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A settled nomad living on the edge of Appalachia. I love to listen to music, spend time with my family, and play sports. I'm lucky enough to write code for a living. I'm often accused of having no "filter" as I tend to overshare. I make beer on occasion and try to sample new beers whenever I can.

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Mega Power in a Pocket Sized Box

Mega Power in a Pocket Sized Box

The black box on the left is a standard 10000mAh Power Bank from Anker. It's handy. But it isn't what this post is about.

The box on the right.. that thing is also a 10,000mAh power brick. It's made by Road Proof. IT's the RPFBBJO1. I don't even know if it is still made. I bought it at AutoZone last summer for my motorcycle which was having some battery issues. AutoZone was selling it at really low, clearance prices.. I think I paid $30. I had not used it to jump start anything until this morning.

With the long quarantine I'd not used my car in a while nor even really gone in the garage. My trunk had popped open that turned on the interior lights. I think I "pocket dialed" my car using my remote door opener button at some point in the past 4 days. My car battery was dead. I mean DEAD.

I grabbed my motorcycle. It was a beautiful morning and I'd not had a chance to ride yet this spring because of all the rain. I went to start it. Nope. It was dead-ish. There was a little life but clearly my "battery tender trickle charger" had not done a good job over the winter - I had replaced the battery last fall and replaced the starter. I'm blaming the charger until I find the real problem. Anyway, I digress.

I hooked it up to the bike, put the bike in neutral, and boom - it started. No problem. I took the Road Proof with me and hit the road for a couple miles; then played disc golf for about an hour, and the bike wouldn't start. The Road Proof got it going again no problem. I decided to ride around for an hour or so before heading home and tested the bike re-start and it seemed to do fine.

I remembered that the Road Proof was supposedly able to jump a car. I had serious reservations but figured; what the heck; might as well try it. I popped the hood and hooked it up. My headlights immediately turned on and the interior lights did too.. but about 5 seconds later it stopped and the little box on the charger cables started doing a light dance. I went to look it up on line and while I was looking the lights turned on again.. 5 seconds of power then the car died again and the box lights danced some more.

I hopped in the car and waited for the next 5 second surge. About 30 seconds later it happened, I pushed in the start button and my car started! No problem. Just bam. I jumped out, took off the cables, and put the car in the driveway so it could run for a bit.

I checked the remaining power in the brick - it was still at a reportedly full charge! Oh, and it has a built in flashlight.

I found it for sale on [Camping World](https://www.campingworld.com/road-proof-lithium-ion-jump-starter-10000-mah-power-pack--116540.html?g...) where there are two very poor reviews. I can only imagine neither person knew what they were doing. The instructions are not great. I got lucky with my guess. But this little box worked amazingly well. 3 jumps in one day and it's still going strong. (if that link is dead; when you read this, let me know please!)

Plus you can plug your phone or whatever into it and get some extra charge that way too! The flashlight is pretty bright. I wish I had discovered it while I was under the hood. It never hurts to have an extra flash light.

I imagine most of these things work as well as this RoadProof one but I've never used anything else like it. I can't recommend this thing enough. It is the perfect little device to take on a road trip. It might jump your car and at a minimum it will charge your phone.

Here is a well rated one [on Amazon by "Yaber" it's got 2x the power at 20,000mAh](https://amzn.to/3cEgwQA). It's got a flashlight, waterproof, and can start cars/boats/motorcyles etc. And it's a couple bucks cheaper than the Camping World link

Chronicle of the US Covid Response according to President Trump

4 min read

  • January 22: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine."
  • February 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
  • Feburary 24 Dow Jones lost 1032 points
  • February 24: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… __Dow Jones starting to look very good to me!"
  • Feburary 25: Dow Jones lost 879 points
  • February 25: "CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus."
  • February 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine."
  • February 26: "The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero."
  • February 26: "We're going very substantially down, not up."
  • Feburary 27: Dow Jones lost 1191 points
  • February 27: "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."
  • February 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."
  • February 28: "Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that, right? Coronavirus, they're politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How's President Trump doing?' They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.' They have no clue. They don't have any clue. They can't even count their votes in Iowa." "They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They'd been doing it since you got in. It's all turning. They lost. It's all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax."
  • March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"
  • March 2: "A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly."
  • March 4: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better."
  • March 5: Dow Jones lost 970 points
  • March 5: "I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work."
  • March 5: "The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!"
  • March 6: "I think we're doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down."
  • March 6: "Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good."
  • March 6: "I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."
  • March 6: "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."
  • March 8: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus."
  • March 9: Dow Jones lost 2014 points
  • March 9: "This blindsided the world."
  • March 9: "The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant."
  • March 10: "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."
  • March 11: Dow Jones lost 1465 points
  • March 12: Dow Jones lost 2353 points
  • March 13: National Emergency Declaration
  • March 13: "I don't take responsibility at all"
  • March 15: "TODAY IS A NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER. GOD BLESS EVERYONE!"
  • March 16: Dow Jones lost 2997 points
  • March 16: "I give myself a 10 out of 10"
  • March 17: "I've always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."
  • March 31: Dow Jones lost 1100 points
  • March 31: "I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead ; It's going to be a tough two weeks."
  • April 1: Dow Jones lost 879 points