It’s the weekend and a great time to head out to do some shopping for those essentials you might not have thought about having with you.  We’re going to look at some of those essentials right now, and why should should have them.

Thumb Drives/Flash Drives – they’re cheap, they’re portable, and they’re a great way to transfer files from one computer to another.  Purchase a couple of 8 GB thumb drives for about $20, or even less and have them with you at all times.  We have them in the announcing bag and it’s come in handy a couple of times but really made the difference when needed.

External Hard Drive – they’re coming down in price and a 1TB drive is enough to hold all the music you need.  We’re still running a 500GB external hard drive solely to keep our music backed up and we’re not even close to using 25% of the drive.  When you want to back everything up, the external hard drive really comes in handy.

Sunscreen – yes announcers can get burned.  You know when you’re sitting there shading your eyes as the sun goes down?  Well, it’s the strongest time of the year and yes you can get a really nasty sunburn on the parts of your face not blocked by sunglasses or a hat.

Cheap Umbrella – because you just don’t know when it’s going to rain.

Utility Tool – because you never know when you need to fix a screw, hammer in a nail or cut something.

Tape Measure – yes, you’d be surprised how many times it’s gotten used.

Band Aids – cut yourself, whoops.

Wipes – you’re not a 2-year old, you don’t have a 2-year old and 2-year olds aren’t allowed in the pressbox.  But they come in handy when you get your hands dirty and the game is about to start.

Pencils – yes you need something to write with so pencils are a great idea since you can erase them as well.

Notepads – in case you have to write something down.