The Pen Addict 144/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	144
Title:	Found it!
Release Date:	March 2nd, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 144
Audio File:	Audio Episode 144
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 144
Length:	6565 min <br />1.083 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 144. Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts, Squarespace, Build It Beautiful, and Pen Chalet. Great deals on high quality pens with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined, as always, by the man with the plan, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, sir. How are you today?

Myke Hurley: I am very well, sir. How are you?

Atlanta Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: I'm pretty good, I think. We're recording early, for those that happen to be listening live, you know, an hour or so early, because Myke is very gracious in manipulating his schedule to allow me to do some things I need to do around the house. And, I don't know if I'm a little thrown off by that, but one of the added bonuses that we get today, Myke, is we get a lot, we get a mail call, like, straight from my mailbox into the podcast without, you know, I've opened the packages, but I haven't really gone through all of the contents. So, we're going to get a really fun mail call event today, which we haven't had in a while. So, we'll chalk that up to going a little bit early today.

Myke Hurley: I like that. I'm happy about that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So, we got a little bit of follow-up to get to, and one of the topics is our friend Mel, who does the hugely, I don't know, how would you call this, the show? You had the right word last episode. It's basically the recap of the show in email format. It's like bullet-pointed, point-by-point, and when I say point-by-point, there's probably, what, 25 points in this email? And she has given us the permission to share it with you guys. And so, we're going to have that link in the show notes, which you can find at penaddict.fm slash... No, no, no. I know it's what you really want, but it's RelayFM. RelayFM.

Myke Hurley: Relay.fm slash penaddict slash 144. Brad is showing his true colors again as he tries to take over the entire network.

Brad Dowdy: I've been so good at getting that show notes link out, and I failed hardcore on that one. I'm going to chalk it up to the time difference in recording today. Yeah. I am kind of thrown for a loop. But she's been awful timely on these, and she listened to last week's episode. So, we have our point-by-point from Mel, and I'll share that with the chat room. And we're not going to read through the whole thing, but you can see what we're talking about when we referenced it last week. It's really amazing. But you have to have listened to the show to understand it, because she just chimes right in, like, almost like we're having a conversation with her at the same time we're doing the show, right? That's kind of the format.

Myke Hurley: It would probably be better to read these, like, for us to read them and listen back, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I've done that before, because I usually, I don't listen back the next day, but I'll usually listen back a couple days down the line if I get a chance. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But it would be good to have this pulled up, and sometimes I read her comments, and I'll be like, did we say that? What's she talking about there? It'll take me a minute to figure it out, but it's good.

Myke Hurley: What I liked in this week's is how, because of the publishing, she's, like, second-guessing and, like, talking to herself about herself during it. It really made me smile. She's like, I'm trying to be less crazy this week, but feel like I'm being more crazy. You know, like, I like it. I really like it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, she said she was self-conscious when I said the word count last week, and this week she went up to 800. But we won't be posting her little ritual to everyone every week. So we just wanted to give you all a taste of this because me and Myke really, really appreciate it. And actually, I get a lot out of this to kind of recap and everything. So one of the things we talked about last week was that orange vanishing point that I said came out in the 90s, you know, the limited edition one. And I got several corrections. That thing was only released in 2007, which is before you and I took the plunge and the deep dive into all this pen stuff. And so even though it was only in 2007, you still just never see these for sale. I don't know what the edition number was that was released, but it's really pretty. And if it ever came up for a reasonable amount, I guess I would probably, I don't know, try to acquire one. It's not at the top of the list just because I know I'm never going to see one, but it's so, so pretty.

Myke Hurley: Did you see Mark Backass on Twitter? Yes. I'm going to put his in the show notes. I think this was actually his one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. He has at some point, oh, Mark is actually in the chat room today. I don't know if this is a cryptic chat message. I'm guessing there were 2007 of these since it was released in 2007. So that makes it pretty rare on the scale of pens. And Mark, unfortunately, sold his.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Mark, what are you doing? Yeah, because he could at least sell it to me at the Atlanta Pen Show.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So.

Myke Hurley: For a high dollar, I bet as well that would have gone for.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah, for a high dollar. For a high dollar. So you will meet Mark at the Atlanta Pen Show. He is the man of the pen show. He keeps them in line over there.

Myke Hurley: Mark, we can shake our head at you when we see you.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Give you the tsk, tsk. But Mark will bring the rest of his collection that will knock your socks off. So be prepared for that. So he says 900 were available in the U.S. So thank you, Mark, for clarifying that. All right. A pen that there are none available in the U.S. And there are actually none available in the U.K. Do you want to tell us about this certain pen that is really, really hard to find, Myke? I found it.

Brad Dowdy: What's that sound?

Myke Hurley: I found it.

Myke Hurley: I can't believe it. I found the ink. I found it.

Myke Hurley: This is maybe like Wednesday of last week or something like that.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Apple Store Talk

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. It was on Wednesday. So let me tell you a story. So on Wednesday, I gave a talk at the Apple Store in Covent Garden. There isn't audio of it yet. There will be. Name dropper. Sorry?

Brad Dowdy: Excuse me. I was saying something about being a name dropper or something like that.

Myke Hurley: It's part of the story. You'll see why it's part of the story. Okay. It makes sense. So I did that. There'll be audio of it. I'll tweet about it whenever it's up. Okay. Part of it is because I knew that there was going to be people there that were listeners of the shows and stuff like that. So I know this sounds so terrible, but I wanted to make sure that just in case I had like a pen to sign something with, just in case. I've had it happen to me before. Sure. Sure. And I really didn't want to be in a situation where I didn't have like a Sharpie or something with me, just in case. And then I thought it might always be a good idea to keep a Sharpie in the bag that I carry that sort of stuff around with. You never know when a situation like this is going to come up. And I would hate to be, I would hate to miss out on a celebrity feeling moment, you know? So I was looking for some pens like that. Now, previous sponsor of the show, but I've been, I have been an ArtSnacks customer in the past, received many of their great boxes. Absolutely. So I actually have kept a lot of the stuff that they send me in the boxes that they sent them in because it's just a nice way to kind of store that stuff. So a couple of months ago, I think I was, I was working on like a birthday card. Every now and then I might like hand make something. It's very rare for me to do that. Or maybe like I want to have like a couple of different colors in a card or whatever. So my ArtSnacks stuff is good for that because I have lots of like, lots of interesting materials and different like brush pens of different colors, which I typically wouldn't buy for myself. So I used them there and I kind of used a bunch. So I thought, oh, I might have like a permanent marker in there, which I can use. So I started opening some boxes and was looking through at it. And lo and behold, in one of those boxes was the ink.

Brad Dowdy: Unbelievable.

Myke Hurley: So I know what I did when I was doing that card previously. I had loads of pens on my desk. I just picked them all up and put it back in the box. That's amazing.

Myke Hurley: When I found it, I was like, oh, it was like, oh, I was like, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I've got it. And I'm so happy that it's here. And I sent you a picture and I wouldn't tell you the story. Nobody wanted it.

Guest: You texted me the picture.

Myke Hurley: Nobody wanted anything signed, which was perfectly fine because I got to find my favorite pen.

Guest: Well, what a story.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. I've actually done that before. Sometimes you get, like on my desk, I get so many things out. And then when it's time to put everything away, things kind of get squirreled away. We're not exactly where they came from. That's awesome. And you're never going to find it, right? Until you actually have to, you run across that thing again that you were doing just randomly, like you just did. And you'll never find it otherwise. And that's just perfect. That is perfect.

Myke Hurley: I never would have, I just never would have thought to even look in there. Like it didn't register that that would be a thing that I needed to check.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So are you going to put one of those chips on it now to where you can track it with your iPhone? I probably should.

Myke Hurley: Sitting on my desk now. Poor old Twisby has been moved to the side for a little bit. Uh-oh.

Brad Dowdy: Man, he got some run while the ink was away. And now it's back of the line, mister.

Guest: Mm-hmm.

Guest: Well, cool. Cool.

Brad Dowdy: I'm certainly glad. And I'm glad we kept taunting you about it until it returned. You know, I wasn't planning on giving you a total hard time. But I did have to drop it in every now and then. And now...

Myke Hurley: I wish I could have found it before last week's episode, though.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That would have been perfect. That would have been perfect. Perfect. And Dan's probably missing it today because we're going a little bit earlier than normal. So he doesn't know that you found it yet, but he will know soon enough.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: And he will be happy. He will be happy for you, too.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Speaking of Dan, Dan's going to be joining us in Atlanta for the Atlanta Pen Show. And that is officially funded through Kickstarter. So thank you all. Thank you, all our backers, for helping us fund that. So Myke and I wanted to give just kind of a quick update on what to expect. If you got my... If you backed the project and you got my follow-up update, there's actually not a lot to tell right now. Right? So we're going to... Kickstarter sends us the money in about 10 to 14 days. We have to order some more materials and the labels for the cases. We need to get Myke and Anna and the video team and everything organized and planned to meet at the event and coordinate and get all our ducks in a row for that. And then we have to figure out what we're going to do with some of the excess money. Right, Myke? So we got to... You know, we've talked about getting some pins for some... You know, doing random giveaways for backers, for pins. Like me, you, and Anna each buy, you know, a pin of a certain amount and we give them away to backers. So we're going to start working on that additional planning now so we can share with everyone what the total plan will be for all the funds that we collected for this. And it's going to be pretty awesome. I mean, we have a lot of plans at the show right now for those of you who are fortunate enough to live in the area or are traveling to the show, which I've heard a lot of people are doing. It's kind of crazy. It's really, really nuts. And we will be publishing all that information publicly so, you know, if you are coming to the show, you can know when the events are. Like we're going to do a party one night and, you know, things like that. And we'll do the video recording right one night. And we don't know if we're going to have an audience for that and things like that. So there's going to be a lot more information coming. Did you have anything you wanted to add to that, Myke?

Myke Hurley: No, just thanks again to everybody that backed the project. And exactly as Brad said, like we now need to work out what we're going to do with it. Like I personally don't even know how much access there is. Like I haven't, I'm not as close to the numbers as you are, but we need to sit and work it out because there's fees and taxes that have to be accounted for. And then we can start from there.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's exactly what we're going to do. So we'll probably start working on that next week once we get the final numbers in from Kickstarter. And then we can go from there and we'll all sit down, me and you and Steven and Anna and whoever else we need to get involved. We'll all start coordinating all that stuff. And we'll definitely keep the backers in the loop.

Myke Hurley: Not long away now, my friend.

Brad Dowdy: It's really not. Six weeks? Six weeks, yep. Yep, yep.

Myke Hurley: Episode 150. 150.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I know. When I start, I realize how close we're getting when I see the episode numbers of today, like it's 144. I'm like, wow. It's really right around the corner and I feel so unprepared. But it all comes together. It always does.

Myke Hurley: Right, Brad, let me just take a quick break and then we will jump into your mail call. I'm very excited to hear what you're saying, especially considering you made a point of it. I'm sure there's going to be some cool stuff in there. This week's episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by lynda.com. lynda.com is an amazing service where you're able to learn new and awesome things for yourself. Start learning something new right now at lynda.com with a 10-day free trial. lynda.com is used by millions of people around the world. They have over 3,000 courses on topics like web development, photography, visual design, and business. And they're adding new courses all the time. Whether you want to set new financial goals, maybe you want to set up a new hobby that you've always been interested in, you want to learn a little bit more about that, lynda.com are the people that can help you do and achieve whatever you like. When you sign up to lynda.com, you're going to get unlimited access to all of their courses. They're adding new courses all the time, and you'll get access to all of them, which is absolutely fantastic. Whatever they're adding, you can see. You can watch. You can learn. You can learn on your tablet, on your mobile device. They have great apps to do that, as well as on your desktop and stuff like that, too. Maybe you want to learn a bit about development, web development, or you want to learn a bit about writing skills, photography, typography, art and drawing skills. Maybe you want to learn how to understand how to use light and shadow effectively. Maybe you want some great tasks to help you just practice on a day-to-day. Maybe you've got some stuff you want to learn at work, like management tips, or maybe you want to learn how to go paperless. These are just a smorgasbord of topics of which you can choose. There are so many different things over at lynda.com. You can sit and listen to me talk about it all day if you like. But what I would suggest is the best thing you can do is go and taste it all for yourself. Go and sign up for a free 10-day trial right now to lynda.com by visiting lynda.com slash penaddict. You can go in there. You can try it all out for 10 days, and I'm sure you're going to want to sign up. And if you do, you'll be helping support this show as well. So I challenge you to go and learn something new with lynda.com. That's lynda.com slash penaddict. Thank you so much, lynda.com, for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Thank you, lynda.com. All right, so I had an interesting mail day today. Some things I've been waiting for. Some things showed up randomly that I was not expecting at all. And some stuff from NOC that we're testing out all arrived in one big batch about 15 minutes before we got on the show. So let's talk about this order that I made from CultPens. Mmm. And they sponsored the blog a couple weeks ago and had a nice discount. And I'm proud to say I am now the owner of the Stormtrooper Vanishing Point, which you can see right here. See? This is like a video podcast. I'm holding up like Vanna White. So I'm just getting out the box right now. This is actually a Pilot Capless. So it comes in a different box. It's called the Capitalist, not the Vanishing Point because it wasn't made for the American market. And it's pretty much as sweet as you would anticipate, Myke. Here.

Myke Hurley: Very nice sound.

Brad Dowdy: So that's for you. First click, write out the box. I'm checking out the converter. It's got a medium nib. It's got the black nib to go with the white and black trim barrel. And it's pretty sweet. And the first thing I do when I upload my file to you after the show is to ink this bad boy up and take some pictures. I'll put them out on Instagram. The box is really nice.

Myke Hurley: So you finally got it then?

Brad Dowdy: I finally got it. Stormtrooper. Stormtrooper. Stormtrooper. I also got...

Myke Hurley: What pushed you to go for it?

Brad Dowdy: A 20% discount.

Myke Hurley: Fair enough.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I finally got to the point where I've talked about this pen so much, if it ever becomes unavailable, I'm going to be ticked off that I don't have it. Like the orange one. Yeah. When I have an opportunity to get it at a discount, I just went for it. So that's what pushed me over the edge is I would realize I think I would regret not getting this one. So I'm happy to get it. And since I'm shipping from the UK to the US, the postage is a little bit high. So I always throw in a couple of extra things. I got the Cult Pens Deep Dark Purple ink. You know I'm a fan of their deep dark blue inks that Diamine makes for them. And have you ever used the Calipino notebooks, Myke?

Myke Hurley: The what?

Brad Dowdy: Calipino notebook.

Myke Hurley: No idea.

Brad Dowdy: It's this really neat notebook. They're made in France. It comes in this neat little packaging. It's got a bunch of people are fans of these and I've never used them. So I picked up some. You know, they're standard field notes, memo book size, three and a half by five and a half inches. Just made in France with a French origin story. All the details and insights about the notebooks is in French. So I'll have to brush off my old French skills and see if I can figure out what it means. But I got these nice little memo books, dot grid memo books in this really cool box packaging. And man, that's going to make fun. So I knew that order was coming because I placed the order. I just didn't know when it was coming. I've actually been waiting for it for like two weeks now. And just like chomping at the bit. Where's my pen? I need this pen. What I didn't expect was something from Baron Fig showed up in my mailbox today. This is what's interesting. I haven't been online much today. I don't know if this is out and about. But let me read you this note from Adam at Baron Fig. Brad! There's an exclamation point. So I'm just doing how Adam wrote it. Brad! Our new limited edition Maker hardcover Confidant and Pocket Apprentice set is coming out on Wednesday the 4th. Our one year anniversary. Hope you enjoy them. Adam. So Adam has hooked me up with their Confidant, their large hardbound notebook side in the Maker model. And a set of the Apprentice notebooks in their Maker model. These are beautiful. I'm sure you'll start seeing them online. I don't, you know, if I've got them. They didn't tell me I couldn't talk about them until the 4th. So I'm talking about them. But I probably won't put any links out. But they're a dark gray with a nice kind of muted yellow logo. Everything that they've done design-wise has been really, really beautiful so far. So you can imagine these, how these look. These will look the same. And maybe I'll take some sneak previews of that to put in my Instagram feed. Maybe, I don't know, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, something like that.

Myke Hurley: What's your overall feel about Baron Fig products? Like, I've never tried any.

Brad Dowdy: They're really good as long as you don't use fountain pens.

Myke Hurley: Right, well then that's not going to happen.

Brad Dowdy: I don't like them for fountain pens. But I use the Apprentice one, which is the little one, in my Midori Traveler's Passport. Which I reviewed today on the blog. And we're going to talk about it a little bit later. And I'll tell you how I use that. But I don't like how fountain pens write on their paper.

Myke Hurley: Seems like they're working on an app as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and they're working on an app. It's, you know, like a... I don't know if it's a journaling app or a to-do list app. I forget how they described it. That's supposed to be out soon too, I think also this month. So they're busy people. So, yeah, I love the design, the style. And the quality is actually really good. It's just the paper's not good for fountain pens. Is it too thin? No, it's not too thin. It feathers too much. So there's a little bit of spread. It soaks up a little bit too much ink. So... Come on, Baron Fig. So that's why they're not the heavy rotation paper for me. But they are a useful paper for me. I'll put them in that range. I also have some new paper samples that Mr. Jeffrey Brookwicky sent me from NotCo. When I was up at the shop last week, we went and met with our printer, got some new paper samples of some things we wanted to try. And we think we found a really, really killer paper that we're going to use for an upcoming product. So I just wanted to tease that. And I'm so excited about that. I actually brought that in today to write with while I'm doing this podcast. And I have to say it's living up to my personal hype so far. I was excited about it. And right now it's living up to it.

Myke Hurley: Do we, like, is this something that when we hear about it, we're going to be familiar with it in any way? Or is this a totally new thing to a lot of people?

Brad Dowdy: No. I would say familiar. It's just going to... It's a better paper. And we're going to use it in some products.

Brad Dowdy: It's good. It's a good... It's a paper that's going to work well with fountain pens, along with every other type of pen. How about that?

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Fair enough?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So hopefully we'll see it soon, because I need to test it out some more. And I have a whole slew of other paper samples. We're working on a couple different products for that. I also have, and this didn't come in the mail today, but I am using it as we speak. Um, the Fodder Stack XL, a bunch of people asked me on Twitter today, when is it coming out? Probably April, hopefully for the pen show. So it's right around the corner. This is going to be the Fodder Stack that's going to fit the memo books, like our Doc Dash pocket notebook. It's a 3.5 by 5.5 memo book holder. I have... We finalized the dimensions for the cut pattern. And it's perfect. Perfect. And I've been rocking this for, I don't know, a week now. And it's... It's working out well. My prototype is as expected as Jeff and I expected. So we are working on production of those now. So look for those on sale soon.

Brad Dowdy: So that's my mail day. It was kind of epic. The only thing I'm missing that I thought might seal the deal is my Nexus fountain pen. Seems like everyone's gotten theirs except me, in the non-titanium group. I'm an aluminum or aluminum backer. And I have not got mine, but several of our online friends have received theirs. So I'm anticipating maybe mine will be here this week. Who knows? Who knows? I know you have a while to wait. Sorry about that, babe.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. As always. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Let's talk about some more pens. What do you got for me?

Myke Hurley: Should I have something?

Pen Chalet

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Pen Chalet. Our best friends at Pen Chalet.

Myke Hurley: We do love the Pen Chalet. We love the Pen Chalet because they sell the stuff that you're interested in. They have amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, so much more from your favorite brands like Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, and Kaweco. They sell all of these and are, of course, an authorized dealer. And they sell these at prices that you pretty much won't believe. And I genuinely don't know how the guys and girls over at Pen Chalet manage to do what they do for you guys every week. They have incredible customer service. They believe in making sure that your experience is good with them. Their customer service is very fast, very reliable. They offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They're always adding new stuff every single month. And twice a month, they have closeout specials. Sorry, discounts. They do closeout specials every two weeks. So they've always got great deals that they're refreshing over at Pen Chalet. You can get free shipping on orders of over $50 in the continental United States. And they also sell internationally as well with very reasonable shipping rates. And don't forget, you can take advantage of currency conversion. It can always be your friend. As well as all the brands and the stuff that I mentioned earlier, all the pens that they do. Pen Chalet also sell limited edition stuff. Incredible things you're not going to find anywhere else. But also pen carrying cases, holders, refills, fountain pen converters, and so much more. Pen Chalet can truly be your one-stop shop for the pen addict in your life. So go to penchalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. And use the code PENADDICT to save 10% on your order. But what you really want to do for those super secret deals for pen addict listeners is click the podcast link at the top of the site and enter the code PENADDICT to find some special deals. Including today, basically we have these two pens. They're at great discounts. We have the Pilot Custom 74 fountain pen. It's at 25% off plus the 10% coupon. You'll be able to get your hands on one of these for $135. And the Sailor 1911. Again, 25% off plus your 10% coupon at checkout. You'll get $131.63 for this one. This deal is available on select nib sizes and colors. You want to make sure that you check the site for more information. It's all up there for you. But fantastic deals and a couple of top-notch pens as well. Love these guys. They're just so good at what they do.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So let me, can I chime in here, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I would love you to.

Brad Dowdy: So the last time they had the Pilot Custom 74 as part of our podcast deal, do you know what happened? Saw it out super fast? I bought one on the show. They had the orange one.

Myke Hurley: Ah, yes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that's good timing because I actually have that in the show notes because I finally reviewed it. So I'm going to be talking about that pen even more in a minute. But it's such a good deal on that pen. It's a pen that I've been wanting for a long time. I'll tell you right now, that pen lived up to every amount of hype that I built up for it. And it's definitely probably in my top 10 pens. If not, you know, kind of encroaching on the top five, that's kind of a hard list to put together of all my fountain pens. But I use it all the freaking time. It is that good. And I noticed this time they don't have orange because they know we're going to buy them all out. So they have blue, clear, and smoke. And all in medium nib. I ordered a medium nib. And I guess some are in fine. Blue's in fine and medium. I love this pen. And I love it so much that I bought it on this episode the last time they had this deal for us. So Sailor 1911, you can't go wrong with that pen either. I don't have this exact model. But you know I'm a fan of Sailor's mic. And they have the whole range of nib in extra fine, fine, medium. And they also have a blue barrel, which I haven't seen. I'll have to check that one out. So they have the black and gold barrel and a blue and gold barrel. Which I'll take a look at because that's a pretty good deal. And these Sailor's extra fine nibs are really, really nice. They were right, as you would imagine, about as fine as you. Like a Pilot Hitec C.4mm pen. They're really, really, really fine. And they're really, really nice. So good job, Ron. The Sailor 1911, Pilot Custom 74. Check them out. They're really good deals. You're not going to find prices any better than this, quite honestly. And even in the featured offers, he has a few more pens that I'm going to check out after the show, including still has some Kaweco Artsports. So you can.

Myke Hurley: Pen Chalet does have in stock the orange, but it's just not part of this deal. I wonder why. Maybe because you make everybody buy specific colors. I don't know. But you can get it if you want it. You can still get 10% off.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. We broke his internet last time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So you can still save yourself some money. I might buy one of these before the end of the show, depending on what you say. I might break the seal. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. But that's our friends over at Pen Chalet. Once again, incredible deals for you. Go and check them out. Penchalet.com. Don't forget the pen edit code to get those special deals. Thank you so much to Ron and Pen Chalet for continuing to sponsor the show. I love having them as a part of this podcast. They're just a great, great people to work with. So thank you, Ron. Thank you, Pen Chalet.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So I have some more pens to talk about. And we haven't really done this in a while where I want to recap some of the reviews I've done on the blog and some topics we keep meaning to get to. And these are the topics that end up getting, you know, kind of moved off the end of the show if we're running long or have a guest like we had last week and we just want to focus on them. And we've never really gotten to my Nakaya review. Like we keep saying we're going to get to that Nakaya review, get to the Nakaya review. And it keeps moving down the list, you know, it's kind of a self-inflicted thing, you know, sometimes we ramble on and run on. But I made a point to fit these in today. So let's talk about this Nakaya. So I have the Nakaya portable cigar Ayo Tamanuri fountain pen with a fine cursive italic nib, rhodium plated. You got that?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So you understand now. All right. All right.

Nakaya Pen

Brad Dowdy: This is my favorite pen I own.

Myke Hurley: Oh, you're killing me.

Brad Dowdy: It's not because of the price. It's not because it's a Nakaya. It's because it's everything I want in a pen. All right. It's what?

Myke Hurley: Well, what is that then? Like what's everything you want in a pen?

Brad Dowdy: When I started getting into fountain pens and, you know, I had my Lamy Safaris and, you know, Pilot Preras and, you know, everything you kind of start out with in this big world of fountain pens. You know, I would browse around and I would see these pens that I had no clue what they are. But wow, are they beautiful. And there were these black, really shiny black barrel pens with no adornments at all. And they might have like a little hint of red picking out around the cap or around the end of the pen underneath the outer black color. And I was like, wow, that is an awesome pen. That looks like my kind of pen.

Brad Dowdy: So then I'd forget about it. And then I'd go back and I'd just be researching on the internet and going through the fountain pen network and I'd run across this pen again. I was like, okay, I need to figure out what this pen is. I see people, pictures of it, but there's no name attached or it's not registering with me. You know, I don't know what I'm doing at this point.

Brad Dowdy: And I finally figured out, oh, okay, it's this brand called Nakaya. I don't know squat about Nakaya. I hardly know anything about fountain pens.

Brad Dowdy: So I do a little bit of digging in Nakaya. And then I get to the price, right? Because that's the kicker. Holy cow, these are expensive. You know, here I am pretty jacked about my $25 Lamy Safari and I'm looking at a $600 Nakaya. Those, you don't connect the dots between those two. That doesn't really work. At least for me. That's not how I function. So I learned more. And our friend Thomas Hall got a hold of me. And he started putting me through the paces. He could see, like, he went through the same journey that I've been going through these past couple years. And we have a lot of similar tastes. And he started feeding me pens to test out. And he was slowly working his way up after about his third or fourth shipment to me, where I've tried all these pilots and platinums and sailors. He knew I like the Japanese pens just like he does. He was finally ready. He's like, okay, I'm going to send you my Nakaya. And I was like, no. I literally told him, do not send me that. I'm not ready to have that in my possession, especially yours. There's something that's not mine. Do not send it to me.

Myke Hurley: Now, is this because you didn't want to damage or lose or break his? Or you just didn't want that yet because you didn't want to buy one?

Brad Dowdy: The first, the first part. Right. I wanted to ensure, I wanted to be comfortable with myself handling someone else's. This is a very, very precious pen. And he's told me as much how much he cares for this particular Nakaya that he sent me. So I said, I'm not ready for that. And he's like, okay, yeah, just tell me when. He's like, I get it. You know, you want to be able to use it comfortably. So let me know when. I don't know how long it took from when I told him no to when I got it sent to me.

Myke Hurley: I thought you were just going to say he sent it anyway. Like, I wouldn't surprise me.

Brad Dowdy: No, he didn't send it anyway. But it was only a few months later. I said, okay, you know, I've used all these other pens of yours. You've entrusted me with like some really rare and unique irreplaceable pens. It's Nakaya time. So he sent it on. And I used it. And I really, really liked it.

Brad Dowdy: Like, I don't know that.

Brad Dowdy: My expectations were high. And I'm not sure if it quite met it. Maybe it was the style that he has. It's a little different style than the one that I bought. And I loved it. I mean, I was like, okay, I get it. I see it. I felt it. I've used it. I'm not ready to spend $650 on this or whatever the price is. And great. I've had this experience. And then that experience kind of sticks in my head. And I learn more about these pens. And I'm feeling more comfortable owning a pen with this much cachet, I guess. And this much involved in making the pen. And this expensive of a pen. To where I'm getting more comfortable of the idea of a Nakaya. I was like, okay, you know. I miss having Thomas' around. I think I'm going to start hunting for my own.

Brad Dowdy: That was like the biggest challenge of this whole thing. I spent months researching what Nakaya I'm going to buy. There are so many different models and styles that you can go with. And it's such an expensive pen. And I'm not going to get to try it ahead of time. I want to ensure that I'm going to do the best job I can getting a pen that's the best for me. So I researched and researched and researched. And I narrowed it down to two. I was down to two. It was a Piccolo. Which is a shorter version.

Brad Dowdy: Than this portable that I ended up going with. And this portable. And I'm really happy with my decision. And it was a really hard decision to make. Just because of the price, really. I knew that I would like it. But I love it. I don't like being without this pen. It really suits my needs. My feel. My style. My aesthetic.

Brad Dowdy: Pretty much everything about this pen fits me as a person perfectly. They're not for everyone. For a whole list of reasons. For one, they're very expensive. Which I've talked about ad nauseum. For two, they are really light. It was like getting the iPhone 6 Plus for the first time. You're like, oh my god. This is so big. I'm never going to get used to this. In about one to two weeks, it doesn't feel big anymore. This Nakaya is so light. I was like, this is light as air. It feels strange. And now every time I use it, it doesn't feel light at all. It's such a different feeling pen. But now that I have it and use it all the time, I don't notice those type of things. It's just part of the experience. And that's what this whole pen is about.

Brad Dowdy: I kind of use it as my icebreaker now. If I go out in public or to an event like last year. We had the fall festival at Nock. And I brought mine to Nakaya. Because we were going to have a pen swap there. Not that I was about to swap this pen for anything. But I knew people there would be interested in trying it. And I'm fortunate enough to own one. And I wanted to let others to be able to experience trying this for the first time.

Brad Dowdy: And people were scared to take it out of my hands. Because they knew what it was. And they were like, no, I'm good. I'm going to stay over here. And you put that thing away. Don't get that thing near me. That's exactly how I was.

Guest: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I said, no. Listen. I brought this for a reason. I didn't have... You know, I had the opportunity where I had someone let me borrow one. So I knew what it was about. You may never own one. You may not want to own one. You may think it's the worst pen in the world. But here's an opportunity to try something you may never get to try again. Because you just don't see them in the wild that much. You know, you have to go to somewhere like the LA Pen Show to actually see a good range of Nakias. So I made... I badgered people into trying this pen. And, you know, they liked it. And they were like, oh, wow, thanks. You know, and... But that's the way I feel about this pen. This is... This is a go anywhere. Do anything. Carried in my pants pocket. In the kimono. I don't care if this pen gets beaten, dinged. It's going to get used. It's going to get loved. It's going to be mine. It's going to be shared with everyone.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I want to get it out there for some others to experience. And it's just really, really nice. And I... It's really hard to review. That's for sure. And it's hard to describe. It's hard to talk about it on the show, even. Because... You don't talk about... Like with a bunch of other pens, you don't talk about specs, necessarily, with Nakaya. Right? It's not a pen that's built that way. Of course, you know, when you order it, you kind of nail down all the specs, especially related to nib. But... It's a piece of art, but it's made to be used. And that's the only way I was ever going to get a Nakaya, if I was committed to using it full-time. And this is far and away. My most used pen, my most inked-up pen. It's... It's in the rotation probably 75% to 90% of the time. Which is, knowing my pen rotation is a crap ton. Most pens don't... Are lucky to see, like, 25% time in action. This pen is in action. Essentially all the time. It has a little downtime when I run it out of ink and I clean it. I let it sit for a few days until I miss it and I load it up with a new ink. So, you know, read the review. It's...

Myke Hurley: I don't think they need to.

Brad Dowdy: I hate you.

Myke Hurley: I hate you so much.

Brad Dowdy: So, I would like to offer to send you one of my Nakaya's mics.

Myke Hurley: No, you don't need to do that. That's insane. I'll see you in, like, six weeks. Oh, yeah. You can see it.

Brad Dowdy: I'll bring them. Man, I'm dumb.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I want to try not just any. I want to try that one. See, like, I would feel like the way you did with Thomas, like, about trying somebody's. I wouldn't feel that way with yours. I just feel like it's you. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's going to be totally fine. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I want to try it.

Brad Dowdy: I'm so comfortable with this Nakaya now. Like, if you had this Nakaya and you dropped it on the floor, I wouldn't even flinch. It's like, it's that kind of pen. It means a lot to me, but it's for a reason. Like, it's to be used. It's to be shown. It's to be experienced. And so what if something happens to it? Like, I'm not going to be scared to take these pens out of the house. It's just not even worth purchasing a pen if you're just going to have it sitting around the house. So that's kind of the path I took with this Nakaya. And like I mentioned, read the review. It's a little bit different review than I normally do. And I thought it turned out pretty good, even for me, who's kind of wonky sometimes. So I liked writing this review. And it took me a long time because I didn't know what to say. It's kind of hard to review a Nakaya. So I wanted to do it justice. And I hope that I did. And it's gotten, you know, very positive feedback. So check it out if you haven't already.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I want to play it. Play it? I want to try it.

Brad Dowdy: You want to play it? I want to play it.

Myke Hurley: I want to play it. I'm very excited. I'm very excited to try it.

Brad Dowdy: You want to play with my pens in Atlanta?

Myke Hurley: Anytime. Of course, I'm also terrified of it, though. Because, you know. It'll be good. It'll be good.

Brad Dowdy: I will be bringing a ton of pens. So you can experience them all.

Retro 51

Myke Hurley: Okay. Oh, I bought something. What? I literally just received a shipping notification. I bought a Retro 51. What? I just realized that it's broken my streak. I don't even know if you've seen this. They've done another limited edition. It feels like something you'd be super interested in. I'm going to find it. I'm going to put it in the chat room. I don't want to spoil it until you can see it. But I just got an email. I was like, what did I buy from Goldspot? But now I remember what it is.

Brad Dowdy: So you've broken your streak of not purchasing any pens this year? Yeah. Yeah. So I did that, too. Obviously. I didn't even cover the Franklin Kristoff Model 66 Ice that I Instagrammed earlier this week. We didn't even talk about that one. That's a pretty awesome pen.

Myke Hurley: I'm just trying. Oh, man. This is annoying. I'm trying to find it.

Guest: Is it the basketball edition? Yeah, it is. Okay. I've seen that one. Swish. I found it now. It's called the Swish? Yeah. That's awesome.

Myke Hurley: I saw it and I was like, I like that. I like that enough. I want that in my collection. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So. Got one of those. One of those out of 500 ones again, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So they have the Swish and they did a football one, an American football one, I believe, from what someone was telling me when they sent me the Swish. So now I'm just waiting for the baseball one and that one I'll be all over, especially if it's a limited edition. And baseball season is about to get started in a month. So maybe they'll come through this year with a baseball edition to add into the other editions that they have. It looks, that basketball edition looks really, really nice.

Myke Hurley: I'm thinking that the bobbled texture will be really nice to hold.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So I'm excited to get that one. I'll probably have that in a couple of weeks, I reckon. Cool. It's just got a standard shipping with it. But yeah, that's, that's, I mean, I don't really count it, but it's my first purchase

Brad Dowdy: this year. You sound like me. It was like, I'm not going to buy any pins to the Atlanta pin show. This one doesn't count, does it?

Myke Hurley: It kind of doesn't count though. You know, I don't even know how many of them I've got, but I'm in double digits. Like it's at this point, it's just, you know.

Pen Pins

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. So let's, let's talk about another one of our good friends and I'm going to talk into, talk you into another pin that you need to buy.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I know you've been speaking a lot, but I actually want your participation on this one. Okay, sure. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, and online store. For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter the offer code Inc at checkout. Squarespace, build it beautiful. When it comes to giving yourself a place online, I believe there's nowhere better than Squarespace. But the reason I want Brad today is because he uses them extensively for all of his projects. And Brad, I just, you know, people have heard me, they hear me talk about this way more than you. And I kind of just wanted to get a sense from you to kind of just mix it up a little bit today. Why do you use Squarespace? What makes you, you know, what made you go with them in the first place for the pen addict? And then obviously after using them for so long, what was it that then made you want to go with them for knock as well?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so the primary thing that attracts me to Squarespace, I guess it's twofold. One is ease of use and two is beautiful design. So they make it really easy to set up a blog, to make a post on a blog, to add pictures to a blog, to change the design of your blog. Everything is simple, intuitive. And most important to me is I never have to upgrade their software. And with Squarespace, that was the key for me is that I don't have to do that. I don't have to do extra maintenance to keep my Squarespace site up to date. So they make that easy. They make making posts easy. And the design is beautiful. So that got me started. And what's helped me out through the years is their support is top notch. They, every platform, everything we do, you're going to run into bugs or issues. Or, you know, different things that are kind of annoyances, if you will. You open a ticket with Squarespace. You usually get a response back within 15 minutes. Say, hey, we got it. I understand your problem. Let me look and see what we can do. Oftentimes, in another hour, you'll have that response. And say, hey, we figured it out. Thanks for pointing that out. We're going to push this fix out. And tomorrow, you're not going to see that. That's happened to me several times. I've pointed out bugs to them that they didn't know existed. And they always fix them. They come through on their support. They're very responsive and super helpful. So, that's kind of what got me there and what keeps me there. And those things continue. Haven't changed from the day I started on Squarespace until now. The customer experience has been consistent. The platform's been stable for me. And it works well for exactly what I need.

Myke Hurley: I couldn't have said it better than myself. Thanks for putting me on the spot there. Thank you for doing it. I appreciate it. You know, I did that purposefully because I wanted your honesty from it. And I think that that is key. Because I know how much you love the platform the same way that I do. Not only are they a great supporter, they actually make an excellent product as well. So, it makes it easy to talk about. Thank you so much to Squarespace for helping us out and supporting this week's episode. If you want to go and sign up right now for a free trial, go to squarespace.com. And you can use the offer code INK at checkout. It's going to get you 10% off your first purchase and show that you heard about them from the pen addict. Thanks again to Squarespace. Build it beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, the next pen I want to talk about is one I refer to with our pen chalet sponsor, the Pilot Custom 74. I love my Nakias. I have several now, which is a problem we'll get to another day. But if I had to choose a brand that is widely available, is high quality, is reasonably priced, is superior performance, I'd have to say Pilot overall as a brand is my favorite brand in fountain pens. I have a huge variety of them. I've tried not near all of them, but I've tried a bunch of them.

Brad Dowdy: The Pilot 74 is probably my favorite of the bunch so far that I've tried. I have, for those playing along at home, I have the 91, the 912, in two different nibs. I have the Falcon. I, of course, have the Prera. I have the Vanishing Point.

Brad Dowdy: I'm probably missing some that I don't have. So, I've got a good experience with Pilot overall. I don't have the 823 yet, but that's on the shopping list. And I have the 92. I didn't say that. I said 91, 912, and 92. They could use a little bit of variety in their product names. Yeah, it's difficult to keep track of them. There's probably a reason for that. I get them mixed up all the time, especially the 74 and 92, because those look the most similar. They're both demonstrator barrels. The 74, let me backtrack. The 92 is a piston filler. It's great. That's maybe my second favorite. The 74 is a cartridge converter filler, but I like the design of it better. It's got these rounded ends, and the 92 has squared off ends. And it's hard to compare two pens that are so similar in design and features. Most people would default saying the piston filler is the better choice. I can't really argue with that. But for some reason, the 74, which is the cartridge converter filler with the rounded ends, feels better in my hand when I write with it. It's more substantial. It's probably because I used the large size converter, the CON70 converter, which is the high capacity converter Pilot makes. That adds weight to the pen. So it's by no means hefty. But Pilot makes generally some lighter weight pens, and that added weight of the CON70 converter plus the larger quantity of ink it holds makes that pen feel really, really awesome. I also did something different with it with the 74, and then I ordered a medium nib. Now, the Japanese nibs I usually prefer are fine with a little bit of extra fine mixed in. And your standard fine in a Japanese nib is going to be finer than any Western extra fine nib you use. It just is. It's super fine. Fine is more than enough fineness for anyone. Extra fine is really, really extreme. I have enough fine. I have enough extra fine. I have zero Pilot medium nibs. So I wanted to try it. I think that's the sweet spot for me.

Myke Hurley: No way.

Brad Dowdy: In Japanese nibs, not in all nibs. No, I know. I know. But still. Just for general, everyday writing, medium Japanese flows perfectly. It's like a champ. The experience of writing with the medium is better than I anticipated. I love the fines and extra fines for when I'm doing something specific. If I'm doing something general and just writing, you know, maybe in a meeting or notes or something random, the medium functions better for that. And I've found that across other Japanese brands, too. I have a Sailor in medium. I have an Akaya in medium. And I get more enjoyment out of writing in general terms with a Japanese medium nib. And I would not have thought that.

Brad Dowdy: It's, I don't know. It's cool. I like seeing the expressiveness of the ink. You know, that's one thing that has turned me off of some of the extra fine and fine nibs. You don't really get to see the ink when you're writing so tiny. Now, I enjoy writing tiny and sometimes I want to do it. But, you know, why put some bright blue Kanpeki in the most fine nib you have? You're not really going to get any benefit out of it. So having these medium nibs is kind of the best of both worlds. I get a very, very fine nib still. I get an excellent performer. And I get some great looking ink on the page. And it's just kind of the best all around nib that I'm using right now. Subject to change. You know I love my stub nibs. You know I love my extra, extra fine nibs. But just for general use, I'm loving medium Japanese nibs. That's what I have in this 74 and that's what I think is making me use it so often. It's just a great all around pen. So I really, really recommend like all the Pilot line. But like the 74 and the 92 are great pens. I don't rank pens like I don't have like grade scales or ratings. But if you wanted to do like a star rating or whatever, like if five stars is the best. The custom 74 is like a five star pen because it kind of ticks all the boxes. It's high quality. It's good value. It's excellent performance. It's beautiful design. It's kind of got everything. And to me, it's just really a flawless pen. I love that pen. So that's another review. That's another review. Just spending everybody's money today. I know. Spending everyone's money. And I think I put it in the review. I'll have to pull it up. I got a lot of questions on that ink that I used in that review. That's my Scabix mixture that we've talked about. If you haven't caught all the episodes of the podcast, this is Roaring Clingner's Salix and Scabiosa at a one to one ratio mixed. It's the only ink mixture I use, but it's a killer. It's a it's a killer ink. Number one ink overall. Maybe. Just kidding. Not really. Maybe.

Myke Hurley: You know, this wasn't purposeful, but I do want to just remind people that that Penn Chalet are doing a special on that this week. So.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. And I bought this pen the last time Penn Chalet put it on special. It had been on my wish list for a long time. And when I got the discount that Penn Chalet offered through the podcast, I didn't get any other discounts. It was just our regular podcast spot that they set us. Now's the time. Bought the orange. And I love it. Super happy with it. So. Yeah. Now this one, Myke. One more top. One more review. We're going to get to. And I'm very interested in your thoughts on this. Because I'm still interested in my thoughts on this. And it's the review I did today for the Midori Traveler's Notebook, the passport size. I reviewed this. I got this from JetPens probably a month ago. And I've been carrying it around some, using it some.

Brad Dowdy: And I bought. I don't know if you remember. And I don't know how much I talked about it on the show, but not a ton. Late last year, I bought the regular size. There's two size of Midori Traveler's Notebook covers. There's a regular size, which is kind of the elongated. I don't have the dimensions in front of me. But it's a long, skinny notebook. And then the passport size is shorter and stubbier. A little smaller than a Field Notes notebook.

Myke Hurley: Well, the Midori was one of the things that brought us together. Was it? Yeah. What do you mean? How so? When we had you on Enough, it was a conversation. One of the reasons we brought you onto the show was because you had the small one, I think, at the time. And Pat wanted to talk to you about it. Or it was vice versa.

Brad Dowdy: You know what it was? I remember this now. It was the Pele Journal. That's it. Which I sent to Patrick when I worked at JetPens. And it was a mimic. Looks just like this. Yes. And the Pele's were very impressive. I have one of those. And it was... Yeah. It was kind of sad to see them kind of vanish off into the ether. Because they did, in my opinion, an excellent job at their product. I was very happy with that product. I actually sent the one that I had to Joe Lebo. Who's never reviewed that for me on the pen addict. Just saying.

Brad Dowdy: So... So you have a Pele. Is that correct? The small size. Like the same size I reviews. Have you ever used it? Do you use it at all? Do you understand it? Do you get it? What are your thoughts on it?

Myke Hurley: I used to use it a lot. I have the small size. Right. Which is like field note size. And I used to use it all the time. But I don't use it anymore. Not for any specific reason.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So I didn't even realize you even ever used one at all. So did you have a particular use for it? Did you have like all these tricked out things that everyone has? When I see all these Midori's online. When I'm scrolling through my Instagram. And replying in English to all the Japanese and Korean terms that you enjoy so much.

Myke Hurley: No, I wish I did. Did I just use to put my field notes in there?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So that's what kept me away from it for so long. Why do I need this? I like carrying my memo books in my pocket naked or in a small sleeve. I've had leather sleeves in the past. I have the fodder stock now. You know, I like a little bit of cover for them. Why do I need a Midori? And Lord knows why we need any of these products. Right. But.

Myke Hurley: Let's not get into that discussion today. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: After I've sold all these pins today. Right. But. I get this a little bit more now that I've had time to play with it. Like I said, I had the regular size. And I thought if I had to pick one of the two. The regular or the large. Or the passport. Passport being the smaller size. I thought for sure the regular was the way to go. More writing room. A little bit larger. But still a nice size. Still compact. Easily portable. And. I thought the passport was just going to be too small. Kind of dinky. It's smaller than a field note. So it doesn't fit. Your traditional field notes. They stick out about a half an inch. Because the Midori notebooks are. They're called passport size for a reason. Which is a. Three and a half inch by five inch. Notebook insert. Instead of. Three and a half inch by five and a half inch. Which is your standard memo size notebook. Do I need to convert that. For our British listeners.

Myke Hurley: No you're right.

Brad Dowdy: Okay good. Um. So. Yeah. It's a little smaller. It fits. Midori's notebooks. Right. They want to sell you more stuff. And. So I. I was like. I. Don't really. Eh. Whatever. It's awesome. It's beautiful looking. Midori kills. Design. And marketing. And packaging. They are awesome. They're brilliant at that. But do I need one. And am I going to use it. And I've always said no. I'm really digging this little passport guy. He. It is fun. To put together and use. And I especially like. Throwing this stuff together. On the outside of it. So I can carry it all as one little kit. You know. Throw a pen. Throw an extra notebook on the outside. And I kind of have everything I want in there. And I have a little folder. Um. Zip pocket in the back. That can hold things like my business cards. And stickers. And receipts. Or whatever I need. And it's. Like. Just the right size. And it feels really cool. And to circle back around to the Baron Fig. Thing. The Baron Frig. Frig. That's my new company. Baron Frig.

Midori Notebooks

Brad Dowdy: The Baron Fig. Apprentice. Fits the Midori size perfectly. It's like a three and a half by five inch notebook. You know. The apprentices are a little bit shorter. Than this traditional memo book. So. I just threw that in there. In the Midori. Fits perfectly. And. I'm really new to this whole Midori thing. But I've seen them online for years. And years. And years. And I love what people are doing to them. And how they can manipulate them. Into what they need. How they can. Modify them completely. To fit their needs. The customization. That can be done on these products. Is off the charts. And that's what intrigues me. I'm not. A huge. Fidgeter. When I get a product. I will get.

Brad Dowdy: I will do like. Step one. Of the. Odd thing you're not supposed to do. Right. If I have a pen. Refill. And I need to cut. An eighth of an inch. Off the back of the refill. To fit this other pen barrel. I'm good with that. But. I'm not like. Removing. The nib. With pliers. To stick it into. A different. Refill setting. And. Cutting down. All these other parts. That's not my game. I'm good on. Kind of on the phase one. Hacks. But. Any. Any like. Phase four level. Hacks. That's not my thing. So I have to see how this is going to turn out. This Midori. Is going to be a work in progress. For me. I've enjoyed using it. More than I thought I would. To be perfectly honest. It's a really good product. Product. And. So we'll see. This is. Something we'll probably circle back on. One of these days. And. And see if I've stuck with it. Like the Hobonichi. I didn't stick with. Most amazing product in the world. Right. I mean. It really really is. But. It didn't fit me. And how I use things. Maybe the Midori will. So we'll see.

Myke Hurley: I'm just not interested in. A notebook cover. That I have to then. Switch to different notebooks. To use. Like. If I'm going to buy something like this. I want it to fit the notebooks. That I already like. Right. But also. I talk. The main thing. You know. That I love about my field notes. Is their character. And putting them in a cover. Which is why I've never really. Seriously entertained a field notes cover. You lose a lot of the character.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. I agree with a lot of that. And I actually mentioned in the post. About. Fitting field notes. And. How people. You know. Have kind of taken this Midori style. And they create their own. To fit. Field notes. And there's other products that fit. Memo. Traditional memo books. Better. For this. So. Yeah. There's. There's ways to do it. But I'm with you. In general. I'm with you. Give me the notebook. Throw it in my pocket. Maybe a thin case. That I'll put it on. And that's about it. I'm kind of digging. Carrying this passport. So. We'll see. But. You're right. I am kind of pimped into. Very. Very. Limited. Paper choices. Fortunately. The Midori paper is killer. Works with all pens. Perfectly.

Myke Hurley: Well the customization. Is what I love. The Rotofardener before. You know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's true. That fits your. That fits your needs really well. It did. And I do like that size format.

Myke Hurley: Well my needs are totally different now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Um. But. You're not carrying around the iPad as much. Is that what you're saying?

Myke Hurley: Well I don't use an iPad anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. And I also don't need something. To carry stuff around in every day.

Brad Dowdy: True. True.

Myke Hurley: So the Rotofardener is kind of. It's a fantastic thing. Uh. But I don't really need it. For what. What I used it for.

Brad Dowdy: Anymore. Right. Right.

Myke Hurley: When I travel I still take it. Because it's the perfect thing for travel. But. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's really good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So there you go. Right. I think that's about it for this week's episode. Um. I've put together a lovely. Uh. Lovely set of links for you. Which you can find over at relay.fm. Slash. Penaddict. Slash 144. You can go to penaddict.fm. But it's not going to take you anywhere. But Brad would like you to go there anyway. Um. If you want to find Mr. Brad Dowdy online. There's a couple of places you can do that. He's at Dowdy. He's on Twitter. D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And penaddict on Instagram. And you can find his great writing over at penaddict.com. I am ilike. I-M-Y-K-E. On Twitter and Instagram. If you want to find us there. You can do that. Thanks again to our sponsors this week. Our friends over at lynda.com. Pen Chalet. And Squarespace. Thanks so much to those guys. But most importantly. Thank you all for listening. And we'll be back next week. Until then. Say goodbye Brad.

Guest: Goodbye Brad.

Guest: Thank you.