks. It's a little tight to fit all that with a Macbook and an iPad, but I can just squeeze everything in. Instead of dumping cables everywhere, I can just pull this thing out to take to meetings and use the backpack for walking around.

Having dedicated "travel cables" means I don't lose my "at home" cables every time we go somewhere.

Carbon Steel Pans

Our frying pans were wearing out, so we decided to ditch all of our old nonstick stuff and find healthier options. We ended up buying 6 pans—2 ceramic-coated pans, 3 carbon steel pans, and a carbon steel wok. The carbon steel pans ended up being the best! I fry eggs on them all the time, and they're significantly easier than our old pans (scrape the shit out of them to clean, super non-stick as long as you've got a little oil in there and get it plenty hot). I think we got the one in the picture at Cost Plus World Market.

Princess Ruby Foofmaloof

Pixel

Ruby

We said goodbye to Pixel in June (a month shy of 15 years old). The 11-year-old (top right, on seizure watch) took it the hardest. We've dragged him all over the place (including a cross-country trip when I moved back to Georgia in 2013). He was a terrible labrador (in that he hated the water), but as we got into stand-up paddling the last few years he had finally chilled out enough to enjoy going along for the ride.

"Let's wait awhile" lasted for all of three months. Ruby is a tornado of destruction. The DNA tests say she's ~39% pit bull, 25% rat terrier, 21% chihuahua, and 15% treeing walker coonhound. I won our house "guess the breed" pool with my guess of rat terrier + beagle, but no one got it right more than 25%!

Professional Wasabi Grater

I don't know how professional this actually is (the raised metal bits just spell out "wasabi" over and over again in Hiragana), but it's big and it was pricey! I took Diana to an extremely expensive sushi place (just got a Michelin star!) for our anniversary and our chef had a probably-much-more-authentic version of this grater.

He didn't just use it to grate wasabi, though – turns out you can grate all kinds of stuff!

I bought a small ceramic garlic grater at a craft fair a few weeks later, and it was too small. A whole jalapeno would overflow the little one like crazy, and the fact that it was dish-shaped meant it wobbled all over the place.

I splurged for the nicest and biggest one I could find on Amazon, and it's been awesome! I've been grating a garlic clove and a jalapeno, then mixing with olive oil and rice vinegar to make a spicy salad dressing.

Single-Serve Pourover Coffee

I got some "Taiwan Coffee" in Taiwan over the summer that had this same form factor, but I only brought back a couple of boxes. These are awesome because the smush super flat in a suitcase and don't take up much space. When I go camping with the Scouts, they usually bring dehydrated Starbucks crystals. These are a few steps above those and also super convenient for camping (I later found some slightly more expensive ones at REI).

The filter fits over any coffee mug (but taller cups work a lot faster) and just needs hot water.

I also found some empty filters with this form factor, so after I work through these ippuku branded ones I'll switch to just packing a ziploc bag full of filters, an air-tight tin of fresh ground coffee, and a serving spoon.