The Pen Addict 149/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	149
Title:	We Have a Drone
Release Date:	April 6th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Stephen Hackett
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 149
Audio File:	Audio Episode 149
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 149
Length:	5858 min <br />0.967 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Stephen Hackett: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 149. The show is brought to you this week by three sponsors. Squarespace, Build It Beautiful, Hoban Cards, affordable and beautiful custom letterpress printed calling cards, and 1Password, the application to put passwords in their place. You may have noticed that I'm not Myke Hurley. I'm Stephen Hackett. I'm standing in for Myke this week, but you're not here for me. You're here for the man of the hour, the king of the ink, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Stephen? How are you? Good, good. It's nice to have you back on the show. This is actually your second time filling in for my other fearless co-host, Mr. Hurley. So welcome back to you.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, it's good to be back. I tried to look it up, but then I got sidetracked. It was early on. I mean, it was years ago.

Brad Dowdy: I want to say, like, yeah, it was like in the 40s, 50s, 60s range. I meant to do that. That's one of the things. You know, Stephen's coming back on. I should go back and listen to that episode or at least find out what number it is, and I didn't.

Stephen Hackett: It's all right.

Brad Dowdy: It's one of those things. But, you know, we're going to see each other in person soon, though, right?

Stephen Hackett: Yes, in just a couple of weeks. Actually, the end of next week, right? Or it's super soon.

Atlanta Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: I should know. Not quite. A little less than two weeks. So for those who haven't been paying attention with the Atlanta Pen Show stuff, Mr. Hackett is going to be attending as well. And he's going to be part of the video team, the Channel 9 Action News team that's going to be filming us as we record the live podcast in Atlanta. So are you pumped about that?

Stephen Hackett: Oh, yeah. So my brother does a lot of video work, and he and his guys and I are driving down to film the show. So we're doing recording the podcast, but then a lot of other stuff for the Kickstarter backers. So we're super excited to be able to do it because of all of the awesome backers that we had. I mean, that whole – I know you guys spoke about it, but the whole Kickstarter experience is really exciting for me as well. So, yeah. So we bring in a bunch of cool equipment. We have a drone we're going to bring for, like, exterior shots and chasing people down. So it's going to be super cool. Looking forward to meeting some people and hanging out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I want to get – I want to know what you think just about the whole premise of a show for pens. Because I know you're into some geeky stuff yourself. I mean, the first time we met in person was two years ago right at the pen show time. It just happened to be in Atlanta at our friend Aaron Manke's house, and we did a podcast together. But I remember you were in town that weekend only because there was, like, a historical Mac traveling roadshow museum thing that you were attending. So that's pretty hardcore geek stuff going on, right?

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So what do you think about this, like, whole – like, there's actually a pen show?

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. No, it's great. It's great. I mean, so – right. So my particular brand of nerdery isn't, you know, square on with yours. But there's definitely overlap, of course. But, you know, I think it's awesome that there's things like shows and meetups for whatever you're interested in, right? And that's the beauty of the internet, really, is that I can find all these people who are interested in this very particular thing that I'm interested in. And then we get to meet and form friendships and relationships. And so I think it's super exciting. Like, I'm – you know, like, last week you were talking about, like, do I budget money to come and, like, how much am I going to spend and that sort of thing? Like, I'm not so much worried about that, but I embrace all forms of nerdery. So –

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's exactly right. That's super exciting. That's kind of the world we live in online these days, it seems like. I mean, how the heck do you get 149 episodes of a podcast about pens if we don't all have a little bit of a problem, right?

Stephen Hackett: Exactly.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I want to talk a couple things about the show. For those who may have missed it, in our Slack room I posted a registration kind of form. It's just for us to know who's going to be there, who's going to be in town, and especially who's going to be at the knock party on Friday night. So we can kind of get food squared away. We're just going to do pizza, keep it easy, but we kind of need a number. So that link will be in the show notes, which you can find at relay.fm forward slash penaddict forward slash 149. So make sure if you haven't already done that form, it's like three little simple fields. It'll take you about 20 seconds to fill out. So I really need to know if you're coming Friday night because that's where the drone activity is probably going to get nuts.

Stephen Hackett: We're going to be watching, and if you take more than two pieces of pizza, it's just going to come down and get you.

Brad Dowdy: And what's funny, there's very few people that are coming that have actually been to our shop before. It's really small, and the parking lot is really tight right next to a main road. So I don't know. There's not going to be a lot of room for the drone to roam. So that could lead into some shenanigans, I'm thinking.

Stephen Hackett: It's going to be fun.

Brad Dowdy: It's going to be really fun. Oh, and I did book the party bus. I think you knew that, and I can't remember if I told the whole crew yet. It's not a full-on party bus, but for those of you staying at the hotel or traveling from the hotel to Nock, we will take you back and forth via the Nock Co. party bus. So thank you all for supporting this and allowing us to do that. It's pretty cool.

Stephen Hackett: I don't think I've ever been on a party bus before. In my mind, it's a booze cruise on wheels, but I know that's not true at all.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, not this one. Not this one. Especially the first thing in the contract I signed was basically no vomiting or bodily fluids, and you will be charged a $300 fine.

Stephen Hackett: Wow. So you guys keep your bodily fluids to yourselves. It's not that kind of bus. Not that kind of bus at all. It's so different from WWDC. It's just bodily fluids everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: That's true. It is San Francisco. Way different. Way different.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, so it's going to be fun. The video stuff is going to be really great. We're going to have the podcast.

Stephen Hackett: I'm super excited to get out and see some of Atlanta. I've been to Atlanta several times, but always for work. So it's always been like, stay at the hotel, go to the office, and then come back. So it'll be fun. We're going to do some shots around Atlanta and that sort of thing. So it's going to be really a lot of fun to film and put it all together for you guys.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm already excited. I'm nervously excited to see the final version because I know that it's just going to be an awesome job by you guys. And it's really great that y'all are doing this. So thank you.

Pin Updates

Stephen Hackett: Of course. So we've got some mini topics slash follow-up here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to get into some pin updates real quick. And one thing kind of sort of related to the pin show, when I was putting together these show notes, it made me realize that I forgot to address it last week. Matthew Morse, who's attending the pin show, asked me last week to answer the question why I prefer modern pins over vintage pins, as far as making purchases and what I use on a daily basis and what my collection contains the most of. It's mostly modern pins. And the reason why it should be pretty simple, and it really is, is that that's what's readily available right now. You know the quality is going to be good. You know the companies you buy it from are going to be able to support these products that they're selling you, that you're spending these hundreds of dollars on. But in relation to the pin show, that's where the vintage stuff comes in. So I always try to pick up one or two vintage pins at the Atlanta pin show because you can actually get them in your hands, and you can talk to the guy that, you know, rebuilt the pin if it's, like, really old and needed some work done to it. And so that's kind of the nuts and bolts of it. The vintage, you really need to get hands on. I'm almost never going to buy a vintage pin online unless I know its lineage and, like, really trust the guy who is selling it because you never know what you're going to get with a vintage pin. And being able to go physically touch them at somewhere like the Atlanta pin show is key to making a vintage pin purchase. So that's why most of the stuff I have at home and that I talk about online is modern because I generally know what I'm going to get out of the box with that. So I just wanted to point that out because that's kind of a big thing at the Atlanta pin show. It's more vintage stuff than modern stuff, although I think the numbers are skewing a little bit more. Modern's growing and vintage isn't shrinking. Just there's modern stuff creeping in, like some of our friends that come there, like Anderson Pins. They bring a crap ton of modern stuff, and there's a bunch of other vendors that do, too. So you'll be able to get both at the show, but vintage is definitely where it's at at a show like this.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, makes sense to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because, I mean, you're not buying your vintage Macs unless you do your research, right?

Stephen Hackett: Exactly. I mean, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Do you have the Mini Mac Museum room at your house?

Stephen Hackett: I do, yeah. We spoke about that on Analog this week.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I have it in the queue, so I'll listen to that tonight.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, so we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. I think it's true with whatever nerdery, whatever collection sort of thing you're into. It can be as much about where something comes from and how it got to you as what it is, right? The story of the thing can be just as important, but I totally get that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we talk about these things, and you said it earlier on. There's so much crossover in just the general things that we do. It doesn't matter what the topic is or the thing that we're into is. We all kind of have the same feelings about the things that we're into. It's kind of cool. One pin that came out the last couple of weeks. See, now this is like connected. You know, like when the new MacBooks come out. We got a new Uniball Sino 307, Stephen. That's like a big deal for us.

Stephen Hackett: How much RAM does it have?

Sino 307 Pen

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, like... It has at least two ports on there, though. So, yeah. The Sino 307, my inbox was filled up with people saying, Hey, have you seen this? And I've not seen it in person yet, only because I haven't gone looking. But I put a review in the show notes from that one pin. If you want to see what the Sino 307 is all about, I know a bunch of you have been asking me, is it any good? What's the difference? So far, there's some visual differences with the pin. Like the clips are plastic. Even though they were plastic before. Or maybe they were metal. And then the tip of the pin is black to match the pin barrel. And the marketing of the pin says it... They make a point on the marketing to say that it writes on glossy paper. I don't know what they're trying to get at with that. So, the review was pretty positive on it. It writes more like an inner gel, which is a really smooth gel ink pen. 0.7 millimeter tip. And the 307 compared very favorably to that. A little bit wider of a line than the 207, which is a pen that I love. So, that one's out there. I'll get it soon. Get it reviewed. Things like that. And it looks like it's popping up at like Target, Walmart, Staples, places like that. So, we'll check those out. Now, this next one, I haven't heard of until... I got an email two nights ago. This is really cool. So, Casey received a fountain pen a couple weeks ago, Stephen. It was called the Pilot Metropolitan. It's what we consider the best entry-level fountain pen on the market. It's a really, really good pen. And Pilot is an excellent manufacturer. They do a great job. They launch most of their products in Japan. Then they bring them over to the U.S. if they're successful. And this was one of those. Well, I got a link in my mail that Pilot is testing out a Metropolitan Mini, which is really, really cool. It looks like it might be less than half the size of the full-size Metropolitan. And for some reason, Stephen, in the fountain pen world and in the pen world, mini pens are a big thing. Because pens fall into that everyday carry category, right? So, people want to carry something small for their everyday carry kit. So, finding a really good quality, small fountain pen is kind of a big deal. And for Pilot to do something like this for a pen that was already so popular would be like a huge, huge win for them. So, we'll see. Supposedly, this is a test run. We don't know if it's actually going to happen. But if it does, this is... You see this product. This is a product that will just kill in, like, the pen industry. It will sell out everywhere and just people will be hunting it down until they can finally get full stock of it. So, this is... The full-size pen only costs about $15. So, this is a reasonably priced pen. It wouldn't be more expensive than that. So, it's a really, really cool thing to see out on the market.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I mean, if you look at this thing, it's maybe only a third longer than the cap to the full-size pen. Like, it is. Yeah. It looks tiny.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It looks really tiny. It doesn't look, like, scaled down to half. It looks tiny. So, it will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition. But I will be first in line to get one of those. So, we'll see. Oh, no. Oh, no. The chat room might be on to something here.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. Might be April Fool's joke. Note the date on the post. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: See, I just got it two days ago. So, I didn't put together the date. Oh, no. So, we'll see. Oh, they think it's an April Fool's. I'm going to hurt somebody now. So, I'm going to hunt somebody down. But, all right. So, now I'm just going to have to yell at Pilot to make this happen. Because it seems like a good idea. So, we'll see.

Brad Dowdy: It's at least better than my April Fool's joke was me in a Jetpens hat on Instagram. So, yeah. That one's much better.

Stephen Hackett: I'm just putting April Fool's question mark in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: It'd be funny if it wasn't April Fool's joke. And then, like, two years later, it happened. Yeah. Because I could. Whoever did this, you could legitimately see this happening.

Stephen Hackett: Or someone in their product development group was like, I wonder. Like, maybe they're divided. Right? I wonder if people would like this. Let's put it out as a joke. And if people get angry and want it, they'll be like, oh, it was real. But if it doesn't take off, then it was a joke. It's kind of genius, really. If you think about it.

Brad Dowdy: Kind of genius. It got me. So, hey. I'm gullible. So, there you have it. All right. You know who's not gullible? It's Squarespace. They're straight up awesome. So, why don't you tell us about Squarespace, Mr. Hackett?

Stephen Hackett: Yes. This episode of The Pen Act is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace. You know Squarespace. They're the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, or online store. For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter the offer code INK at checkout. When it comes to giving yourself a place online, there's nowhere better than Squarespace. They put all the power you need into your hands and take away the pain points, like worrying about hosting, scaling, or what to do if you get stuck on something. Their fantastic, clean, simple designs are beautiful. They allow you to craft a home for yourself, and it's been totally redone and refined in Squarespace 7, their latest update. Squarespace has applied everything they have learned from powering millions of sites on the web to make an even better platform. There's 15 new stunning templates that all feature responsive designs. So, these things look great on desktop, tablet, or even smartphones. They've partnered with cool musicians, artists, architects, and more to develop templates that cater to those particular professions. It's really great. They've also partnered with Getty Images to provide you with a great deal on awesome photography at just $10 an image. If you're laying out a page and you need a header image, you can search. And if you like it, you can pay for it all right within Squarespace. You don't have to go out and buy it and download it. It's all just right there in Squarespace 7. It's really powerful. With awesome stuff like this, you still get the core support the Squarespace offers with 24-7 support via live chat and email. They have teams located in New York, Dublin, and Portland who are there to help you no matter what time of the day or night. With the commerce platform, you can set up your own store and you get all that same support as if you were building a blog or portfolio. It all comes in together. To start a trial with no credit card required, start building your website today by going to squarespace.com. When you do decide to sign up, be sure to use the offer code INK to get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for the pen addict. We'd like to thank Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace. Build it beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: And thanks to all the listeners who use Squarespace. I can see it out there a lot and I get asked all the time, Hey, what's your code for Squarespace? I'm going to give it a try and build it out of sight. So thank you guys for supporting them, which in turn supports us.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, absolutely.

Brad Dowdy: So you've got some cool stuff that you or I are going to talk about. You know, you're much more proficient at show notes than Michael is. You know, we might have to have a conversation in a couple weeks and, you know, see if there might be a change in the lineup here because I like it. I like how you do things.

Stephen Hackett: We could, you know, smack him around a little bit.

RelayFM Scheduling

Brad Dowdy: So you have an interesting topic here, which, you know, I didn't think about, but it's completely applicable. And you were talking just in general about RelayFM on your side and Knock on my side as being our side businesses. And how do we stay organized with all of the extra work? I mean, you have a day job. You have a wife. You have kids. I have a day job. I have a wife. I have kids. There's all these other things we got going on. And then, oh, by the way, you do things for Relay. Right. And I do things for Knock. And you have a blog that you maintain. And I have the same. And it's just all these other things. So how, what are your thoughts on these topics? How do you keep sane throughout the day? And what kind of tools are you using?

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting idea. You know, I think I won't speak for the way that you run your schedule, but I know for me, I'm, you know, that stuff is pretty jumbled up. I do have a, you know, a nine to five job, but very often, you know, I'll need to take care of something for Relay during the day or, you know, vice versa. If I'm at home and I might be working on something in the evening for Relay, you know, something from work might pop in and have to deal with it. So for me, I don't really have like discrete tools. So it's kind of, you know, the, the, the applications and the, the notebooks and stuff that I use, it's all kind of mixed together where I've got sort of, you know, one page on my film notes might be some notes from a Relay call for a new show. And then something, you know, the next page over will be a little sketch for a project at work. And then my grocery list might be next. So for me, it's not, there's not clearly defined boundaries. And I was curious if that was the same for you.

Brad Dowdy: That is totally the case with me. And we've discussed this, um, one time before we were talking about how I found myself one day, all of a sudden with like five active notebooks, but no real definition on what those notebooks contained in them. And I've never been one to have a notebook for a certain topic, like for the podcast, you know, I don't necessarily have a specific notebook that holds all the podcast notes, ideas, things like that. It goes, like you said, into whichever notebook I'm using at the time. And then that's kind of, you know, wherever my head's at, at the moment, whether it's working on, you know, new colorways for knock or what I'm going to write in the show notes for the podcast or what blog posts I'm going to put up on the pen addict. Like those all kind of go in the same spot, at least on the analog side. Um, you know, I find it getting confusing when I end up part of the problem with me is I test out a lot of products and I'll end up carrying around three or four or five different things at once. And then I'll need to make a note that I need to remember and I'll just put it in whatever's the closest instead of necessarily the one active kind of inbox. That's how I treat, treat my notebooks is like the inbox. And then I put that information somewhere else. So yeah, I tend to get in trouble if I don't have that one primary, um, notebook. I don't have them separated. And I found out we, I sent out, um, a question after the show when we were talking about that and almost all the responses were people were using like five to seven notebooks for different things. It blew my mind.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I don't want to carry five to seven notebooks. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, uh, to kind of move closer to my world for a second, you know, you said that's true for, for your analog tools, but, um, I know for me, you know, I have, uh, you know, my task management software that has kind of everything and that I've like sections divided out, you know, for relay and the day job and home and that sort of thing. Um, but I mean, even kind of once I'm in the digital world, you know, my email all comes to one client, you know, it's, it's for me, it's, these are just the things that I do. And yes, I do have hours dedicated to one or the other, but you know, I, I at least have transitioned very well between them. Right. So I could do something for work and then for relay and bounce back. And, you know, I don't, I don't know. Do you have to have those walls up higher if you're working with digital tools as opposed to just capturing things in your notebook?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't know. See, like the only thing that I use digitally that I don't kind of match, um, in the analog world is a calendar. I don't, I don't keep any analog calendars. I find that pretty cumbersome and not really efficient. Um, you know, I, I definitely prefer like a digital calendaring or, um, digital scheduling like an OmniFocus where you can schedule projects and tasks and have times and recurring things to them. That's super important for me. Like I use OmniFocus a lot for, you know, Nock has its own stuff and Penatic has its own stuff and the podcast has its own stuff. And then I have a bunch of personal stuff in there. So that's, that plus the calendar is my primary digital stuff. Then everything else, I, I do capture, um, analog and, you know, I might transfer it over, uh, digitally or I may not, I may just, uh, find it in, in the notebook and, um, you know, just, just go from there.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, it's, it's, and looking at this, there's no right or wrong answer, right? It's like, I know, I know Myke is one to tend to have multiple notebooks. Uh, for a while he had like a notebook per show that he would just take notes in as he, as he recorded. Um, but you know, it kind of makes sense, right? Like Myke's setup is stationary where, you know, you and I, I at least am all over the place throughout the day, let alone the week. So for me, you know, one reason I use field notes is that I can stick it in my pocket and I know that my sort of current set of stuff is just always there that I don't have to, you know, Oh, I left that one on my desk at work, but I had that one thing in it that I really need, or, you know, I saved this over here and I can't get to it when I'm not, you know, it's, it's just a big soupy mess for me. And I don't know if that's good or bad, but I don't think it's right or wrong.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. When I used to find, try to keep like different topics in different notebooks, I'd end up not having the notebook I needed, write it down on a scrap of paper. And then who knows what happens to that? And it's just makes a mess or you'll lose it. And you know, I would keep it on that scrap until I was around the other notebook I needed. And then I would write it in that notebook and throw away the scrap. And that was just a pain. And so I'm a, I'm more of a one notebook kind of guy and capturing all the information there and then just working with that information as I need it.

Stephen Hackett: So I think, I think that's fair.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So in honor of you today, because I did remember this, I'm using a Jetstream. Yes. You're still on the Jetstream bandwagon?

Stephen Hackett: I am. Um, you know, whenever we spoke a couple years ago, you know, my setup has basically been the same. It's been, you know, a field notes of some variety and then the, uh, Uniball Jetstream and the .7 in blue. Um, that, just that combination for the most part works really well. Uh, you know, these are just the standard field notes. I really don't like the, what was the, the northerly edition or whatever that had like the waxy paper. Um, that was not my jams at all. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That goes, that goes way back. And that was like, well, that was one of the worst like inside papers that they've ever produced. It was, it was, um, roundly criticized.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. But yeah, still, still using, you know, field notes. And again, kind of what we just spoke about that I know it's always with me. I know that, you know, I have a burn rate of about five weeks with the field notes. And so I know that I just have a rolling snapshot of the last however many weeks of whatever, again, grocery list, you know, meeting notes at work. Uh, you know, I wrote down when I, I'll edit it out, but I like coughed pretty loudly during the Squarespace ad read. So, you know, just wrote, jot down time on the side and I'll go back and fix that. Um, and so for me, it's just that sort of, it's sort of like a, like a cache of just like, Hey, you know, I kind of put stuff in this buffer over here and then it goes out elsewhere. Or like you said, maybe it doesn't, maybe it just stays there for reference. Um, cause for me, very often the act of writing it down is how I remember it. Right. Like that's sort of field notes. Yes. Brand tagline. But it works for me.

Brad Dowdy: So. Yeah, totally. Totally. I, you know, I want to, I want to explore a topic that we don't have on this list, but it relates exactly to this. And the question just came into my head while we were talking about this. Why don't we talk about our next sponsor? And then I will get into that.

Hoban Cards

Stephen Hackett: All right. So this episode of pen addicts is also brought to you by Hoban cards. Hoban cards creates affordable, beautiful custom letterpress printed calling cards. If you haven't picked one of these up and held it, you're really missing out. Um, just go look at their website right now. It's, it's seriously beautiful. These cards are perfect for people who don't need a lot of business cards, but want a small batch for special interactions. You know, people like me at my job, I basically just burn through business cards. But if you want something tailored, something to leave an impression, this is the way to go. If you're at a conference and need to impress people or an important business meeting, sometimes you just need those fancy cards. There are 18 gorgeous pre-designed templates to choose from that are focused on topography and simplicity. The cards that you'll see from Hoban are elegant. There's, that's really just the perfect way to describe them. They're classy handmade goods. Just what every pen addict needs. Every card is hand printed on thick, 100% cotton paper with a great texture using 1500 pound letterpress from 1902. It's the real deal. And if you wanted, Hoban cards can also provide matching stationary items like note cards and writing stationary if you so desire. If you need sort of the complete package, they can really help up your correspondence game. Now there are free samples available from their website. And when you do choose to buy, use the discount code washburn, W-A-S-H-B-U-R-N-E for a free shipping anywhere in the world. If you haven't done it already, go to hobancards.com to find and see more. Thank you so much to them for supporting this show and all of Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I've been, I keep threatening to order the Hoban cards and I keep forgetting. And now with the pen show coming up, I'm going to need some thank you cards. So I'm going to do that after the show. I'm going to order, order the Hobans that I keep forgetting to order. They have some, uh, some, uh, like stationary and not just like the business cards. They have some, uh, note cards that you can write notes on. So I'm going to do that. Um, before I get into the topic, I wanted to talk about back on your jet stream, only 0.7 millimeter and only blue for you, right?

Stephen Hackett: That's right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So 0.7 millimeter jet stream is the one I recommend far and away the most. The 1.0 millimeter jet streams tend to have kind of blotchy issues. They don't write as well as the 0.7s. And then anyone who I've recommended the 0.5 to has said, Oh my God, that is way too fine. It's like a needle. And they actually make a smaller one than that. The 0.38. Most people don't like the 0.5. So the 0.7 for those who want to try out a jet stream is definitely the sweet spot. And I highly, highly recommend the blue ink. I get blue ink in all my ballpoint type inks. I just don't, don't really care for black, um, ballpoint type inks nearly as much as I do blue.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, if I'm marking up documents or something, it's just much easier to spot. And, um, totally. So you have a surprise topic.

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, it was, it's, no, it's, it goes along with this. We were talking about writing all this stuff down and I was listening to all this stuff that you put into your notebooks. And I know how busy your life is and how like important, like your family stuff is. Do you do any type of journaling? Like any like personal stuff? And does that go somewhere? Does that live somewhere? Or do you not, do you not do it? You may not like, I don't. Oh yeah.

Stephen Hackett: No, no, I do. It's, um, so I use, uh, the Mac and iOS app, uh, day one, which if you haven't checked out and you're an Apple user should definitely look at, um, for, for a long time, I did journal in notebooks and, uh, you know, maybe we'll circle back to this, but, uh, I wanted something that was a little more searchable and something that I could kind of have all of it with me at once. And so, you know, day one's been out a couple of years and started checking that out. And, um, uh, I'm a very visual person. So like a lot of my little day one entries, like yesterday, for instance, you know, uh, yesterday was Easter. We took a picture of the kids all dressed up in front of a dogwood tree, uh, in the neighborhood. Uh, I've taken the picture every year we've lived in our house and, you know, the kids just get bigger and bigger. And so, you know, I had the picture in there and then wrote a little bit about, you know, what we did that day and about how they're growing up and, you know, how, you know, kind of how, how I feel about that, which is, if any parent can guess, uh, makes me sad, um, sad and happy, mostly sad. Yep. Um, so yeah, so it's sort of that, I like the digital approach for that multimedia. Um, and that I can just, you know, I can do it anywhere. It's on my phone and iPad and computer. So.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, I think that's, that's super helpful for that. And it, that there's a few things that I always threaten to do and then I never do. And that's one of them, um, is journaling at least in day one. I know I won't journal necessarily in paper. That just, that actually doesn't really like compute in my head for some reason is, as pen and paper centric as I am. That type of thing doesn't necessarily compute. I've never been a handwritten journal type person. So yeah, I was, I was interested to see how you, how you did that and, uh, you know, what you use for that. So that's perfect. Now you're talking about like with the digital part and being very visual and, you know, wanting to see those pictures, which, you know, that's what the digital medium's for. That's really, really perfect usage for that. But for all of our notes and all of our things that we keep in these paper notebooks, do you have any type of digitizing system that you use to kind of save and have things readily available for search later?

Stephen Hackett: Uh, I do. So, you know, like I said, I've, I've used field notes for years. I've got a current burn rate of about five weeks that used to be shorter. Um, you know, is that, that sort of how fast I fill one up depends on, of course, how busy work is and what I'm doing.

Brad Dowdy: And that's pretty strong actually. I'm, I'm slower than that.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. And one thing is I'm in a lot of client meetings with my job. So I, I, I take analog notes, um, A, because I can sketch and like, you know, outline and kind of draw things out, but also it's, it's much less intimidating and distracting than to have a laptop or even something like an iPad in a meeting in my experience. Some people can really do it. I can't. So, um, so yeah, so, you know, I struggled with a long time of, I have all this stuff in these notebooks and I need to reference it. And for a long time they stay just bound in a big rubber band and my desk drawer at work. And, you know, someone was like, Oh, what about this thing that was six months ago? Then I'd like go hunt it down and like, try to remember the timeframe. And that, uh, didn't it scale? You know, I don't know how many, uh, actually I can tell you, um, I have to date filled up, uh, 29 field notes, uh, since, since, uh, well, and a couple other notebooks, but since, since 2011. Um, and so what, what I started doing is, is doing high resolution scans of them. So on a flatbed scanner, you know, nothing special, nothing of a flashy, just a flatbed scanner, uh, scanning them in color and saving them as PDFs just on Dropbox. Um, and that gives me the ability to, to find them. I named the files based on the date range. I filled the notebook. So, um, you know, for instance, you know, the file name might be 2014, 7, 17 through 2014, 8, 20. So I know that was mid July to mid August of last year. Someone says, Hey, what about that thing? Uh, you know, if I can narrow it down to a month or two, I can find it pretty quickly. I, I don't do any OCR stuff. So I know you guys have spoken with that in the past where you scan something in or, and the computer has to figure out what you said. My handwriting is not anything that OCR software has ever been able to deal with. Um, but again, the.

Brad Dowdy: That's, that's pretty common. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough, that's a tough game.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I mean, OCR is like, seems like, like putting man on the moon seems simpler than OCR. Right. It seems like magic. Um, I mean, you know, the date range was really the breakthrough for me of, Hey, I can name these things when I filled them up. And so, you know, I can look back in 2011, 2012 at a different job than, you know, I can, I can open those up and I can see, you know, what I was working on. And, um, and because they're on Dropbox, I have, I have them with me. So if I'm in, if I am in a meeting and someone says, Hey, what about that thing? Especially if I've just changed over to a new field notes. Uh, in fact, now I carry an old one, like in my backpack, maybe for a couple of weeks just to make sure that, uh, you know. Right.

Brad Dowdy: You have like that carryover.

Stephen Hackett: Right. Right. Exactly. Cause you gotta, gotta, you're like, Oh, we met last week. You don't remember what we talked about. I'm like, no, I wrote it down. I have no idea. Um, but, uh, but yeah, so, you know, I can pull it up on my, on my iPad or phone and, and it's not, you know, super great, but it, it, again, I can sort of narrow in on what I need to find and then, um, you know, jog my memory that way.

Index.inc

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I put a link in the show notes, um, about this site that, um, launched about a month ago. It's called index.inc. I-N-D-X-D dot inc. And actually, uh, the creator is in the chat room, uh, having a conniption while you're talking about, um, what you're doing and like what you're doing is exactly perfect. And then what, uh, Dave Ray did with index.inc is taken like what you did and allowed you basically, I think the best way in a nutshell to, to use index.inc is to go in. It allows you to create a table of contents for a particular book, right? So you have a field notes, you have your date range and you call it all these things. And you say on page eight, I had this sketch of whatever project we're working on at work. And then on page 15, I had these notes for this new show we need to work on for relay FM. So you can narrow it down even further. And then on top of that, on your notebook page, you can put a link to your Dropbox file for your PDF to pull up that file on the same page within your indexed page for your notebook on there. It's pretty sweet.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. This looks super cool.

Brad Dowdy: Um, yeah, it, it's like, it's like perfectly simple. Like it's just exactly enough. Like, okay, I'm filing away this notebook, but there's something in here. You know, I don't have to track page one through 48. I need to take the most important pages. At least this is how I've used it. I'll take the most important pages. Okay. Eight, 15, 24. They have the stuff I want to remember. And I'll basically tag them on that notebook page. That way I know if I ever have, you know, what notebook did I put this thing in? I can, that will help me out. So it's, it's a pretty neat resource and, you know, something that might help you just, it's like, you don't have to do, you do everything you're doing. Right now. And then you just kind of do this contents, uh, extra little contents, uh, tagging basically for the particular notebook. And then right there, you can link your, uh, link your PDF files to your notebooks there too. So it's, it's a really neat resource and, uh, it's, it works real well. And, uh, Dave's done a good job with that.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I mean, I like that it's open source and you know, the, the web says, web page says, you know, your plain text backups, your index will be emailed to you weekly.

Brad Dowdy: So if, if, yeah, so I think on Sunday I've been getting an email that says, okay, here's, you know, it's literally, you know, plain text of notebook name, page contents, you know, whatever tags I have on there, things like that. It's real good.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. That's super cool. I'm going to, uh, I want to check this out because that's, that's sort of the, you know, for, for my world of, of the computer energy and people, I mean, even people I work with, I work in web design development. Uh, you know, I sometimes get funny glances when I pull out a paper notebook because people are entering notes in Google docs or, you know, our collaborative document workstation or, you know, things like that. And, and, and, you know, people like, well, you know, what, how does that help you? And, and, you know, it works for me and they're definitely, you know, a lot of time spent taking notes and, you know, putting them somewhere else in our system, but it gives me another opportunity to clean them up and, and, you know, be considerate about what I'm sharing with my coworkers. But it's definitely sort of the fundamental problem, right? Because the computer nerd says, well, I can just hit it with my search engine and, and, and find it. And it's like, yeah, but you know, the, all of the, the pros, which I don't have to preach to, to the pen act audience of, of having something written down and the act of writing and the act of, um, you know, going through, uh, and, and physically flipping through something is so primal in a way, you know, that, that yes, I can take notes in Google docs and yes, I do take notes in Google docs. That's what's required of me, but it's, for me, at least there's that disconnect, especially in my memory, where if I type something because I type all day, it's just gone. Like, um, but if I write it down, if it flows through my muscles into, into the field notes, then it's sort of burned in somehow in a different way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, it's absolutely a thing, you know, and it's hard to like put your finger on it, but you know it when you, you do it, you react to things differently and you remember things differently. And it's almost like things have more, I don't know what the right word is for it, but there's more like synapses firing off in your brain. There's more emotion to it, even though it's maybe not emotional thing that you were writing those extra, you know, writing that extra writing, you know, that extra exertion adds to like this whole thing going on in your head, whether you can remember it better or, you know, you can recall it better or, you know, you can explain it better and things like that. So it's, it's really hard to put in words, but you just know that it's a fact. It just is. And, um, yeah, so it, it's good. It's, uh, yeah, definitely preaching to the choir here on the pen addict. So have you guys heard about handwriting?

Brad Dowdy: Hey, at least your handwriting, I've seen it. It's better than Myke's.

Stephen Hackett: It's true. Yeah. Myke's pretty bad. Um, so yeah, so I, I ended up scanning everything. There's a link in the show notes to a blog post I wrote, uh, the end of the year. Actually look at that. The very end of the year on New Year's Eve. Um, uh, with a screenshot of all the covers. And I think, I think I remember you had commented about like, you were trying to name all the different, uh, covers that I had shown. Um, and then I stored them all in their archival wooden box. And I actually need a second one because I have a lot of empties and, uh, because I buy them faster than I use them. Everyone can relate to that problem. I'm sure. Yes. Yes. And so, you know, if, if those scanned PDFs go away, I keep the actual notebooks as well. And it's fun to flip those out and look through them and, um, and kind of see, you know, the path of, of work or, or relay, you know, I can find the page where like we settled on the name for the network and it's got the, the other name that we didn't use. Um, yeah. And you know, where our first call with our, with our CPA, uh, to make sure that, you know, we're a business with international partners and turns out that's complicated. And I have notes from that call and not that I have to reference those to day to day, but it's, it's really nice that they're, you know, all my bookshelf, all my computer, there's, there's record of that, that, you know, Myke and I'd have done this thing or,

Brad Dowdy: or whatever it is, you know, that, you know, uh, It doesn't have as much meaning sitting in a text file.

Stephen Hackett: Exactly. Exactly. We get it.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, we totally get it. Well, you have, uh, apparently a surprise topic for me that I'm, I'm anxious to, to hear about what you're, uh, what you're about to say. But, uh, before we do that, we have a new sponsor for the pen addict. I don't think they've been on the pen addict yet and I'm pretty pumped about this. What do we got? Yeah.

Stephen Hackett: So we have, uh, this week is our third sponsor. One password from agile bits.

Stephen Hackett: One password is an essential piece of software in the digital world that we live in. Uh, you know, it's super easy to use the same simple password over and over for various sites and various logins, but turns out that's a bad idea because sites get compromised. People get hacked and you know, bad stuff happens. A good one password user doesn't have to worry about this stuff. One password is an app available for the Mac iOS, Android, and windows that helps you create super strong passwords and keep them safe for you. And most importantly, keep them with you because they're all stored in an encrypted file on your device. Now you can use Dropbox or iCloud or even wifi to sync them. So I have my one password on my computer and I have it on my phone and I have it on my iPad. So these secure, uh, single use passwords are, you know, they're not the easiest thing to remember and that's the point. So all you have to know is your master password, your one password, you enter that and you're in. One password makes it secure and safe to be online. Security is daunting to many people, but this app is made to make all of that go away. So the easiest thing to do is also the most secure thing to do. One password saves you a ton of time. One click logins. Uh, if you're on iOS device, you can use touch ID to log in now with the, uh, iOS 8 extension. And it makes it again, really fast and really simple. It's, it's rewarding you for being secure. Agile bits have just enabled TOTP in iOS and windows. That's time-based one-time passwords, which are an extra layer of security. If you use two factor authentication with like a Gmail or an iCloud account or many others, um, it's two step. So it, it, it's another layer of security. You can find out more in there on their website about that. Um, I've been using one password for years, use it on the Mac, use it on my iPad, use it on my iPhone. I don't know my passwords and I know my one password and that lets me in. I know that I'm safe and secure across all of the different web services that I use day to day, whether it be at work or at relay or somewhere in between. If you're not a one password user, you should change this right away. Go to agilebits.com slash one password to find out more. And you can find one password on the, uh, the Mac and iOS app store, as well as Google play store and many others. Thank you so much to agilebits and one password for supporting this episode of the pen addict and all of relay FM one password put passwords in their place.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. I'm a, I'm a huge one password fan and it's, it's great for those non-technical people in your lives. Like, you know, I've told my parents to use it and my in-laws to use it and getting my wife to use it, you know, and once they understand that they just have to remember the one password and everything else kind of works, they're like, Oh, okay. I got it now. And it, and I'm safer and secure. So yeah, love it. Cannot recommend that enough. I think, uh, Dropbox and one password are like the first two things on any device ever.

Stephen Hackett: Totally.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Jet Stream Pens

Stephen Hackett: So we, we've danced around this a little bit. So I've used the, uh, the jet stream for a long time and I like the jet stream, but you know, Brad, I'm, I'm going to be 30 and you know, it's coming up. I know that's not old, but it feels, feels old. Um, I have a mortgage. I have a car, a new car for the first time in my life. I have three children. I have a job. I have a company. I feel like it's time for me to move into the adult pin world. And so I'm coming to you, my wisest pin friend. You're, you're, you're an L you're an elder in my life in this, in this regard. You are a trusted advisor. So if I want to become a man and I want to buy a grownup pin, what, what are the steps for me to enter this world? What, what should, what are some of the factors I should, I should look at and what, what are some of the things I should try?

Brad Dowdy: So this question is probably a lot harder to answer than you would anticipate. And there is a reason for that. And that reason is there is a huge gap in the pin market that is unfulfilled. And that is between like the $3 pins that we all use, like the Jetstream, and that are awesome. I mean, you cannot get a pin that writes much better than that. And on top of it, it's like $2 or $3.

Brad Dowdy: And then you go all the way up into like pins that are hundreds of dollars that you're buying for like their design or their materials. You know, if it's gold or some kind of in some kind of super fancy thing going on. And that generally may not even write as well as your $3 Jetstream. So there's this huge gap in that, in that range. And I'm not counting in fountain pens at all for you until you can test some of mine in Atlanta. If you want to go down the fountain pen road, we can look at that. But I'm talking strictly ballpoint gel liquid ink type pens. So the immediate thing that people are yelling at the screen right now or yelling in the air as they're listening to this, and what Myke would be yelling right now is Retro 51. So the Retro 51 Tornado uses a refill called the Schmidt P8127. And that's really what makes the pen. It's a high quality pen. It costs about $20 to $25. It's a twist pen. So it's retractable without a cap.

Brad Dowdy: And the refill writes amazingly. That's what really makes the pen. You know, I talk about it all the time. You know, people don't buy a Montblanc for the writing experience. They buy a Montblanc for the Montblanc experience. They want that pen. It's not going to be the best writing pen. The Retro 51 is an awesome writer. But the problem with the Retro 51 is that you're very limited on your refills without hacking the pen. So that stock refill for the Tornado is 0.7 millimeters, but it's a liquid ink. So it's going to be much wider and wetter than your jet stream that you're used to.

Brad Dowdy: So I don't know that I would actually recommend that to you, having seen your handwriting and how you write and how you write in notebooks and, you know, you want something to use in the field notes.

Stephen Hackett: Right.

Brad Dowdy: What I'm thinking off the top of my head is the Lamy 2000 ballpoint, which I own. And number one, it's flat out beautiful. And if you handed that pen to anyone, they would go, whoa. Because it's a very simple classic design, but it's made out of this material called Macrelon. It's like a fiberglass. And it's got this great stain, brush stained steel-like tip, clip, and knock. It's also a retractable pen.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. I'm looking at this online. It's beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And for a ballpoint, for a pen that comes with the ballpoint refill, it's actually a really good refill. It's not quite to par with the jet stream. It's a little bit worse. But in the grand scheme of all ballpoints, it's really, really good. You know, there's tons of bad ballpoints. This one is spectacular. The pen feels amazing. I was actually not thinking I would really like that pen very much. And I've actually turned out to like it very much. And the best part about it is it's only like $60. It's in that $50 to $60 range. Which I think if you're going to spend more than that, you're really looking for like something like in the pen design itself that's going to want to make you spend more than that. Right. You know, like the Mont Blanc, you know, for the gold and pearl that's on it. Right. I don't necessarily know that anyone needs that. Yeah. It's not. Yeah.

Stephen Hackett: Gold and pearl aren't really my scene. Right.

Brad Dowdy: You know, there's some really nice pelicans that are running about $250, but it's not going to write better than your jet stream. It's just not. And so you kind of come to this compromise of where you get a really. My biggest priority is the writing experience. If the pen writes crappy, I don't care what it looks like or how good it, you know, what the price is or anything like that. If it writes crappy and I have to fight to find a good refill to put into it, I'm not going to be happy. You know, I want a good out of the box experience. You know, I could maybe adjust the refills later if I want. This refill comes in blue. I've been more than pleased with my Lamy 2000 ballpoint. And it's just a good pen. I end up recommending it a lot for people who aren't into fountain pens, but want something. You know, people want a nice pen. They say, tell me, recommend a nice pen to me. I'm like, well, what do you mean nice? And how do you write? And, you know, that answer could go 8 million different ways.

Brad Dowdy: And I'm never going to recommend like $200 and $300 pens out of the blue to anyone. You know, I'll start right out the gate. Well, what are you trying to do? And you'll probably like a jet stream is kind of how it goes. And they say, well, I want a metal barrel and it has to be retractable and I need these features. And then we kind of narrow it down. And a lot of times it's a retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: I think the Lamy 2000 might be something you can look at. And I'll bring mine to Atlanta. You can test it out. But that's something certainly to consider. And it's a very nerd-friendly design. It's like a super classic German sleek design. It's understated. But when you feel it and hold it and show it to someone else, it's kind of like, ooh, this is nice. You know, it's a really, really, really solid pen. Gotcha. I think that's something to consider. And outside of that, I would have to think about it. Because like I said, there's a massive gap. It's like Jetstream, $3. Retro 51, $25.

Brad Dowdy: Then nothing. Like, I don't know what to say outside of that. That's why I was so pleased that I liked the Lamy 2000. And it was a good pen because that kind of fit a huge gap. And fountain pens, we have that same problem with fountain pens in like the $52, $125 range. There's just this massive gap price point in there. I'm getting yelled at in the chat room. And because Dan Bishop's not here, he would have been yelling at me too. Retro 51. Kara's Customs pens. You may have heard Myke and I talking about it at some point. They do, depending on if you want retractable or like a screw-off cap, they make nice machined pens that are made to fit certain refills. Like a Pilot G2 refill or, you know, a Uniball Sino refill. You know, it should fit the Jetstream refill. So if you want to stay with Jetstream, you can actually get an upgraded barrel. Like a machined aluminum barrel. And those, they're actually going to be at the Atlanta Pen Show. And I'm probably going to pick up one of the machined aluminum barrel ones because they're making these two-tone ones that look really sweet. They're very old school, like Mad Men looking style.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, that's actually what I thought when I pulled this page. I was like, I feel like I'm Don Draper.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they're pretty awesome. And we're good friends with the guy that makes them and he's going to be at the Pen Show. So that's something I plan on picking up there. So I think those are probably your two choices. Is it the Lamy 2000 or the Retract, which I think takes the Jetstream refill? I have to double check. I'll have to look on the refills on that page. Or ask Dan Bishop himself, who makes the pens. But I think those are probably your main choices there for, you know, for your big boy. Yeah, yeah.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, and I definitely understand it's a giant question, right? And that's why I kind of want to spring it on you. Yeah. But yeah, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, I like. I like many of our listeners, not only on this show, but across the network, you know. Like well-made things. You know, the backpack I have was not cheap, but I know it's going to last me a decade. And that is far more interesting and attractive to me than something that is going to, you know, burn out in a couple years. And like, yes, you know, if a $2 Jetstream, if I hand it to a client and I never get it back, like, okay, I can live with that. But there's also that attraction of, you know, I like to buy something that, again, becomes part of my everyday carry. Something that is on me all the time that is, you know, part of just when I go out the door, this is kind of what I go out the door with. That is a little bit higher class, a little bit nicer.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, I think those are two ideal choices. And, you know, I actually get these questions a lot and it never becomes easier to answer. You would think after all these years, you know, that market void would kind of, that gap would kind of get filled. And it just really doesn't. It's a real kind of an interesting space, the way the pin market's set up. There's not a lot of middle ground pins. And so when people find a good one, it usually becomes kind of a big deal because there's just not a lot available in that range of pins in the market.

Stephen Hackett: So we'll try some things out next week in Atlanta. And maybe I'll crash and we can follow up on that at some point.

Podcast Schedule

Brad Dowdy: Perfect. Perfect. Cool. Well, good. I think we've got it covered today. I wanted to mention one thing before we wrap up, though. So next week's podcast will not be recorded on Monday. Next week's podcast will actually be the pin show podcast on Saturday evening. What is that? The 17th. I'm not staring at my calendar. Am I getting in trouble? 18th. So we're going to try to get the show up the night of the 18th. That'll be the 150th episode.

Brad Dowdy: So don't be looking for a show in the beginning of the week. And then we'll pick back up with episode 151 the following week and kind of get back on a normal schedule. So I just wanted to throw that PSA out there in case you're looking for us next week.

Stephen Hackett: That'll be everyone will be actually there'll be like seven of us with the film crew and the audio. I'm doing the audio. A bunch of us in a tiny little room. But it'll be it's going to be fun. It's going to be crazy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And people are asking if they can come to the live recording. I'm like, I don't know that that's going to work. I don't know that we're going to have room for that. But, you know, if I if by some chance I'm trying to get us a bigger room at the hotel instead of actually doing it in our hotel room. Right. Getting us like a conference room or classroom. But I haven't just been able to finalize that. So we'd love to have guests or not not like live guests, but an audience. A live studio audience. A live studio audience. That would be we totally down for that. But I can't answer that until probably the day of the show.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah. And we'll definitely let you guys know from Brad and everyone. We'll let you guys know from the Relay account as well. So it'll be a lot of fun to come come hang out. So, yeah, I think I think that's it.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely, buddy. I appreciate you filling in today. I think it went.

Stephen Hackett: Yeah, I'm glad to do it. I would I would be remiss if I didn't thank our three sponsors before we went, though. My job is as the man.

Brad Dowdy: You are the man.

Stephen Hackett: So this episode of the Pen Act has been brought to you by Squarespace, Open Cards and 1Password. Thank you very much to them. And Brad, thank you. Thank you for having me. And have no fear. Myke will be back next week.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Thank you, Stephen. And I will see you in a couple of weeks. Sounds good, buddy. All right. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye bye. Bye bye bye.