The Pen Addict 13/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	13
Title:	The Back to Work Kit
Release Date:	May 10th, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 13
Audio File:	Audio Episode 13
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 13
Length:	4343 min <br />0.717 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello, and welcome to episode 13 of The Pen Addict, your weekly show where we discuss pens and paper and the analogue tools we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined, as always, by my partner in crime and trusty co-host, The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Brad, how are you?

Brad Dowdy: I'm great, Myke. How are you, sir?

Myke Hurley: Very well, sir. Very well, indeed. We have two sponsors this week. We have Squarespace, who's coming back to join us again, and we also have Pair Note. We'll talk about those a little bit throughout the show. So, I'm going to start off, Brad, by talking about my horribly upsetting experience I've been having so far this week.

Brad Dowdy: Uh-oh. What do you got?

Vanishing Point Pen

Myke Hurley: So, after the last episode, I broke down. I'd had enough. I decided I must buy a vanishing point. Right? So, I couldn't take it any longer. It was hurting me that, you know, that you had the pen that I wanted so much. Mm-hmm. So, I figured I had to go buy one. So, I went on to JetPens, put my order, one of the broad. Got a broad nib.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. That sounds right for you.

Myke Hurley: Bought a bunch of cartridges, as well, some Namiki cartridges, which will fit. Um, I also picked up some cartridges for my, uh, Retro 51. Okay, great. So, some refills, sorry. Um, because I figured I might as well while I'm in a store. Then, while I was checking out, um, I got advertised to me a Retro 51 with, like, one of their new ones. Um, and they have, like, a king and a queen. So, it's like a playing card. It's, like, wrapped around the, uh, the body. Yep. I'll put a link in the show notes. Picked one of those up, too.

Brad Dowdy: You got the queen, right?

Myke Hurley: Obviously.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, obviously.

Myke Hurley: Go drink early over here.

Myke Hurley: No, I got, obviously, I got the king.

Brad Dowdy: Those are pretty, those are pretty sharp looking, I'll also have to say. Yeah. They're really cool looking.

Myke Hurley: They're really good. And I figured, um, I have my, my orange, my regular Retro 51. One I have in my, uh, rucksack. Take that to work and we'll talk about this. That's actually the main subject to this show. So, we'll talk about that in a bit. Why I do that. Um, so, I would like, I would actually like to have a Retro 51 at home. You know, that I can use at home. Because I don't get the pens out of my rucksack. So, because of the, the cost of this order. It's a very expensive order. Um, I decided to go with the expensive shipping. Now, jet pens are shipping from the States to, to here. Usually their shipping's like $8. Um, it's untracked and there's no time limit. You kind of, you know, it can take any time, any time up to 40 days. And they won't, they won't investigate it because it could take that long. And I've had things come in a couple of days. I've had it take a couple of weeks. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Right. So, I paid, uh, $45 shipping. Mm-hmm. To get their five business day shipping. My vanishing point has been sitting in British Customs for four days.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's brutal.

Myke Hurley: So, because I've got a tracking number, um, and I cannot for any reason see why it's sitting there. First on the USPS tracking service on their system. And it's just saying to me, nope, it's in, it's in customs.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. That's a, that's, that's a brutal process. It's hard. To have to wait, go through. It's not fun. And there's nothing you can do. I mean, you just have to wait for it to get through, right?

Myke Hurley: Just have to wait. But, and it, I don't know, it said, at one point it said it passed customs, cleared customs, and then went back in again.

Brad Dowdy: Oh.

Myke Hurley: So, I'm probably going to end up with a pen that's turned to sand because they've, like, exploded it or taken it to pieces and they're going to bend up the nib and.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's a pretty, uh, it's, it's, uh, interesting looking design. If they don't know what they're looking at, looking at, um, in those x-rays or whatever, if they're getting into it, um, they may not know what that is. Myke, you might be in trouble.

Myke Hurley: I might be in trouble.

Brad Dowdy: Might be getting a knock, knock at 2am this morning.

Myke Hurley: From the, uh, pen police.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: It's, it's, it's horrible. It is horrible because I was really, I was really, because I bought the shipping, I was, um, totally geared up to talk about it on this week's episode. Right. And then you posted part one of your love letter.

Myke Hurley: To the vanishing point, which didn't help anymore. So I'm going to put a link to that in the show note as well.

Myke Hurley: So what can I say?

Brad Dowdy: I'm very upset. My, my, my condolences because, um, I have mine right here.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Thanks very much.

Brad Dowdy: And, uh, uh, and, uh, cause I just, I just cleaned it out this morning. Um, you know, getting ready to go back to work here soon. And so I wanted to clean it out, clean out the converter out of the ink and switch, go ahead and switch it over to cartridge, which I was using black ink in my converter before. And I was switching over to black ink cartridge. They're different brands. So I just, I'm anal about that stuff. So I cleaned it out, flushed it. And so I can get a nice clean, uh, clean nib before I put it in the cartridge.

Myke Hurley: So I, that makes sense. Different ink, right? You're using. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I was like, well, I could just go for it and just jam it in there and let the blacks, you know, work themselves out. You know, the a black ink work themselves out between each other. And I was like, well, I got time. Let me just clean this out and dry it out. And I popped the cartridge in, you know, about an hour ago and everything's gone perfectly.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I've decided to go the cartridge route. Um, just because the, um, you know, the, the prayer is, is from the Namiki range, I guess might be the right thing to say. And yeah, the converter has not fared me too well. Right. Um, and it was actually a less fun experience to use that pen after moving to a converter. So.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Vanishing Point Inks

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that seems to be kind of the, the general consensus on the vanishing point. I mean, believe me, a lot of people still use the converter, but a lot of people are just stuck with the cartridges. Um, it helps with the portability. Um, and then you can still, it helps with the ink capacity and then you can still, you know, do a syringe refill, which I haven't done yet. Uh, on an empty cartridge and use your special links. You know, if you like different colors or, you know, different brands think that are outside the cartridge, you know, just wash. And that's a very, very common thing to do with the vanishing point.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, that is obviously possible, but that's kind of crazy. Yeah. I've said that before. I mean, and I can understand why someone will want to do it, but the, the cartridges are not, not too expensive. And I assume that they probably have a reasonable life to them.

Brad Dowdy: Well, yeah. And if you, but it's, it's mainly just for the special inks, you know, inks you can't get in a cartridge. And, and I'm going to, I'm going to try it at least once. Just if, if nothing else, just to test, test some things out, see how it's done. I already have a, a syringe ready, uh, for testing whenever I drain this first cartridge here. This is the first one I've put in.

Myke Hurley: So where did you get the syringe from? Just like a drugstore or?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, my wife's a pharmacist.

Myke Hurley: Fair play. She just stole something from the supply cupboard.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, give me the, give me the biggest gauge needle you could find. I don't want some little teeny tiny things. So, yep. So I got a, a wide gauge needle to, uh, suck up some ink and we'll see how that goes. It's.

Myke Hurley: I can only imagine that causing a horrible mess, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. And I'm not a real inky person. I don't like getting ink everywhere. I'm not one of the, I'm, I'm a real clean animal tentative person. So that's, uh, out of my wheelhouse to begin with, but I think it's interesting enough to, uh, to give it a try and, and worth testing on, at least on the vanishing point.

Myke Hurley: Every time I fill up, if I fill up a converter, it's like a process because I get ink everywhere. For sure. No matter how I do it, I just get so messy.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. And that, that, it drives me crazy. Some people that just does not bother them at all. And I honestly, I, I think that's why I resisted fountain pens for so long. Just because they're, they're messier. You know, I don't like seeing ink on the nib. I don't like nib creep. You know, I don't like dots of ink on the nib. I try to wipe them off and I make it worse. And I, I go have this, you know, vicious cycle of trying to clean the nib, making it worse, clean the nib, make it worse. And I was like, forget it and just put it down. And that'd be it. So that's, I've tried to get over that and, you know, starting to use bottled inks and converters is getting me over that ink phobia, I guess. And I'm coming around, but I still don't like to make a mess.

Myke Hurley: So, um, have you been using anything new this week or just vanishing point all the way?

Mail Delivery

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty much been vanishing point, but, you know, right before the podcast, the mail came and I have a box here that the tape is still, a box from jet pins that the tape is still sealed on. So I haven't even had time to open it yet. So next, maybe next week we'll go through some, uh, some new stuff that I, that I got.

Myke Hurley: I don't know how you show such self-restraint.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I've, I've been sideways busy today is the only reason. Otherwise it would have been opened already. So that's, that's my only excuse.

Myke Hurley: We recorded. Yeah. We've recorded an episode since I got back. Yeah. So we've spoken about the field notes, not opened them yet, but I wanted to make sure that we'd spoken about them.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. We talked about them last week. I hadn't cranked them open, but I did see, uh, Mr. Hackett's photo of his field notes and his, uh, zebra Saracic clip on Twitter this morning. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: He's, uh, he cracked open the, the first of the national crop edition.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. He had the corn in use. So those are, those are pretty cool looking. I passed on the national crop edition. I don't know why it was just, you know, wasn't it's beautiful. Just, you know, I, I have a problem with, with the field notes where I can't just buy one set of them. I buy two at a minimum and those were a bigger set and a set of six. So you just have too many. So I would have, and I've got an, I didn't need, I wasn't going to buy six. I was going to buy 12. I couldn't buy just, if I bought just six, I would never use them. That's just the way I am. It's, I don't, I don't collect things, but it's like that collector mentality, right? I'm going to buy it, but not use it. Well, I want to use my field notes. So I usually buy a minimum of two packs if I like them and crack one open, use it and stash the other one for later use. That's cool. And I didn't, I didn't want to buy two boxes of the, um,

Myke Hurley: Yeah, because if you really like this version, double the amount of time that you can spend with the book. Because most of the time, but well, usually by the time you finished using that pack of field notes, they won't be for sale anymore.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And plus I like to, I like to give some away to people. Like if they missed out on one and they say, Oh, I really wish I had such and such. I was like, well, you know what? I got an extra one. Let me send one to you. So I've done that to a few, for a few people.

Myke Hurley: You sent some to me?

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: So, um, I think we should talk about our first sponsor for this week before we move on into our main topic. So, um, our sponsor again this week is Squarespace. They continue into sponsors throughout the month of May. So, uh, Squarespace, they are everything you need to create an amazing website or blog. Um, they have extremely reliable hosting. Um, hosting never goes down. Um, they have very, very powerful website creation tools. You can, you know, very simply, using their WYSIWYG editors, create a site that looks exactly as you want. You can base it from, um, their very professionally designed templates. So you can create something all on your own if you are a CSS wizard or wizardess. I'm a guy for witch. I don't like that CSS. It sounds weird. Um, if you want to create a site like 70 decibels and you want to have multiple people being able to log in, you can do that. You can set people up with multiple logins so you can have user accounts and you can set their permissions. Like if for, as I say, if for any reason I don't believe that Brad has good taste and I don't want him changing the colors of the website, I can restrict his editing abilities on that. Um, if you are a Markdown person, if you like to write in Markdown, you can write natively in Markdown in both on the web and in the post field or even in the iOS applications, which are also extremely cool and show you all of your stats and your referrers and everything. Now we spoke last week that Brad was moving over, um, to Squarespace and I believe he is still doing so. You accidentally moved over a couple of days ago because of some DNS issues and you weren't ready, were you, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: No, I wasn't ready to move and I had some time off and I had some DNS issues. So I was like, well, let me just go and make the move to Squarespace. And, you know, I, I got everything ready and started the move and I thought originally I had a DNS problem, but actually in the process of moving over to Squarespace, I hit a bug, um, on the Squarespace side of things. Um, the, you know, the best I can say is the Squarespace support has been nothing short of awesome. You know, I don't have my site in place right now. I've hit a bug. You know, I went through several, an email chain with support, you know, here's what I found. They're like, okay, here, let me look into it. And they were able to repeat, you know, through my steps, the same bug that we hit. So, you know, even though I don't have my site up and running, I was glad that they said, hey, yeah, we can, we can repeat this too. Let us escalate this. We're going to escalate this ticket. Um, and we'll, we'll get it looked at. So we're still going back and forth, um, you know, doing some testing. Um, so I haven't made my conversion over there yet, but even in the short time that I did have the site up, it, it, it's making it harder for me. I stay where I'm at right now because all the tools and toys are so cool over there. Everything's so much better at Squarespace than where I'm at now. Um, I'm dying to, like, the iOS apps are so slick. And I'm like, oh, this is awesome. And I can't use it. So, you know, I'm working with, uh, Squarespace support. They've been, um, extremely responsive and, you know, it, hopefully we'll get it resolved soon and I'll get the, the pen addict, uh, transferred over permanently.

Myke Hurley: So we were talking before the show and, and Brad was like, you know, should I, should I talk about it? Because, you know, I've, I've got a little bit of a problem. And I was like, well, no, because, you know, at the same time, you're telling me that the support's being excellent. And that's really important. You know, things can go perfectly for you, but they're going to go wrong at some point. I had a bug. I've had a couple of bugs and because I'm basically 70 decibel site is held together with good wishes and sellotape. The way that I put it together. Um, I have encountered a few issues and the support have always been really good. Like that. It doesn't feel like manufactured support. Like I feel like I'm talking to real humans and they're trying to deal with real human problems for me. So I figured that that really is as much of a feature as anything else that they offer, which is very fast, prompt, efficient, professional support. Um, and you know, we were talking as well. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get the bug fixed and whether it can, anything can be fixed, even a tool where you still want to be a part of Squarespace. That's right. That speaks to the tools as well. Right.

Brad Dowdy: That's, that's exactly right. I mean, I, I've, I've seen the light and getting in there and playing with the tools and, and everything involved with the blog and the blog set up. I mean, the pen addict's been around for almost five years. I have a 1100 or so posts. I have over 20,000 comments. I could import that entire blog and be live on Squarespace in maybe 15 minutes. That's incredible. It blew my mind. And so, cause we did testing back and forth. Like I'd blow away the site and I'd reimport. And I was like, it was just like snap. I was like, Whoa. I mean, my whole site's over there, my comments, my images.

Myke Hurley: So, you know, I know it's only text and it's not a big file, but to get all of that format, it looked like that was where the site had always been. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: Really, really great stuff. So if you want to go try out Squarespace, go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. You can start your two week free trial. And when you decide to purchase either the annual or monthly plans with the annual plans at the moment, you're getting free domains, which is amazing. If you use the coupon code 70 decibels five at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first purchase. So that's Squarespace. Thank you very much. Right. So Brad, I sort of alluded to this a short time ago that we're going to be talking about work and what, you know, the tools, the pens and the papers that we use whilst in our work life.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right.

Myke Hurley: So as you're going, you've, you've, you've landed yourself a job for anybody that doesn't know. So well done. Thank you. Congratulations on that. It's always good to have money.

Brad Dowdy: My wife is thrilled.

Myke Hurley: I bet she is. She's not having to steal more medical supplies for you anymore.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm getting, I'm getting back to work. I'm moving from, you know, the home office environment where I can have just as much junk around me as I want and all my pens and paper just laying around everywhere and everything accessible to moving back into an office environment. You know, where I'll be in like a, you know, a cube office type, you know, Dilbert environment where there's people going to be stealing my pens. So it's a big switch, you know, moving from home where I can just leave, you know, my vanishing point laying on my desk to move into back to work. So I got to be a little bit more careful.

Myke Hurley: So this week. 20 vanishing points.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly.

Myke Hurley: And just having them in a big cup so people can borrow them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Just laying out, you know, grab one, chew on it, lick it, you know. Drop it. And don't bother about returning it. And, you know, whenever you need a refill, just put it back in and I'll find an empty pen whenever you get to it.

Brad Dowdy: But no, I, since I don't go back till Monday. So I took an afternoon this week and I sorted out what I'm taking to work. Put it back to school. Yeah, it is. It is. Because there's only, there's certain things I want to take, certain things I want to leave home, certain things that I need. And so, and I didn't have a topic for this podcast. I was like, you know, I'm putting this all together. And, you know, I sent a couple pictures out on Twitter and everyone's like, oh, what's that case? What's this? And I was like, well, let's talk about, you know, getting ready to, you know, go back to work or what type of pens you keep in the office and how you use your pens in the office. So the first thing I did is it's a two-prong attack, right? If you're a pen addict, you have pens that you and only you want to use, but you have other pens on your desk that are the bait, if you will. Right? So the first thing I did was I grabbed a Ziploc bag and I started going through my pens and I was like, these are the pens I like. But I'm not going to miss them if they go vanishing one day. You know, either I won't miss them or they're easily replaceable. So I got it. But I still like them. You know, there's all pens that I like. You know, if I wanted to grab one out of the cup, I'm not going to hate the pen that I write with. You know, it's not like a bunch of, you know, generic ballpoints or, you know, drug rep pens or something crazy like that. You know, it's good stuff, but it's replaceable. It's not the goods. It's filled with like the Uniball 207, some Pilot G2s. Zebra 301s. You know, just some good quality writing pens that, you know, that keeps people from rummaging through my desk looking for a pen when I'm not there. So, yeah, that's the bait trap I set up. You know, these are the kind of things that pen addicts do. These are the kind of things I think about because I don't want to take one of my good pens, leave it on my desk, go to the break room and come back. And someone has made a way with it. And, you know, the next thing you do, you're walking down the hall and they're chewing on it.

Workplace Story

Myke Hurley: I have a horrible story to tell you.

Brad Dowdy: So there goes your pen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so I have a terrible story. Last week I had to sit down with an impromptu one-on-one meeting with my boss. There was some crazy stuff happening at work and he was hanging around like we were in the same place. He was like, right, I need to speak to you about something. Come sit down. And it involved a lot of writing. And I had my moleskin and I had my tornado. And he picked it up.

Myke Hurley: And I was like, oh, my God. What can I do? I can't say anything. I couldn't say anything really in that situation. And he was like, this is a nice pen. And I was like, yeah. And he's like, I haven't got one, so I'm going to have to use it. I was like, oh, my God. He's using it. And at least it wasn't a fountain pen. Because I can't let people use fountain pens of mine because it can destroy them because I'm left-handed. But I was basically for the whole 20 minutes, all I was doing was watch him write.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And he was fascinated by the twisting mechanism. And so he kept doing that back and forth. I was like, oh, you're hurting me so much.

Brad Dowdy: I know. And I've had that problem. Because before I went and worked at JetPens, I worked in a data center for 10 years. So I figured out kind of how to get around people using my stuff.

Brad Dowdy: So I always, when I go into work, like out of that pen cup that I just described, I grab one of those pens. And I clip it like on my shirt pocket or on my placket of my shirt. So I'm always carrying one of those pens in my shirt. And then my other pen, I'll either have it, I'll either carry two pens in my pocket. You know, I'm not going full on pocket protector nerd type of thing. But I'll either carry two pens in my chest pocket or I'll carry the pen that I use in my pocket. But I always have a second pen on me because it's going to happen. Hey, can I borrow a pen? And you're not thinking about it. And you're, you know, the last thing you want is your Safari, you know, that you've broken in so well to get in the wrong hands. You know, and I'd carry around a lot of fine tip gel ink pens. I'm like, I mean, there's no way someone's not going to destroy that pen in two strokes.

Myke Hurley: So you don't know how to use it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I always carry a second pen when I'm in the office just for that reason. And, you know, when I'm done at the end of the day, it may not have gotten used. And I'll just put it right back in the cup and come in tomorrow and do the same thing. I mean, these are the things that pen acts do without even thinking. I mean, I just, it's a, we have a problem. We just do. It's an addiction, right? I mean. As much as any other. You don't want people ruining your good stuff. I mean, that could go for a lot of things. And maybe it sounds, you know, pretentious. But, you know, if you're not in the pens, people just don't have any concept of the destruction they could do to something nice in the matter of a minute. So I always keep, I always keep a spare handy. And then the second way you solve that problem, Myke, is that's what you get him for Boss's Day or Christmas. Get him that one night. That happened to me one time. I let my boss, he saw how fine I was writing one time. And he's like, wow, that pen, you know, writes really small. It was a high-tech C Cavalier. And he, you know, I let him test it out a little. He's like, oh, that's pretty cool. So I got him one and just solved that problem. It's just like, be done with it and that's yours and stay away.

Myke Hurley: That means you're not, if you lose it, you're not allowed to touch mine anymore because I will be one and that's your problem.

Pen Loss

Brad Dowdy: That's right. That's right. But, you know, people who aren't used to it, they'll end up losing it too. So like you said.

Myke Hurley: I just can't imagine me buying a Retro 51 and being able to give it to him.

Brad Dowdy: That's true. That's hard. But once you get about five of them, then maybe you can have.

Myke Hurley: There's a strong chance that's going to happen, Brad. I'm not going to lie to you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. No, no. That's probably the over-under. I'm thinking, you know. I saw the – I want to get – since I tend to like the black Stealth-looking pins, I want to get the black Stealth Retro 51. That's probably the next one I get. It's like an all-black style-looking one. So I'm going to look for that. So like I said, part one is me getting all the pins together that I don't mind losing or people borrowing or people stealing or whatever they want to do with them, they can have at it. The second kit that I put together is my pin case, which travels with me. It will go in my backpack. And that's where I get the pins that I want to use while I'm at work. You know, I don't leave them at work. They come and go with me in my backpack. I usually only have one of them out at a time. But I put in – I'll link you the picture for the show notes. But I posted a picture of the case that I use. It's a small case. It rolls up to about the size of a burrito.

Brad Dowdy: But in it, it contains like a rollout piece that holds – it's got like five sleeves to hold individual pins, pins that you don't want banging around against each other. So I put like my vanishing point in there. I put my – one of my Charbos in there. The Charbo X multi-pin. Anything with a nicer barrel or more expensive that I don't want damaged, I put in the sleeve. And then in the pocket where the sleeve rolls up into this pocket, you wouldn't think it would work well, but it does. You know, I put some other things like – I like to have my bases covered from a pin perspective. So I have a fountain pen, a good ballpoint pen in the Jetstream, you know, a multi-pin in the Charbo. I have fine point gel pens like the Hi-Tech C. And then I take – you know, I have a highlighter. The Kokuyo Beetle Tip is my favorite highlighter. I like to have plastic tip pens for, you know, drawings or whatever. So I have two – a couple of Secura Pigma Microns. That's kind of my all-in-one kit. Then I have, you know, ink cartridge refills for the vanishing point I've already put in there. And I am taking a pencil. I am – oh, I'm stepping out on the Kura Toga mic. Like I'm taking the Rotring 600, and that's just – from a pure aesthetic standpoint, that's kind of a show-off pencil. And since I rarely use a pencil at work, I just wanted to take – I wanted to take that one in case I ever needed it. That's kind of a ooh-ah pencil. So that's – that I took. But my little pencil case holds extra pencil leads if I need that. So it's just one case small enough to fit in my backpack and be portable to where I can reach in my backpack, open it up, grab the pen I want, put everything back in there because no one is going in my backpack at work. I mean, you know, it's not that kind of office where you have to worry about your stuff actually getting stolen or something crazy.

Myke Hurley: People aren't stealing your pens from your desk. They're borrowing paper. It's a different thing. Yes. Because to the average human, it's just a pen.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So they're just thinking, oh, I need to jot this down real quick. They just look for the closest thing they can grab. And you know what? If I leave my vanishing point sitting on top of my notepad on top of my desk, that's my bad. You know, they're just going to grab it and use it and tell them what I'm going to come back to it.

Myke Hurley: That looks – I mean, if that was a fountain pen with like a screw-on cap or something, probably people wouldn't use it. Right. But they'll pick it up because it looks like just a retractable ballpoint. Yep. And then they'll see the fountain pen and they'll be like, well, it's too late. Now I might as well just use it.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. So that's kind of – I actually put a lot of thought in all the junk I bring to work. So, you know, we don't want our good pens going away because we love them.

Myke Hurley: Have you – like, is that the full breakdown? I mean, if you've got stuff – like, if you've got the things that maybe wouldn't go in either of those, like, that you will bring with you but they're, like, super special?

Brad Dowdy: No. No, but I do have my paper broken down. I'm not bringing as much paper as pens, but I use the dome paper, idea, notebook, the idea journal, the big one, the big heart, heavy chipboard, notebooks. That's good for everything. That's good at my desk, good at meetings, good for portability. And then I bring a field notes, notebook, and some Levenger index cards for just kind of quick jotting down. Or if I have to go back into – I'm in IT. We haven't covered that before. If I have to go back into a server room and need some notes, I'll throw the field notes in my back pocket and go back there and take whatever notes I need and come back and transfer them. So that pretty much covers it from a gear perspective, from a pen addict's point of view, from working in the office.

Myke Hurley: So mine isn't as – it's not as advanced. Like I have a pencil case, pen case at work. It's just like a standard one where you just throw stuff in there, and that stays there. That has in it a bunch of Sharpies in case I ever need those. And it has a selection of pens. It's like I have some Uniball Vision Elite in there.

Myke Hurley: Is that what they're called in the States?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's exactly what they're called.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so I have some Vision Elite in there because I think they're a good pen to give to somebody, I think. And then I have a couple of Sharpie pens in there as well. They're sort of hanging around. And just a couple of little bits, you know, just the random stuff you'd find in any good stationery store, you know? Right, exactly. And then I have the 51 and the Hi-Tech C-Colito. I keep those in my rucksack. I have some, like, pen where you can slide pens in. Right. You know, and I have those in there, right in the rucksack, so it's easy access. And I also have a couple of Uniball G2s.

Brad Dowdy: Pilot G2s.

Myke Hurley: Pilot G2s. Sorry, Pilot G2s. I have some of those just tucked away in there too, just in case.

Brad Dowdy: And then you carry your Safari in your pocket all the time?

Myke Hurley: No, the Safari stayed at home for a while. Gotcha.

Tornado Pen

Brad Dowdy: The Tornado took over.

Myke Hurley: The Tornado's 100%. It's the only pen that I write with at work now. It's my daily driver. I am expecting that to change. We'll see. Yeah, I still believe I will use the 51 a lot, but it will be back to the, what do I feel like using most? Right. The Vanishing Point. Who knows, but I might hate the Vanishing Point. I doubt it.

Brad Dowdy: You might. You might. I'll take it off your hands, so we'll have to work out a deal. But yeah, if you don't like it, it's understandable. It's not a pen for everyone. But I think you will like it, honestly.

Myke Hurley: I wouldn't have, basically, I wouldn't have spent that amount of money if I didn't think I would have liked it to. Right.

Brad Dowdy: But I fully intend to use my Vanishing Point 90% of the time. Like, I'm bringing all this stuff, like I'm talking a big game, and I'm going to be throwing all these pens around. But I really want to put this Vanishing Point through the ringer so I can talk about it more. And it's a pen that's made to be used, not to sit there and look pretty. So I want to use it, and I want to use the heck out of it and really put it to the test. So I'm anxious to really give it a hardcore go.

Myke Hurley: I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your reviews and stuff. You're going to put some video up and bits and bobs. I'm really looking forward to seeing that.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I recorded the video already, and boy, am I terrible. I just... No, your video's good. I like... Well, I know the video quality and the bumps and wiggles I get and things like that. So I'm not a good photographer, and I'm not a good videographer. It's not my skill set, but...

Myke Hurley: What are you putting... You're recording with the iPhone?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no. I'm recording with... I have a Panasonic Lumix. I have a really nice digital camera... Okay. ...that records in HD, and I've been using that for the video. It's my photo camera and my video recording camera.

Myke Hurley: Do you have a tripod?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have a Gorillapod. Yeah. The problem is, as we totally digress, the problem is doing a writing sample while you're shooting the video. Getting the right angle of the shoot to be able to still write. So what happens is everything's fine until I go to write and I bump the table.

Brad Dowdy: And then the thing just goes... And you don't notice it while you're doing it, but then I go back and watch it, and I'm like, oh, mercy. That's annoying.

Myke Hurley: See if you can find a way to hang the camera from something. Yeah. So it's not on the table.

Brad Dowdy: There has to be a better way. You know, I'm basically doing it so if you can picture it, I'm writing like I'm giving the Gorillapod a hug, right? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I did that when I was trying to do some video review type stuff. And it was just becoming too difficult. Like I was trying... I did a video review of a Nokia phone, which I never published because it just looked so awkward. Right. Because I was hugging the Gorillapod with my phone on top.

Brad Dowdy: So I just assume due to it straightforward on me, you know, like on my face and while I show the pen, but then I can't do a writing sample and I'm not... I haven't gone into, okay, let's do shot one where we do that. Then I'll edit in the writing sample, you know, separately and talk over. I, you know, I'm sorry. I don't have time for all that. Yeah. And then you're B-roll. Right, right. I would love to do that, believe me. But, you know, I have to cut it off at some point.

Myke Hurley: You do. Especially now you're going to be working throughout the whole night.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. For those that don't know, I'm working third shift.

Myke Hurley: Which is insane. It's good because me and Brad will now be able to talk throughout our working day because we will be synced on our working day.

Brad Dowdy: So all of our European listeners and blog followers, make sure you follow us. Follow me on Twitter because I will be posting while you're at the office. You know, I'll be up when you are. So let's have some conversations.

PairNote App

Myke Hurley: Right. Let's, before we do any more, let's talk about our second sponsor this week.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: And that is PairNote. PairNote is a note-taking app with a difference. PairNote allows you to take notes whilst recording audio and video at the same time, effortlessly syncing their timelines together to create a note-taking experience like no other. Yeah. PairNote not only remembers what you typed, but when you typed it. So if you're going through your notes of last week's meeting and you see a sentence you'd like more context of, click the first word and press the play button and you'll hear the audio that was recorded at that exact time. So if you're in a meeting, Brad, and your PairNote allows you to, whilst you're taking notes, record the audio of the meeting that you're involved in. So if you need to check something in a couple of weeks' time and you have a note that you need more context of, like you've typed something and it doesn't make much sense to you, like Steve asked us to pick up 20, for example, and you don't know what, you know, if they were just your text notes, that would be it then. You'd have to ask Steve what you said and you're going to look silly. But with PairNote, all you do is you click where you typed Steve, press the play button and the app is very sophisticated in that it knows exactly when in that timeline, the audio recording, when you type that note and it just starts playing it from that point.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I was not familiar with PairNote before, you know, we got the sponsorship and you sent me the link and this is one of the coolest apps I've ever seen. I mean, as far as the usefulness of it goes, if I was a student, this would be mandatory.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This is massive for students, this app.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, you walk into class, you hit record and you start typing the notes and afterwards you come home from your lecture. If you're studying again and you have a gap in your notes or you didn't understand it, you just, like you said, you click on the word to go back to that piece of the recording and the recording just starts playing and you can flesh out your notes that way. I was just, it really kind of knocked my socks off. I was like, why didn't I have this when I was a student? Exactly. And from a meeting aspect, it works the same way. I mean, you know, it would be extremely, extremely useful. It looks fantastic. Fantastic.

Myke Hurley: And if you're wanting to listen back to that lecture, if you just say you want to start it from the start or from any point, as you're listening back through the audio or watching the video, you will see as the video or the audio is going along, as the timeline progresses, all of your notes start to highlight as you type them. So you're able to keep track with yourself. It's absolutely fantastic. To see it really is magic. And there's a demo available at usefulfruit.com, which is the name of the website. It's the name of the company that makes it. And you can go there. You can watch the video there. You can get more information as well. Version 3 of Perno is now available. It features Lion, features like autosave versions and full screen mode. You can get it from the Mac App Store, directly from usefulfruit.com, and you can also get a 30-day free trial from the website too. So there you go.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely check it out. And I could even see myself using it from a pen review perspective because you can shoot the video. I can sync up the notes with that and you can export it all out and I could share it on the blog. It's really, really handy.

Myke Hurley: There are many uses and they're going to be sponsoring us for the rest of May. So we've got a few more weeks with them. And as we go through, I'm going to be telling you about some of the other awesome use cases and features of Perno. Very cool. So have you got anything else you want to add today?

JetPens Order

Brad Dowdy: I'm dying to crack open this box I got sitting next to me from JetPens.

Myke Hurley: Have you got anything super exciting in there?

Brad Dowdy: You know, I've got some, you know, I'm branching out into inks, you know, and I got two or three bottles of ink in there that I was interested to try out. You want me to open this box and we'll have a, you know, a quick go through. Yeah, go for it. We can save it till next week. I literally have not opened the box and I can't remember what all I ordered.

Myke Hurley: That is a beautiful sound.

Myke Hurley: I like that Brad's JetPens that comes by boxes. The rest of us just get envelopes most of the time.

Brad Dowdy: That's the truth, isn't it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, every now and then the post office won't leave it. I'm going to have to go to get the little letter that says, hey, we tried to deliver this package and you'll have to come pick it up at the post office tomorrow. That's the worst feeling, except not as bad as your custom story. Nope. All right. So there's an envelope in the box. Let me put this exacto away before I kill myself.

Brad Dowdy: See, I wasn't lying. I hadn't opened this package. It sounds like bubble wrap. You know what I got in this order? What did you get? I got the EF nib that I want to replace for my Kaweco AL. So that's going to be a project and that will be a full post. I'm going to swap out the F nib to the EF nib.

Myke Hurley: Is that for the lily put?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, no, because I got the EF nib in that one and that's what made me order it for the AL. For the AL, sorry, for the AL. Yeah, for the aluminum, the larger aluminum one.

Brad Dowdy: One thing I did order, I ordered a pin for a giveaway. We'll keep that one secret. We'll do that one. That's going to be on the blog here. Maybe next week. Awesome. So I got the –

Myke Hurley: This is amazing.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, this is great. This is great radio as they say, right? I got the Rohr and Klingler Königsblau. I'll need our German friend who does all the pronunciations for me. This is fully in German, but it looks like a beautiful royal blue type of color. And then I've been looking for a good red ink. So all the listeners out there, give me your favorite red ink suggestions for fountain pens. I ordered the Diamine Wild Strawberry. It looked like a really bright, bold red, which is what I'm looking for. And while we're on the contact information, while I'm emptying out this envelope, you can get me at dowdyism. That's D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. You can find me at penaddict.com. And you can also email me at penaddict. Oh, excuse me. Thepenaddict at gmail.com.

Myke Hurley: So what was the German-sounding one? Send me a link to that, right?

Brad Dowdy: The brand name. Yeah, I'll send you a link to the exact name. But the brand name is Rohr. It's R-O-H-R-E-R. And Klingner. K-L-I-N-G-N-E-R. And the color is called Königsblau. Which means something royal blue-like. So a bunch of pens in here.

Brad Dowdy: I've got refills for my Charbo ST3, which I wanted to load up on since those refills go so fast. And I use that pen at work. But a lot of other pens. I will give you a hint. The giveaway pen I ordered is a fountain pen.

Myke Hurley: Oh, nice.

Brad Dowdy: So we'll stay mum on that. But Kuretake brush pen. Uni sign pens. Kumin pencil sharpener. I've got a lot of stuff this time.

Myke Hurley: You've got a lot of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: I did.

Myke Hurley: Maybe next week you'll be able to talk about the things that you really like from that order. Yes. And hopefully I will be able to wax lyrical about the vanishing point. Or will have just given up on it completely.

Brad Dowdy: I hope you get it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so do I. So you can reach me on Twitter. I'm Ike. I-M-Y-K-E. If you want to get in contact with us you can also go to 70decibels.com forward slash contact. Fill out the contact form there with the pen addict. And that will get to us as well. Thanks very much for listening. As always if you've got any questions that you want or feedback. Again you can do that by the contact form or by emailing Brad directly. We always love to see what you're buying. And we always love it if you have purchased anything that we've spoken about on the show. And the best way to do that is by Twitter. Send us pictures. We love to see it as much as you love to hear about them. Thanks as always Brad for joining me.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. You know I'm not paying attention now, right?

Myke Hurley: Oh no, I know that completely. That's fine.

Brad Dowdy: I've got all this cool new stuff on my desk.

Myke Hurley: I haven't said anything too bad about you.

Brad Dowdy: No, no. I'm listening. Yeah, and rate and review us on the iTunes store. We would appreciate it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I actually went through and looked at some of the reviews a couple of weeks ago. And it's really nice to see. So thank you very much. It's nice for us to know that you enjoy the show. And it's really good to see it in a place like iTunes. Because it helps other pan addicts find this show too.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. We really, really do appreciate that.

Myke Hurley: So until next week. Bye-bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye-bye.