The Pen Addict 115/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	115
Title:	The Panic Addict
Release Date:	July 15th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 115
Audio File:	Audio Episode 115
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 115
Length:	5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 115 of The Pen Addict on 5x5. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. As always, The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. Hello Brad.

Brad Dowdy: What's up jerk face? I can't believe you killed The Pen Addict podcast.

Myke Hurley: Hi!

Podcast Changes

Myke Hurley: What did you do, Myke? Oh, I definitely didn't communicate things in the best possible way. You think? So, first let's talk about what you're talking about for anybody that doesn't know yet. I'm sure there will be a handful. And then let me explain the jerk face in this. So, this show is currently a part of 5x5, 5x5.tv. Previously, it was a part of 70 Decibels, which is a podcast network that I founded and ran for 18 months. We have been part of 5x5 for 18 months. That is clearly my schedule. As we are leaving 5x5. I am leaving 5x5, personally. It is currently, today, as we record, the 15th of July 2014. I will be departing on July 16th, 2014. So, tomorrow, as we record this. And I'm dragging all of these suckers down with me. So, all of my current shows that I record. So, this one, directional, command space, and the prompt will be ending with their final episodes this week. Command space ended last week. And so, we are going to be ceasing operations of these shows. I am working on something new, which will be ready very, very soon. I don't want to say too much. However, the pen addict will continue as part of this new venture. So, you don't need to do anything. I am working with Dan Benjamin, the owner and operator of 5x5, on having the feeds transferred over. If there is any problem with that, then there is a couple of things that you should go and do. So, let's say, for example, something breaks and you don't get a new show in like a month's time. Or two months' time. Or 18 years' time. It is not going to be that long. It is in hand, let's say.

Myke Hurley: What you want to do is a couple of things first. First, you should follow us both on Twitter because obviously we'll be yelling about it. I'm iMike, I-M-Y-K-E, and Brad is Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Or read the fantastic penaddict.com blog. In the show notes today as well, which are at 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 115, you'll find two links. You'll find a link to my personal homepage and a link to the blog post that explains all about what's going on. In the essence of the fact that we're leaving, which you now already know. There is also a mailing list there. Now that is a really great way because you don't need to look out for anything other than read your email. And what I'm going to do is that mailing list serves one purpose. It will not become my marketing email list afterwards. It is literally saying the new thing is ready and it will be launching on X date just so you know. But, however, your feed, the current feed that you're subscribed to, should switch over and you should still get your lovely penaddict-y goodness going into the future. But what that means is there will be a short period of time, not very long at all, a few episodes maybe in regular time, where there will not be an episode of The Pen Addict. We'll take a very short break, but we will be back, I promise. And I hope that you will all continue to listen to the show in its new and improved form.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. So, yay, you're not a jerk face after all.

Myke Hurley: Well, the reason that I'm a jerk face is because, basically, in my original blog post, I stated that all of my current shows are coming to an end on 505, which technically they are. Yes. The only one that is going to be continuing in its regular form, current form, name and all, is The Pen Addict. Right. Because it's The Pen Addict, right? Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. But I needed to make that more clear, that that show would be continuing. Everything else will be kind of rebooted, I guess, is the way to look at it. But The Pen Addict will live on, and the next episode will be 116, is the current plan. Yep. Is to keep the numbers and to keep the back catalogue available to everyone and stuff like that. The one thing that you may see is, like, on the day of switchover, this is just a forewarning, on the day of switchover, you may see duplicates of your episodes. There won't be, like, 50 new episodes published in a day, but you may get, like, old episodes reappear.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, your feed might get hammered on the initial cutover.

Myke Hurley: So I want to apologize in advance for that, in case that happens. Yep. These things happen, because if you're moving from one system to another, the feed will look like it's got new episodes in it. Yeah. Yeah, they get flagged as new kind of thing. Exactly. All they are is manual recreations. There's nothing I can do to stop that from happening. Right.

Brad Dowdy: And that's just a one-time deal.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and that's what you pay for not having to resubscribe. Like, you know. Yep. And I think, for me personally, that balances out. So you do not need to panic. I'm sorry for everybody that I did panic. The post has now been updated to state that the pen addict will remain 100% unchanged, and the other shows will be going through some changes. Good. All for the good, by the way. Oh, yeah. All excellent stuff. Brad knows what's happening, and he likes it, so you can trust him. Yep. So it's difficult to explain all this message because of how vague I'm being of everything, and I apologize for that. But I hope it's the right thing to do. I don't want to give too much, and then, you know, I don't want to over-promise, under-deliver, that sort of thing. So, yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, short version is, nothing's happening with me and Myke and the Pen Addict Podcast. Sorry we set off the alarm bells and the panic tweets and emails last week, but we will be continuing on as normal. There's just going to be a few-week gap between this episode and the next episode, I should say. But, in the end, it's going to be all good and even better.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We have a lot of fun stuff that we're working on that's going to make this show better for everyone. So, I think that everyone's going to really enjoy it, and it's going to be well worth any panic, aggravation, or upset. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, I think we got it cleared up by the next day. I put a post out on the blog, you know, just saying, hey, you know, this is, you know, just get, we're going to have a few weeks off, and then we'll be back and better than ever. So, no worries. And, you know, I'm excited about your new venture. I'm excited and proud to be a part of it and that you've asked me to be a part of it. And, you know, it's onward and upward from here, you know, it's sometimes these changes are you got to, you know, get past that initial little pain point, and then, you know, it's just straight up from there.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. It was actually Dan that pointed out to me. He was like, you should change your blog post because people are freaking out about the pen addict. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, good point, boss.

Brad Dowdy: I woke up to it, and it's like, oh, I can't believe it's leaving. I was like, wait, that's not the plan. And I knew the plan going into it. Then I went and read your blog post, and I was like, you know, that's not very clear. It makes it sound like the pen addict's going away.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, because technically it's true. They are all ending. And then they're, like, starting again, including this show. But it's got, everything's remaining the same with it. But we are, like, it's a weird thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Just everyone will be happy in the end. The phoenix will rise, and it'll all be good.

Myke Hurley: Yep, definitely. So I hope everyone stays along.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, please, please do. And if you have any questions, get in touch with us. Myke said how. And, yeah, we'd love to hear from you. But no panics, no freaking out. Just a few-week hiatus. But hopefully it won't be too long. So there you have it. If you have any questions, just let us know.

Myke Hurley: Basically, we're only doing this to give your wallets a break for a few weeks.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, some people will probably appreciate it, right?

Myke Hurley: And keep your wives and husbands happy.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, that's true. Although I'll still be writing on the pen addict as normal, so I'll ding the wallets a little bit.

Myke Hurley: But not as much. Yeah.

Estabrook Pens

Brad Dowdy: I dinged my wallet this weekend in a whole new way, Myke. I was invited by a couple of online friends. Scott from the Studio Temporary is who put this together. And if that name does not ring a bell to you or any listeners, anyone who's part of the Field Nuts group, that's how kind of I first met Scott. He's part of the Field Nuts group on Facebook. He did the logo for the Field Nuts group. If anyone has seen the Fountain Pen Day stickers and badges going around, like Scott did that design for the Fountain Pen Day. He did this great USA t-shirt design a couple months ago that went out. So Scott is a Georgia native like myself and like Jeff. And he'd been wanting to meet up with me, you know, just to chat really for a while. And he was going up to a flea market in Atlanta this past weekend. And I was going up to Atlanta to meet Jeff to do some knock work. And we worked it out where myself and Jeff met Scott at the, ironically, the Scott's Flea Market, unrelated. And he had a couple other friends there, Zach and Beth from zachandbeth.co, other designers in the Atlanta area. We had kind of a little meet up there, which was awesome. It was great meeting, great meeting other people. And it was fun, you know, putting a face face to the voice or to the to the text or everything that we've been we've been sharing. So, you know, we Scott goes up there on a frequent basis to kind of get design inspiration. Right. He's a designer. You know, the people he was meeting up, Zach and Beth, they were designers. Some other people met him up there. They're all designers. So they kind of get, you know, inspiration from like vintage flea market finds and, you know, just cool design inspiration, cool things. And, you know, I figured I'd go and bounce around there a little bit and see what I could find, too. And, you know, it wasn't much at first and it wasn't much at all in the end game. But I did stumble across a few little Estherbrook nibs. So I was pretty excited about that. So I did I did buy some Estherbrook nibs. I put a link into the show notes to where, you know, I just came across, you know, if anyone's most people have been to a flea market or like a junk sale or anything. It's just I mean, some of these tables is just piles of stuff like you can't see the bottom of the table or the bottom of the bins that they're in. Right. So it's part of the hunt is trying to find this stuff. And I wasn't looking too hard, but the Estherbrook nib boxes are small, but they're pretty noticeable. Like you get there this red and white look that you can kind of notice it from afar despite their small size. So I found three Estherbrook nibs. I got all three of them for five bucks, which was a really good deal. You know, they're they were kind of dirty and, you know, old ink is that they've been soaking for a day or two and I've getting them all getting them all cleaned up. But they look like they're in really good shape. And this this could be a new little problem for me because we've talked about Estherbrook nibs and how they are. There's such a huge number of them. Right. I mean, there's there might be hundreds or, you know, maybe 90 different nib styles that can fit into, you know, a single Estherbrook pen. You know, one of my blogging friends at Fountain Pen Quest, that Ron blanking. I apologize. His name. But at Fountain Pen Quest, he's been going through. He's got a whole, whole slew of Estherbrook nibs. And he's going through the refill and going through the reviews of each nib. And they're all listed by number. It'll be like 1558 fine point, you know, things like that. So if you're interested in Estherbrook nibs and there's a bunch of people that collect these and shop for these, fpquest.com. And we'll have the link in the show notes to his Estherbrook nibs page. He's he's done probably 20 separate Estherbrook nib reviews so far, which is pretty cool. It's a Estherbrook did a really neat thing in doing this and trying to fill kind of everyone's needs at one in one shot. You know, they have the pen and they made obviously thousands, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pens. But then they allowed for you to swap out these nibs. And it was very unique at the time, you know, back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, when this was a popular thing to be able to have all these different nib options for your pen. So who knows, you know, maybe it's a I got to catch them all thing for me. Like, you know, field notes, field notes have been or things like that. So it's a do you don't own an Estherbrook, Myke, do you?

Myke Hurley: I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's a pen you would actually really like. Anyone who has ever tried one of mine has enjoyed it. I've given one to Jeff. He's enjoyed it. It's just kind of it's a very practical pen. It's very it's generally inexpensive to purchase one. Like you can get a brand new one that's been refurbished and ready to write nib, you know, rebuilt for like $40 max. I mean, they're very reasonably priced for such an old pen. And they're just quality, quality pens and really good looking, really fun pens to use. So that's something you should put on your your radar one day. Or if I come across a good good example, maybe I'll pick one up for you and send it your way. Because I think you would actually enjoy that pen knowing what the type of things you like.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, if there's a specific one I should be looking for, then let me know.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. That's that's the thing about the Estabrook is they're all kind of good. They're all just same general ballpark design. There's obviously different model names, numbers. And, you know, I need to get Brian Anderson on this show. You know, as an that's another one I'm adding to the list. My list is growing.

Myke Hurley: Let Brian's help me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. He's the guru. He's Mr. Estabrook. He actually runs a website outside of Anderson pens called Estabrook dot net, where he is. He's one of the most well-known Estabrook collectors on the planet. So we'll get him on the show soon in our in our relaunch. I'll put him towards the top of the list. I got a bunch of other people. I'm going to get lined up for that, too.

Myke Hurley: So what was the name of the website that he makes?

Brad Dowdy: I believe it's just Estabrook dot net. So pull that up real quick. And that's that's him. That's Brian. That's Brian. He is. He is the king of the Estabrook.

Myke Hurley: So Mr. Anderson, Mr. Anderson.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, these nibs not only are the pens like highly collectible and people like to collect them because they're reasonably priced. The nibs are like a completely separate challenge just from the just from the pen barrels themselves. I mean, it's like, you know, there's different rarities of some nibs are harder to find than others. And it becomes, you know, some are very common, like most of the ones I got or just common nibs. Like, you know, like if I was at a pen show buying those nibs, like I got all three of these for five dollars, they'd probably be like ten dollars each at a pen show. So sure. I got a good deal on them, but they're not exactly. You know, it wouldn't like the score of the century type of thing. But yeah, that's definitely an addiction type of thing that could happen. So we'll see. We'll see.

Myke Hurley: You need another one of those.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's just what I need is is more ways to light my wallet on fire.

Myke Hurley: And then, you know, as is usual, you doing that causes me to go into that route, causes everybody else. So that's how these things work. That's what we do.

Family Meeting

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yes. It's always a problem. So anyway, I had a fun time meeting Scott and Zach and Beth. And, you know, I had my kids and Jeff had his wife. So we had a big we had a big to do at the at the at Scott's flea market and studio temporary Scott. You know, he's got a picture of us on up on Instagram. You can check it out. And it was a good time. And I actually have kind of gotten the bug of trying to find things like, you know, vintage ink bottles and things like that at these these flea markets. So that that's a whole whole whole another topic for another day. But, you know, I was up in Tennessee and picked up a little little Carter's ink bottle, which was very neat. And, you know, so it's getting back into these old vintage things at flea markets. I'm going to end up becoming a junk hunter, which is the last thing I'm sure my wife wants is me loading up the house with, you know, coming home with, you know, boxes full of junk that I've picked up at a flea market for probably no good reason at all. So I'd be interested to know if anyone else has this problem where they, you know, search out flea markets, estate sales, you know, just go and kind of kind of junking and finding, you know, good old pens, nibs, accessories, things like that. So it seems like a pretty cool thing to do.

Myke Hurley: So there's something that I wanted to point out before we move on to the pen blog of the week that we hadn't discussed beforehand. But there's a new product on this little web store that I'm a fan of, which is your lovely website. Oh, yeah. I couldn't figure out where you were going, honestly. I like to create some mystery. Yes. So our friends at Chaos Customs have worked with you guys at NotCo to create a pen where you're basically showing your love for the United Kingdom, which is really nice.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I'm glad you appreciate that.

Myke Hurley: And you've got a special colorway of like, you know, a nice color option of basically red, silver and blue. So, you know, it's patriotic to many nations. Yes. Tell me more about that.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. What we've done. And so there's a thing with running when, you know, when we started this business, it's given us the freedom to do the things we want to do. And that sounds kind of overly simplistic, but, you know, we want to carry, you know, obviously not just our pen cases, which we're obviously fans of. Um, we want to carry other people's products that we find interesting. And not just that is we want to be able to collaborate with these people. You know, in the case of when we launched, we collaborated with Myke Dudek to make our idea doc for our index cards. And then, you know, we had always planned to do something with Dan at Karis Customs and we had never finalized what that was going to be. Um, and Dan sent us this pen, um, as a thank you. And we're like, that's it. That's, that's the one we need to carry. And so we got with Dan, we worked on the details of getting, it's basically the G2 Render K, which the Render K model is, is probably still my favorite single Karis Customs model, but it's got a, it's an all aluminum pen. It's got the silver aluminum body. It's got a red tip and it's got a blue cap and it came out really good. Really, really, really good. Um, so we've gotten a lot of good feedback on that. And those are the kinds of things you can expect from us. Like that's not a limited item. We're going to, we're working with Dan. That's going to be like our Karis Customs pen. Like you're only going to be able to get that from us. And the idea doc from Mr. Dudek, you're only going to be able to get that from us. And we want to work with people who we believe in. And they, it's kind of like a mutual, mutually beneficial thing, right? I mean, we love their products. We love working with them and we want to be able to come together and create these new things, um, for our customers. So we are super excited to do that. And we've gotten lots of good feedback on that. It just went up on the site yesterday. Um, we didn't have a huge inventory of them yet. Um, cause Dan only had a certain amount of parts in, but that's going to be a regular item for us. And there's going to be a lot more standard items we'll carry. There'll be a lot more special items like the render K and idea doc will carry. Um, we've got some good things coming in. Hopefully we're going to be able to put up on the site next week. So it's just kind of, um, we're starting, we haven't hit our stride yet, but things are starting to, you know, the, uh, the ball's rolling a little bit, um, where we're able to do these kinds of things that we had planned in the back of our head.

Myke Hurley: So here's a question I have for you. Sure. Because I've yet to make an order from the new store. Cause there's a few things that I want, um, including the zipper pulls, stickers and the note cards. And now one of these things, I just built an order up and you said there's more stuff coming next week. Shall I wait? Like, you know, me personally, shall I wait for you specifically?

Brad Dowdy: I would say no.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: For other people, maybe. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Intriguing.

Brad Dowdy: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. I actually, as well, it's, it's a maybe it's not a definitely for you. It's a maybe, maybe wait, but for you, probably not knowing you.

Myke Hurley: All right. We don't usually do this, but let's talk after the show. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Like, I usually, Brad doesn't tell me anything. Like, usually I have, I don't know that any of this stuff is happening. Yeah. That was like. These guys don't tell me anything. No.

Brad Dowdy: That was like so unfair to all our listeners.

Myke Hurley: Well, but it seems like this, well, I'm actually about to give you some money. So. Yeah. Maybe it's best if I find out if I, if I should be doing that. Sorry, everyone.

Brad Dowdy: You won't have to wait long, people. Don't worry.

Myke Hurley: Don't worry. It's already nearly next week.

Other Products

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But regardless, Jeff and I are excited to do these. We want to get into other things besides pen cases. And that includes, you know, the whole gamut of stationary items. So you'll be seeing more from us along these lines as we, as we move forward and continue to grow, hopefully. So yeah, it's very, very cool. So I do have a pen blog of the week, which is another top secret Facebook groupie kind of thing. Like the field nuts is the Erasable podcast. Our friends, Andy, Tim, and Johnny from the Erasable podcast. They created a podcast Facebook group for anyone who's on Facebook. And I told Andy I would mention that because they just started it like two weeks ago or so. So they're just getting started on it. And if you're on Facebook and a fan of pencils or a fan of their podcast, hit them up, join them. And I also wanted to mention that during our hiatus, I will be joining the gang at the Erasable podcast for an episode here in two weeks. I will be on, they just released episode number 10 today with our friend Anna Reinhart. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm sure it's spectacular as always. And I will be on episode number 11. So everyone who listens to the Erasable podcast, you can, you can talk me about pencils in the coming weeks and I will be making an appearance on there. So I will let you know when that happens. So I will be popping my head up from under underground in your ears during our little break from recording the pen addict. So, and if anyone, anyone else has a podcast that wants me to, I've got a few weeks spare time. So hit me up.

Myke Hurley: That now's the time. Me too, by the way, actually. That's true. I'm going to be so lost.

Brad Dowdy: I know you're not going to, not going to know what to do without a week, a weekly recording schedule.

Myke Hurley: It's really going to freak me out. Um, if you don't subscribe to Erasable, um, and you're going to be sad that we're not going to be around for a couple of weeks. Well, now surely is the perfect time to go, to go subscribe to Erasable because you're going to get your, you're going to get your fix. That's right.

Brad Dowdy: So I think they're doing a, they're doing a really good job. It's a very informative, uh, podcast. I've learned a lot so far.

Myke Hurley: So that, that is my, that is the, the pen addict top tip of the day. Yep. Subscribe to Erasable. Erasable. Is that Erasable.us, right? Is the URL?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's their website and the, you know, the show's in iTunes and you can catch it in your favorite podcatcher.

Myke Hurley: Of course. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So I got a couple of bits I wanted to follow up from my inbox, um, this week, a little bit, um, a few of the things are new, a few of the things are follow up from last week and one in particular really struck home. Um, and it's from, uh, Mel. She lives in Japan and her and I have exchanged, um, you know, emails several times over the months. And, you know, she checks in with me every few months and, and kind of gives me a heads up and some feedback or she finds some new things over in Japan. She always taunts me with, and she likes to do that, but she made a good point. She, she said the thing I was trying to say with my butcher orange field notes, um, when we talked about that last week and my deciding to use it and fill it up and just use it like a regular notebook. It was hard to put into words like why I wanted to do it. Um, and I don't know if I necessarily get it, did a good job, but one of her replies in the email, she was just commenting on the podcast as a whole and mentioned the butcher orange segment. She said her quote was by using it, it is now truly yours and you fulfilled its purpose.

Brad Dowdy: And I thought that was pretty spot on for why I chose to use this book. This is what it was made for.

Brad Dowdy: And it's not truly mine until I put my stamp on it, you know, filling it up, writing in it. And I have not done right by its purpose, which was to hold all those ideas and thoughts that were mine. Um, so now I've fulfilled those things. I fulfilled the purpose of this notebook and I thought that was the right way to put it. Um, and so I thought that was pretty cool. And because I, I don't, I could never get those. I don't think I ever got those words out specifically on the why I just knew that it felt right. I didn't necessarily have the words to say. And, um, I thought Mel put that in a, um, in a good, in a good way. So I think you probably agree with that, Myke. That sounds like something right up your alley.

Myke Hurley: That is, I read that in the document and like sort of did a fist pump. Like, I, I feel that way about so many things. Like you can look after products and I do, and I take care of a bunch of things, but like my, uh, laptop rest in peace currently.

Myke Hurley: If I know what I mean, I, I, I spilled.

Brad Dowdy: You gotta tell, you gotta tell the, tell the quick story now.

Myke Hurley: I knocked over a glass of, um, soda into my laptop yesterday and, uh, it instantly shut off, which my friend Steven tells me, uh, means that the logic board is probably fried. Um, and it's going to be picked up. Luckily the, our home insurance will cover it. So even though it's accidental damage, they cover it. We pay extra for it. So finally it's used. Um, and then, uh, so now we have them coming to collect it on Thursday and it take about two weeks and I'll either get it repaired or, um, a new one. But yeah, I, I cover my laptop in stickers. I'll put a link in the show notes to a Flickr group that Steven created, which shows my, um, what I consider beautiful, but many consider hideous laptop, which I may lose, never see again, which is really sad too. Um, because if, if they replace it with a new one, if they can't fix it, then they're not going to give me that back, which kind of sucks, but yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You were really upset about it. I mean, we were talking before the show, you're like, I, the, all the stickers and the things I've done to personalize this mean a lot to me.

Myke Hurley: Right. I'm yeah. I'm really upset about it. Like a lot because I, all of the stickers that are on my laptop, they mean something to me. So I've chosen them all specifically. And it, and so now, and it's all, it's a lot of the things that I love or things that I've made or stuff like that. Right. So it now kind of feels like a visual representation of my personality. Mm-hmm. And it would really suck for that to just go away. And there's a strong chance that it will because everybody's telling me that what the signs that it's shown show that it's destroyed. Like one sticker is a sign sticker from my, one of my favorite music artists, Jonathan, Jonathan Colton. Well, I, the, many of the others I can repurchase or I still have some, but that one that's gone. Like, there's a Scott, there's a couple of Scott Pilgrim stickers. Oh, I'm looking at the pictures now, Brad. It's making me sad. So I've closed the tab. Oh no. But it's, it's in the show notes, but yeah. So, but I, I agree with the idea. If you use something, you've made it yours and you've, and, and again, you've, you've, the purpose of that notebook was solely created to have notes written in it.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I thought that was a good point. So to get your, to get your mind off your, your unfortunately fried notebook, Mel has also gone on to her email to, to make fun of me, which is, is everyone's favorite pastime and something I quite enjoy myself because you know, you can always learn something from that. But as I said, she's in Japan. She says, can I be picky about your Japanese pronunciation again? And these are the sailor inks, the sailor inks are some very strong Japanese words that I completely butcher and I will continue to butcher. So I'm always open for a pronunciation feedback as we've always been since we started this podcast. You know, our French and German has, has been very rough and my Japanese as well. So I used two new sailor inks last week when we were talking about refilling my fountain pens and the orange I put in my rotary. She says it's pronounced Ken Moxay. If I'm reading that right and hopefully she'll listen and see how I did on that. And the purple I put in my Edison perlet is Shigure.

Brad Dowdy: So hopefully I pronounce those better this time around. What do you think, Myke? How did I do?

Myke Hurley: I have no idea.

Brad Dowdy: Come on, man.

Myke Hurley: I mean, it sounds, it sounds great, but. I do have some follow up.

Ken Moxay Ink

Brad Dowdy: I do have some follow up on the Ken Moxay. When I reviewed that, I said it was almost identical to the sailor apricot, which is my favorite orange.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: And I put that in the rotary and last night was the first night I've used it since I did the refill.

Brad Dowdy: Holy cow. Is that the perfect ink for that pen? So I'll try to, I don't have a, I don't have a link to that to in, you know, I don't have a picture of that in Instagram or on Twitter or anything, but I'll do that. I'm going to do a, I've already reviewed the ink so you can go back and look at how great the ink color is. But, you know, I've talked about how I almost, how I concern myself about finding the right ink for the pen. I think that's the ink for that pen. And I'm excited about it. It sounds stupid, but I was like, holy cow, this is it. This is perfect. This is the exact ink that should be in this pen all the time. And that Rotring Lava nib, medium nib, I never thought I would like it so much. It is so good. It's, um, it writes really, really well. So I need to do a followup on that. I don't know that I've ever reviewed that pen completely, but now that it's got this ink in and I think it's the time because I'm really excited about it. And I think this is going to be, this is also why I want to switch out my pens and inks frequently because you learn things about the products you already have, right? These things have been sitting around my house for months, this ink and this pen. But until I push the reset button on my pen and ink carry, I didn't have this combination. And now it's the one for that, for that pen. So I'm pretty excited about that. As lame as that sounds, out of all those pens I refilled and started carrying last week, that's the one I'm most excited about. And that's the one that's going to stay in the rotation probably longer than every other pen in there. So it's very, very cool.

Brad Dowdy: Now I got another email from a gentleman named Tim and he brought up a topic that seems really obvious, but I've never mentioned it before because I've never really thought about it in this way. And his, the premise is basically slim fountain pens versus wide fountain pens. So let me read his email real quick or just a little piece of it. He says, why are fountain pens so fat? I personally get turned off by how fat many, many fountain pens are. I've been considering the Lamy C1 titanium and that it's so slim and sleek. I may have to drop some money on one soon. The Pilot Cavalier seems interesting as well. What do you think about slim fountain pens versus fat? So I never thought of it that way, but in general, fountain pens do have wider bodies than, you know, their gel or ballpoint pen counterparts, right? I mean, they have more, they have to fit more on the inside of a fountain pen than, you know, a skinny refill and a tip and a ballpoint pen. You know, they have the nib, which is wide, the feed that, you know, transfers the ink from the ink well or the cartridge or the converter. You know, there's a lot of internals going on in a fountain pen that make them a little bit wider than your standard everyday pen that you might see. Um, and I haven't used a lot of skinny pens. I'll do, I do have a Lamy CP1, which is similar to the one that he's mentioning that I have yet to review. And I actually didn't, I didn't like it. I didn't like the slimmer fountain pen. Um, and I don't know why it's something I need to think about a little bit more, but have in the pens that you have, Myke, I think knowing what you have, I think generally you pretty much everything's like a standard fountain pen, you know, it's a normal wide, you don't have a skinny fountain pen, do you?

Myke Hurley: No, I don't have a skinny. Well, I don't think, I can't think of anything I consider to be skinny. I mean, obviously I have a larger than life fountain pen and the Franklin Christophe that you got me. Right. Um, but I don't have anything that I can think of that would be considered skinny.

Lamy Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I have the Lamy CP1, which I need to review. One, I think that's kind of in between that I do enjoy is the Sailor Regulus, which I reviewed. It's a good looking orange Sailor pen, um, with a steel nib that writes really, really fine. That's something to consider on the slim fountain pen front. It's not as skinny as the Cavalier or the Lamy CP1, um, outside of those, I don't know that I have anything less than say just a traditional fountain pen width. It's slim fountain pens were more prevalent back in, I don't know, the early 1900s, mid 1900s. You used to see a lot of, like every brand had like a slim or skinny model. It seemed like between Waterman, Parker, um, you know, all, a bunch of the, a bunch of those companies always had, you could, and you can still find some of the skinnier vintage models along with their standard models. And then I think as the years have gone by, you know, I, the tendency of the pen designs have been wider instead of skinnier. I'm trying to think of any other modern pens besides that, the Cavalier or the Lamy that, um, that I have even used other than the Sailor Regulus. That's about all that comes to mind. So if anyone has any suggestions about a slim fountain pen, that's good. Um, that's current, that's a modern, that would, you would consider a modern fountain pen. Let me know. Cause I'd, I'd just be interested in seeing, uh, what I'm, what I'm overlooking, um, right now. Um, so I got another, a different email, uh, gentleman named John. He says, this is, this is another question. Had a good, um, had some good, um, brain thinking type questions that I haven't considered, which is why I love, you know, people reaching out with their email questions so much. Lots of, lots of points I haven't considered when, uh, getting some of these emails. It really makes me think. So John says, I bought a Pelican 205 from Pen Chalet when they first sponsored Pen Attic and could not get it to write smoothly from the start. After researching new pen problems, I cleaned the pen well and there was some improvement. He says, I've been using the pen for three months plus and slowly the steel nib, steel nib is bedding in and writing better. My Lamy Safari worked great from day one. I've bought several vintage pens, Schaefer and Parker, all right smoothly. Perhaps you can do a Twitter poll of most reliable new pen buys for a show topic sometime. So I think what he's saying is what brand of pen have you come across that consistently works the best right out the gate? I think is kind of what John's getting at. And I thought about this for a little bit and I thought of two, I thought of two things, one on the, one on the good side and one on the not so good side. So the pens I've had the best experience with from a reliability standpoint, right from the moment I've purchased them to immediately using them the first time and they've worked right away. All my pilot pens seem to nail that. I don't recall ever having issues with pilot pen barrels, pilot pen nibs, ink cartridges, converters, anything. And that's why they're one of my favorite brands, I guess, if I'm putting, you know, all the pieces together of the puzzle right now. You know, maybe that's why I enjoy pilots so much because it always works right out the box. I've never had any questionable pilot products and I have a lot of pilot pens. And I don't recall ever having one where I've been like, something's not quite right here or this nib's not doing what I want. Let me get it fixed or just something in, you know, the clip being loose or something, you know, with the physical build of the pen. So reliability standpoint, I think pilot has kind of, is kind of at the top of that list for me. Now I don't have a huge, huge range of experience with just a majority of, you know, all the pen brands that are out there. But on the down the flip side, Lamy is actually the one that has been the least reliable for me.

Brad Dowdy: And that's just in a general perspective, like my Lamy 2000, you know, I had lots of problems with that nib when it first came, when I first received it. And that's one that always stuck in my head that right out the gate, you know, that Lamy kind of really, that's never stopped me from buying any Lamy products because in the big picture, they're really good. Their quality control is really good.

Brad Dowdy: But, you know, I'm not the only one to have problems with the Lamy 2000. I've personally never had problems with Kaweco. A lot of people have had problems with Kaweco nibs.

Myke Hurley: I am one of them. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And Jeff Abbott that writes for me at the pen addict. He's had a problem with his nibs, Kaweco nibs. I've probably got 10 Kaweco nibs. Never had a problem. So it's traditional. Your mileage may vary. I think with all the big manufacturers in general, you're going to have a good experience. And, you know, there are some outliers, you know. I know Twisby, I'm obviously a huge fan of. And they, you know, some people have physical problems with their pens. You know, the piston not, you know, sealing all the way down or cracking in the section. All these big pen companies, they stand behind their pens like Twisby. They, you know, they're happy to fix your pens. Of course, it's frustrating that, okay, maybe it shouldn't have happened in the first place. But all these pen companies, they're going to stand behind their products. So if you do have a problem, reach out to the vendor that you purchased it from or reach out to the manufacturer. Sometimes it's quicker to go straight through that way. But do you have any, like in the main brands, Myke, do you have any good or bad, like, do you, you know, you're always happy with a certain pen. Or certain brands have been just a frustration from the get-go and you don't think it should be?

Myke Hurley: I've never had a problem with any Retro 51 products from a reliability standpoint. There have been a couple of other things that I don't like as much as others, but not because they've been broken. And I bought a bunch of stuff from that brand from a bunch of different vendors. I mean, I've spoken about my woes with Twisby. Love Twisby products, but the quality and reliability isn't fantastic at times. But they do have excellent customer service in my own experience and the experience I've seen of others in replacing things. I don't think I've got any more from that. I mean, Lamy, I've never had a problem with Lamy, ever. And I've bought a bunch of stuff from them. But what I'm not including in that, naturally, is the 2000, which is one of the most unsure pens of reliability that you can possibly own. And you are including the 2000 in yours. Sure. So that's a big difference. I mean, I've only ever bought sort of the low to mid-range Lamy stuff, which seems to be more reliable, I guess, because of the manufacturing processes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And actually, now that I think about it, I had some difficulties with my Lamy Studio, the 14-karat gold nib. I bought an extra fine nib, and it was just a flood of ink. It was, like, way wider than what any of my steel extra fine Lamy Safaris were. And I had to get that. I got that nib modified, and now it's wonderful. But still, that was another one. So it seems to be, for me, the Lamy gold nib pens have been the challenge for me, while the steel nibs are pretty much great right out the box.

Myke Hurley: So a complete unscientific thing. Yeah, totally. The thing would be to say that Lamy's really good at mass manufacture, but once they start getting into the more specific and, like, boutique, if it might be a word, or limited edition type stuff, stuff that doesn't sell as much as the regular steel, like, Safaris and things, that maybe their manufacturing processes are a little bit more haphazard.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, maybe. And that's what's kept... I've always wanted the Lamy Dialog 3, which is their retractable nib fountain pen. But I don't know that I've ever read a good review of that pen. And it's more from a design perspective. Like, it doesn't seal off at the end when the nibs retract it, so it dries out constantly.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and that's a...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's kind of a big deal.

Myke Hurley: It makes it unusable.

Brad Dowdy: So I would have bought that pen years ago, and I kept reading reviews, and I was like, it's not getting any better. So I don't know, but...

Myke Hurley: I would like to reiterate something you said, and especially in regards to the pen chalet, is to contact them if you have a problem like this. Because it may be that you have a dud nib. Absolutely. And I'm sure that, you know, all of these vendors, like JetPens, ColtPens, the writing desk, they're going to work with you to fix these problems. Because I'm sure, I mean, I don't know this, maybe you know better than I do, but they would just return that one to the vendor, like, to the manufacturer.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, I'd say in general, that's what's going to happen. And they'll go ahead and replace it, and they'll handle, you know, getting a swap out on their end. But, you know, from a customer service perspective, they'll just replace it for you. In general, that's what companies are going to do. Like I said...

Myke Hurley: Especially with these companies, that's what I've found, because they're small. So it's really important, and especially with this community, it's really, really beneficial to have good customer service. And because you're going to get repeat purchase, because we're addicts. Yep. So you're going to get repeat purchase. I can't think of any one of these major pen websites that I've only bought from once.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's true.

Myke Hurley: Because for some reason or another, I bought from them once, and that other reason or another is going to appear again. Right. You know? Like price or availability or shipping speed or, you know, UK-based, US-based. Like, I bought from all of them multiple times for different reasons. Mm-hmm. So, you know, contact the vendor, and I'm sure they'll help you out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and that's one of those things, I think I mentioned it last week. I'm always willing to give a pen brand. I'm not talking about a retailer here. I'm talking about a brand like Pelican or Lamy or Pilot a second chance. Like, if I get a, you know, have a bad experience the first time from a generally well-known company, you know, I'm not going to go out and, you know, eviscerate Lamy because I got a bum nib. Knowing that they have a great reputation for their products, maybe I just got a bad one. And that's going to happen some time to time. When you're dealing with the tolerances that you have to have for some of these products, there's going to be some variance.

Myke Hurley: That was how I felt with Twisby until I had my third Twisby across three different product lines break. Yep. So I had a 540 break. I had a 540 ROC break. Was it a 580? I might have had break the first time. No, the 540s. They were both 540s. Both 540s. But they broke in different ways. Yeah. And then I had a mini break as well. But I still recommend them. Exactly. Because they broke after a lot of use. A lot of use.

Brad Dowdy: The 540s were historically bad and Twisby has admitted as much and that's why they don't make them anymore. That's why they replaced them with the 580.

Myke Hurley: They replaced parts that I've asked for and the mini, I should have just contacted them rather than trying to fix it myself. But I'm an idiot like that. Yeah. And I paid, the price that I paid is now I am no longer in possession of my own mini. Because it had to be given to my girlfriend because I didn't fix it properly. Way to go. So now I don't own my own.

Myke Hurley: Which is the right thing to do. Absolutely. Because I went and broke it.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So I got an interesting link on Twitter this week and I wanted to bring it up to you because you are world traveling Myke Hurley. I mean you just flew from London. You flew out of Heathrow when you went to WWDC to San Francisco. Did you stop anywhere in between?

Myke Hurley: No, not on the way there.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Then on the way back, did you fly through anywhere?

Myke Hurley: I went to Memphis and then Memphis to Chicago. Chicago to home.

Pen Stationery

Brad Dowdy: So at any of these stops in some of the largest airports in the world, Heathrow, Chicago, SFO, did you ever run across any pen stationary fancy goodness?

Myke Hurley: Not particularly. I must say though on that front, there's a brand in the UK called The Pen Shop and they sell very, very expensive stuff. And I walked into one of their stores the other day and nearly walked out laughing because of the prices. Yeah. Just like I was looking at Pelican prices. Sure. And I was with my special lady and I was like, I know about three different companies, two of which sponsor me and have done in the past that you could get these literally half price.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, like two for one. Yeah. That's what I was going to say.

Myke Hurley: You know, it's disgusting. I think it's so bad.

Brad Dowdy: So our friend, podcast friend Doug at Modern Stationer, who's also been a pen blog of the week, he sent this picture. He ran across at the JFK airport in New York. Muji, which we have talked about on this show, the big Japanese retailer, has a great line of gel ink pens. And so he ran across the Muji store in JFK. They didn't just have their pens for sale at the airport shop in JFK, which is great enough. You know, I would have been happy if I ran across a Muji store in an airport and could pick up some new gel pens. They actually had a build your own pen station at the airport with their Muji products. And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. I mean, they could they allow you to pick a color refill, the size refill, pen barrel size and just kind of the whole the whole thing to put together the pen that you wanted. How cool is this picture?

Brad Dowdy: It's not even at the Muji store, like at the flagship store in NYC. This is at the airport.

Brad Dowdy: I was I was really blown away.

Myke Hurley: There's a Muji store in London. I might have to try and get down there and take a look, see if they've got it there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I just wanted to share this with everyone because I thought it was so neat. So now if anyone's flying through JFK, which is a super, super big airport, you need to go by and check this out. It's it's pretty cool. I was very impressed that this was not at their just at at an airport shop by Muji. So good, good job by them. And if anyone hasn't tried a Muji pen and they run across something like this, owe it to yourself to pick one up. You can probably get one for about three dollars and their gel ink pens are really good. They have an excellent point three eight millimeter pen. It's super, super good. So check this picture out and drool a little bit.

Myke Hurley: So.

Myke Hurley: I googled Muji pen London.

Myke Hurley: Build your own. Guess what one of the links takes me to what? 24th of February 2011. Muji gel standard gel ink pen plus a build your own on the pen addict dot com from UK reader Shabana who submitted that review for you.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. I'm so dense. I just didn't even realize that she did it at a build your own station. I knew she'd done the review.

Myke Hurley: So maybe she did it in the UK. So I'll have to try and take a look.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. Well, yeah, you need to get on that and see if they have the actually. I'm sure there's some people that go to the Muji store regularly that they do have the build your own. But I couldn't believe it when I saw that at the at the airport. So that's cool. But yeah, I'm everywhere in the Google, Myke.

Myke Hurley: You sure are.

Myke Hurley: Can't get rid of you.

Brad Dowdy: Can't shake it. But yeah, that was actually a really good review. Really good review. I love Muji pens. I need more. I need more. That when I use a notebook, a piece of paper, a journal, a notepad. I never use more than three quarters of the page.

Myke Hurley: Hmm.

Butcher Orange

Brad Dowdy: I noticed this. I've obviously been doing this for my entire life, but I've only noticed it now when I was going through this butcher orange. And I was flipping to like the next blank page. Every page is like three quarters filled. And then I noticed like some of my other notes, just like my work notes on my desk. Every page is no more than three quarters filled. I never use the full page. So are you a full page notes user? Does this even register on your in your brain?

Myke Hurley: I get what you're saying. I'm flicking through a couple of field notes. I basically just use as much as it takes for that one item. So like I won't use one page for multiple things unless it's like just a scratch pad for the day. Like if I'm taking notes on something, if it only takes three lines, right, that's that next page. Sure. So probably on average, yeah, three quarters probably works out for me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know. But I just wanted to bring that up to see what other people do and find out, you know, I, you know, I look online and I see some people, you know, are like full top to bottom, you know, using up generally every square inch of the page, at least, you know, vertically. And I've just every page I own that has something written on it. I don't think I've ever used like the bottom quarter of the page for anything, even if it's a continuation of a topic or a note or something. It's onto the next page. And I don't know. It just struck me as I was going through this.

Myke Hurley: And if anyone's, if anyone's keeping track, I just ran through a book in two weeks. Wow. Yeah. That's fast.

Brad Dowdy: That's fast. Yeah. I'm still, I don't know. I'm probably only maybe a dozen pages into my Butcher Orange so far.

Myke Hurley: So I'm using one of those special, those special coal edition ones now. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I'll be writing in that tomorrow for the first time.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Yeah. I'll be interested to know how that goes. I haven't cracked one of those open yet, but maybe soon, maybe soon. So anyway, I think that's all I got for this week, Myke. I know it's a, we should have like a big five by five send off episode, but seeing that you killed the show last week and they were back to like this week, I didn't have too much time to plan for it. You knew. Just kidding. Just kidding. So yeah, this is our last episode on five by five. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much to, for Dan Benjamin for bringing over the show, um, for everything he's done with the show. Thank you to everyone who has joined as the show as a listener, as part of it being on five by five. I hope that you follow us into our new home. Um, again, as I mentioned, stay subscribed to the feed and you will get the new episodes of the pen addict as soon as they are ready to come out of the oven. Um, if you want to find the show notes for today's episode, go to five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash one one five.

Myke Hurley: Yes. One more five. Got it. Yep. Yep. And we'll be back very soon. Um, until then, thank you all for listening. My name is Myke Curley. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.