The Pen Addict 106/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	106
Title:	Knolling
Release Date:	May 13th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 106
Audio File:	Audio Episode 106
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 106
Length:	4242 min <br />0.7 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 106 of The Pen Addict podcast on 5x5. The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined, as I always am, by The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Guest: What's up, mate?

Myke Hurley: How you doing?

Pen Drop Incident

Brad Dowdy: Good. You? Yeah, very well, thank you. Very well indeed. Yes, we've had a quick turnaround this week, huh? Yep. Long time, no talk. Still been using that Franklin Kristoff every day? Good. I'm glad you like it. Dropped it today.

Myke Hurley: Nib's working out for you? Yeah, dropped it today. No. It was all, the cap was on. Okay. But the converter popped out inside.

Guest: Did it make a mess or a break or anything?

Myke Hurley: Nothing broke, no mess.

Guest: Perfect. That's what you like to hear.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think it put a dent in the floor.

Guest: It's not that heavy. It's large, though.

Myke Hurley: That's right, yeah. I've been loving it. Loving it. Nib's working great.

Guest: Good, good. So you didn't have a little pucker factor when you dropped that thing?

Myke Hurley: I nearly had a heart attack.

Guest: I know that feeling very well. I haven't really dropped any of my favorite pens, but you did see the ink bottle I blew up on my driveway the other day. Yes, yes. That was a first. That was an amazing event.

Myke Hurley: That wasn't even yours, was it? That wasn't even yours. Weren't you borrowing from Jeffrey?

Guest: I was borrowing it from Jeff. I had gone and picked up some pen cases, and I had loaded them in the back. We have these big bins that we transfer stuff in, loaded them in the back of my car, and he wanted me to try out this ink. So I set it down in the back of my car while I was loading up the bins, and I knew in my head, I was like, oh, I need to remember to grab that out the back because it'll be rolling around all the way home. Forgot. Got home. Opened up the back of the Jeep to get out the bins, and it just rolled right out everywhere. Green Leviathan ink. Okay. So it was awesome.

Guest: That was a first and hopefully a last. Yeah. It was not a pretty sight at all. So anyway.

Guest: Quick bit of follow-up before we get into it, what we're going to talk about today. I had an email that I wanted to run by you. I hadn't even mentioned this to you yet, and I thought it was a good idea. Yeah, and since we've had so many new listeners to the podcast and so many new readers to the blog, and it keeps growing week by week, month by month, and we get a lot of new listeners on board, this gentleman, Nick, had an idea about how about a guide to the basics and vocabulary. Sounds familiar, right?

Myke Hurley: Episode one.

Guest: Episode one. But I think it's time for an update. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: I agree. I was thinking this recently. Yeah. I think we should do that.

Guest: Yeah. Let me tell you what Nick said real quick. He said, having been following your blog for a few months and eventually becoming a weekly podcast listener, I have undeliberately become a pen snob. Anyone who felt the need to carry multiple pens six months ago would have been a target for my mockery, and now I wear them proudly. I've bought more pens than I will ever need in the past six months and have several more in my pen chalet cart right now. Ding, ding, sponsor.

Fountain Pens

Guest: The area where I feel I'm still out of my league is in the world of fountain pens. My reluctance. The cost and intimidation of options. What if I spend $200 and had a horrible experience because I just bought the wrong fit for me? Is there any chance you could explain these things in a post or on the podcast? I know I would appreciate it. And then he lists off, you know, nibs, you know, what's the difference, sizes and materials, interchangeability, inks, you know, types. What do I need to spend? Can I carry it around? How do I, you know, he says, is there a way to carry extra ink without wandering around with a magic health potion in my pocket? I thought that was pretty funny.

Guest: Refill systems. They kind of run the gamut these days. There's all kinds of refill systems you can get in fountain pens. And, you know, he goes on and he says, you know, I'd like to get some more technical info on your blog entries, etc. But I thought for the podcast, this was a good idea to kind of rehash this. You think that's a good idea?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I also think that we need to readdress paper again.

Guest: Yeah, I think so too.

Myke Hurley: I've had a couple of emails about it recently.

Guest: Yeah, I got a separate email from someone wanting to go over different paper types again. And get into brand specifics and then get into the pens that work best with those brands.

Guest: So I thought that was, you know, those are the things we, those are the kind of emails I want to hear what y'all, what you guys want to, want us to talk about and write about. And I thought this email from Nick was kind of good timing because like you said, you'd been thinking about doing this again. And lots has changed since we've done our glossary. You know, we're a little bit more in tune with some of these things. We're able to talk about them a little bit more than we were, you know, 106 episodes ago, 105 episodes ago.

Myke Hurley: Well, the original glossary episode was you teaching me. Right. So that makes it a little bit different. Not that I'd be teaching you, but you wouldn't necessarily be teaching me.

Guest: No, no. And you would have some, you would have some input on it too. So I think I will work on that. And maybe, I don't know if we do. Yeah, I'll have to think about it. If we should do like a whole glossary, new glossary show or two to where we can point people to, to where we just glossary the whole time. Or we take a specific topic and make it like a segment every week and we say, okay, today we're going to talk about nibs kind of thing. I don't know. I got to think about that. So you think everyone's enjoying our back end conversation during the live podcast?

Myke Hurley: I think so.

Guest: Okay. Because this is normally something we talk about off the air.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Guest: But I just popped it into the show notes and I thought it was a good email. So I wanted to get your opinion on it.

Myke Hurley: Well, I think this is something that our listeners would like to have an opinion on. Like to let us know what they think. Yeah.

Guest: So I think it might be beneficial to where we just do one or two just like huge episodes where we run down a bunch of things so we can point people to say, hey, go download this episode. Instead of us having to search, hey, go check out episode 108 where I talked about nibs and episode 112 where we talked about filling systems and things like that. So we'll see. We'll put some, put some, the few brain cells that I have on it and go from there. So our topic this week, before I get into the pen blog of the week, a little, little teaser. This came out of the, the readers themselves. They wanted to hear this from our Twitter Q and a episode. We did a few weeks back where I think I mentioned, you know, we ought to do a bag dump episode. I just kind of missed mentioned it, uh, kind of been passing kind of flippantly. Um, and then it turns out we got a bunch of feedback saying, yes, do that, you know, and got a bunch of tweets and it's got a bunch of emails. Yes. Do a bag dump episode. So that's what Myke and I are going to do today. Um, so this is going to be, this is going to be a play along type of episode. You're going to need to go to the show notes at five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash one Oh six. And look at the pictures. Myke and I both done pictures of our bag dumps. We got the links for everything in there. So when you get this episode, before you get into the bag dump section, go pull up the show notes and you can, you can play along with the pictures and see what we're talking about.

Myke Hurley: I like how you said, when you get this episode.

Guest: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: They were in fact that the only way that they can hear you is by having already listened to everything you've just said. All right.

Guest: I'm going to kayak.com and booking a plane ticket to fly to there. So when you download this episode, dear listener,

Myke Hurley: don't make me come over there.

Guest: All right. Our pen blog of the week before we get to that is a long time friend of the pen addict and it's Elizabeth from no pen intended. She is a, gosh, she's been doing this a long, long time. She does a great job. And I commiserate with Elizabeth a lot because she is a third shift worker like myself. So we, we both know how, how tough that is. But then, and she's also a southerner. She's based out of North Carolina. So if any of you are going to the Raleigh pen show at the end of May, not only to see all the, the pen people we talk about, like Anderson pens and some other, other vendors, I bet you Elizabeth will be there. So I'm putting her on the spot and, and letting everyone know. I bet she will be there too for the Raleigh pen show in North Carolina, end of May. I don't have the exact dates in front of me, but Elizabeth does great reviews. She does, she does a bunch of sketches every time with the pens, which I always enjoy. She does a good job with that. She's done, she rides a motorcycle and she's done some, she did a cool post when I sent her a Notco prototype. She took it on a motorcycle road test, which is pretty cool. She's got some great ideas around her posts. So if you're not familiar with no pen intended, definitely check it out. And the link will be in the show notes and thanks Elizabeth for being awesome.

Guest: All right. You ready to do this? I sure am. This is kind of different for us. This isn't really our style, but I'm, I'm pretty excited about it. I'm pretty excited about it. So you want to go first?

Myke Hurley: Yes, I would love to.

Guest: You're kind of first in the show notes, so we'll, we'll let you go first.

Myke Hurley: So I'll make sure that there's links to pretty much everything that I discuss or I mentioned here in the show notes today. So you'll find my image. Now you'll see there isn't a lot here. I take it. I've already glanced at Brad and he has a lot more in his bag than I do. I think I have some like random junk in the bag. That's not even really worth pointing out. But mainly this rucksack carries other things in it. Like my carry my lunch for work or I also use it like when I, I tend to like be at my girlfriend's at the weekend or something. So I have like clothes in there and stuff like that. So I carry the bag around, but most of the time I don't really need it. But I also kind of, you know, I have things like my wallet and headphones and keys and stuff in my pockets. But there isn't really much to say. I don't even know where my wallet is from. I can't even remember. I think it might be from Fossil, but I wouldn't know the name. I've had it for a while. So the backpack that I have is a North Face Surge backpack. I bought it about two and a half, three years ago nearly, maybe. They don't sell it anymore, my model. They have a new model called the Surge 2, which I can't speak to. I've not used it, but I actually would prefer a different bag.

Backpacks

Myke Hurley: I've always, it's one of those things I've been on the lookout for a while, but I haven't done anything about it just yet. I like backpacks because I figure they're just better for me. I tend to have some back problems and having a messenger bag is not a great thing for me. I hate the fact that they make me sweaty in the summer, especially when wearing a suit to work. But, you know, this is what you have to do. So you see, I'll go down through my list here. I have a water bottle there. I used to be one of those people that had like a water bottle that they refilled. Like, you know, that you have like a, I don't know, a brand or...

Guest: Yeah, like the super titanium pimp job water bottle.

Myke Hurley: So, but what I found was just two things. One, I would have to throw it away if I went somewhere, like an event or got on a plane. And I would lose bottles that way. Or I would kind of forget to wash them. And then like, I don't know, like I would feel paranoid. I'd remember and then think I'm like getting it all from the water bottle because of the germs.

Myke Hurley: I'm not one of those people, but I would just forget months. And then I would unscrew it one day and it would kind of be a bit funky, like limescale problems. Yeah. You know, because we have that issue here. So now I kind of, I buy a plastic bottle and will use it for a couple of weeks and then toss it and buy a new one. An umbrella, always in the bag, naturally, obviously. I live in the United Kingdom, could rain at any point, always have an umbrella in the bag. I have various charging cables. Like, I didn't take all of the cables out. I have an iPhone cable. I have a bunch of random cables. I have like a headphone splitter. It's all just stuff that I've accumulated over the years. But what you will see that I took out, I took one charger out, which is my Pebble watch charger, just to show you, yes, there are wires in this bag. I have a thing called a Moo travel plug. So that thing, it kind of unfolds and then you can twist something around. I don't know if you've ever seen a British plug, Brad, but we have three prongs. Yeah. And it's like one and then there's two at the bottom. Well, that thing, you fold it out and then the two prongs are vertical and you twist them to make them horizontal. Oh, I see that. It's so cool. If you live in the UK, you need one of these for your rucksack. It's just a USB. You can plug in a USB into it. Yeah. That is excellent. It's really cool. And then I have a Mophie power station to charge my USB enabled devices in a pinch. Breath mints because business cards from Moo, which are a great company.

Guest: The command space. Is that, it took me a minute to realize what that was, but it's got the command space logo on the front, right?

Myke Hurley: They are my business cards. Obviously my personal business cards. I don't have white business cards. I have a bunch of assorted pens. I have like a G2 in there and I have some other random stuff. But the pens that I pulled out because they kind of highlighted was a Rotary Tiki and a Retro 51 Ace. You'll also see the Pelican M20 and Franklin Kristoff Model 19, but they live in the Tashenberg Leiter most of the time. I'll get to that in a moment. But there's like loops on there and they keep in there. So the two on the left go in the rucksack. The two on the right live in the iPad case. That makes sense. A couple of field notes, notebooks. And then, yeah, the Rotofaden Tashenberg Leiter, which also holds my iPad mini, which is my German iPad case, of which I put loads of different notebooks. And it has like those plastic wallets in it. So I put different pieces of paper and things in it to sort of live in there. It's like got some sleeves. So, yeah, I think that's about it for me.

Guest: So you're like all in on the Rotofaden, right?

Myke Hurley: I organize my life in that thing now.

Guest: That's amazing.

Myke Hurley: I need to check that out. Like that just having there's a couple of pockets. So like in there at the moment, I have a gift certificate for a barber that I'm going to in a couple of weeks to have my beard shaped and trimmed. Yeah.

Guest: Yes, please. I've seen your recent pictures.

Myke Hurley: Oh, come on. You. Those pictures a couple of weeks ago, like a Sasquatch. Although, you know, I must say I thought your beard was awesome. Yeah. I'm growing it out because I have this gift certificate. Cool. So I can go and get it trimmed and shaped and stuff. It's totally, yeah. The beard addict podcast. And so, and then I also have in there, like let's say I'm going on a trip. I have all my travel documents and stuff in there. And I slide into the main pocket now a smart cover for my iPad. Okay. So because the Rotofarden does not have a way to prop your iPad up. So let's say I'm away somewhere and I want to watch a movie. Then I can take the smart cover out, attach it to the back of my iPad and it's always got a stand.

Myke Hurley: So that works pretty well. And then, yeah, and my iPad goes in the back.

Guest: What's the paper situation in there?

Myke Hurley: So they have like some pads that they sell and I have a few of them. But you can clip anything in there that's kind of like A5 size. Okay. Because it just has these little hooks that you just clip into the middle.

Guest: Okay. Like on the top and the bottom.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Guest: Right. There's like a, it's like a pressure, like a, you clip it down. It like clamps it down on the top and clamps it down on the bottom. So you can put anything that's that size in there.

Myke Hurley: And it has quite a few of those clamps in it.

Guest: Oh, that's right. That's right. It's got like three or four rows of them or something like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: That's pretty cool. Yeah. I'm telling you, man. I'm going to have to look it up. That's pretty sweet.

Power Banks

Guest: All right. So one thing looking at your bag, I got to ask you, and this is, this is turning into the tech podcast instead of the pen podcast, but your Mophie power station. Do you, how often do you charge that?

Guest: Um. Because I have one and I just, not the exact same model, but I, I just leave it at the house and charge it. It's like my emergency backup. Cause at my house, um, you know, my only phones, my, my wife and I's only phone. We don't have a landline. We just have our cell phone. So, and we don't have internet unless we have a phone hub hotspot. So if I lose power, I need, that's why I have it more for emergency, but I don't take it with me to travel. So do you keep up with charging that because you use it a lot more for travel?

Myke Hurley: Um, I only ever, it's so random for when I charge it because I only ever charge it after I've used it. So I kind of use it every now and again. Um, but it's not so much of a, like, Oh, I use it. Don't use it this time. This time. Does that make sense?

Guest: It's like, yeah, it holds a charge long enough for you to take, uh, take some charge from it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll leave it. Just refill it when, when you think it's getting low kind of thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Guest: Okay. I need to think about taking mine with me more. Um, just cause I've run into situations where I could, I could use it since my entire life is on my phone. Um, that's, I think my phone's my primary computer these days, um, without question. Um, well, cool. That looks awesome. And you say, it's funny. You say that it looks like I have more stuff. And I mean, I think I do have a little more stuff, but it's all just kind of spread out when I pack it into the backpack. It's not much stuff. It packs in very nice. So you, you ready for me to get into mine? I would love you to. We have, it's, it's funny. Both of our bags are no longer made if you can believe that. So I have the Topo Designs Dome Paper Mountain briefcase. And this one, I couldn't even give you a link to it because it's off Chad's page because they're making a version two as we speak right now to make some upgrades to it. So you can't buy this one that I have anymore. But if you do like it, they are coming out with a new model. Um, I don't have an exact date. I haven't talked to Chad about it, but they're coming out with a version two. But this has been one of the best bags I've had in a long time. This is, this is my work bag that I use, you know, at least five days a week, obviously, um, to, um, carry around all my junk in. And now you, now you make me feel guilty about all the junk I have in mind. But it's really not that bad, I don't think, especially for an addict. I mean, it's not like I don't have a problem, right? I mean, I have, it's clear I have a problem.

Myke Hurley: It's just how much of a problem you have.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think I'm doing pretty well. You know, the meetings are helping and, um, you know, we're getting there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Guest: So anyway, the bag is great. Um, it's been durable. It's been functional. It's not a huge bag. So it works good just for work back and forth. Um, if I travel, um, you know, if I'm getting on a plane or going away for several, several days, I usually switch out to a larger bag.

Myke Hurley: It's just so much better than my picture.

Guest: Um, a little more anal, probably.

Myke Hurley: Um, what is this called?

Brad Dowdy: When you lay out things like this? Just, I call it like a bag dump or.

Knolling

Myke Hurley: No, it's got a name. Knolling?

Guest: Things organized neatly.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Knolling?

Brad Dowdy: It's got a what?

Guest: What do you say?

Myke Hurley: Knolling. Yeah. K-N-O-L-L-I-N-G.

Guest: I have never heard that word in my life. There you go. What does it mean?

Myke Hurley: It means the process of arranging like objects in parallel on 90 degree angles as a method of organization.

Guest: Ah. Uh, so it's not just me being anal. It's actually, there's a word for it.

Myke Hurley: You would very much enjoy knollingblog.tumblr.com, I think.

Guest: Oh, I am all over that and there goes the next few hours of my life after we get off this show. Yeah, because I follow, do you ever, do you follow things organized neatly? That's knolling. Yeah. So that's the same type of thing. I love that blog.

Guest: So maybe I'll submit to that and see. So within my bag, I carry either my MacBook or my work Dell laptop, whichever I'm needing at the time if I'm working. It's obviously the Dell if I'm going to Atlanta to work with Jeff. The MacBook goes with. It's got all of our good stuff on there. I carry the Field Notes Cold Horizon. I have a couple pages left from finishing this edition, but I've been trying a few different things here and there in between. It's got the Pilot Metropolitan clipped into that because actually the fine nib of that Metropolitan works really well in Field Notes, especially that fine nib doesn't bleed too much, which Field Notes paper is well known to do with fountain pens, so the fine nib works good in there. I also carry the DONE Paper Utility Notebook, the Large, which is one of my favorite products. It's a better size for me than the Field Notes size, although you can't put it in your pocket, but I just like writing in that size better. So I do more planning, project, big picture stuff in the DONE, whereas I do just one-offs, lists, tasks, and things like that in the Field Notes.

Brasstown Pencil Case

Guest: Then I've got my Brasstown, my Notco Mandarin Mango Brasstown, which we'll get back to. We'll circle back around on that last. So that's where all my fountain pens go in, and then we'll talk about what's in there. Then I carry the Rhodia dot pad in the spiral-bound version, and I'm mad because apparently you can't find this one anymore. I looked for a link for this, and I couldn't find it. I think I bought this one from Goulet. It's not there anymore. Then I looked at all the other sites one would look at, even on Rhodia's site, and I can't find this top wire-bound dot pad. So I'm a little upset about that, but I got a new notebook in last week that I have not mentioned and have not reviewed yet that might be my new go-to A5-size notebook. But I like that paper. If I ever get a bug in me when I'm out and about to write a review on, I'll do that. Or if I'm doing some kind of fountain pen testing, I'll use that. So I actually, yes, I carry three different papers in my bag, but they're all pretty compact, and I use them all for different things. And I like them all. And sitting on top of the Rhodia, you'll see my orange Render K, which is always with me with the high-tech C refill. My tactile turn dark red with the Pilot Juice blue-black 0.38 refill. And people have been asking me a lot about that refill, and I've recommended it a lot, and a lot of people are going for it, and they enjoy it. So that's definitely something you want to check out for your G2-compatible refills. It fits anything that fits a G2, so it's awesome. The next one's a shocker, Myke. Do you see that? It's the Uni Mitsubishi 9850 Pencil.

Myke Hurley: Huh.

Guest: It's a wood case pencil. I actually use that in combination with my DONE book. It gives me some product sketches. I didn't show the innards of this because it's top secret. Obviously. The pencil, I do some sketching with the pencil, do some product design for NotCo because we're getting ready to, we're starting to work on the store now. I should have, by the way, NotCo update. I think I've got 40 orders left to ship, so we'll be done this week.

Guest: And then next to that is one thing we both carry, is a Retro 51 Tornado. Mine is the Vintage Surf Edition. Great edition. It's hard to be without that pen. And even though I may not use it every, I certainly don't use it every day, I may not use it every week, but when I want it and when I want to write something with that style of pen, that's the only pen I want. I want it bad. I want that rollerball. It feels great. I, you know, I can't picture a situation right now where I have to have it, but when I know I want it, that's the only pen I want sometimes. I don't know how you, you're obviously a fan of the Retro 51, but I don't know how often you use yours and mine. Honestly, I don't use it that often, but when I do, it's great. It's definitely a must carry for me.

Myke Hurley: 100%.

Guest: Yep. So those are the four kind of writing, writing instruments I have, not fountain pen related. So I have a high tech C, the Juice 0.38, which is another fine gel, a pencil, woodcase pencil, and then the larger rollerball and the Retro 51. Then I have my USB thumb drive. Do you even use a USB thumb drive anymore? It's basically, I pretty much found this in my bag when I was dumping it out. I was like, I don't think I ever use this.

Myke Hurley: I just randomly used one today. I have one of those little, I don't even know what they're called. It's basically just the USB part.

Guest: Yeah. Just a little, it's like the mini.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah, mini USB. Yeah, I plugged this in. There's not even any files on it, so I don't even know why I carry it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I used it today, and I hadn't used it for maybe six months.

Guest: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then I have random cables in my phone charger cables, my headphones, some extra batteries, and a little pocket flashlight, a little Phoenix flashlight that I would recommend, except it's no longer sold either. It looks like it's the Phoenix L1T flashlight. I'm always with the flashlight, and that comes in more handy than you can believe, especially in my job. I use it mostly there when I'm hunting down cables or doing something. And those are in a little drifter pouch, which is a pouch I've had for years that will be replaced with a NotCo offering in the future, an as yet unnamed NotCo. But it's just a basic pouch. It was kind of the impetus for us to do our chimney top pouches, although it's a completely different design. It's just a basic storage pouch, right, which the chimney tops are. And we're going to do some more in a traditional, what do you call it? This is just like a traditional pencil case design, you know, where there's zippers on the top and there's just a pouch.

Guest: You know, it's made out of the same nylon that we use for our NotCo cases, so I like that. Just an open pouch to dump cords and cables in. That works well for me. I'm in that pouch every day because I have to carry two phones. One, my personal phone, and two, my work phone, and one's an iPhone 5S and one's an iPhone 4, so I've got different chargers for those. And that's just a pain in the you-know-what.

Guest: Then I carry a bigger set of headphones I use at work. They're a Sennheiser PX200. I actually want to upgrade my headphones, but, you know, that's a story for another day. I read a bunch about headphones. I'm not an audiophile at all. Like, I use the ones I have on my head right now to podcast with. I couldn't take to work. They're too big and they're open back, so everyone would hear, you know, the music or the podcast coming out of them around me. It's not a good, dumb, work-in-public headphone. The ones on my head are Sennheiser HD 518.

Guest: And they're really good. I mean, they're good for this. I bought them when I was working from home with JetPens, so I could have my focus on with my headphones, but I could still hear things going on around me in the house if I needed to. But these small ones, I like them for travel because they fold down and they have the, you know, the microphone and volume input. So you can just plug them into your phone and you have that in-line microphone to use for your phone. One of my favorite products that I have, which is another one you can no longer get, but you can get the same idea somewhere, is the Slinghammer handkerchief that I carry. And I don't use it for what you would traditionally use a handkerchief for, even though some people listening to this podcast say I should use it more frequently. I use it just more for, you know, God, just general, general use, more like cleanup, more like, you know, putting it down to write on or putting, wrapping something up in that I need to protect. It's more just kind of a general use cloth item. And I really love this handkerchief. And I got it from a company called Slinghammer. They don't have, this one I bought was in their dead stock series where they just had like random, random extra samples left over. So, but you can find them anywhere. Lots of different companies make things like this. I use that a lot. Then I have my, my pocket knife, Spider Code Delica 4, which I use at work a lot. And that's my little, my little work section there. It's got my work badge with my fancy lanyard on there. I know you like that, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I love it.

Guest: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Do you have to wear a badge? Do you have to wear a badge for work? I have a badge, but I don't have to wear it.

Guest: Yeah. See, we're required to show ours at all times.

Myke Hurley: So I think that I would be really. Yeah. Considering the kind of place I work in, but no, we don't. Yeah. We have to show them to people, but we don't have to wear them all the time.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. So that's just a, that's a flaw, flaw in my game. My, my, my super, my super, it's a, it's a Hurley though. I call it the mic. It's the mic edition. So it's a, it's a Hurley lanyard. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, all of that stuff, it looks like a lot of stuff. It fits in my mountain briefcase with so much room to spare. So it all, it all packs down nicely. Now in my, in my Brasstown, the fountain pens I'm carrying with me, and I'm actually having a hard time switching these out. I keep looking to say, what would I replace in here? What would I, what do I need to clean out and replace with something else? And I keep looking at them. I was like, I don't, I'm not going to clean out any of these. I really like, really like everything I have in there. And I've got, I've put in another picture with the, with the roll unwrapped for my pen. And so in the pouch is my Nakaya and it's Kimono. Kimono is my roll stopper. Right, Myke? True that. You should have, that didn't even cross my mind. And when you said that last week, we, we hung up from the show last week. You know, we stopped recording. And we, first thing we always say is, all right, what are the titles for the show? And Myke goes, a Kimono is my roll stopper. And I thought I was going to cry. I couldn't even talk for another minute or two. Right. Cause that was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Even though I said it and I didn't even flinch, did I?

Myke Hurley: Not at all. It's scary. Well, there's many things like that that we say that are weird.

Pelican M405

Guest: It's scary sometimes. But in my Brasstown, I carry the Pelican M405. So we have some similarities there. We both carry the Pelican.

Guest: This one's got the extra, extra fine Masuyama nib and Pelican blue black ink. Then I've got my Edison Perlette, which I love, love, love that pen. And it's got the combination of the Roaring Clingner Salix and the Roaring Clingner Scabiosa, which I got an email, I got a pronunciation guide on Scabiosa. I've been saying Scabiosa. It's actually, which, you know, you don't really want to say it, but it's actually Scabiosa is the proper pronunciation.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, maybe expect it to be a little nicer or whatever, but no.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. I was trying to be nice, but Scabiosa it is. And I don't have the email in front of me, but thank you, whoever sent me the correct pronunciation of that. Then I have my Platinum Psy, the 3776 Demonstrator, with the Sailor Sky High ink in it. And then I have my TWSBI Micarta. That pen I'm loving because I got Sean Newton to grind a stub nib for me, and it's really firm and really sharp, and I'm liking that nib a lot. And it's got the Sailor Bung Box Blue Black in it, which is the Sailor 4B ink that you can only get in Japan. Then I have a pen. I look at these pens, and I'm going, haven't reviewed that, haven't reviewed that, haven't reviewed that, haven't reviewed that. I don't know that I've reviewed. I think I've reviewed one pen in this entire shot. Pilot Custom Heritage 92, which I'm loving that pen. The blue color is great, and it has the Organic Studio Blue Merle ink, which a bunch of people are wanting to get me to do a review on, so I'll try to work on that soon. A bunch of people are asking questions about that. It's a good blue-black ink. It tends to run very gray, but it still looks pretty good. And then my Edison Menlo, which pretty much the two pens, if I had to just pick two, I'd pick the Edison Menlo and the Nakaya to carry around all the time, the Menlo pump is great, and I have the Roaring Cleaner Blau Schwartz in it right now, which is a dark blue-black, which is really good. So I tried like a few days ago, Myke, or probably this weekend. I got out my pen case, and I said, okay, I need to figure out what I need to clean, what I need to rotate out. And I started pulling out all these pens. I was like, I don't want to. I want to keep all these in here and keep using these.

Myke Hurley: I find the rotation thing so strange. I just change it when I get a new pen that I want to use more, and then I just have like a couple.

Guest: Yeah, so it's like a lot of times I do it for testing. So I don't want to end up with 20 pens inked all of a sudden if I'm having to test out different things or do random things. Of that nature. But this is more just the types of pens that I like to use if, you know, just for writing. You know, it's kind of got a range of super extra fine nibs to stub nibs.

Guest: A little bit of ink variation, but that's okay. I don't mind, you know, having five or six blue-black inks inked up. I actually enjoy seeing those different shades. I don't have any oranges inked up right now like you normally do. I've got a bright blue, and I've got the Salix Scabiosa mix in there, but everything else is a blue-black ink. So yeah, I started to go, all right, let me get some fresh blood in here. Let me clean these out. And I started taking them out and writing with them. I was like, this is going to stay right here. This is the pen I'm going to use. The pen I'm going to use today. The pen I'm going to use next week. And yeah, so I wonder if my, this is a topic we can discuss, you know, down the line. I wonder if my collection is becoming more concise. I'm learning exactly what I want, when I want it, why I want it, and how I want it. And, you know, maybe there's going to be less randomness in the future. Although there'll be some of it because I still review a lot of pens, so I'm getting a lot of new things in and have to do a lot of reviews. But you can see which ones stick after a while. And it's kind of like this group here. I mean, this group has just stuck with me for a while now. There's not, I mean, there's obviously some new pens like the Nakaya and the Menlo is pretty new. But a lot of these other pens I've had for months, if not over a year on some of them that I just keep using and want to keep using. So that's the most important thing. So that's kind of it. You know, our bag dumps aren't exactly thrilling, but we had a bunch of people that like to get on the inside here, get inside of our brains and see what we're carrying. So what does this tell us about us as a person, Myke? I don't know. Did we learn anything?

Myke Hurley: I don't think we have, but maybe other people have about us.

Guest: Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. I learned that umbrellas are mandatory in the UK, which, you know, I think people take that for granted.

Guest: And your stupid Rotor Fodden Toshen McGlider, that thing is insanely functional. Whoever gave you that has got to be like your hero.

Myke Hurley: Yes. And you've now done that thing.

Guest: Good luck.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I'm like 90% sure of his name.

Guest: I won't get you in trouble. We talk about it often enough.

Myke Hurley: Well, no, I'm now looking because I can't allow something like this.

Guest: I'm just amazed. It's good.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So I'm just going to keep looking here for a moment.

Guest: And I'll keep rambling.

Guest: But I don't know. Maybe I need to go look at their website again. I'm sure they've gotten a lot of link love from us. Actually, I told you they sent me an email one day, right? Yes.

Myke Hurley: Christian Hessman. Yes.

Guest: No, you didn't.

Myke Hurley: You didn't tell me this.

Guest: I didn't tell you that?

Myke Hurley: No.

Guest: I swear I told you that.

Myke Hurley: So what is it?

Email Correspondence

Guest: Well, now I'm going to have to find the email. They said something about, hey, I heard you mentioned our product in a podcast or something like that. Do you have a link to it?

Myke Hurley: I was like, sure. Yes, you did tell me about that.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. They're like, okay, cool. Thanks. All right. See ya.

Guest: It was just so random. But I guess we're going to keep mentioning it because you used the heck out of that thing. So what's your favorite thing in that backpack?

Guest: What are you not leaving? I mean, you know, cords and cables and all that stuff's boring.

Myke Hurley: It would be the Rotofon.

Guest: Yeah. Because it's got so much of everything in it, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. For me, I think it would be my Brasstown. I couldn't just carry one pin in my bag. I'm not comfortable without choices these days for pins, as strange as it might sound. So what do I carry? I carry six, seven in the Brasstown. Then I've got the four other ones. So I carry actually 11 writing instruments with me. Oh, 12. There's one in my Field Notes book. So I got 12 pins slash pencils. And I would have a hard time carrying less than that, which is so strange to say out loud. But if I just had one or two pins in my backpack, I think I would go insane. Even though I wouldn't use the other ones and may not use them for a month or more. I think if I didn't have that type of stuff available, I would lose my mind, which is, I don't know. I guess that's the problem that we all have, that we listen to a podcast about pins, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah.

Bag Contents

Guest: Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're good for today, man. We just wanted to do this. It's kind of a quick and dirty episode, but I think it was fun.

Guest: And I think it's what the people wanted to hear. Yep. So let's get people – if anyone else has a bag dump, I don't want people to go through, you know, jump through hoops. But I'd be interested to see what other people carry just besides pins and paper, you know. I get a lot of ideas, you know, like we're talking about the knolling and the Things Organized Neatly blog. I follow those because I get lots of ideas and learn about other products like your AC adapter plug, Myke, that I would have never knew existed without seeing, you know, these type of bag dumps of what are the essentials that people carry. So definitely get in touch with us if you have some pictures like this to share. We'd love to see them.

Myke Hurley: I would love that. And people will get in touch with us on Twitter. It's a great place. Great place. I think that would be great because, you know, you can email them to us if you want, but let everybody see them. Yeah, yeah.

Guest: Show it off.

Myke Hurley: Unless you have like some sort of sensitive information, but then maybe don't send it to us.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. Like you didn't get to see my mug on my work badge, but, you know, I had to show you my awesome lanyard.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean. Woo! Lanyard.

Guest: Jeff kills me about that damn thing. I need him to make me one. If you're listening, Brookwicky, lanyard me.

Myke Hurley: I have nothing to say.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know what to say to these things. Get us out of here.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. As Brad mentioned earlier, all the links are in the show notes, which are at 5x5.tv slash Pen Addict slash 106. My name is Myke Curley. His name is Brad Dowdy. Until next week, say goodbye, Brad.

Guest: Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.