From repacking my portable lab for the hundredth time to preparing for an interview with the mayor of Prineville, this week has been a blur of engineering, improvisation, and self-discovery. Somewhere between foam inserts, strap management, and absurd new inventions, I realized that being the Nomadic Mechanizer isn’t just about what I carry — it’s about how I wear the life I’m building.
Packing Pressure
I’ve been saying I’m leaving for five days now. Every night I tell myself, “Tomorrow’s the day,” and every morning I realize I’m still not ready. My backpack sits there half-open like it’s judging me. Every time I think I’ve packed everything, something else appears out of nowhere — another cord, another adapter I might need for the lab.
I wasn’t even sure I could lift the thing once it was packed. I kept imagining trying to hoist it onto my shoulders in front of the bus stop and collapsing like a turtle. But the truth is, it’s not just the gear I’m organizing — it’s all the nervous energy that comes before a new adventure.
The Portable Lab
Packing gets harder when your backpack doubles as a laboratory. Every cable and sensor has to earn its place. I’m trying to fit an entire manufacturing plant into something I can carry — a mobile ecosystem of circuits, solar inputs, and survival gear. Every time I repack, it’s not procrastination; it’s calibration. I’m tuning weight, balance, and purpose. Learning how to carry the future without letting it crush me.
Training Camp
At my friend ladells place, the floor disappears under gear: cords, tools, winter clothes, and thrift-store bags I’ve scavenged for parts. It’s one of my unofficial training camps, where I test setups, improve systems, and rebuild myself as the Nomadic Mechanizer. This time, there’s a new backpack — one that feels more serious, more capable, like it’s daring me to live up to it.
The New Pack
This pack is a machine. Separate sleeping-bag compartment, top-loading drawstring, a front zipper that opens like a garage door, and a detachable day bag. It’s my second Gregory, and the design shows me what i’ve been missing. It took hours of customization — adjusting the straps, learning that 60 % of the weight belongs above the hips, not below. Once it was dialed in, it felt like an exoskeleton built just for me.
The more I tweak it, the more it teaches me back: how to balance, how to move, how to adapt. It’s rated for 105 L but could push 140 L if pushed. A living system of clips, carabiner s, daisy chains, and elastic loops — each one another small conversation between design and discovery.
Carrying the Future
Today I started building protective cases from foam — giving each circuit a soft armor. I merged my hygiene and first-aid kits, trimmed redundancies, and still somehow hit 150 lb before realizing it was too much. So tonight, I’m repacking again. Every cubic inch counts.
Tomorrow I’ll head back to my storage locker for the last few essentials before catching the bus to Prineville for the mayor interview. This isn’t just travel anymore — it’s iteration. Refinement in motion.
Coda: The Nomadic Mechanizer
Now that survival feels solid, the engineering side is coming alive again. My five-monitor rig is ready to unfold, the portable lab is coming in focus more everyday, and the inventions are flowing — like my latest thought, a solar-triggered autonomous oatmeal-feeding machine. It’s half joke, half genuine concept, but that’s how creativity works: humor sparks innovation.
I used to joke that I’d do my grad project in the middle of the woods. Turns out, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Epilogue: The Worlds Lightest Suit
The first time I backpacked, I carried a full formal suit — shoes, belt, dress shirt, everything — and never wore it once. I’ve thought about it lately, though, designing a reversible Ultralight Suit: a jacket that turns inside out to become formal wear, rain pants that pass as dress slacks, a bandana tie, a hanger-frame crease. Ridiculous, maybe — but perfectly me.
Because in the end, the Nomadic Mechanizer isn’t just building machines. He’s turning the act of living into performance art — making the wilderness look a little more civilized, and making civilization look a little more wild.
