Background

I recently got a bug up my butt about having a first aid kit in my karate bag. And, if I ever get back to it, my fencing bag.

Fortunately, I haven't seen too many injuries, partly because at my first dojo, Hudson Centers for the Martial Arts, our top rule is "Safety First". We did have an incident where a student's foot got cut on some glass left over from a party the space was rented to. They didn't clean up, we did, but missed this little sliver. There she is, bleeding, and another student says, "I'll get my first aid kit." He was a Boy Scout, so, yeah, "Be Prepared," and we were proud of him.

And I was a little embarrassed. Where was my kit?

I researched what others recommended, especially for the martial arts, and realized that an off-the-shelf kit wasn't going to satisfy me. Below is what I ended up with. Many items are bought in bulk. I recommend that several people in a club contribute to the cost, share the bulk items, then create their own kits by filling in the rest.

Here's a link to a Word doc with labels you can print and cut out.

Objectives

There are two competing realities for a first aid kit:

1. It probably won't be needed more than once a year.
2. When it is needed, it must be ready-to-go for anyone.

To me, this means the kit's items should be:

• Easy to identify
• Easy to open
• Easy to use
• Easy to reseal (unless one-use)

If instructions for an item aren't clear, print better ones on small paper, tape the paper using packing tape (poor man's lamination), and affix to the item.

For identification, if using a bottle or bag, print labels or write in clear, capital letters using a Sharpie. If necessary, replace the label with white, "laminated" paper.

Imagine you have to tell someone, "go to my karate bag, in the front left pocket there's a plastic First Aid Kit." Or what about, "In my bag, there's a First Aid kit with glucose tablets."

Keep in mind that you'll want to check and refresh the kit once a year.

Items

I've linked to the items I purchased.

Check at home! Don't buy it if you already have it!

• 1" Athletic Tape (1)
• 1" Bandaids (10)
• 3x3 or 4x4 Gauze Pads (2)
• Liquid bandage) (1)
• Ace-type wrap (1)
• Q-Tips (10)
• Nitril medium gloves (3 pair)
• Alcohol wipes (5)
• Aspirin low dose (36)
• Tylenol (12)
• Benadryl (12)
• Electrolyte powder (1 packet)
• Sugar or glucose (for diabetic) (1 roll)
• Small scissors (1)
• Tweezers (1)
• Small ziplock bags, buy at grocery store, something like this
• 3 dram pill bottles (2-3)
• Israeli Battle Dressing (optional)

Container

• Hard plastic, approx 8x6x3.
• Withstands abuse
• Stays closed
• Easy to label

A plastic pencil box like this one at Michael's is perfect.

Medicine

I found 3-dram plastic bottles to be the perfect size.

Label with:

• Brand Name
• Use, such as ("pain", "diabetic", "dehydration")
• Dosage
• Expiration Date

Other Items to Repackage

Ideally, use small, ziplock plastic bags.

• Nitrile gloves
• Q-Tips
• 1 inch heavy bandages

My Kit!

Various pictures showing the kit at various stages. The medicine list changed slightly based on some feedback. I substituted aspirin for ibuprofen.

Optional

The Israeli bandage is a high-compression device used to help control severe bleeding. It is not an anti-coagulant. I taped the sides to make it fit better, without affecting opening it.

Update 2018-09-22 I've separated the instructions for opening Word from Drive, and opening Drive documents from Word.

Solution

Open Word from Drive

1. Install Google Backup and Sync (previously Google Drive) on your PC.
2. Install the Chrome extension Application Launcher for Drive (by Google)

That's it! You should now be able to right-click a Word document in the Drive web app and choose Open With Word.

Open Drive Document from Word

1. Download and install the plugin Google Drive for Office Plugin
2. Close all Office docs, then open Word and follow the prompts to connect to Drive.

Drive will now be an an Open/Save option in Word.

Bonus Option - Office Editing Extension

While I don't recommend it, you can also edit your Microsoft Office documents from drive using a Google extension: Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides

I don't like this because it's not native Office editing, so there will likely be compatibility problems. I think what this extension does is temporarily convert the Office document to a Google Doc for edtiing, then convert back to the Office format.

Background

Google really wants you to use their Docs suite, so much so that their default option for editing a Word document is "Google Docs."

But this doesn't open your Word document for editing. It converts the document to a Google Text document. So now, you have two:

This quickly leads to "copy madness," where you end up with two, three or a dozen copies as you try to save your changes to Word. You might think you could send someone the file on in your file system:

Do Not Do This! If you open that .gdoc file in a text editor, you'll see it's just a link to the online file. You can only edit a Google Doc in the browser.

{"url": "https://docs.google.com/open?id=1WsdFxt7qcUiy0ikB-gNV2U4ZoOQ8_OsDEAtIOBesVpg", "doc_id": "1WsdFxt7qcUiy0ikB-gNV2U4ZoOQ8_OsDEAtIOBesVpg", "email": "my@email.net"}

References

How to edit Microsoft Office documents stored on Google Drive - TechRepublic

^{X-Men, Halle Berry as "Storm"}

EDIT: I gave AccuWeather a fair chance, but I have to downgrade the widget because it doesn't automatically refresh. I'm baffled by that. Who wouldn't want the weather info on a home screen to be reasonably current? Who would instead want to be forced to manually refresh it by tapping a very small area of the widget?

There are, by my count, 1.3 bazillion weather apps for Android. I've been using 1Weather because it seems to work well and I really like the widget. However, my wife uses Weather Underground (which, ironically, I recommended) and we sometimes get different temperature reports. So, I decided to look at the top apps again.

Searching Google for "most accurate android weather apps" yielded no site that spoke to accuracy. I guess that's to be expected. Who watches the watchmen?

What matters to me is:

1. A good widget, showing lots of info in a 4x1 grid.
2. A good app, easy to comprehend.
3. Limited advertising (and I might buy it).

Below is a matrix of what I found. It's opinionated, and brief, but might help someone other than me. I've switched to AccuWeather because of a couple of sweet features. But...1Weather still has the best widget.