Neal,

Well, at least the part about being concerned whether you will really carry a kit makes perfect sense.

If it makes a difference, I think a lot of people have found that the Altoids-size tin is sort of a magic size- the largest container that can reasonably be treated as normal pocket contents, unless you normally wear jeans and t-shirts or something. I commute with the shoulder pouch, which gets hung up next to my desk, and just slip the tin in a pocket if I’m leaving the office without the pouch.

That aside, I carry a fair amount of stuff without the kit. I normally carry one of a few single-blade locking pocketknives, depending what I’m doing. I also carry a Leatherman Micra, a Windmill lighter, cell phone and palm. My keycase carries a P38 can opener and a BSA “Hot Spark” ferrocerium rod fire starter. My wallet carries a special little silver pen in the fold (where it takes up no additional space), a carefully folded oven bag, a fairly silly Brunton card kit that has a Fresnel lens and tiny, flat magnetized disk that can sort-of be used as a compass in good conditions.

The folding knife usually rides with the Palm, so the only “extra” items I had to get used to carrying were the Leatherman Micra and the lighter (I don't smoke). The Micra currently rides in my hip pocket in a neat little vinyl pouch that some folding spectacles came in- the pouch as a container was too bulky for the kit, but saves pocket wear in it’s current duty. Per my earlier posts, I’m currently trying to replace the Windmill lighter with one that incorporates a “real” compass.

So, I do have some stuff with me at all times without carrying the kit… but there are folks on-line here who have gone much, much farther in that direction than I have. I could do a little more, but I really don’t want a 5 pound keychain, either…
:-)

My “urban” PSK does contain some things most people’s don’t- I actually have a Gerber LST (just short enough to fit) folding knife in there, for one thing, as opposed to just razor or X-acto blades. I also put a lot of emphasis on the radio, maps, money and information. For the “wilderness” kits, though, the basics have been pretty much the same since we started making tools. The “ice man” had a kit not too terribly different in contents from the ones we discuss here.