Our esteemed leader Doug Ritter wound up in Houston this week. Since Houston is a city better lived in than visited he was so desperate for entertainment that he contacted me. Kind of odd considering he makes a living by making things safer for people.

I sent word out to my fellow Houston-area ETSers (if you didn't get a pm it was because I didn't know/forgot you were here) about a meet-and-greet for Doug this evening. Only ClarkTX, me and my DW could make it. Food was eaten, discussions were had...and upcoming DK products were displayed!

Oh my, get your wallets ready folks, there is some AWESOME stuff in the pipes. Sadly we had to swear death-oaths before he'd show them to us so I can't say any more than "I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!". Even DW, who is about as far away from being a gear freak as possible demanded several of the things as her Christmas presents this year.

This lead to talking about how Doug is able to do all this. In a nutshell, we all need to be donating more money to the ETS Foundation. Like everywhere else, the 80/20 rule applies. 20% of the people involved in this forum (actually less) keep it going. Doug is on the road over 40 weeks a year attending safety committee meetings, giving talks, and testing gear. Without Martin's and Chris's help the ETS forum would have folded a long time ago. Maybe think about that before hitting the Submit button next time you want to flame/vent. Each time you do that it weakens this board.

But I digress. After that show and tell we all brought out our EDC gear. Here we are sitting in Pappas BBQ in downtown Houston passing around handfuls of knives, flashlights, and assorted other fearsome gadgets and none of the other customers even batted an eye. One was even kind enough to take our picture. Doug, being the supper-awesome-wonderful guy that he is made sure we all left with more EDC gear than we entered, plus I got an ETS hat. SWEET!

-Blast

Cool beans, Blast!

Look at that Ritter PSK laying there. Did you get it signed? LOL

Looks like a fun time was had by all

Well, shoot, it almost makes up for that dadgum hurricane.

The coveted ETS Hat, damn you! Aren't those the equivalent of a knighthood in the preparedness world? Sir Blast? Good stuff, thanks for sharing.

Dag gum it! I did't get an email! It's only 800 miles away - my Ford Explorer could make that in a flash, using only the tiniest of volumes of gasonline. Geez Blast, thanks a lot (you have to read this sentence with the same insulted attitude a 14 year old might use).

Do you think ClarkTX didn't get a hat since he already has one on?

Blast,

Thanks very much for orgaizing the mini equipped.gig. I had a great time and enjoyed meeting all of you.

"Sir Blast" ??? Don't give him any ideas....LOL

I envy you Blast....to have the chance to sit with DR and 'chat'. Not only 'cool' but to 'pick his brain' for ideas and stories.....oh how lucky......

That was my choice prize out of his knives and survival kits. The hat is even better in person. The underside of the brim is dark-colored to reduce glare. Attention to details like that are want make Doug's gear so much better than anything else out there.

-Sir Blast

Ya'll know you can buy ETS caps... HERE... and help support ETS while your at it

Sadly, we never made it to the stories.

Doug had many questions to answer, it was kind of one of those rare times you get to talk to the man behind the curtain (oz ref). I was very interested to know that he spends a fair amount of time attending SAE airline safety committees, because "thats how he can help the most people at one time." A cogent thought. He'll be at the SARscene in Canada doing some cool stuff there, but thats his story to tell.

Just learning what he did and why was a full dinner topic which was worth hearing.

I did get to ask him "ok, so what does DOUG RITTER carry in his kit" which I just couldn't help asking like some kinda tourist. To give you a hint, he arrived with a backpack, a fanny pack, and pockets full!

Ok, actually, his kit just fit in his pockets, just kidding on that one.

I think he said that most of the foundation's income comes from products, which I'll be buying a couple of since I actually got to hold almost all of them in my hands.

Anyway, please support the forum you love, if you can. He did not bring this up... I did... I asked him a lot of questions about the foundation and after hearing the answers I think both Blast and I felt a bit sheepish, but I think thats because Doug is a very unassuming, no pressure guy as you can see by the incredible lack of pressure he puts on fundraising for the foundation. Hats off to him for that. I don't care to see a lot of ads, but the help Doug provides to the public at large is quite valuable.

He drops the unassuming act if you are Boeing and you are sitting in a 3 day airplane safety meeting. Then he is a real bear to deal with.

Yea I did kind of mean 'stories' when I said 'stories'....but listening to him answer questions was meant as part of that.....

Bah. *runs my hand over my shiny and high forhead* These are just continuously deployed active visual signals- the signal mirror you can never lose.

Don't forget that an extremely painless way to support ETS Foundation is to use Goodsearch instead of Google for your default search engine (see sticky near the top of the forum list for link/instructions).

Goodsearch might not be a huge source of income for ETS, but if you can't afford direct donations or a new knife, or PSK #3, or a leather jacket, or... you can still help.

It works just fine for 99% of my everyday searches - the only time I use Google anymore is Google Scholar at work looking for specialized journal articles.

ETS only made a little over $50.00 last year and $32 and some change so far this year from Goodsearch - I'll throw down the gauntlet and challenge everyone to help break $75.00 by the end of the year (and double that for 2009). Any takers?

"powered by yahoo" thats a dealbreaker there. For example I'm on a work computer at the moment so I'm stuck on windows and don't have any popup stopper or anti spyware so anything yahoo based is out, a few years back they decided to take the AOL route and start forcing crap down on people use used their site and I've had to clean up enough damage from them espically on family members systems. Sorry Doug buy playing with Yahoo is something your not going to get an IT person to do.