My 5-year-old is turning six. He has informed me that six-year-olds are allowed to own pocketknives. Since this is a kid who a) has learned to split wood with a small hatchet at our friend’s wood shed and b) likes to stash stuff — from cool stones to lizard tails — in his pockets, I’m wondering if this might not be a worthy gift. No worrying about nature deficit with this boy!

Also, no worrying about finding a suitable model, what with about 1,800 versions of pocketknives available on PriceGrabber.com.

But I’m looking for something that falls somewhere in between this Swiss Army Swiss Champ, which offers about 400 tools, and the Valor Pocket Knife, which resembles the choice of a backwoods psychopath.

Now, here’s a model that has appeal: The Victornix Swiss Army Knife 53857 Midnight Manager in sapphire. The blue is a definite plus. Also, the knife is only two and a quarter inches long. It includes a small blade, some scissors, a pen, a nail file with a screwdriver tip, a magnetic Phillips screwdriver tip and wire stripper, plus an LED minilight.

I like having a few options, but not too many, because the recipient will be able to find what he needs without taking an hour. Plus, because it really only offers one blade among eight functions to dink around with, the likelihood of his losing a fingertip falls drastically.

Reviewer omahawk likes this knife too, because he (I’m almost certain omahawk is a “he”) says it’s small enough to get through most airport security and the knife and scissors will stay sharp for years. But he does point out that there’s a tradeoff: having that light means no place for tweezers. Considering my guy would probably end up losing the tweezers on his first official outing with it, that’s a loss I can live with.

Folk music and the listening world has lost a biggie with the departure of Utah Phillips, who died last Friday in his sleep at the age of 73 in his home town (and mine) Nevada City, CA.

According to an obituary put out by his family, his songs have been performed by Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, John McCutcheon, Tom Waits and Joe Ely. In the late 1990s Phillips collaborated with Ani DiFranco on The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere and Fellow Worker, which was nominated for a Grammy award.

I used to enjoy tuning into his radio show on Sunday afternoons, titled “Loafer’s Glory,” which shared the stories and music of hobos, labor songs, tramping and railroad lore, topics that will never go out of style in this country. As his host radio station KVMR put it, “Utah has caught ‘the west bound.’”

When he wasn’t singing or writing or broadcasting, Utah enjoyed watching local little league and could be found wandering and chatting with folks at local parades and demonstrations (hands in pockets) or hitting locals up to support the homeless shelter, which he helped found.

Utah was definitely worth digging. Just tune into his music and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s time for a new watch — and I don’t mean a Timex from the grocery store. I think when a person is my age — not young but not so old I don’t still have a lot of seconds left — it’s time to invest James Bond-style — quality for the long haul. And, because I live on the West coast but have multiple clients on the East coast, I need a watch that’ll show me what time it is here and what time it is there. Plus, I’m not a fan of digital watch faces. Give me little hands that move around on a dial.

The question is, am I ready to give up the magic of a watch battery?

That’s what I ask myself, as I ponder investment in a Stuhrling men’s Manchester Dual Time automatic watch.

Listen to this loving description:

“Bold and stately, the Stuhrling men’s Manchester Dual Time automatic watch will keep you prompt for tee times and Sunday brunches–no matter how much fun you’ve had the night before. This timepiece is constructed with a 42-millimeter stainless steel case, a square stainless steel bezel, and a 23-millimeter perforated brown leather band with buckle clasp for breathability and casual style. A strong synthetic sapphire window protects the copper dial face, which features detailed vertical texturing and a playfully inverted design for a unique look. Arabic numerals in five-minute increments line the face, while two sub-dials located at the traditional three and nine o’clock positions convey the hour in both Roman numeral and Arabic numeral form. In addition, this handsome watch includes automatic-self-wind movement, and is water resistant to 165 feet.”

Look at that face! The minutes tick by with the big hand (just like you learned in school). And each of those little faces shows the hour in two different parts of the world.

Plus, on the backside you can watch the inner workings of all those Swiss gears.

But this is an old-fashioned watch that requires winding. Although I can get into the routine of that — just do it after I brush my teeth at night or set the clock-radio — I have to wonder how well it would hold up under the curious attentions of my son. He doesn’t know his own strength, and I can see him winding this one with all the vigor that he turns off hose bibs — you crank and crank until you couldn’t possibly make it any tighter. I guess James Bond didn’t have a 5-year-old in his life.
 

When you plug a search term into a search engine, you never really know what’s going to pop up in place of what you were really looking for. In my case, I was searching for a new pen I’d just read about that records audio while you’re taking notes, but instead PriceGrabber shared with me links to a pen that can tell you when currency is counterfeit.

Say what? That’s right. The Drimark 351BCL is a counterfeit bill detector pen.

You simply make a small mark on the currency (US bills for the links above). If the mark is amber (yellow to us mortals), it passes. If the mark turns dark brown or black, that means the bill could be fake.

It’s not 100% foolproof. According to the company, if your counterfeiter goes “green” — meaning he or she is using recycled paper such as newsprint or cardboard — the dark markings won’t appear. The presumption here, of course, is that if that $100 bill comes on cardboard, it should be questioned, and you will be smart enough to know that fact.

I was working a church yard sale a couple of Saturdays ago and was introduced to a technology that makes a lot of sense — and could help generate some extra income for those who like to keep a sideline business going.

A man came up to our book table and was picking up each book, scanning its ISBN with a PDA and either putting it in a buy pile or setting it down and picking up a new volume. We had perhaps 500 books, and it took him about 10 or 15 minutes to work his way around the collection. I asked what he was doing, and he explained that he sold books through Amazon and this was his way to quickly value whether a used book was worth adding to his inventory or not.

The scanner was using a service that would tap into the Amazon database to inform him about what the book was currently selling for. He said he paid about $30 a month for the service. I didn’t ask what service it was, because he seemed in a bit of a hurry to buy is books and move onto the next yard sale. He was buying those books that had a value worth his time. (I’ve heard that some booksellers make their profit even when selling a book for a penny simply by virtue of exploiting the fixed shipping cost that Amazon charges, but this didn’t seem to be an example of that.)

Interested in setting up your own used goods businesses? I did some searching and came across four such services.

Bookhero.com starts at $8.95 per month and checks prices against Amazon. It works with wireless PDAs as well as WAP-enabled cell phones. You can type in the ISBN or work with scanners that are compatible with the service.

ScoutPal starts at $9.95 per month and also looks up prices on Amazon. It can work with cell phones or PDAs with WAP or HTML web browsers and SMS messaging or email. The company promises instant Amazon lookups if you’re using a Windows Mobile Pocket PC device.

ASellerTool is $5 per month and also draws pricing from Amazon. This company seems to like the Socket Communications Scan Cards, which plug into the SD port of a Pocket PC or Palm device.

Last is the MediaScouter, which is $40 per month and requires a Windows Mobile Enabled PDA or phone. The device needs an SD slot as well as well as Bluetooth connectivity or a CF compact flash. The company recommends a 2Gb Sandisk SD memory card, because it says this brand “can retrieve information up to four times as fast as other cards.”

I’m not ready to give up my day job, but if my Grandma Dot were still alive, I’d set her up in a business like this. I can imagine it now, her cruising around in her gold Maverick, running her scanner while chatting up sellers, getting good deals, spreading goodwill as patron saint of Kalamazoo yard sales.