The Pen Addict 267/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	267
Title:	Meet Me at the Bar
Release Date:	July 26th, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 267
Audio File:	Audio Episode 267
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 267
Length:	5252 min <br />0.867 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 267. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?

Myke Hurley: I am very well, sir. I'm getting pumped.

Brad Dowdy: Are you? Yeah. Because I'm getting wrecked. I don't know that pumped is the accurate word for me right now in my mental state, in my work state, but give me a few days. I'll be on the hype train pretty soon.

Myke Hurley: We are one week and one day away from being together again for the DC Pen Show.

Brad Dowdy: I always like it when we're together.

Myke Hurley: Me too, and I'm happy that it's happening again. I don't have to wait a year. This is very exciting to me.

DC Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: I'm actually happy you're getting to go to a different pen show like DC. Yeah. You've been like, and we're going to talk about DC more during this episode, but just real quick, Myke has been peppering me like, what do I expect in DC? And I can't answer those questions accurately like I've been able to in the past because it's in a new hotel. So I feel like everything that I know is no longer. So I don't feel like I'm not that much help to you. I'm like, dude, I don't know. I think this is how it's going to be. Here's my assumptions, but I certainly don't know anything based on fact, based on the hotel move.

Myke Hurley: And that's part of the excitement of the whole thing, if you want to look at it that way. Or you can look at it as part of the horror.

Brad Dowdy: I definitely don't look at it as the, wow, that really excites me. Let's upend this whole thing. Woo, I'm pumped. No.

Myke Hurley: Well, it's the first time for me. So I have, you know, just the regular feelings, right?

Brad Dowdy: So we're going to talk about DC a lot in this episode. Yes. All right. I'll save my commentary.

Myke Hurley: We do have some other things that we want to talk about today. So why don't you set us off with those?

Brad Dowdy: I'll save my commentary. Is it commentary or commentary? How do you say it?

Myke Hurley: I would say commentary, I think. Yeah. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So I would like to commentary on the new issue of Plumbago that is coming out. I'm a huge fan of what the Erasable Guys do. And this is Andy, your buddy, Andy, Myke. My good friend. Your bestie. My good friend. My good friend, Andy. Andy Wellfleet is putting out issue two of his zine, which is about analog tools and pencils mostly. And I bought the first issue. Oh, gosh. I guess it's been like six months. It's been a while since it came out. And the response for Andy was overwhelming. Like he didn't print enough. Then I think he even printed a second run. And it's really like an old school zine mentality, which I've always been a fan of. That's actually, when I came up with the name Refill, I was thinking about a physical zine. But it ended up being the pen addict newsletter, which is better in my book. But I love zines as a format. And issue number two is coming out. And Andy's doing a pre-order this time. So everyone who wants it can get in on it. So I wanted to make sure to mention that. It's going to print soon. So they're going to eliminate pre-orders. I don't know the exact date it's going to end, but I think pretty soon. So we can get this going. But he's also got, you know, what the article list is like and everything you can expect in these issues. And it's a lot of work to put all this together. So thanks, Andy, for doing this. So y'all go support Plumbago issue number two. And we'll have a link in the show notes if you are not familiar.

Myke Hurley: It'll be right in there. Go and do it. And he is a very creative, wonderful person who I love dearly. And you should support him in his work.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. And we'll talk about this in a couple of weeks as we get closer to San Francisco. But Andy, I'm trying to coordinate with him to make an appearance at the knock table so y'all can come and meet Andy. And he can sign autographs for you of Plumbago issue number two. Although it probably won't be out by then.

Myke Hurley: Although he'll sign them in pencil so they could just be erased. So that's a real problem.

Brad Dowdy: Well, as long as you don't erase it, pencil does last forever, as our good friend Johnny Gamber likes to say. And he does have that one up there. As long as you don't erase it, it's not going anywhere. But yeah, don't get around it with an eraser. All right. So I did a post this week about a pen I love and a style of pen I love, which is pocket pen. And so I reviewed the Kaweco Lilliput brass ballpoint. And the question came up, which I never realized I haven't answered specifically. It was essentially, Brad, you always talk about pocket pens and why and that you use them all the time. But you've never said why. Why do you like pocket pens so much, Brad? And I thought that was an awesome question.

Brad Dowdy: I said recently in the Pen Addict newsletter when I was talking about this actual Kaweco and how I lost it, which is part of the story. So you'll have to go read the review. I lost it. Then I found it. If I ever opened up a pen store of my own and I have no intention on doing so, it would just focus on pocket pens because I think it's such a good category of pens. It's so useful. And there's so many unique pens that fall in that category. And that's why I like them so much. I can get the quality of a great gel pen, the fine tip that I enjoy so much. I can get a fountain pen with a wide nib or a fine nib or get a nib modified that I move between different pens. And all of these fit in my pocket. Like they're easy to carry, easy to use. Unfortunately, they're easy to lose sometimes. So maybe that is a good business model, right? You'll have repeat customers until people get ticked off about, okay, I can't lose. I can't lose any more pens. But yeah, I love them because the style of the pocket pen is not something you find in normal pens, right? People do things, manufacturers do things differently with the pockets, pocket pens, whether that's unique materials, unique shape designs, unique retractable mechanisms. Sometimes, you know, sometimes they have to design their own to fit the smaller format pen. And I just think it's a really good playground for pens. And it ends up being useful. It's something I carry a pocket pen with me every day where I may not carry like a full size pen with me every day because I generally don't put the full size pen in a pants pocket. I'll want to clip it to my shirt. Well, maybe I'm just wearing a t-shirt and I want a pen to carry with me. So I'll take one of my pocket pens and put it in my shorts pocket, something like that. So in relation to this article, I took the six pens and one pencil, actually five pens and one pencil that I keep in this little area in my desk where all my pocket pens go, like my watch, you know, my wallet, my keys and my group of pocket pens for whichever one I want to grab. So I listed those out on the Instagram picture, which you might have seen. So you want to talk about those those few pens that I like so much?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I would love to because there's a couple that I don't know.

Polka Pens

Brad Dowdy: So the first one is the Polka pen, which is a pretty new pen. It's been around for maybe a year and they've advertised on the blog and they've sent me a bunch of pens. And I love this pen because it's so small and so light and it's really, really cheap. Like it's not the best writer out of this bunch. It's probably the worst writer out of this bunch, but it's a ballpoint that's good enough. And, you know, you can get like four or five pens for $10 or something like that. And they're really neat. They're they're like plastic molded pens that go down into this compact bullet size. They were actually made because the guy who designed them was a Fisher Space pen fan and he kept losing them and he was tired of basically losing $20 bills every time he'd lose a Fisher Space pen. So he's like, well, I need to make something cheaper. That's just as nice that I can't lose. So, you know, the losing the pens is a big deal.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I was going to say, like, it's not that much cheaper. It's half the price. And I realized, oh, it's half the price for a free pack.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Yeah. So they're about three bucks each, something like that.

Brad Dowdy: And that's it's it's a fun pen. My kids use those pens a lot. Right. Because they're cool colors and they have this neat snapping sound and they just feel good in the hand. And, you know, they think they're cool. So the Fisher Space pen clearly makes the list. I probably use that. The Fisher Space pen and the shown design pen, which I talk about. I probably use those two the most. The Fisher Space pen stays in my car a lot. If I forget a pen, I have that one handy. It came in handy for me a couple of weeks ago when I lost my lily put ballpoint or misplaced. I shouldn't say lost it because I did find it. I misplaced it for about a week. The Space pen came in handy. So it's that's the good backup pen. Then I have the two lily puts, the ball, the brass ballpoint and the brass wave fountain pen, both of the both of those, which I very much enjoy. I also use the, if I'm not using the brass wave, I'll use the fire blue, which is just a really, really cool looking Kaweco. The shown design uses the Fisher Space pen refill, which I like. I can get the medium blue refill, which I talk about all the time. It's the best Fisher Space pen refill. And that out of this list, that that's probably my number one most carried out of this list of, say, six pens. It's the most durable, functional. It's a little bit bigger, which is kind of helpful. Like a lot of people won't be able to use the Kaweco lily put ballpoint because it is really, really small and thin. So the shown design pen comes in handy with that. And I like the construction of it and the style of it. So that's probably my number one pocket pen, ballpoint pocket pen at least. And then the last one is the Timber Twist from Metal Shop CT. So they've made bullet pencils for a while. This is, they did, they did a batch in aluminum, which I have. And then they did a second batch with wood barrels, which that's what this one is, the Timber Twist. And it holds a, like a pencil stub, like a wood case pencil stub. And like in mine is the Blackwing 602. So it's just really, really cool if I want to carry a pencil because carrying a wooden pencil is not the easiest thing to do. If you're just, you know, putting your keys in your pocket and hitting the road, it's hard to carry a wooden pencil unless you have it protected. And something like the Timber Twist is very useful for that. So that's kind of my grouping of pocket pens that I use. The Lamy Pico just missed out because I didn't have it with me at the time, but I use that one pretty frequently. I have a White Barrel one. I actually don't like that one as much. And then someone asked me in the comments, where's my pen type B? Well, that's not a pocket pen. I carry it in my pocket, but it is very big and very heavy. And I don't recommend it as a pocket pen. I just recommend it as an awesome pen. And so that's kind of my pocket pen list. I mean, I know you have the M90 from Pilot, the fountain pen, the small, but that's not, I mean, I guess that would be considered a pocket pen, but you don't really dabble in this genre of pens, do you?

Myke Hurley: No, it's very rare for me to find a pen that is considered a pocket pen that I find comfortable to use, right? Sure. Because it's either like, it's too small with the cap off or the cap on, I tend not to like it, right? Like the Fisher Space Pen and the M90, the only two that I've ever used that I really like, you know, like the Coveco's, like the AL Sport and the Sport and the Classic Sport, that kind of thing. It's like, they're nice. But over time, I find myself getting frustrated with them, right? Because there's no happy medium to it. So yeah, I tend not to dabble too much in the pocket pen arena, but I totally understand why people like them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And the Fisher Space Pen is so popular because it extends to full size when you write with it, right? I mean, that's one of the features of it. It's small and pocketable when it's stored away, but when you go to use it, it's the length of a full length pen. So that's one of the reasons why it's so popular. Not to mention the refill that it uses, the write anywhere-ness of the refill. So yeah. Anyway, I wanted to bring that up because I had a few questions on that and just in general why I love pocket pens so much. And it's just because they're convenient and useful and you can do a lot of cool things with them that you don't see in other pens.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they are unique in that way, right?

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I know it's, God, I can't believe it's DC time, but it's also membership. Myke, RelayFM membership. Tell us all about it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so I just wanted to take a moment today. We're going to talk about this a couple more times over the next few weeks. But in August, it is RelayFM's third anniversary. And over this period of time, we have a bunch of things that we do every year. And one of them is bonus episodes of a bunch of shows for RelayFM members. So you may or may not know this, but if you want to become a member of RelayFM, you can give us money on a monthly or annual basis and you get a bunch of benefits. And these come from bonus shows to previews of new shows. We have a monthly behind-the-scenes newsletter. And there is actually a new members-only podcast, which didn't exist last year, in which Stephen Hackett interviews two hosts about a big topic each month. So you can go, you can do a couple of things. You can go to RelayFM slash PenAddict. And you can just, there's buttons on the page right there. And you can choose to give us money if you want. All of the membership tiers get the exact same benefits. The only difference is how much money you want to give us. Or if you want to give to other shows or you want to give to all RelayFM shows, you can go to Relay.fm slash Membership and you can do it there. Or, you know, you can choose whatever shows you want from the list that you'll find on the page. When you sign up, you'll be given a link to subscribe to the special feeds that you need. And if you are already a RelayFM member, the same feed that you subscribed to last year will be the year, one that we used for this year too. And me and Brad have already recorded our special episode that will be coming out in the middle of August. The bonus episodes begin to drop on August the 14th, which is the beginning of our anniversary week. And I'll share a little bit of a detail. I used to do a show called Inquisitive and Inquisitive's last run was favorite albums. And me and Brad did a kind of mashup of the two shows. So we talk about a playlist of Joy Division songs that Brad has created. And I'm really proud of how the episode turned out. I think it came out really, really well. And if you are a RelayFM member, you will get that. And that's the only way you'll get that. So go become a RelayFM member. Support the Pen Addict. Go to relay.fm slash Pen Addict. Hit one of the buttons there and start giving us some money. And you'll get some cool perks as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And you get not just the extra Pen Addict episode, even though it's not about pens. You get all the extra episodes from all the shows. And I was also on the membership podcast with David Sparks talking about community. So you can catch that. It was fun. And, you know, you get the newsletter. We got a new host this week, Myke. I got to learn all about her in the membership newsletter. So there's very cool stuff happening.

RelayFM Membership

Myke Hurley: That's Flo who's joined the Material podcast. So, yeah, there's a bunch of interesting and fun content available only to RelayFM members. So if you want to get in on that, you should go support us. And we really appreciate it. If you do or if you become a new member, we want to thank you. And as I said, we'll be talking about it. We don't talk about this very often, but we'll be talking about it again in a couple of weeks as all the membership stuff starts to drop for this year.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. And we really appreciate your support. I mean, this helps us do this for a living. I mean, we couldn't do it without you guys and girls. And it's just greatly, greatly appreciated.

Myke Hurley: DC Pan Show, man. Talk about support. This is one of the amazing things that our listeners have done for us this year with the Kickstarter campaign and helping to bring us to DC. And this is the last episode we're going to record before DC because I'm going to be traveling next week. So we're going to be recording the episode, I think, on Friday of next week.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So watch your calendars. We won't be live. Is that correct?

Myke Hurley: It's very unlikely, but not impossible.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So I'm giving you a task, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: Update the calendar as we get closer. We don't know exactly what day or time. We're shooting for Friday. It's kind of up in the air based on how our schedules are. But look for something Friday night and Myke will update the calendar when we know. And that might be Thursday before we figure it out. But just know that it was going to be a last minute kind of thing as we figured out.

Myke Hurley: And we'll be tweeting about it as well from when we're going to be broadcasting the episode. But otherwise, it will be out on Friday. But before that, we have to prepare. You know, there is an element of packing required for the pen show. And I'm doing something a little bit different to what I've done in the past. Like with Atlanta, with the three trips to Atlanta that I've done now. Yep. Yep. I basically get a big pen wallet thing. And I will just pack as many interesting pens into that as possible and bring it with me. So people can kind of take a look at some of the weird and wonderful things in my collection. Right? Yep. Right. But I'm not doing that this year. Because after the DC show, I'm going to be doing a bunch more traveling throughout the month of August. So I'm basically bringing what I consider to be my essentials for this trip. Also with some fun extras too. So I'm going to be bringing a handful of notebooks. Probably some field notes, arts and sciences. And regular size field notes as well. This will be just so I can do like all my regular work. So I'll be using those for editing notes and stuff like that when I'm recording shows whilst I'm traveling. And just so I have, you know, general pen and paper with me wherever I need to be. And I'm going to be bringing two knock cases. One will be my Sinclair. And the other will be a lookout because I want a little bit of extra space in case I pick up anything at the pen show, of course. And I've picked five pens that I'll be bringing with me. And four of them will be in these cases. One is just going to go in my backpack. The one that's going to go in my backpack will be a Retro 51. And I'm going to be bringing one of the Bioworks Venice Artist Series this time around.

Myke Hurley: So that's going to be a good one. So, I mean, I love it. I use these all the time. So I'm going to be bringing one of these along with me because I can't get enough of these things. And then I'm going to be bringing like a selection of my very favorite pens. So my Canalea Maui Makai is going to be making the trip with all of its beautiful glory. The Urushi pen that Jonathan Brooks made for us. I'm going to be bringing one of those. My Orange Sailor Pro Gear is going to be making the trip. And my Pilot M90. So I have kind of what I'm thinking of here is these are like my four favorite pens right now. I have two that I'm bringing mostly for the beauty of it. And then two that I'm bringing that I'm going to be using a lot. So, you know, the Canalea pen and the Urushi pen, they're going to be coming as like things that I want to show people. Right. They're like my show pieces in case people haven't seen these before. And the other two, the Sailor Pro Gear and the Pilot M90, they're going to be my everyday using pens.

Brad Dowdy: You could skip bringing the M90 if you just want to ink up the one you're buying from me. Just saying. That is a good point. I don't need to bring it. Yeah, I'm not going to bring it. Because I forgot that I had to bring that to you and still I read the show notes. And I'm like, oh, I need to bring my Kiss M90.

Myke Hurley: Yep, because it's later on in the list. But yeah, that's a good point. I will leave the M90 at home then.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, as long as I remember to bring it. If I don't, then you'll be really mad. Then you're in trouble. I am in trouble and I'm out. A lot of shipping costs. So, yes, I need to remember to bring it. But yeah, that's a good list. And, you know, what a lot of people do at DC, a lot of times it's the one and only pen show people go to. So, a lot of people will bring just pens to show other people. You know, like always in the past, I've always brought Nakaias because I've talked about them so much and people wanted to see them. So, I'll just bring them. So, someone who's never seen or used a Nakai can use them. And, you know, that's what, you know, Myke's bringing some different things here. Like people always ask about the Canalea pens or even the Sailor Pro Gear. A lot of people have never used one and we talk about it so much. It's good to try and have fun. What I haven't figured out, Myke, is what I'm going to bring. Like it's been so crazy around here. I know I'm bringing the NotCo seed prototypes. The final colors that I'll be able to show people and get everyone hyped up for hopefully September launch. You know, that's the plan. But we're down to the final steps to get those into production. And after that, I'm not sure. Like my standard pen show kit has always been one of my Nakaias, my Pilot Murex because I love that pen. The Pilot 823, Aurora Optima. Those are all pens I talk about a lot and sometimes people haven't seen them. Those are ones I tend to bring. You know, my Sailor King of pens. It's kind of like the same kit. But I'm always open to requests if anyone is going to be there and they want to see something that they might be interested in purchasing at the show. I can bring one and let you let you test it, take it for a test drive and see, oh, do I really like this? Do I not? So reach out to me on Twitter or something like that. And, you know, I'd be happy to bring it. But I don't have a great list, you know, so I'll probably just wing it for the most part. And like you, I'm not going to pack too much because I'm not going to have that much time to go just play around with pens and paper. You know, we'll be doing a lot of hanging out at the bar in the evening. So that's a great time to do that. But otherwise, I'm going to be working. And so I'm not going to overpack pens and paper of my own to bring. So we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Here's a question we got from the chat room. Will the pens be inked that we're bringing? What are you going to be doing?

Brad Dowdy: Mine will be.

Myke Hurley: All inked. Flying all inked.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there might be if I if I do something last minute, I might bring a couple of extra pens that someone's asked me to bring. I may not bother inking them because I know I could get them inked there either from a friend or bring a bottle of ink or buy a bottle of ink, something like that. But generally, yeah, my pens will be inked before while I travel and we are flying. So, yes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I will be. If I was bringing the M90, I'd leave that inked. The Sailor Pro gear will be inked. I'm not going to be. I'm going to be emptying out the canaleo because I eyedropper that. Oh, really? That just seems like a recipe for disaster. Yeah. And I'm probably just going to dump the ink out of the Arushi pen as well. Just because.

Eyedropper Pens

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of which, you reminded me, we have follow up on the eyedropper burping question from last week. So we'll need to add that to a future show. Oh, cool. Yeah. It's a long, it's a very good email I got. I actually got a few emails and conversation around that topic. I got some good feedback from a couple of people in the Slack room discussing it and made a really good point that I haven't considered. So we'll save that.

Myke Hurley: That's upcoming. So if you're expecting that, you'll get it in a future episode. Yep. So yeah, I will be, though I will also be popping the cases into a Ziploc bag just in case.

Brad Dowdy: I thought you were going to say you were going to be popping bottles in the bar.

Myke Hurley: I'll be doing that too, but the cases I'm going to be popping those just into a Ziploc bag. And I think I'm going to put these all in my carry-on just because.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. That's the only way. If you have an ink pen, it has to fly with you. You do not put it in your luggage.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, like even the ones that won't be inked, I think I'll still put them in the carry-on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So what I do is I'll put them all in a brass town and carry them on. And then when I get my seat, I take the brass town out of my backpack and put it vertical in the seat behind me. And that's where it sits. So all the nibs are pointing up during the flight. And that's the easiest way I found to do it. And I've had no issues.

Myke Hurley: So why don't we talk a little bit about what we're expecting day by day of the pen show for as much as we can know at this point. So we're looking at like Thursday to Sunday, right? Like that's kind of our experience. That's when we're going to be there. You know, we're both leaving Monday morning. So Thursday for us, I mean, I think will be a pretty download day, right? Like I'll be getting in in the, I think the late afternoon time. And it will mostly be about set up. So, you know, we're going to be the main thing that me, you and Jeff are going to be doing is selling pen cases for a few days. So we have to get the, we have to get everything set up. We have to go and see what our table's like. We have to get it dressed and prepared because we won't have any time for that on Friday morning.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I was reminded last night by my good friend, Lisa Van Ness, who we will be adjacent to because I just let her book the table for me because it's way easy to deal with the promoter that way. So our table is really one of her tables. And she reminded me that in the past, the show promoter, Bob, has not assigned tables Thursday night. Like you have to figure out like where you're going to be for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yep. And, you know, there's, you know, the traders are out Thursday night, just kind of taking over whatever tables are out there. It's kind of a first come first serve. So we'll have to do some, we're going to have to have some fisticuffs on Thursday night to get our real table. So we'll see. But yeah, I was reminded of that last night. We're not going to be able to walk in and get our assigned table. There's going to be some, it'll be a challenge Thursday night, but Thursday night's usually pretty chill. A lot of people get in town that night. It's great to catch up with people, see old friends because you're not crazy, crazy busy. You just got to get some things done and prepare for the wars to come.

Myke Hurley: So then Friday begins the real work, right? So we'll be up early, hearty breakfast, and we're going to get on that table and start selling those pen cases.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So last year, so the last two DC pen shows, two years ago, Friday was quiet. Saturday was insane. Last year, I think he may have changed like the schedule when the public can come in. So Friday was pretty intense for sales, if I remember, right? Working for Van Ness. We were all surprised how busy Friday was because in the previous years, it hadn't been that crazy. And yeah, I anticipate Friday to be a full, long, hardworking day, which is good. And the more we can sell, the better, of course. So I'm expecting a good crowd, but we're going into the great unknown. And what should be the biggest show of the year is completely unknown. So we'll see, see what the crowds are like. We just don't know. But that's pretty much just a straight work day. And after the show Friday, we're going to attempt our podcast recording, which we mentioned before. That's what we're going to try to do. Try to do that on Friday night. Myke and I are going to do that in our hotel room. It's not going to be a public recording, but I don't know. I have a feeling we might get talked into like a few guests. I don't know how you feel about that. You're probably anti because you want it to be quiet. You're more worried about the quiet and audio quality. I'm more worried about the party. I'm more worried about the party quality of the show.

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm going to say that I'm going to win out on this one. I know you are. The show has to sound good. It was great to have guests when we had people looking after the audio for us. There won't be anybody doing that. So it's just me and you because that's all there is. We haven't got the great Hacketts to come and hook us up and set us up with great tables and everything like that. So it is going to be just the two of us this time around. The same as it was with our first Atlanta show. The hope being and something that I'm going to be keeping in mind is trying to find maybe an outside venue or something like that where next year we could maybe try and do something. But I really do think that for this time it is going to be just the two of us on this occasion.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So there's the mic hammer. There's the mic hammer. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So everyone I'm afraid I'm good.

Brad Dowdy: I'm just going to have to with this one Brad as much as he's the professional in this situation and I have to defer to him.

Myke Hurley: We have a job to do and the job is to get the show out and that's going to be the easiest way we can do that. But we'll try and do a meetup afterwards. So, you know, we're going to we're going to be around the whole time. Right. And we're going to probably be in the bar all the time.

Meetup Plans

Brad Dowdy: But yeah. So let's talk about meetup real quick. In the past, we've been able to commandeer a room just to do some a quick gathering of saying hi and door prizes and sweating it out in the sauna room that they tend to give us every year. We're not going to have any of that this year. So Friday night will definitely be a big bar meetup night. So there's nothing official planned. I don't have any giveaways or prizes. Maybe I can score some things while I'm there. But there's going to be no official like pen addict party. But we will do a meetup and that's going to be Friday night because Saturday night has a bunch of other stuff going on. And Friday night, the schedule looks open. So, you know, once Myke and I are done, we'll try to do I'm guessing this, Myke, we'll try to do our recording early. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: My plan is we do it straight as soon as we finish the show. Like we just head up to the room, record the show, and then we'll be free for the evening.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So Friday night plan on being a big bar get together night. That's that's the plan. I do have to work Friday night. I have to write the newsletter. So I might have to vacate for a little while. I'll see. I've done it where I've gone up late and wrote it and gone to bed. I've done it where I've gone up early and come back down to the bar. So we'll just got to just have to play it out.

Myke Hurley: I can do this in shifts, Brad. Right. Like we record the show. You go away. I edit and post. I come down. You go away. I'm right. Like we can do this in shifts.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Because I like getting it done early. So I don't have to worry about it the rest of the night. Because if I don't if I do it late, I'm worrying about it. And like all of a sudden it's 11 o'clock and I haven't started and I got a couple hours worth of work. I'm going to be a dead person. You saw me. You've seen me pass out in the bed with my computer. I've seen it every year. It's not a pretty thing. So I discovered this plan in Chicago. You know, if I get something to eat, go knock it out and I can be done by like nine o'clock. Well, then I can just have the rest of the night to, you know, hang out at the bar and be a normal person. So Friday, we will definitely be hanging out and partying at the bar and sharing pens and paper and all that stuff. At some point, this is probably the least amount of sleep I get at a show because it's so busy. But at some point, we will go to bed because Saturday, it's usually crazy. Like you don't know what time it is. The people are nonstop from open to close. You know, we'll get someone to bring us lunch. And Saturday is just kind of a nutso day. Like it's really crazy. So I'm trying to mentally prepare you for that. It could all fall flat depending on how the show goes. If it's anything like previous shows, it's going to be crazy. If this show has a new meta, then I don't know what the results are going to be. But I anticipate it will be busy. And then after the show, Saturday is the Susan Worth Memorial, which I am definitely attending. Yeah. So if any of you would like to come, it's at the show. They'll be just doing some, I don't know if they're going to have like a video montage thing, but they're just going to allow people to say a few words. You know, Susan's tables will be set up in Memorial. I think it's a good time for a lot of us to get closure on Susan's shocking passing earlier this year. And, you know, this is the biggest and best way to do it to get everyone involved. So that will be Saturday night. And then I know Myke and I have a dinner to go to Saturday night. And we should be back at the bar, though, after that, I would imagine. But Saturday will be... You can always assume that every day ends with back at the bar. Every day ends with back at the bar. And there will always be people at the bar. And I hope this place has a good bar. Because the other DC show had a great bar set up. I loved it. Even the... That's one of the... DC and LA have been a couple of places where the bartenders remember me. Which is good and scary. So this is a new hotel, new setup. So I hope the bar area is good. From pictures, it looked pretty good. But we'll see. There will always be something going on at the bar during pen shows. It's the primary meetup area. If you're going to meet anyone, say meet me at the bar. And they'll probably be there. So as insane as this trip already sounds, we still have to work Sunday. But that's a pretty chill day. I have one meeting slash interview to do Sunday morning. I don't think you have any plans. I don't have any other plans. Just plan on working. And it's pretty chill once you get to the afternoon on Sunday. I remember it being busy early and midday Sunday. But I remember the afternoon calming down. That's when I got to shop a little bit last year.

Brad Dowdy: Was Sunday afternoon. So yeah. All in all, I love DC as a show. I just, you know, we're going into the great unknown.

Myke Hurley: I'm looking at photos here. And the bar looks fantastic in this hotel.

Brad Dowdy: It looks huge. I thought the same thing. Yeah. I thought the same thing. So I hope it looks good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That looks really, really cool, man. I was just looking at it now. Like it looks, it looks really nice.

Brad Dowdy: Like it looks like there's tons of space. Once the hotel was decided on, that's the first thing I checked. I was like, okay, this will work. I remember saying that.

Myke Hurley: You know, like we say like the back at the bar thing. Like honestly, I don't think I have more than one pint of beer for the entire evening. It's more that it's just like, it is where everybody congregates and everyone's hanging out, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Let's be honest. This is where our crowd likes to go.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Like this is what we do. And, you know, it's not because of you or me. It's because these people that come to these shows that are our age and our, you know, levels of pen collecting and purchasing, you know, we tend to like our beverages and our food and what better place to hang out at a pen show than at the bar. So yeah, it's a, it'll be a, it'll be a packed house. I'm sure it'll be pretty awesome. That's, it's the best part of the show to be perfectly honest. And I'm like you, I'm not a big drinker. Like if I've had three beers in an evening, that's like a lot. So where I'm not saying at the bar, meet me at the bar because I need to get my drink on. It's because I want to hang out and talk with people.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's also good that the bar scene is at night because then you can't go drunk pen shopping. That's always a bad idea. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's good that those things tend not to happen at the same time. I mean, theoretically they could, but that would probably be a bad idea. Yeah. I'm not sure that would, I mean, it might be good for vendors.

Brad Dowdy: Actually be good for business. So yeah, I hope the bar is open all day while I'm working and y'all come see me. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We should do that.

Brad Dowdy: Just don't, just don't bring, don't bring me drinks at the table cause I won't drink them. So what are you shopping for, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I've been thinking about this. There's quite a, there's quite a few things on this list, but like, I'm not expecting to buy maybe more than two things, honestly. Um, right at the very top of the list and I'm really going to try my best to walk away with one of these is the new Canalea pens. Haliacala. Haliacala. Oh my God, Brad, help me. I can't say it. No, that's good enough. Haliacala. That's super cool. Yeah. Haliacala. Silhouette. The new one that we spoke about last week. Like I can't stop looking at pictures of this pen. So like this is, this is really like strongly on my list as something that I would be disappointed, like really disappointed if I don't leave the show with one of these. Um, cause I really love it. Uh, I want to take a look at some Aurora pens in more detail to, just to use them. I don't feel like I've really used them and I kind of want to get what the big deal is. So that's something for me. I have no intention of buying, but it's something that is on at least like my window shopping list. Um, I'm going to be picking up the M90 from you, which I'm very excited about. And outside of that, there's kind of two, two things that I'm going to be keeping an eye out for. Um, I've wanted a new Sailor Pro gear for a while because I love that pen so much. I just want another one of them, but I don't want to buy any of the standard color additions. I want one of the special additions and there are so many special additions that I'm going to be on the lookout for something cool that catches my eye. Cause I'm sure that there will be some available for sale, right? From someone.

Japanese Vendors

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So now that you say that, I don't know if we're getting any Japanese vendors at this show, like bung boxes come before, uh, Nagasawa, uh, Kobe came last year and they always have like those unique things. I know bung box is not coming. I've been talking to them, uh, here recently and they mentioned that they weren't. But I don't know what the vendor list looks like to where you can get something really crazy. Um, you'll be fine. You'll be able to find plenty of normal, crazy Sailor stuff there. Um, yeah, but yeah, really, I'm just kind of wondering if any of the Japanese vendors are coming.

Myke Hurley: That was limited and has some kind of like really cool and different to it. Right. So that would be, you know, that would be really interesting. I want to see what that looks like.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Um, for me. I don't know. I don't have that one thing. Like the one pin I've wanted to buy since Chicago, um, friend of the show, Dan Don has a coned minimalistica. I discovered that that's one of the most perfect pins for me. I just haven't pulled the trigger to order it online. It's pretty expensive. Um, there's not going to be one at the show. That's just kind of the pin that I'm waiting for. And I think it's like around 400 bucks or so. Um, that's like at the top of my shopping list, even though I probably won't be able to get it here. It's one I've got to order. So it would have to be something that would catch my eye. Like you're saying, if I find some, I'm always on the lookout for vintage pilots and sailors and, and things like that. So that's always on my shopping list. And if I find some good, you know, unique sailor pro gears, like you're talking about something different that you can't get here, that would be on the shopping list. As far as new products, there's nothing that's screaming my name to purchase that, you know, it's at the number one thing on the shopping list. But you know, I can always, I always tend to find something in DC. I've come away with some cool stuff from that show before that I wasn't necessarily planning on, on getting, but I don't know that there's one thing that I'm shopping for, um, that I must come away with this year. So we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Sounds good to me. Sounds good to me. I'm very excited, Brad. I am. I am too.

Brad Dowdy: You, you've got actually talking to you has got me more excited. I've been up and down and up and down. I'm ready to be there.

Myke Hurley: Look, this is like, look, it's going to be hard work. It's going to be real busy. There's a lot of unknowns, but we're going to have a good time.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no doubt. You know, like this is like the, um, the pen shows, even though this is like a short flight for me, I always say I can sleep on the plane on the way home. You know, um, I tend to, uh, you know, I'm one of those people that needs my sleep. So I don't like, you won't see me at 3 a.m. wandering around the hallway, but, um, you know, this is one that's worth, you know, staying up late, talking to people and working hard during the day, work hard, play hard, Myke. And, uh, you know, we'll recuperate after.

Myke Hurley: That sounds good to me. That sounds good to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. All right. So you want to knock out a few ass TPAs before we, uh, go finish packing for DC? I think so. All right. So I got this question. It wasn't officially hashtag, but it was added at me on Twitter. And I wanted to address this because it's something I've been talking about and been working on. So Jessica wants to know, why is there not yet an official pen addict ink?

Pen Addict Ink

Brad Dowdy: It's because I'm delimited. So I wanted to bring this up on the show to see. So when I think of a pen addict ink, I think it has to be orange.

Brad Dowdy: In my opinion, orange ink has been solved. I don't think I can make an ink that is any different or better than what's on the market. Like there's a handful of orange inks that I think are the ultimate orange inks like Sailor Apricot, Papier Plume, Sazerac, um, a few other ones. Like there's orange ink to me has been solved. I don't know what I could do to make a better orange ink than what's out there. So I have had some conversations about doing a different ink in a, I mean, a non-orange ink, but I haven't committed to like the colors. Like I'm sure the colors I'm thinking of have been solved to some degree, but maybe there's something a little bit I want to try in a different color range, you know, in the blue, black, purple, green, bright blue type of area, not in the, not in the, the pink end of the spectrum, but in the darker end of the spectrum. So would that be seen as a proper pen addict ink? So that's my dilemma. Like I haven't finalized anything. I've had preliminary conversations because I want to do an ink. Like this is the 10, the 10 year anniversary, um, of the blog comes up in November and I haven't done anything to prepare for that. So I'd like to do some things for that. Um, but I'm real having a real dilemma on the ink thing because I don't think I can make a unique enough orange, even though I think people would buy it. Um, because they always do and people are lovely, but I want to, I kind of want to do something else, but then I'm also dilemma. Well, would that be the pen addict ink? Do you have any thoughts on, on this?

Myke Hurley: I think it would be nice, but I really think it would be strange if you did any cover other than color other than orange. Yeah. Right. Like it's like, here's the official pen editing and it's green. Be like, uh, you know, like maybe you could do that in the future, but I feel like the first time you ever do something like this, it should be pen addict orange, but that's kind of my, that kind of already exists in a million different ways. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like, yeah. Like there's oranges. I just love it. I'm like, can I do better than that? Right. That's not like, that's why I don't necessarily release a lot of things because a lot of things are really good already. And I don't just want to release another thing. I want to release a good thing, like a great thing. So, yeah, I, you know, Tony's mentioned in the chat room, you should, I need an entire line of ink. I've actually thought of a three pack. Um, that would be a way to do both, right? You get the orange, you get whatever other color I'm coming up with and I come up with a third, something like that. Right.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense because I feel like that way you could do more and still have an orange, even if it's, you know, not necessarily not the best, but like, if it's not like the most standout color, right? You could make the orange that everybody expects and then be like, well, here are some other colors that I think are really interesting.

Brad Dowdy: So, well, and then I do a blue black because that's my favorite to use. And then I pick one more mountain. See, I had, see, I had to talk this out. That's actually what I told Jessica in my reply. I said, I want to talk about this on the podcast because I don't have clarity and I need to talk it out. So this is helping me. So it sounds like the three pack thing might be, I'm not so sure about that, but I'll go with that. But yeah, I could do a three pack. I'm writing notes here.

Brad Dowdy: I just opened up the business notebook and it's all going in there. Well, no, I've thought about this before, but I am, you know, as you talk it out with other people and you get some, some feedback, you know, maybe it's a, it's a good thing to, to just kind of hash out. So anyway, I want to make an ink. I kind, I'm kind of planning on it. It's no guarantees. I just don't have all the answers yet. And I've been hung up on the orange aspect of it. But, um, I I'm hearing your input, which was necessary. And then you kind of, it kind of lines up with what I was really thinking is like, it doesn't make sense if there's not an orange in there. Like it doesn't add up. So, um, we're either going to go orange or a set with orange. I think that's the, uh, the kind of way to go.

Myke Hurley: Way to do it.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: All right. All right. Next question from I Eric. I love the Uniball Vision Elite, but prefer metal pins. Are there any machine pin bodies that take the elite refill? Not that I've ever seen because the elite refill comes with a grip section. So you have to make a really elite only refill. Not even, I don't even think the TI Arto fits the Vision Elite. The Vision Elite is an awesome rollerball liquid ink pin. It's one of the top pins on the market for that style of pin, but their refills are gigantic. They're like full section and refill refills. You're just like unscrewing the back end of the plastic barrel and putting in a whole new front end. It's like a, it's like an engine change on a car. You're not just changing one little skimpy part. It's like a completely wide, huge thing. So I've never seen a pin barrel that's been designed specifically for that because of the way they design that refill. It's almost not worth it getting in, uh, getting refills for that pin. And I kind of think Uniball even thinks that too. You don't even see them that often, but they are refillable. It's just, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. So.

Brad Dowdy: Tommy N song wants to know, are you going to thin out your herd before the DC show? And I've talked about this just in passing before. And the answer is no, because I just don't have time, but probably like this fall. I will after I get through August, August is going to be hellacious for me. Um, even September is going to be hellacious for me. Um, but once we get into the early to mid fall, I am definitely going to do a thinning of the herd because it has gotten, uh, the herd has grown quite mighty here. And, uh, there's definitely some pins that could, uh, benefit from a new home. So we'll do that. It's not going to be before DC, but, uh, I will let you know. And it's, it's, it's a couple months down the line before I even consider that. How about you, Myke? How's your, what are the levels of, uh, ownership you currently have? And are you needing to thin out the herd? Any, I'm feeling pretty good as me. I'm fine.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Like I'm fine. I have a bunch of stuff in a drawer that like could do something with, but it's, they're not massively exciting enough to sell really. Like I'm, I'm good with my, with my selection as it is like I have ample space to store in my little pen cabinet, right? Like I have, I could put like two to three times more stuff in this cabinet that I have solely dedicated to pens. So I'm good for the time being.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. You're, you're very good at managing. Uh, you always have been managing your collection.

Myke Hurley: So, cause I, I tend to buy, I just, I just buy what I want where you do that. Plus you get sent stuff constantly, which doesn't happen to me. So, and I don't want it to either. Like I don't, I don't want people to, like companies to be sending me pens for this reason. Right. Because then I would just have too much stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. For sure. All right. This last question is from GR Parker and I'm not clear on the answer, but I think I know the answer. Can a titanium body pen be used as an eyedropper? I can't find a list of what metals ink reacts with. I think from our conversations with King Enabler, Thomas Hall, titanium is one that works. Um, I'll get some clarification on this for a future episode, unless someone can chime in the chat room right now with any links or anything, but I'm almost positive titanium is the one because I questioned Thomas when he said it, he said, you can, um, you can eyedropper this pen. I forget. We were maybe talking about like a Nemisu that was a full titanium. I was like, what, but it's all metal. And he says the, that titanium is one of the non reactive metals that you're able to eyedropper successfully. So I will work on getting a clear answer that answer to that, but I want to verify it. But I think my information that I've read or that I've seen, I just want to be able to find the links and, uh, prove it a little bit better that than that. But I believe titanium is the one metal that you can eyedropper and don't do any other ones, but I believe that is the one. So perfect.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I haven't done it though. I haven't, I haven't tried. I haven't gone the metal eyedropper yet. Um, but, uh, a lot of people do.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, I think about wraps it up for today, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm a little nervous that, you know, as soon as we hang up, that means next week is on. Like, do I, do I want that? Like right now, like when we're done with this, I'm like, we're moving forward and next week is happening, but I guess it's going to happen no matter what we do. Right, Myke. And it's going to be awesome.

Myke Hurley: We're going to have a great time, man. And I'm just looking forward to spending more time with you. That's not top of my list.

Brad Dowdy: I'm looking forward to spending time with everyone, but you. So it'll be great.

Myke Hurley: That works. We got it all covered there. Uh, thanks so much for listening. No, no, no, no. You said it now.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to tell you right now. I'm going to tell everyone right now. I'm going to go on record. I love you, Myke. And I need you this week. So I'll be on my best behavior because I need your help. Yeah. Yeah. Don't forget that. Right. Like, you know, Myke's working, Myke's working for us. So I need his help. So yes, I will, I will, uh, rescind any, uh, bad things I've ever said. And, uh, you're, you're, uh, on my wonderful list because you're the best.

Myke Hurley: Thank you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thanks so much for listening to this week's show. Uh, we'll be back next time live in person from the DC Penn show. If you want to find our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 267. You can contribute to the stationary wiki at stationary.wiki. You can send in questions to the show with hashtag ask TPA. If you want to find Brad online, he's over at penaddict.com and knock.co. And he is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter. I'm also imike on Instagram. And Brad is penaddict on Instagram. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.