random neuron misfires

Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 4:55 pm | 2,346 views | trackback url

I commute a fair distance to work during the week (275 miles round-trip). I love my commute and I love my job, but commuting that far means I need to carry some significant gear with me to work on the trains and in the train stations when my rides are delayed for any reason.

In that quest, I’ve been trying to eliminate the amount of things I carry, pare down my gadgets to using only one wire to the wall and so on.

I started looking at the things I carry on my person recently; keys, wallet, change, phone and other miscellaneous items, and stumbled upon “Just One Club Card“.

Just One Club Card is a site that has one purpose; to generate a multi-barcode, 2-sided card that you can use to consolidate up to 8 other cards onto one card you can carry with you in your wallet, instead of 8 cards.

(I’m very-much paranoid about security as well, but in this case, I think the FAQ on the site dispels some of the fear, and frankly I don’t care if someone is tracking how many ties or shirts I buy from Men’s Wearhouse or paper from Staples every month.)

I just used their tool to generate a single, double-sided card that eliminated 7 of my “club” cards from my wallet, reducing my bulky, back-pocket wallet by roughly 3/8 of an inch. I also removed my library card and a recently expired health insurance card, which decreased the bulk and weight even further.

Here’s an example of the output it created (slightly modified by me, for rounded corners and other smallish tweaks and obviously obscured barcodes).

I printed this on HP Glossy Photo Paper @1200dpi, cut it out and sandwiched it between two high-quality sheets of laminate paper to make it bonded and thick/durable enough to last the war in my wallet.

There is even a nice little template for a sleeve to hold the card that has a cutout window, so only the relevant barcode can be shown, so you don’t confuse the barcode scanners when you use your card.

Now the next question is… will you confuse the clerk who asks for your club card? That’ll be the real test.

Here’s the results of the final product:

The other benefit of this of course, is that you will no longer have back pain from carrying a fat wallet in your pocket. You won’t need to go to a chiropractor because you sit lopsided on a thick wallet all day long, while you drive, in the office and so on.

I’ve already noticed a difference myself.

Last Modified: Sunday, March 13th, 2022 @ 21:46

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