The Pen Addict 186/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	186
Title:	Happy Penmas Everyone!
Release Date:	December 23rd, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 186
Audio File:	Audio Episode 186
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 186
Length:	6464 min <br />1.067 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 186. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's, Pen Chalet, and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: You're such a professional, Myke Hurley.

Myke Hurley: I do my best.

Fun Employment Day

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I just totally laughed at that, because Brad, being the keeper of, generally the keeper of the show notes, at least getting the document started, I didn't change the show episode number in the document. And as you're saying that, I'm going, he's going to say 185, and look at you, you professional podcastered that right into the show.

Myke Hurley: Not only did I get it correct, I changed it in the document whilst I was talking.

Brad Dowdy: I know, I was going to type it while you were doing it, and I was like, oh, we're hosed. And we're going to have to start over, but no, we didn't, because you were awesome, Michael, and I appreciate you, and happy holidays this week, man.

Myke Hurley: And to you, my friend, and to you. But the biggest holiday of this year is Brad Dowdy Independence Day.

Brad Dowdy: Brad Dowdy, what's the word? Fun Employment. Fun Employment, yeah. Fun Employment Day. Happy Fun Employment Day. So yeah, it's been, I don't think berserk is too light of a, too strong of a term, I guess. It's been beyond that. It's been kind of insane. I don't even know where to begin, like with what's like transpired, like how my days are in these days that I've no longer at my day job and have a independent life job. So it's kind of nuts. We did get some cool artwork from our good friend, Nick Foltz, who also writes for the blog. He posted this image, and I'll send it in the chat room, but I retweeted it and you did, too, on the other day about us podcasting with our cups full of pens and congratulating us on the news. So that was pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: I put this in our Slack room, and I can't remember who pointed it out, but somebody did, that neither of our microphones are plugged in.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Yeah, that's funny. Which is funny because he drew the plugs. Like if they just ran off the edge, you wouldn't know, but the plugs are sitting there. So maybe we're done. It's our after show drink that we're going to have various inks and pens for our refreshments after the show, something like that.

Myke Hurley: I like that there's a little thing, like the little paper part of a teabag sticking out of my cup anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I like the fact that I'm in a plaid shirt, of course. Yep. So, you know, of course, although I'm not wearing that today, I'm just wearing a t-shirt, which is part of going fun employment, Myke. You can wear a t-shirt to work, which is pretty sweet.

Myke Hurley: So I'll put Nick's artwork in the show notes. You can find them over at Relay.fm slash PenAddict slash 186, where you can also find some lovely buttons to become a member of Relay.fm and support the show. So, Brad, what have you been doing this week? Talk me through some of the things that's been on your calendar.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so it's kind of two big buckets, right? There's the NotCo stuff and then there's the PenAddict stuff. So with NotCo, I've already been up to the shop twice.

Myke Hurley: Which is like 200% more than the last month or something.

Brad Dowdy: Probably the last six months, yeah. So I'm planning on going up there twice a week once the new year starts. There's just so much going on now with holidays and scheduling and, you know, all kinds of different things. But right now I've been up there once a week. I went up there last Thursday for me and Jeff to kind of get the ball rolling now that I am committed like full time into Nock. Not that I wasn't before, but now I have the time to do more things for us.

Myke Hurley: You have time committed rather than just like emotionally committed.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So I'm fully time committed. So I wanted to get with Jeff. Jeff and I needed to sit down and say, what can Brad take off Jeff's plate? What can Brad do that's new? You know, how is this going? How are our days going to work now? That I'll be up here some, I'll be working from home some, even though I'll be working on Nock. So we kind of sat down for an hour or two and hashed out all that stuff. You know, I kind of get a get down on paper, you know, my responsibilities more on a day-to-day basis and then instead of just an as-needed basis.

Brad Dowdy: Then on top of that, Jeff and I went out to lunch with Jimmy, who runs the Atlanta Pen Show. So we can get ready, start getting ready for that in April. So we did that last week. So that's something, you know, that I wouldn't have been able to do in the past, right? You know, I could email him back and forth and just, you know, have this massive chain of email. But I was like, you know what? I can come to Atlanta. How about we meet for lunch and we talk about this? So what are we doing?

Myke Hurley: We're taking over the show? We've got six tables this time? What's happening?

Brad Dowdy: Well, we still have our two tables and we are taking over the show pretty much. But yeah, it's going to be good. Just some, since people do want to know about the Atlanta Pen Show and it doesn't, I know it doesn't apply to everybody, but I know a bunch of people are interested in coming this year.

Brad Dowdy: So we're definitely going to have a party Friday night and that's going to be on site at the hotel. Last year we did it at Nock. So we're working on that with Jimmy on Saturday. We're going to, we have a room for the live podcast. Myke and I are, and hopefully Anna are going to do, you know, hopefully she understands it's a standing invite, even though I haven't explicitly invited her yet. So we'll talk about that. But we're going to have a room and we're going to have a live audience this year instead of everyone trying to, oh, she just joined the chat. So Anna, you're coming to the Atlanta Pen Show. I hope you know that.

Myke Hurley: Well, we'll see, right? Because we still need to, still need to get the money together, which we'll learn more about soon.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we're going to do a Kickstarter in January for the Pen Show like we did last year, have some neat items in the works for that. But the biggest change, which I'm working on right now for the Pen Show is I want to do an event on Thursday evening for when a lot of people are coming in. And I've talked with Jimmy. Jimmy's all on board with this. I want to have a few hours in the evening where everyone can kind of do a meetup kind of or, you know, we, you and I have talked about the name, maybe like we're calling it Pen Attic Live, but it's really just kind of a meetup. But I wanted to have some, instead of just like, you know, straight up, let's hang it up at the bar meetup, I wanted to have some additional things involved in it, some more like on the educational side of things where people can maybe come and like learn something. But I haven't talked to the people I want to invite and who I want to be there. So I don't want to say too much, but I'm working on that for Thursday evening. I think we're going to do this. It's almost positive we're going to do it. We're going to do something on Thursday night. So people who are coming in on Thursday and in the evening, it'll be late in the evening, you know, like 6 to 8 p.m., 6 to 9 p.m., something like that.

Myke Hurley: And when is this? Is April 14th or 17th?

Atlanta Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the show actual dates are 15th through 17th. That would be for people who are coming in on the 14th, the evening of.

Myke Hurley: And it's looking very likely with our calendar with one slight addition. That the episode of the pen addict recorded at Atlanta will be episode 200.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that's pretty cool if we can kind of keep that scheduling going. That will be pretty neat. Pretty neat. So that was one day. That was one day last week. Then I went back to knock this past Monday. And I'm going to start going to knock every Monday as much as I can control. Will be one of my knock days for sure because we get a lot of orders in the weekend. So I can get in there and start shipping. So no one else has to manufacture. Has anyone that's manufacturing doesn't have to do shipping. That's things I can take off of everyone else's plate. And just work on that kind of stuff. So the pen addict stuff. I'm working on all kinds of back end stuff. That I'm going to launch some new things in January. So I've been trying to put all that together. That's like fitting together like a huge puzzle.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm working on that. That's mostly set for kind of a launch in January. First week of January. There'll be some new things going on at the pen addict. What I have found so far that I'm missing is actual time to write for the pen addict. And plan posts and things like that. Like I'm forgetting. Not forgetting. I'm running out of time to complete those tasks. Because I'm too busy doing other things. It's weird that now that I have all the time. I have no time. Like it just vanishes. Right. That's been a hard thing to grasp so far. But I'm also trying to put it in my head. These aren't the normal two weeks of what my normal days will be like. Because the kids have been out of school. You know. Tyler was sick for three days. There's all kinds of things going on with the holidays. You know. I'm running back and forth to knock. And we're still kind of doing planning stuff. Instead of like this. You know. This direct work stuff. So getting all this stuff going. Has kind of spun my time out of control. And I don't have a good schedule. Weekly schedule if you will. To get things done. That's not. That's kind of not going as I've planned. So far. Like I feel.

Brad Dowdy: A little bit crazy. Because. On one hand I don't feel like I'm doing near enough. And on the second hand. I can't find the time. To get those things done. But I know the answers are there. Like. It's a problem that. It's a solvable problem.

Brad Dowdy: And. You know. I'm working on that. Like. I need to have like a calendar. Just for like my Monday through Friday. A general layout. Like. Monday's always going to be at knock. Friday's always going to be pen addict stuff. Just because. I need to get ready for like. Post on Monday. I'm going to be doing some stuff for the weekend. Going forward.

Brad Dowdy: And then. There'll be another day of the week. I'll be at knock. Probably Thursday. So. You know. I have to. Schedule in the pen addict podcast planning time. On Tuesday. Before we record on Wednesday. That kind of stuff. So I'm still working through. What my calendar is going to look like. Throughout the. Monday through Friday. And. One thing I've hoped. Is that I could get more things done at night. And that's not working for me so far. So. You know. It's just a matter of figuring out my schedule. Basically right now. I. I'm just dumping tasks. Into OmniFocus. Yep. Without due dates. So I have a huge list of tasks. And then I'm going in in the morning. Saying. Okay. This is what needs to be done today. And I'm putting those in my Hobonichi. So like my day planner.

Brad Dowdy: Is. Interesting stuff. My Hobonichi. So okay. Today. You know. I need to do these X things.

Brad Dowdy: And. And then I can remove them from OmniFocus. When they're done. So I'm trying to figure out how. What's going to work best for me. And it's a little bit weird right now. Because. This is not a normal.

Brad Dowdy: Time. For me to be. Figuring these things out. Just because my days are not standard. Like until we get into January. Then my days and weeks will be. Somewhat standard. You know. You can't. Nothing. Is ever going to be standard. Right. But. You got to kind of have a framework. Or else you'll really get lost. And really lose your mind. So I don't have that framework built. To where I want it yet. I still feel a little bit lost. Scheduling wise. Work wise. Getting things done wise. Especially on the pen addict side of things.

Brad Dowdy: Just. And from the blogging side of things. Not all. Like all the back end stuff. That I want to do. That's going on. Great. Like everything I'm working on. It's going on. Great. But like the. Creative part of the pen addict stuff. The writing. The photographing. Getting the other writers post up. Things like that. That's getting lost in the shuffle for me. Just because I don't have a really. Really great. Plan. Right now.

Myke Hurley: So like from my experience. Of doing this. And also from over the last. Maybe 12 months or so. Being a part of many other people. The lives of many other people. That have done this type of thing.

Myke Hurley: My. My kind of advice. To you is. Allow yourself to over commit. Right now. Because you're going to. You're going to say yes. To more things. You're going to start doing more things. More than you should be doing. Allow that to happen. For a little while. But just always keep. In the back of your mind. That you will. At some point. Have to reassess. Like. So it's taken me. Over a year. But. I've started to scale. Some things. Back for 2016. Just change the way. I'm doing certain things. Because now. I know what I have to do. What I need to do. And what I should do. And you've just got to allow. Stuff to happen. To find yourself. Get to a point. Where you realize it's too much. And then allow yourself. To change it. And that's kind of. What I've seen. With basically everyone. That I know. That's done this as well. It's like. Don't be scared. And don't be concerned. That you're going to over commit. Because you just will. And it also means. You'll never have any time.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So I'm definitely good. With the over committing part. The mistake I've made. Multiple times so far. And I can't stop myself. From making. But it's a very simple fix. Is I've started my day. Without a plan. And. So. If I start doing things. And I haven't like laid out. Like the tasks I need to do. I start getting a little bit crazy. Okay. Like I'll just start working. Like I'll wake up. Get some coffee. You know. Chill out for a minute. And then I'll start doing things. And. That always leads. Into doing other things. And I haven't. Like. Committed to the task. I really need to do today. You know. I'm working. I'm doing the things. That. I'm doing things that need to happen. But I start getting lost. Of what really needs to happen. So then all of a sudden. Two hours later. I'm like crap. Well. I should have been doing this. Instead of that. And I found myself doing that. Several times so far. So. I need to plan out the night before. What needs to happen the next day. So when I'm ready to start working. The following day. I kind of have a better idea. And don't get myself. In a bad place. As far as time commitments. Yeah. So that's been my biggest flaw. So far. In trying to figure this out. But.

Myke Hurley: But it's been like. Six days.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. I definitely have some huge. Up and down swings. Like mentally. Like. Overwhelmed.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: I go from overwhelmed. To I'm not doing enough. I haven't had that middle. I haven't hit that middle ground yet.

Myke Hurley: Again. You will. You'll eventually work out. What that. That is. And I've kind of worked that out now. And I'm able to. Not be working. And not feel guilty about it. Yep. Yeah. Because you know. That's one of the big things. Is eventually. Like. You're just going to feel guilty. Every time you're not doing any work. Mm-hmm. But you. You end up getting to a point. Where you. You're okay with that as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So one last thing. And then we'll get on to. To some pin stuff. Thank you to everybody. Who reached out. After last week's episode. The feedbacks. And the. The congratulations. And all the comments. And talks. And emails. And tweets. I can't thank all of y'all. Enough for. You know. Joining me. In this adventure. And all your kind words. Mean a lot. And knowing that I have this support system out there. Is pretty amazing. So I. I certainly. Appreciate. I know I couldn't reply to everybody. Who. Who said. Who said all these kind. Kind words. And I really. Really. Really. Really. Really. Appreciate it. So. You guys are awesome. And. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you Myke.

Myke Hurley: Pleasure. All right. Let's take our first break. This week's episode. Is brought to you. By. Harry's. For many of us. Shaving can be a pain. It can be a pain. On our faces. It can be a pain. On our skin. It can be a pain. On our wallets. Because. If you're using razor blades. Quite frequently. Right. Because. They're so expensive. To replace. They're going to get dull. And they're going to start causing. Nicks and cuts and scrapes. And all that kind of stuff. This is not what you want. When you're shaving. Shaving. Is just such an annoying thing. To have to do. Like if you want to stay. Clean. You want to keep your skin. To be all nice and smooth. Then you've got to shave. Like every day. And that's just annoying. It's annoying and expensive. And that's why a company. Like Harry's. Is the company. That you've been looking for. Harry's make their own. Blades. They're not only high quality. They're not only crafted. By shaving experts. They're also. Really fairly priced. Harry's razors. Are about half the price. Of other big brand. Blades. They ship for free. To your front doorstep. Their starter set. Is a fantastic deal. For just $15. You can get a razor. Moisturizing shave cream. Or foaming shave gel. And three razor blades. And your satisfaction. Is guaranteed. Of Harry's. Because that's something. That's super important to them. They want to make sure. That not only you're. Happy with your products. But you're happy. With the whole experience. And that whole experience. Is like it really shows. On their website. It's super simple. To just go onto Harry's website. On any device. Like on your phone. Or whatever. It looks fantastic. And you can order in seconds. And have your products. Shipped out to you. On average. An everyday shaver. Who uses Harry's products. Will save $150. Each year. I love. Not just the quality. Of Harry's products. Not just the way. That they smell. Because they also smell. So great. Like their. Moisturizing. Like shave gel. And their. Their face moisturizers. And all that kind of stuff. I love all of those products. Right. They smell great. But it's not just all of that. I just love the way they look. I love their design. I mean. A product like this. You kind of want it to. Feel like it's your product. Right. Because you're putting this stuff. On your face. You're using this stuff. Every day. You want it to like. Speak to you in a way. I know that's at least. How I feel about these things. And Harry's stuff. Really does that. It has a great. Kind of classic look. It has this nice. Retro feel to it. Everything's built. Really well. Just great stuff. All around. You can experience a clean. Close. Comfortable shave. With Harry's. Go to harrys.com right now. And Harry's will give you $5 off. If you use the coupon code. Penaddict. At checkout. With your first purchase. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com. Coupon code. Penaddict. At checkout. You'll get $5 off. Your first purchase. And start shaving better today. Thank you so much to Harry's. For their support. Of this show.

Brad Dowdy: You don't have to hide. My Harry's handles. From the. The women in the house. From stealing mine. Oh yeah. Yeah. I got to keep my favorite ones. Under lock and key. Or else they vanish.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. No joke. I found my Harry's razor. In the bathroom. The other day. Yeah. Next to the bathtub. I was like. Oh okay. Well.

Lamy 2000

Brad Dowdy: I wasn't shaving in the bath. I know that much. Yep. I found my daughters. Over by where I shave. Which means she was looking. For my other ones. To switch around. So yeah. They're good stuff. They're highly sought after. In the dowdy household. That's for sure. So.

Myke Hurley: I caught something. That you did this week. You did some extended periscopes. And you did a full on periscope. Of showing off your. DDC dead print field notes. Yep. Yes. That was. Can people see that? Do you still using that service?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. There's a service called catch. And. I'll have to find the links. We can find the links through my feed. They get posted. Um. I think. Like from me. Like at dowdyism. It should say. Like on twitter. Something about. A catch feed. So we'll search through. We'll get all the links for that. But. You know. You would want me to open them. Everyone wanted me to open them. And I wanted to open them. Just to see all the cool. Things in there. And I end up taking some pictures. And put them up on instagram. Of all the external covers. But I periscoped them live. And it was so much fun. Just to see what was in all those books. And see what cool stuff is printed on the covers. And see what cool stuff is printed on the belly bands. Like I had a yoda on one of my belly bands. Which is pretty neat. And um. I really enjoyed doing that. And had a bunch of people watching it. So that was fun. And I want to do more periscopes. You know. Just do more interactive stuff during the day. Like I do. Like to do a couple of weeks. You know. Since I'm. I can't decide if I want to do video stuff. For the pen addict. That just takes up so much time. Um. If I. You know. Just had like a full youtube channel. You know. I'd consider it. But um. You know. Maybe down the line. But periscope is a great way. To just get like these short bursts. Of products out there. And uh. Just kind of talk about them. Because um. You know. I'm fortunate enough. To be able to get my hands on some pretty cool stuff. So I want to. I want to continue to do that. But the dead print. Uh. Periscopes were really fun. And uh. We'll. We'll get those. Um. Get those links in the show notes. For everyone who wants to check them out. Um. And see what. I had four packs. Um. To open. One from uh. Secret Santa. Three from our good friend Daniel. Who uh. Who hooked us up. And uh. Yeah. It was great. It was fun to do.

Myke Hurley: So they're in the show notes. Uh. What about this Lamy 2000 here? This. What is this? So. There's some image here. And I don't even understand the image.

Brad Dowdy: So I have this uh. Item. And I haven't really seen anyone talking about it. It's probably out there somewhere. But I didn't know about it. So uh. Thomas. Not Thomas Hall. I don't want to say this Thomas's last name. Without uh. His permission. But Thomas D. We'll call him. Sent me a link. Said hey. Have you seen this? And he says. It's the Lamy 2000. 50th anniversary special edition. I'm like. No. I haven't seen that. But that's super interesting. So he's like. Yeah. I ran across this um. Product uh. Brochure. I don't know if it was sent to him. Emailed to him. Yeah. I mean. It's it's out in the public. And and we'll have the link in the show notes. Um. To the PDF file he sent me. And. Basically. The Lamy 2000. Is hitting its 50th anniversary. In 2016. It was created in 1966.

Brad Dowdy: Um. So. According to this. Document. They're going to be doing. Three exclusive special editions. For this. They're going to do a Lamy. A Lamy Scala. I don't know if it's Scala or Scala. A Lamy AL Star. Which I believe is different from the one we spoke about last week. And then. The really important thing. Is a Lamy 2000. Special edition. Only available. During this anniversary. This anniversary year. According to this. According to this document. And. What stinks. Or what stinks from our perspective. Or what's good from Lamy's perspective. They just do like a grayed out drawing. Of the silhouette of the 2000. So we have no clue what this looks like. At all. But I'm pretty jacked about this. Because the 2000. Is one of the best pens ever. Ever made. Um. I own two of them. I will own three of them. When this happens. I don't care. If it's the worst color. In the history of man. I will own this pen. Um. You know. If it's like doo-doo brown. And gold nibs. I mean. I'll still buy it. So. I. I'm pretty jacked about this. Thomas says he has some more information on this. He was going to do a blog post. About it. And email me back. The link to it. He hasn't done that yet. But when he does. I'll be sure to tweet it out. Um. Because he's been trying to dig. And find some more. Um. Information on this. So. What. What do you think about this?

Myke Hurley: I mean. Sign me up. Lamy 2000. Lamy 2000 is one of my favorite pens. Just flat out. Um. And I'm very interested to see what a special edition looks like. Uh huh.

Brad Dowdy: Someone. Someone who is more well versed. Than myself. In fountain pens. Will have to tell me. If there's ever been a Lamy 2000 special edition. My guess is no. I've certainly never run across anything. And if they did. It's been ancient. Ancient times. Years and years and years ago. I mean. The pens been around for 50. 50 years. There's been modifications. And styles. And. But it's always looked the same. As far as I know. In my. My short time. You know. Looking at the Lamy 2000's history. I don't know that they've ever done a special edition. So this is going to be pretty. Pretty big deal. In the fountain pen community. So. Hopefully Thomas. Has scrounged up some more information. Uh. If not. I'm sure some of the retailers. Are going to start putting out some information. And. Um. You know. We'll see. Like. We'll be talking about this a bunch. Till it happens. Because. I. I couldn't. Um. I couldn't. You know. Press order. Fast enough. For something like this. This is. This is going to be pretty great.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. But we don't know when. Right. We just know. Next year.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Next year. No colors. No nothing. Um. You know. If you're doing another Macaron pen. The fiberglass. Your colors have got to be pretty limited. I mean. Are they going to make it. Certainly it has to be the same material. To be a Lamy 2000. Right. I would think. Not necessarily. But it's not a. But then it's another pen. If it's not out of. Macaron. It's not a 2000. If it's not. It's. Lamy 2000s are made of Macaron. They just are. Well. We'll see. Special editions. Got to be. Has to be a colored. Macaron. And. I don't know the range of colors. That you can get that stuff in. You know. Maybe it'll be a Micarta. Look. Feeling thing. Or. You know. Any of the other fiberglass materials. Like the G10. I have my. Edison in. You know. It's got to be some kind of fibrous material. It just has to be. To be a 2000. I believe. So. We'll see. You know. They're not going to come out with an Ebonite 2000. I wouldn't think. That kind of defeats the purpose. Of the pen. Although. Yeah. Everyone's saying. They. They do this. Do the stainless steel version. So. That's the same design. I thought that.

Myke Hurley: But I didn't want to say anything. In case I was wrong. No. No.

Brad Dowdy: So. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But. I would like it to be. To have that same feel. As the base 2000. But we'll see. The. We'll be. We'll be figuring this out.

Lamy Vista

Brad Dowdy: So. Yeah. But. In other Lamy news. I got a pretty cool Lamy from my Secret Santa. My Secret Santa hooked me up. With a Lamy Vista eyedropper. Which. I've never put together. And. Everyone was wondering. How to make this. Because. My Instagram blew up. With. Oh my god. How do you do it? Because there's. Vents. In the. Lamy Safari barrels. Right? So you can't really seal it off. But what you do. As I learned. I learned something from this. What you do. Is you purchase the rollerball. Vista. So you actually have to purchase two pins. To make this. Which is a big deal. That's a. That's a pretty. Pretty awesome gift. That someone would go through. And do that. But you. Have the rollerball barrel. Which does not have the vents. And then you can just.

Brad Dowdy: Grease up the threads. And. You now have a Lamy Vista eyedropper. Which looks really cool. In that long. Clear barrel. It's awesome. Awesome looking. And I also got the. Discontinued. Sailor Sky High ink.

Brad Dowdy: From this. Secret Santa. So that's what's inked up in this pen. And I've been using it a bunch. Because I love the. I have a black nib on it. Which was put on there. And it's super cool. Super cool. So. I wanted to. Drop that in there. For anyone who's looking to. Build out. Their Lamy Vista. Now that they've seen. This one that I have. Because I got so many questions about it. And y'all should definitely. Check that out. Consider doing it. If you want to do it.

Myke Hurley: I wonder if anybody. Gave it a go. And not really paying attention. And just ended up. With ink everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: I think they would know pretty quick. Because those vents are huge. I mean there's two. They're like. Three quarters of an inch long. On each side. I think as soon as you. Open that up. And got. Got a needle. To fill it up with. You'd go. Uh. Wait a minute. That would be a mistake. I'd just be like. Oh it's so easy. I can fill it from the side. Oh. Murburdraws is saying. You have to seal the end though. How do you. How do you seal the end. So I don't know what. If the end has little. Holes or dots in it. So. I'll have to figure that out.

Myke Hurley: Now look.

Brad Dowdy: So. There's. And there's links.

Myke Hurley: Now there are people. That paused the podcast Brad. They went down to the local. Staples. They picked up the pen. They did it all. They filled it up. And then the ink just went everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: So. Epoxy. Clear epoxy. Fill up the. Fill up the end. Now that would be a mess. I would totally do that. I was like. Sweet. No vents. Fill it up. And it would. Fill it up boys.

Brad Dowdy: It would. It would. It would spew. Awesome ink everywhere. And I don't want that to happen.

Brad Dowdy: So. I'm reading. In this Google Doc. And apparently you have. Some of. Our. Our. Relay FM. Cohorts. Into digital coloring. Is that what we're doing here?

Myke Hurley: Right. So this is. Basically. It's a little bit of follow up. And a bit of follow out. And I don't know if you've ever mentioned. Follow out on this show before. So follow out. We have not. We reference. We reference. Something on another show. So. Obviously we've spoken about coloring here a bunch. And one of the things that I've always been looking for. Is for an iOS app. To do coloring with. And now with the Apple Pencil. And the iPad Pro. It's kind of perfect. Right? Mm-hmm. Um. I. Got wind of this app. Called Pigment. That was going to be released. By a company called PickSight. And I was able to get myself. Um. A version of the app. A day or two. Before it launched. And Brad. This app. Is just. Perfect. Yeah. And the reason I've included a link. To the connected episode. Is. I go into a lot of detail. About the app. More. More than I'll go into here. Um. But this app. Is just. Absolutely. Fantastic. For coloring. I've probably spent. At least. 12 hours. In this app. Now. Over the last week. Or so. That's great. It's. Just fantastic. It is. Absolutely. Fantastic. There's. There's loads of great. Patterns. That you can use. Like you know. Like the. The drawings. That you're able to color in. They have loads of great tools. Tons of great colors. And it just feels really good. And there's. You know. There's obvious advantages. Over pen and paper. You can zoom in. You can turn things around. And. You can undo. And stuff like that. Right? So there's a benefit there. But also. Of course. Of course. It doesn't feel as good. You know. Right. Sure. Sure. But there are. Yeah. I think that this is absolutely fantastic. And it has become. Like my favorite app. On my iPad now.

Brad Dowdy: So I haven't downloaded any of the. Digital drawing apps. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: None are as good as this one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Because. Looking at them. What I would expect. In trying to mimic. What I do. With pen and paper. None of them have been that impressive. Just from. Looking at them. Looking at the reviews. Looking at the images they use. This one looks. Like. Legitimately good. Yep. As. In comparison to just. You know. If you're. If you're window shopping. Apps. To do this. None of them look this good. None of them look like they have. The features that this does. And. I. I gotta admit. This one. You know. This one would be tempting. You know. I'm not looking to do this now. But I'm gonna keep this on the radar. I'm not. I'm never gonna say never. Just because I have the. The other coloring books. I like so much. Um. But. If any of them. I would download. This would. This would be the one. That would cause me to download. I saw this pop up in the app store. And I was like. Now this looks like. A real. Digital coloring app. Not like. You know. Point and click. Fill in the colors. Kind of stuff. Um. This one looks really. Really solid. And. I. I'll be interested. Uh. To hear. If you. Uh. Continue to use it. And if you've already put in 12 hours in it. That's actually. That's a lot.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. This is my. This is my coloring now. This is how I color. Yep. Just because it's. Always there. And I have like an unlimited source of everything. It doesn't take up any desk space. Mm hmm. Other than just the. Like. Cause you know. If I'm coloring. I need. Space for the books. And space for the pens. And the books are actually all bigger. Than my iPad. Sure. And I can do this wherever I want. Which is great. And I've. And I've been. I've been. Yeah. I've been really enjoying it. There's a couple of features I want to see. Um. Like I want to see. Uh. An eraser. Which they don't have. Oh that's interesting. Yeah. Like currently you just select the white color. And color over it. Huh. Or undo. Right. But they don't have an eraser. And it'd be good if they had that. And also if you choose a color. And leave the app. It doesn't remember the color that you chose. Um. Gotcha. But the developers have been in contact with me. And told me that they're working on that. Great. So. I love it. It's a subscription. You pay monthly. Or yearly I think. Mm hmm. Um. And you get access to lots and lots of books. It's well worth it for me. I paid like 18 pounds. And. There's. I don't know. It feels like there's like. Maybe 60 or 70 different patterns to color. So. Okay. I love it. I think it's great. Because as well like. You don't just color them once. You can color them as many times as you want. You just keep duplicating them.

Brad Dowdy: That's true. I didn't think about that. That's. That's a pretty cool feature.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I love it. Really really love it. It works on iPhones and iPads. And it works about the Apple Pencil. Um. And you can use your finger. And they have this. This thing that would be quite good for this scenario. You can tap in an area. And then color. And it doesn't go over the lines. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yeah. It's like locks in that area.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh. That's pretty cool. So that works. I mean I don't do that because I'm using the pencil. Right. But you can do that if you want to.

Brad Dowdy: Very very cool. I think we'll be hearing a lot more about this. And still a lot more about coloring. Yep. Um. I think 2015 was the year of coloring. Um. That. It kind of came into the mainstream. And uh. You know. I don't. I don't see any end in sight.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I had lunch with uh. Matt Alexander today. Yes. And uh. He. He was saying. He wanted to get an adult coloring book for his mom. For Christmas. Oh cool. So I took him to a bookstore. Gave him a secret garden. I was like. Bye.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Yep. Done. Perfect.

Myke Hurley: Should we take a break? Let's. This week's episode is brought to you by our great friends over at Pen Chalet. They sell all of the fantastic pens and various equipment that you may need for the pen addict in your life. Whether that's you or somebody else as well. You know. We all have people that we like to buy this stuff for. And Pen Chalet is the place to do that. Pen Chalet have all your favorite brands. They have very fast and reliable customer service. They do great deals all the time. They always have great prices on everything that they do. But they're always doing loads and sales. And close out specials and stuff like that. Every two weeks in fact. And Pen Chalet is committed to adding new styles of pens every single month. There's always new great stuff showing up at Pen Chalet. So it's always worth going back and checking their stock. If you ever want to get anything. You ever looking for a new pen or something else. You know. Maybe some ink or whatever it is you're looking for. Always go to Pen Chalet first. Because they have great prices. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the continental United States. And also sell internationally with great shipping rates. But the great thing is you can always get 10% off any order at Pen Chalet. With the code PENADDICT to check out. And as always you can click the top of the page. The podcast link at the top of the website. And enter the code PENADDICT. For some extra savings as well as your 10% off. Now this time. Ron at Pen Chalet wanted me to let you all know. That on December 26th. Which is Boxing Day in the UK. Which is traditionally a sales day in the UK. Pen Chalet are going to be doing a year end inventory blowout sale. Whoa. Now if Pen Addict listeners can get a sneak peek. Of what this is going to look like. There will actually be a link in the show notes for this. So you'll be able to go and take a look. At what this inventory blowout sale is going to look like. And of course anything that you choose to buy. You'll be able to get your 10% discount. With the code PENADDICT at checkout. So you'll be able to go and take a look. It'll be on our show notes this week. There is tons of stuff in here. Including a bunch of Pelicans. Everything. This is going to be really great. I think you're all going to really love it. Don't forget you can get that 10% off. With Pen Addict at checkout. And that also helps support this show. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet. For the continued support. All year. Of the Pen Addict. Thank you to Ron. And everyone at Pen Chalet. They are a great supporter of this show. In case you hadn't noticed. Without fail. Every two weeks this year. We've had great support from the Pen Chalet. And I would be more than happy. For it to continue forever.

Brad Dowdy: I love those guys. We love them. And yeah. I'm trying not to spend any more money. Before the holidays. But I'm going to have to go through this sneak. Pink link. And there's some like seriously good stuff in here. That you don't normally see come up for sale. So. And I'm having trouble concentrating. As I scroll through the. Scroll through the. Huge list. Scroll through the list. So I'm going to have to.

Myke Hurley: Like they've got the Neon Coral Lamy Safari. For 2035.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They have the Vanishing Point. With the Rodden Raiden finishes. The sparkly finishes in there. They have the 36. 3776s. So yeah. This is going to take some time.

Myke Hurley: That Vanishing Point is 285.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They have some. Man. The Pelican. The Pelican 805. The Strasomon. Is that how it goes? The golden. I mean the silver and gray one. So. All right. I'm going to stop now.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to have to come back to this. There's some super good stuff in here. You want to go check us out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And dig. Dig into that. So. All right. So. I got some mail. This past week. And. One of the items. Which I knew was coming. But wasn't sure. What it was going to be when it arrived. I had a pretty good guest. Because. She's the best. And. The best. The best field notes. Blogger. On the planet. Our good friend Jenny. Hooked me up with. You got the Myke was right. Mm-hmm. Dry transfer edition. I got the pen addict one. It's awesome. Yep. So I told my wife. I'm setting up my office. Right. And. You know. I'd like to make it mine. Like I have the desk. It's all set up. And it's junked up. Just how I like it. You know. It's still too messy. I just kind of transferred stuff in there. And I haven't totally organized it yet. So I'll take some. I'll need to take some pictures on my desk. I think I've kind of. I've shown them in a periscope or two. You know. It's nothing special. Nothing great. But I want some of my stuff. Like on the walls there. Like I want a shelf. To be able to display stuff. Um. I will not use this field notes. And I want to display it. In my office. It's so cool. That she did this. For you and I. And it came out so good. Um. And I freaking love this field note. So thank you Jenny. Um. I have thanked you. Um. You know. Um. Via email. Or via Twitter. Or via something. Before. But this is. This is really cool. And I love it. And uh. So yeah. You said you're not going to use yours. Right. Or you are going to use it.

Myke Hurley: No. They sit on my desk. I'm never going to touch them. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not going to use this.

Myke Hurley: Like. I have them here. Like. So I can always see them. They're actually. They live here. They live on my desk with me. Um. But I'm never going to use them.

Brad Dowdy: There's very very few products. Especially field notes. That I won't use. This will be one of them.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Chocolate Gift

Brad Dowdy: Um. And I. The number I won't use. Is probably. Way low. In the single digits. Like I'll use anything. I'll use butcher blue. If I. If I get to. Get a hankering too. But um. This one I will not. This is really cool. Um. It'll go along my. With my fiend notes. From uh. Our friend Ben Kwok. Um. And a couple other special editions. Uh. That I have. So. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Um. I also got. Um. You got something. Uh. From our friend. Uh. Our friend Mel. Yeah. We both did. A second. A second round of Star Wars goodies.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. And this was. Mel. Thank you so much for this. You. Completely nailed. What we were looking for. We spoke about this weeks ago. Yeah. The Star Wars Bic pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And not with the intention of her going to the store.

Myke Hurley: No. No way.

Brad Dowdy: And uh. Did you get the same thing I did?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Exactly the same.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So we each got. Um. We got a third notebook that we did not have before. From the Tsubame. Uh. Notebooks carried at the loft store in Japan. This one has a Darth Vader on the front. He's reaching out. Not like he's using the. Uh. Not like a. A force grab or anything. But he's just. Got his hand out. More like a propaganda poster. Come to the dark side. I think it's pretty hilarious. And then the back has like a. A Death Star diagram. On the inside back cover. Um. Which. Which shows all about the Death Star. And it's got this great. Uh. Millennium Falcon. In the um. In the border. Of the front cover. That's my favorite part. I think. About this notebook. The little falcons in the. Uh. In the. In the bottom corners. And then she sent us. A. The BB-8 click pin. That we. We put in the show notes before. Um. But you know. Not expecting to get it. And it's just wicked cool. Isn't it Myke? Oh definitely. And did you. Did you send you some chocolate? Uh. Um. I'm gonna go with yes. And I don't think there's any left.

Myke Hurley: I haven't eaten it. Okay. Cause I was. I didn't. I didn't know what to make of it.

Brad Dowdy: It's awesome. So she explained it to me. Let me pull up this email. I haven't replied to her. Back. Replied to it yet. So we got this. This. These little chocolates. And it's a little box. And Darth Vader. It's a black box. And Darth Vader's head is on the. On the cover of the packaging. But the rest is in Japanese. So you know. It's. We can't really make out what's going on here. And she sent me a really funny email. Um. About that. If you can. Uh. If you can talk while I. While I find this. Well my favorite. My favorite thing.

Myke Hurley: The chocolate's called DARS. D-A-R-S. Yes. And underneath. So that's important. There's a little line. Which says. Give yourself to the DARS. Yes. Which is a really weird line. That I don't completely understand.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So here you go. Extra note. DARS. D-A-R-S. Is dozen. There are 12 pieces of chocolate. Dark chocolate. And due to the lack of the. T-H sound. The th sound in Japanese. Darth. And DARS. Sound the same. Japan loves. Japan loves puns. So it's. It's. DARS. Um. Would be how you'd say. DARS Vader. It would be some. Something along those lines. So she explained that to me. And I replied back. I said yeah. I've eaten half of that chocolate. Since last night. It's really good chocolate. I love dark chocolate.

Myke Hurley: I just hadn't tried it yet. Yeah. But uh. It made me smile. The whole packaging is very funny.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So it's a. It's a. It's a pun thing there. She says Japan loves their puns. So that's. That's the story behind the chocolate. I almost forgot about that. Because I've eaten so much. And I left it out in my office. I. I. I. The kids noticed the next day. After we all tried it the first night. They wanted some more of it. And I was like. Where is the box? I'm like. I don't know where the box is. Where do you think it is? It's gone. Is where it is. Um. It's in. It's hidden away from them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Thanks again Mel. You really are the best. Gosh. I really don't have. Please don't feel like you have to send these things to us. But. But. I'm always pleased to receive them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But you don't. You don't have to do this. Yes. It's awesome. I. I. I. I. I. I. Just. Heap praise on her. Every time I email. And that's nowhere near enough. For what she does for us. It's. It's greatly appreciated.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So one thing we haven't done in a while. Well actually.

Lamy Macrelon

Myke Hurley: Before we do this. Before we do this. We have some. Late breaking follow up. Oh. Late breaking. From Laurie in the chat room. Mm-hmm. That. Lamy. As part of. An auction. Mm-hmm. Once the. Johnny Ive Mark Newsom. Auction. I remember this. Produced a red. Lamy 2000.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So they did a whole set. I remember this. We talked about this on the show. And I'd forgotten about it. And. I can't even remember how much. Does this say how much they went for in this? Oh. It was over $100,000. I think. Yeah. It was a crap ton. So good. That's good. Oh.

Myke Hurley: $31,250. It went for.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So it's red. Macrelon. In the finish. That's great. That. That bodes well. For what we might see. I believe.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yes. So that. There's. Perfect. There is the. The evidence we were looking for. That it's possible to color. Macrelon. They have done it. I hope we see something like this. I would actually just like to buy that red one.

Brad Dowdy: But you know. They're never going to make that. Just run over to Johnny and Mark's house. Aren't they right around the corner? Something like that.

Myke Hurley: I don't know if they're talking to me anymore. Okay. Okay. Because I was mean about their pencil.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you, Laurie. That's perfect. I forgot all about these. And colored macaron does exist.

Myke Hurley: Yay. There was also. Whilst we're on this topic. I wanted to just mention. A few people have mentioned this to me. And have asked questions. Actually. Apple did a 60 minutes show. Yeah. And. This. Yeah. It was a big in-depth look at Apple. And one of the scenes showed Johnny Ive using a fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really?

Myke Hurley: And the pen that he is using is the Mark Newsom designed Hermes pen. Okay. Have you seen this one? We have seen this before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We've linked it in the show notes. What it is is a Pilot Decimo internal with a new build around the outside for Hermes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And it's got one flat edge and it twists in the middle to retract either a ballpoint or a fountain pen depending on which one you'd like.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So the internals are the Pilot internals. Yeah. It's a beautiful pen.

Myke Hurley: It is. I really, really want one. I really want one. And a few people brought this up when I wrote about the Apple Pencil saying that not only did Newsom put a cap on the Mont Blanc, he also built a fountain pen with a flat edge. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I really. Yeah. I wanted to just mention it because a couple people brought it up and I don't know if everybody knows that this exists. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: They should go. If not, they should. We'll link it in the show notes. It's a stunner. This one is like, you know, if I ever came across one and could get it for a deal, you know, I would consider it just because it looks really, really good. It looks better than the Mont Blanc for sure, but it's twice as much.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's really super expensive. I'm going to. Yeah. I'm trying to find it on MS. It's $1,670.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, so it's three times as much, but it's essentially the internals and the nib are the Pilot Decimo slash vanishing point. But it's the twist, which is the Decimo. I hope I have that name right.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Because I've seen a picture of it. I think it might have. I'll see if I can find it for the show notes. I think it might have been on Hodinkee where they actually show the internal and it is the vanishing point internal. Right. But they've customized it in some way to make it a twist mechanism.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Well, it's not. They make one for that Decimo. It's a twist retract instead of a click. Yeah. So no new design on the mechanism. Just a completely new external barrel to wrap around it, if you will. Right. And better than just about anything. It looks great. All right. So blog of the week. Inksmudge.net. If you all haven't seen this awesome follower, Ivan Shirtness. I hope I pronounced that right.

Brad Dowdy: He's been doing a bunch of field note stuff here recently and send me the links. And I love his style and the way he writes. And he just did a post about he used 50 field notes this year. And it's cool to see the stack. And what's neat about it, he uses all the same craft version. Right. He like is not into the colors thing for like his daily use stuff. But I thought it was cool to see. And he's going to go through some of that and expand on that a little bit more coming up soon. So I wanted to make sure to link that in the show notes. And it's kind of new. It's kind of a new blog. So make sure you add that to your feed readers or however you consume new content. And, you know, he dropped in a congratulations to me for making the leap. And I appreciate that too. And yeah, just take a look at the blog and add it to your feed reader.

Myke Hurley: It's interesting to me to use so many field notes and just use craft.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. No, I think it's cool. I think it's great. It's I mean, you know, Myke, people sometimes will choose one pen and one ink and only use that.

Myke Hurley: Most people are crazy.

Brad Dowdy: I know.

Firmo Mechanism

Brad Dowdy: Firmo. Okay. So thank you, Ionsomnia. It's the Firmo, not the Decimo that has the twist mechanism in the... I thought I was getting that wrong, but I was stuck and I couldn't get the other word in my head.

Myke Hurley: I didn't know the names when you were saying it. I was doubting you because it sounded like I could hear it like in your voice.

Brad Dowdy: Like you like the Decimo. I wasn't completely sold on that. It's one of... I knew it was in the ballpark. So I actually don't own one of those. I've never felt the need with the vanishing point to add in the twist mechanism with the same nib kind of thing. So no big deal. But yes, the Firmo is the twist.

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of interesting filling systems, we have our first Twisby VAC mini review from our good friend, HeyMatthew at Nib and Ink. Did you get a chance to read this when he first posted it? Because I only put it in the show notes right before we started the page because I forgot that I wanted to discuss his review. Did you happen to catch it early?

Myke Hurley: No. Unfortunately, you put this in after I'd already looked at the show notes. So this will be all brand new information to me. I still can't get my hands on one of these. I can keep my eye on Colt pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they're available. I just haven't ordered one yet. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I don't know if they've made it over here yet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So some of the vendors in the US definitely have them. If they still have them in stock, I don't know what the stock levels are like. I just haven't rushed out and purchased it just because I've purchased so many things recently. But I would definitely purchase it. Matthew didn't love it. It's still got some of the aesthetic issues. He really harps on it. And he's a designer. So that stuff like super bothers him. And it kind of bothers me too. Like what? Anyway, just the fonts they choose to use and some of the, you know, how they, there's no consistency in a little bit of the design. He doesn't like how it can't really post well. But like all the things he's discussing are not things that bother me. I'm still pretty jacked about this pen and can't wait to get one. Um, so he's just, you know, relating it to like being kind of a pocket pen because of its size, but it's not really a pocket pen as far as quick deployment. Um, and usability if you're, you're thinking about it, um, that type of way. But I don't really carry like my minis, my TWSBI minis in my pocket anyway. I mean, I'm not, I don't need a quick deployment system to start writing with these. So it looks really cool. Um, it looks exactly what I, I thought it would look like. The functionality looks awesome. Um, you know, he's just got a few little, uh, few little things, you know, that don't really speak to him, but, um, it looks like it's going to be kind of perfect for me. So I'll be anxious to get this in my hand and, uh, see what it's really all about. But, uh, I'm really anxious to get it still. And it's, uh, the price was $65. So, which I don't think we had that last time when they announced it, but I figured it would be kind of in that price range.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We're looking at like 55 pounds here.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Um, which is a little bit more expensive than I would have wanted. Uh, but it's okay. Yeah. I was hoping it would be under 50 and I know it's not a big difference, but for a, for a small pen, um, sure. 55 is, is, is getting up there.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. I wonder what the minis cost. I have two of them and I can't remember what they, what they, what their prices were, but they were at least around 45 or 50, if not even, even more. I don't know. So it's, it's pretty good. I I'm looking forward to this and I'll, I will definitely get one soon and get a review done because, uh, I want to use this pen very, very much. I like it. It looks very cool. All right. So we got, uh, we have a few new things, a few more new items like the Lamy 2000 launching in 2016 to talk about that just kind of came across my radar this week. And we have a nice story to send y'all off with, uh, on this holiday week that I cannot wait to get to. Uh, but first we have a, another great sponsor, Michael.

Myke Hurley: We do. We do. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. You can start building your own website today at squarespace.com and use the offer code Inc at checkout to get yourself 10% off. Squarespace, build it beautiful. With the return of pen blog of the week. This could be a great time for you to get your own pen blog started. And with Squarespace, you'll be able to build a site that looks professionally designed regardless of your skill level with no coding experience required. They have intuitive and easy to use tools to make your website look and feel exactly how you want. With their drag and drop page building system, you can very easily put together a blog and a whole site with about pages and galleries and all that kind of fun stuff. It's really easy to build. It's really easy to maintain. And Squarespace use state of the art technology to power your site. They ensure security and stability. And because of this, they're trusted by millions of people around the world. Squarespace have fantastic templates that you can get started with. You'll be able to choose from their great options. They have all different ones. You can customize them to your heart's content and they all feature responsive design to make sure that your site looks great on all manner of devices. Squarespace have 24-7 support with live chat and email. So if you ever have any questions or comments, you can always get in touch with them and they're more than happy to help. They have their commerce platform. This is something that Brad uses for NotCo and we use it at RelayFM to sell our t-shirts and stickers. So you can very easily sell physical and digital goods with Squarespace. Anybody can add a store to their Squarespace site. You can manage inventory. They have integration so you can do all your shipping stuff. It's really, really easy to get a store set up with Squarespace. They have rock-solid fast hosting and so much more like their cover page functionality, which allows you to build great-looking single-page websites as either just your whole website or an introduction page to your website. Maybe you've got something that you want to promote. You can make a great cover page for it. If you want to sign up for a year, you'll also get yourself a free domain name. So you can give your Squarespace site the name that you want. Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month and you can start a free trial today with no credit card required and build your own website straight away by going to squarespace.com. And when you decide to sign up, make sure that you use the offer code INK at checkout. You'll get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for this show. Thank you to Squarespace for the continued support of The Pen Addict and Relay FM. Squarespace. Build it beautiful.

Pelikan Pens

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Thank you, Squarespace. All right. So a friend of the show, Joshua from The Pelican's Purge, who obviously focuses on Pelicans, released a bunch of new information about what Pelican is planning for 2016. I love seeing these highly specific blogs in our community. Don't you, Myke? Like, you know, we have a lot of Field Note-specific blogs. We have several Pelican-specific blogs.

Myke Hurley: Find your niche in the niche, my friends.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's crazy. It's awesome to see. I learned so much from this because, you know, we can't keep up with all this stuff. But having, you know, core sites to go to to find out about all these things is awesome. And the first thing that caught my eye before I did a little bit more digging that Joshua posted was the new M805 in vibrant blue.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Talk about catch your eye.

Brad Dowdy: Jeez Louise, this is so pretty. I know. They, the 805 is my favorite size. I've tried them all now. The 805 is the best size for me. I use the 6 the most. I don't know why. It just seems, I use them all. But the 805 is just a killer size. And it's very expensive. But this blue just pops off the page. It's got the silver furniture. The blue is kind of marbly, but it's kind of translucent at the same time. It's kind of, kind of sick looking. I don't know, like sick in a good way. I got to see this in person. The pictures are stunning. You know, I never bought the 605 last year. That was the demonstrator blue. I think they called it marine. Aquamarine. I always wanted that pin. I just never got around to making it happen in the budget. But this is one I'm going to want to see. And see if it gets added to the flock of pelicans that I already have. So you can read all about that on Joshua's site. And then he dropped, like right after that, the ink of the year is Aquamarine. This is going to be pretty nice as well. So it seems like, I don't know if time's just going by faster or what. But it seems like we just got the purple, the amethyst from the Pelican, you know, this past year. Where they did the amethyst demonstrator 205. And the special edition ink, of course. And this year is going to be Aquamarine. So hopefully they do the same kind of things with the pin in the 205 series.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. What do you think about this color?

Myke Hurley: Looks great.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think it's going to be good. I mean, I like that blue green.

Myke Hurley: It would be nice to see it on some paper. Yeah, for sure. But in the bottle, it looks great. Do you know where the Edelstein name comes from?

Brad Dowdy: Don't, exactly. I don't. I've looked it up before, but I can't remember. Okay. Well, okay. Well, like in Josh's thing, it says it's the German word for gemstone. And all of their things are rounded gemstone. Okay. Everything in the Edelstein lineup. Sapphire, topaz, aquamarine, tanzanite. And it's all the gemstones. So, yes, that makes sense now. Yeah. Totally does. So, if they match a pin with this, that's going to be pretty awesome looking. Just like I think the Amethyst came out wonderful. So, on top of those things, I found an older post that Josh did, what to expect in 2016 from Pelican. You can learn so much from Joshua's post. So, he goes through what he thinks is going to happen for Pelican. And then what's already been announced. He's got some confirms and some rumors. It's a really good read to kind of figure out, you know, get some ideas for what's coming. Last year's lineup was really great. The Stressman, the Cafe Crim, the Demonstrator. I never got the orange. What did they call the orange one? Let's see. M800 Burnt Orange. I would probably still be in the market for one of those. It's expensive. The 800 is a very expensive pin. And you can't own too many 800s because you'll be broke. Because the Stressman was an 800 as well. 800 series pin. And I never got that one. The Burnt Orange is really good looking. It's got the brown and orange with the gold trim. I would actually, I'm good with the gold trim on that. So, yeah, it's cool. Check out his blog. Because if you're into this kind of thing, it's kind of neat to see how Pelican is such a huge company. They have fans like this that can, like, dig into the rumors and hunt these things down, you know, for all of us that don't have time to. And really dig in. And it's kind of cool to read. It's like Apple rumors, right? In our own little world. It's pretty fun.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I like it. It's, I didn't really know that this existed. But of course it does. But it's funny that, I don't know if we've ever really come across so many rumor things in one go before.

Brad Dowdy: I know, I know. I guess it's getting to the end of the year and everyone's planning and releasing things for 2016. So.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Michael. Yeah. Do you have anything else for this episode? Because I want to wrap this up in a story.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I was thinking we should maybe take this in turns, take a verse each of this.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. What do you think? I know I need a drink before I start. There you go.

Myke Hurley: So then we give ourselves a break. Because ladies and gentlemen, settle in here. We've got quite a way to end this week's episode.

Brad Dowdy: It's going to take a while. So get your coffee, get your eggnog, get your beers, get your in-your-bed beers, wherever you're at. I'm going to take a swig here because this is long.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Me too. Let's get prepared here.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So I'm going to start it and we'll take every other.

Myke Hurley: Do we want to say where it came from?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah, for sure. So a gentleman named David sent this to us, sent it to me and Myke as a thank you. And he wrote this story based on the traditional Christmas story, Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Brad Dowdy: And what he did was pretty amazing. And we just have to share this with the community. We'll have to ask him. We're not publishing this because I want his approval before we do so. But if he gives us the word, we'll send a link. We'll add a link to the show notes just so where you can go read it afterwards. But it's really, really great. So let's do this, Myke, and tell everyone, you know, have a Merry Christmas. And David, thank you so much for doing this.

Myke Hurley: I've read through this and I'm looking forward to the dubious rhymes. Yeah.

Christmas Story

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. There's lots of dubious rhymes, but we certainly could not have put this together. All right. You want to kick off? Yeah. So it's titled, A Visconti from St. Nicaea, Twas the Knock Before Christoph.

Brad Dowdy: Twas the knock before Christoph went all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The safaris were hung by the chimney tops with care in hopes that St. Nicaea soon would be there.

Myke Hurley: The Kaveikas were nestled all snug in their brass towns while visions of scribble pens danced in their heads. A mama with her Christoph and I with my capless had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.

Brad Dowdy: When out on the Lamy there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bick to see what was the matter. Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore open the Sharpies, and threw up the Sarasa.

Myke Hurley: That's the first. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave a luster of midday to pens down below, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny render K's.

Brad Dowdy: With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment he must be St. Nock. More rapid than inner gels, his coursers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name.

Myke Hurley: Now Diamine, now Denitrio, now Parker and Vision, on Copic, on Cupid, on Doan, and Blackwing, to the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now dash away, dash away, dash away all.

Brad Dowdy: As leaves that before the wild high tower fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the housetop the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of pens and St. Nicaia too.

Myke Hurley: And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head and was turning around, down the chimney St. Nicaia came with a bound.

Brad Dowdy: He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all patinaed with ashes and soot. A bundle of field notes he had flung on his back, and he looked like Myke Hurley just opening his rucksack.

Myke Hurley: His eyes, how they twisbeed! His dot grid, how merry! His cheeks were like roadies, his nose like a cherry. His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.

Brad Dowdy: The stump of a pilot he held tight in his teeth, and the ink it encircles his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.

Myke Hurley: He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself. An ink of his eye and a twisbee of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

Brad Dowdy: He spoke not a word, notebook, but went straight to his work, and filled all the knockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying his fisher space pen aside of his nose, and giving a nod up the chimney he rose.

Myke Hurley: He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and they all flew like the dowdy of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, Happy penness to all, and to all a good right. Happy holidays, everybody. Happy holidays, everybody. Thank you so much to David for turning that in for us. It was quite a treat. If you want to catch our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 186. Thanks again to our great sponsors this week, the people over at Squarespace, Pen Chalet, and Harry's. We will be back now in 2016. Have a fantastic holiday season. Have a fantastic new year. We hope that you get all of the stuff that you want, and maybe then buy some extra parts as well. Have a great one. Say goodbye, Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad Dowdy. Happy Penmas, everyone. Happy Penmas.