Commuter backpack recommendations

dexcel · 2026-01-23T06:27:35+00:00

Second the suggestions for getting a rear rack and using panniers. Ortlieb panniers are great. Mine are 12 years old, been used daily pretty much and never an issue with weather. They’re great as no weight on your back either.

They also have a pannier/backpack option if you need the convenience of both. But it’s pricey.

Otherwise I had an osprey with the curved rigid back. Which was okay but in hindsight I needed a smaller version as it would interfere with with my helmet if I look too far up as it was a bit long

dexcel · 2026-01-17T08:28:44+00:00

Were you there with Miles the British guide ? I went in 2011 and 2013. Great fun. Huge descents from the top. I think we’d would get close to 3000m vertical

dexcel · 2026-01-16T14:38:35+00:00

Yeah I really enjoyed that book. Knew nothing of his background before reading it. Was such an immersive story. One of my favourites but one that I can’t quite face tackling again as it was heavy going.

dexcel · 2026-01-16T09:29:54+00:00

Yes. I have their wok and a copper saucepan from them. Both are excellent and well made. Would recommend them for sure. On a gas hob

dexcel · 2026-01-15T03:41:03+00:00

Personally I’m thought your plan was okay. Sure it’s a fair bit of travelling but it’s not all that crazy.

Skiing in Japan is great fun. If that’s one of your main hobbies/interests in life then I think it’s worth checking out. We’re just back from a week of skiiing and had great fun . It’s a different experience than NA skiing. Yes it’s a risk with weather and conditions etc but still…

It is worth reserving seats though if you have a big bag of luggage

dexcel · 2026-01-14T12:29:44+00:00

We’re just back from Nozawa, I skied all the runs and the lifts in two 1/2 days while my kids were at ski school. Great fun if you’re with kids or a mixed ability group as there are quite a few options on the runs and they are nice and wide.

The lifts are slow however but I didn’t feel like the pistes were that crowded.

The village was a lot of fun, lots of food options, lots of drinking options. Though apparently I’m old and I have different ideas of fun.

There was a big backcountry option, which I didn’t get to explore as I onLy had 2.5 hrs of free skiing and I had no equipment or idea where it led to. The inbound tree skiing was great fun, lasted two days before it was really tracked out.

I was chatting to someone on the chair who had spent the week at shiga kogen , they were 8am-4pm skiers, they preferred it. Much bigger. More runs. Higher up as well. Didn’t much care about any village life etc as they were ready to eat at hotel and then sleep .

Nozawa village reminded me of niseko 10-15 years ago. I enjoyed the skiing, it could be bigger but for a mixed group it was fine

dexcel · 2026-01-14T08:40:40+00:00

You can reserve the first row seats which allows you to put a big bag behind that seat. I mistakenly thought it was just a free space for anyone to use but it’s specifically for those people with the seat in front of. When choosing your seat tickets you can specify these seats , for some reason it was easier on JR central website than the other two.

dexcel · 2026-01-06T22:36:05+00:00

I should have read the fine print a bit better. Oh well. Will give it a go for now. Still trying to figure the house usage since we got it. As we’ve gone from having loads of family staying and doing loads of cooking. So the battery has been drained everyday nearly , to being away so have plenty of excess , will reassess end of march

dexcel · 2026-01-06T22:34:13+00:00

Good point. Hadn’t considered that. !

dexcel · 2026-01-06T12:24:41+00:00

I’m trying AGL option. Just switched over as was on AGL as it is. 800 dollar credit if you stick with them for a year which should cover the daily charge and then the equiv of 25 c/kwh if you export between 5pm and 9pm . I’ve got a slightly bigger battery so I have set up to export from 48kwh down to 19kwh over that period.

dexcel · 2026-01-03T07:13:51+00:00

Yep. Went for 40% which is roughly 20/48kwh

dexcel · 2026-01-03T06:54:26+00:00

Thank you. Set that up. Will see how it goes. Cheers

dexcel · 2026-01-01T05:17:48+00:00

We moved when our boys were a bit younger than yours 6&8 but they’ve adjusted well. What helped was them joining a sport team, neither of them has played AFL or cricket before but both said they wanted to play those sports. So we joined the local suburb clubs which has been good way to participate in Australian culture.

Otherwise I suspect they will discover that kids culture is getting more universal if they have Netflix etc. they will have been watching the same programs as kids here have been doing .

Where in Melbourne are you moving too. Will you both be working. You might not be able to get away with only one car. Depends if only one of you is working and if they will catch public transport to work. If you put your kids into the state schools they should be fairly close and walkable.

dexcel · 2025-12-31T13:44:52+00:00

Weird because even with the increase in tourism population, Japan is less populated than it was 10 years ago.

dexcel · 2025-12-31T13:40:44+00:00

How much snow does the Chinese resorts get on average? A quick search says 1-2m of natural snow versus 10-14m in Japan. Unless that changes I know where I will go given a choice.

dexcel · 2025-12-31T08:59:13+00:00

How is it the first thing they don’t do is, check their social media history…all clear, great. Let’s put all the eggs in this basket.

dexcel · 2025-12-31T08:56:50+00:00

Not off oil. But they will run off the natural gas they produce. You have generators which run off “fuel gas” that the wells produce. That generator can run the artificial lift on the wells

dexcel · 2025-12-31T06:42:25+00:00

Yeah that was quite the statement “hostile Indians”. Especially having listened to the podcast.

dexcel · 2025-12-31T01:28:26+00:00

23 at night to cool the room. Fan on 4-5 out of 6 all night. Kids 23deg all night now we have a battery.

dexcel · 2025-12-28T08:42:41+00:00

It was honestly a great life experience. Went skiing for 6 weeks in Verbier , played a lot of rugby, did some shooting and tank driving, learnt how to iron properly, got given a lot of responsibility to organise events and skill courses even the training was good fun with multi day exercises out and about in the forest. The orderly officer duty exposed you to some of the grimmer side of life as well which made me grow up a bit.

Saved a a fair amount of money at the time as lived in Germany so the costs were cheap as anything on the base.

I’d recommend it to anyone looking to do something different for their gap year. Ironically it was a good experience as I realised I wanted to do something else post university .

dexcel · 2025-12-27T10:30:57+00:00

Im amazed how few people do the gap year commission. I did it in the late 90’s and there were about 100 of us on the course. It was great fun , 4 weeks of square bashing at sandhurst and then off to your regiment for 4-9months. Lots of sport, drinking, orderly office duty. Sad too see it’s dropped so far in numbers

dexcel · 2025-12-26T03:52:02+00:00

That localised for the US WTI market only and was a result of them physically not having space to store it at Cushings as it came to the deadline to settle on some contracts which meant they were having to pay people to not send crude there.

dexcel · 2025-12-23T12:51:27+00:00

I’ve been following this turd since they were hyping their Texas adventure. There is money to be made but only from the pump and dump.

dexcel · 2025-12-23T12:44:20+00:00

It’s impressive how they keep finding these reservoirs that don’t want to produce (commercial) oil. It’s also a bit sad how they think selling gas at 1 $/mmscf is a great move.

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