The Pen Addict 44/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	44
Title:	Pentervention
Release Date:	March 7th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 44
Audio File:	Audio Episode 44
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 44
Length:	4848 min <br />0.8 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Brad Dowdy: Hello, and welcome to episode 44 of The Pen Addict podcast. I am your host, Brad Dowdy, and with me is the man who is going to require a straitjacket, the man who is turned into a stationery monster, the man who I cannot do this show without, Mr. Michael Hurley. How are you today, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I'm very well, Brad. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. So I thought we'd flip it up today because you seem to have a little bit of a problem, sir. I think you might be the real addict on this show.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've gone off the deep end now, haven't I? I think I'm buying so much stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I mean, it's like every day, you know, I'm getting a tweet or a DM or an email or something. It's like, you're not going to believe what I did or look what I got or look at this. And, you know, it's been going on for a while. But I mean, it's gotten a hold of you pretty good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it really has. It really, really has. It's kind of bad in a way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's the straitjacket on order.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I guess if it's made out of some fine paper stock.

Brad Dowdy: We need a pintervention, I guess, for you.

Myke Hurley: Oh, God.

Brad Dowdy: You're going to be on one of those TV shows like Hoarders or something.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, just with my Field Notes books.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, not that I can really complain because, hey, believe me, I got it worse. But just watching you turn into this monster has been enjoyable for me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've been thinking about going back and listening to some of the earlier episodes and kind of seeing how I've changed. Yeah, I know.

Brad Dowdy: The things that I know. Yeah, that would be a good little test there. I haven't gone back and listened to any of the earlier episodes really since they've been posted. But, you know, I know it was a lot of me talking and a lot of you asking questions and going, uh-huh, okay, okay, uh-huh, uh-huh. And, you know, going through some of the things and now you're like, Brad, check this out.

Myke Hurley: Look what I found. Look at this.

Pen Enthusiasm

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty cool. I must admit it's pretty cool. Hey, and that's what makes this show fun, really. Yeah. I mean, it's really good.

Myke Hurley: It's one that I get probably the most excited about quite a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Me too. And we've talked about it in the past. It's like, you know, leading up to any task you have to do, you know, like we have a Pen Addict podcast schedule on our calendar. And, you know, leading up to it, you know, there's always, you know, hesitation. I've got other things to do or, you know, I've got, you know, certain time or I'm tired or I just don't feel like doing it today. But always once we get going and once we start talking and definitely by the time we're done, I'm usually – it's always fun. And I'm always got a little extra pep in my step when we're done because it's always a fun conversation. It's kind of uplifting and I enjoy it.

Myke Hurley: I think that's why people like listening.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep. Hey, before I – I'm going to hand the show back over to you to lead. But one quick thing on our scheduling. I know people have been kind of hit and miss on our schedule recently and we have been recording on Tuesday. Myke and I are going to try to record on Thursdays for the next probably four, six, eight, maybe up to eight weeks. I just have a conflict on Tuesdays now but we'll get back to Tuesdays. But, you know, as soon as I say that, next week looks like we're going to record on Monday just with some scheduling conflicts. So I'll try to keep everyone up to date on Twitter and app.net just, you know, when we're moving the schedule. We're definitely going to do an episode every week but there might just be some moving and shuffling in the day-to-day.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. So next week is Monday, definitely. And the week after is Thursday. Yes. I'm not 100% sure what the week after will be because I might – but it will be – you will get an episode a week. Yes. But they're more likely to be Thursdays than Tuesdays for the foreseeable future but not forever. Yes, exactly. So I wanted to talk about Field Notes today. No way. Again, believe it or not. But what happened this week was kind of terrifying in its own strangeness. So I DM'd you this week and was like, look what I've done. And I set up a page on my blog where I'd taken pictures of all of my Field Notes guides and put them up. And this is something that we'd spoken about you were going to do for a while.

Myke Hurley: So I don't know what it was. Oh, I went in and just wanted to just redesign my blog a little bit. So my Squarespace site. So that's MikeHurley.net. So I gave it a new theme and showed some of the new fonts and just generally spruced things up a bit, removed some pages that I didn't think were necessary anymore. And I added a Field Notes collection. So it's MikeHurley.net forward slash. It's a terrible URL actually. Field hyphen notes hyphen collection. Yeah. But it'll be in the show notes, of course. But so I DM'd you and you were like, funnily enough, look what I've been doing this evening. And you now have your own as well, which is at penaddict.com forward slash Field hyphen notes.

Brad Dowdy: It was, yeah, it was this complete separated at birth moment. It was the strangest thing.

Myke Hurley: I think me and you are anyway.

Brad Dowdy: I think we've established that a while ago. I mean, at the time that you hit me up on DM, I had my laptop in my lap and I was importing the pictures into the page that I created. And at no point did I know that you were working on this at the same time. It was just something, like you said, we exchanged emails. It had probably been a month, if not more than that. You should do a page on your blog and put all the different ones on there. I was like, yeah, I will. And just with me, like anything, it takes me a while to get to things. And so I had some extra time this past weekend. So I took all the pictures of all the books and created a page on the blog. And I think at that point I was just adding the first few images to it. I was like, you're not going to believe this. I'm doing the exact same thing you're doing at the exact same time you're doing it. And that's just creepy.

Myke Hurley: I should have been able to guess because I've linked each edition to the Field Notes page. But the capsule one that you sent me, I Googled for it. And I Googled capsule edition and pen addict because I figured you'd have a picture of it somewhere. And then I saw the new imagery that you'd taken on your Flickr feed. I was like, oh, Brad's taking pictures of all of his Field Notes. And then I thought to myself, how much better your images are than mine. Because I just did it at night. So it's like in artificial lighting and just on an envelope. I just got a big white envelope. And I thought, I just want to do this. So I've just been taking pictures of them. Because I'm starting to build a nice little collection. And I actually think that going into the future, the collection that I will be most proud of, or that I will enjoy that I have the most, I think, will be my Field Notes collection. Because I really like them. I just like having them.

Finished Notebooks

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And you know what I like about yours as opposed to mine? Is you've put some of your finished books on there or your ones that are in progress, right? So they have the little notes on the outside of the cover and things like that. Those are cool kind of things. And like your dry transfer edition, you know, like you put 70 decibels on that one. And, you know, it's cool how you've, they're a little more alive. You know, it's like a living thing. You know, you've got the used ones in there. I think it's pretty neat.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I kind of have come to a decision, which I keep going backwards and forwards on. But I think I'm going to stick with it. Because, I mean, some of them I've been using from before. It was really a collection thing for me. And I mean, if I was buying a couple or you would send me, you know, you sent me a handful of them. But I think I'm going to use my field notes. Like eventually I will use them. And just will keep one from each edition.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I listened to yours and Stephen's, the 512 Pixels podcast. I guess it was not this week's, but last week's episode. And, you know, we're just doing a little bit of follow-up. And, you know, you talked about how I was going to send Stephen the Raven's wing that he really wanted. And so I did. And he got it. And you all talked about it real quick. And you asked him, you know, are you going to use it? And he was like, yeah, yeah, I think I'm going to use it. And you're like, oh, I don't know if you should do that. And, you know, I got to, I actually, I think, I don't know if I emailed Stephen or DM'd him or something. Or just sent him an open tweet. I said, you should absolutely use them. Yeah. You know, that's what I believe. Just because I'm keeping these sealed packs and never opening them and using them, that's not necessarily what I believe in. I believe they should be used.

Myke Hurley: There might be some, like, I don't, I will never use the grass-stained green because I only have one of them. Yeah. And if I only ever have one of a book, I won't. And I may never use the capsule ones just because. Just because. But some of them I already have used, you know, and I've been using them for a while. So, yeah, I just like the fact that I have them. And there will be some that, and I'll get on to talking a bit more in a bit while I'll be able to use more. But the day game edition, I want to get another pack and then use the ones I've got just because they're three different ones. Right. So I'd have to choose one to keep, but I like them all really. So it's fun.

Myke Hurley: All of these things are material and they're all kind of, you know, I don't need to own any of these things. But as is with most things in our world. I mean, I'm looking around my desk right now and, you know, the amount of money that I've spent on superfluous items. But what I really like about Field Notes is that they look really good. They look really good. There is fun in collecting them, especially me now trying to find some, you know. Right. I'm finding that actually to be very exciting. And I just – and also they can be used. There is a use to them. And I've had some of my greatest ideas for shows and topics and stuff have gone in Field Notes books. And I want to keep that going.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Yep. I agree 100%, you know. And just because – yeah, I would say the majority of my old ones I'm not going to use. I mean, just that collection aspect of it. But I think in general, if people ask me, should I use them? My answer is always going to be, absolutely, you should use them. I mean, that's what they're for, you know, just because they have some other aspect to them that, you know, they weren't necessarily, you know, created for in the beginning doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. And you should absolutely use them. And that's going to give you a better remembrance of the product than whether it sat there in a piece of cellophane.

Myke Hurley: So we actually as well on app.net we had a listener, Chase McCoy, he actually sent in a page of his collection too. And he has a much better presentation than me and you do. Yeah, I like how he did that. He scanned them in, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think so because just like, you know, the Field Notes just – we'll obviously have this link in the show notes for everyone. But what he did was, you know, every edition is a three-pack and he's separated the three-pack out and put the three side by side, which is really cool, especially when you see something like the day game edition where there's three different covers and things like that. So he did a good job there. And just like you, he's used the same – he's done some, you know, mixed in some of the used ones, right? Some of the ones that have spent time in his pocket or in a backpack or something like that. And I just think that's – seeing the love that some of these notebooks have is very cool, I think.

Online Shopping

Myke Hurley: I totally agree. So let me talk to you about my obscure online shopping that I've been doing. Okay. Now you're scaring me. So I have been scouring the internet. And this is before – I've got to talk about eBay as well. This is before eBay even. And I've been scouring the internet to find field notes. So I've been searching for specific books that I've wanted. And I've found some websites that have been selling some of them, which has been pretty awesome. And I've been able to get some. So I have on the way at the moment. I have some American tradesmen on the way. They were very expensive. I'm going to find them because I think this website still has some. It's called hanker.com. They have a selection of field notes, stuff I believe.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they have American tradesmen. They also have Raven's Wing apparently. But they're 20 pounds.

Brad Dowdy: For Raven's Wing or tradesmen or both?

Myke Hurley: They're 20 pounds each. Each. I may actually buy a set of the Raven's Wing. And I'll talk about why in a moment. I'd forgotten that they actually do have the Raven's Wing ones there. But I've got the American tradesmen on the way. Cool.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, I bought those. I'm very happy. Because that's a set that I was struggling to find.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's one of my favorite ones. That's probably one of my most used writing ones. I actually have two of those active right now. One, I have about two pages left to finish it up. One that I've been carrying with me. And then I actually keep one of those at my desk at work. I'm in the IT field. And, you know, I work in a data center. So if I have to go back and look at, you know, things in a server room or something, I always take it with me. So I can jot down my notes and things like that. So I keep one of the American tradesmen on my desk. That's been another one of my favorite additions. Definitely one of the top handful of ones that they've made. Love it.

Myke Hurley: So just because of the amount that they're charging, I'm waiting to get my American tradesmen first, maybe before I go and buy something else. Because they appear to be a UK company. And this was shipped apparently on the 1st of March. So I don't really know what's happening there. So we'll wait and see if the American tradesmen show up. Yeah. But I don't want to put more money into that. I also found a site called Togs and Clogs, which is another UK company. That had some field notebooks for sale.

Myke Hurley: They've kind of sold out of most of their stuff now. But one that they said that they had was Balsam Fur. So I was like, oh, interesting. They have like a bunch of things on there, but there's nothing on there that you can't get elsewhere. But they have some additions that are sold out for some reason, like American tradesmen too. So I bought Balsam Fur Pack and I bought a California pack as well. They were only £8 each. So I thought that's pretty fair. I will go for those. So they arrived yesterday, but the Balsam Fur Pack was actually an original free pack. Oh, no. I was like, hmm, that's not what I wanted. So I emailed them yesterday and explained. And they were like, oh, sorry, we've sent you the wrong ones. And they're very, very apologetic. And I've now sent the original back to them and they said that they were going to be sending me the Balsam Fur. Okay, good. But I'm not convinced. Hopefully. They have it. Yeah, hopefully that works out. Because now it's showing us sold out, which means that I potentially bought the last pack. So I'm not convinced that they ever had it in the first place. But we'll see. I mean, mistakes can be made. Like, it's very easy to understand how people that don't, you know, if these aren't your thing, how you could maybe mistake them.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. And when the stock gets low, when you're getting down to those last few, there might be some quantity mismatch.

Myke Hurley: Exactly.

Brad Dowdy: Versus reality on hand.

eBay Auctions

Myke Hurley: So I mentioned the Raven's Wing. So I mentioned this website. I'm going to wait to see. And if this comes through, then I will, I may be buying a Raven's Wing pack from this, this Hanker website. Okay. Because I found some Raven's Wing on eBay. Mm-hmm. And I placed a bid on eBay for them. And they were going to come to about, I put sort of maybe £10 or so was the bid. And then about three hours before, I then entered a bit of a bidding war with somebody.

Myke Hurley: There would be no bids for like a week. So I put my first bid down when, as soon as it sort of went on, because I have, I now have an email that comes through every day with anything relating to field notes on eBay.

Myke Hurley: So I get, I have saved the search. So they now send me an email every day.

Myke Hurley: But so, yeah, they, so I put that down and then I was, I wasn't at home. So I was using the eBay app. Mm-hmm. And then I got sniped.

Myke Hurley: So it was like, Right at the last, last minute, last few seconds. 45 seconds before the end of the auction, I got outbid by like 20 pence. But by the time that I got the push notification and opened the app, it was over. Yeah. So it just made me think like, and in the notes I've just, I've written sniping, just bid like a gentleman. And I just think that, look, just bid. If you want to bid, don't wait all week and then get me at the end. Let's be gentlemen about it. Let's push each other to the maximum that we're willing to spend. The way that an auction should be done. Not, you know, dealing with the time limit and you getting in there and beating me by a couple of pennies. Right. I just figured, let's just be gentlemen about this. And I will set my maximum limit. You can set yours. And then whoever is willing to pay the most money because it's an auction after all wins. Now I just find that sort of stuff a shame, but I did, I did get a Northerly pack, which is on the way. So I'm happy about that because they're, they're, they're a set, but I want, want to have more of, because I think that I do like those ones very much.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so you got that, you got the Northerly off eBay too.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. but, but that was, I got those. I won those.

Brad Dowdy: How much did the Ravenswing go for? How much did the Northerly go for? What was the final prices? Cause I've been watching these for a couple of months. I always like to keep, I kind of keep track on the market, but I'm not watching the UK site.

Myke Hurley: Um, then how much did I get the Northerly for? Let me check that. Um, I don't think that was that much. I think it was like 15, which I've kind of set 15 is like my starting limit for used. Uh, well, sorry, sorry, not used for limited, um,

Myke Hurley: field notes books. Yeah. Uh, 1499 with free postage and packaging. I thought that that was pretty good for that set in all honesty. Cause, um, I couldn't, I can't find them anywhere other than eBay.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so what's the conversion right now? It's like 1.5, I think.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So what? 22, 2250. That's, that's real good.

Myke Hurley: So some, like I've paid, you know, close to $40 for the, for the American tradesman.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And then what did the, um, uh, Raven's wing end up at that? You got sniped. Do you remember? Um, I can get it here because I'm, I'm asking because on the U S site, those would have gone for prop, both of them probably would have just the prices I've been seeing since probably January. Those would have probably gone 40 to $50 per.

Myke Hurley: They went 20, it went 26 pounds, 21 pence.

Brad Dowdy: So that's closer. That's, you know, 40 something dollars. Yeah. Or close to 40.

Myke Hurley: So the fact that it went 26 makes me think I should just buy the ones from this handker place. Cause I was, I didn't, I didn't even remember that they were there. And, um, clearly, um, they're, you know, I would have been saving money. Um, I actually, I think they might be an American company, you know,

Brad Dowdy: it sounds familiar. I haven't looked at the site, but I think I've maybe looked at them in the past.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I made my first eBay purchase as well. Um, just this past week, which is I, I've been watching, I didn't need to buy any of the older editions just because I've had them, but I've been wanting to track it because we talk about it so much and it's become a thing now. You know, I've been wanting to be able to talk about the prices that I've got. I see and, you know, kind of track the pricing, you know, I'm not keeping it in a spreadsheet or anything. I can eyeball it there. They all end up in the same general vicinity, all the standard colors additions. But I did see one pop up that I didn't have, which, you know, field notes has done it twice. Now they've made a neon, a summer neon edition. The first one that came out, um, was the, I don't know what year it was, but it was called the neon ice pops.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's the one I did not have. And then last summer they came out with a summer camp edition, which was a different neon three pack. I didn't have, I had the second one summer camp, which you can actually still find at a couple of places. Actually on the link I put in there, it's a German site from them at Berlin. Um, have the, the summer camp, I think for 10 euros, I think it was, which is completely fair. Um, but yeah, the neon ice pops, since I've been tracking the field notes since January, I hadn't seen any of those come up and I paid $41 for that. And that's the first thing, first field notes edition I've bought off of eBay. Um, I don't see me doing it a lot because it's expensive and there's not a lot that I need, but there's something like it's really rare or something that I've really wanted and don't have. I would pay for it. but you know, like things like, like, um, capsule edition or XOXO, I'm not going to pay 40 or $50, a three pack of those. I just don't care that much, but like the, the field notes, official releases, you know, I I'm willing to, to pay a little bit for those, but, um, like we're saying, I've got most of them now. So, but that was, that was my first purchase. And, and I've, I've been like you do. I put in my maximum, I put in one bid early in the week. That was kind of mediocre. And it kind of hung there. It's like the last day. Then with about 24 hours left, I put my max bin in and let it go. And it, and it held out. So,

Myke Hurley: yeah, I've been seeing the summer camp ones a lot in my searching. It turns out just to settle the matter that Hanker is Australian. Okay. Um, it says on their site that my order is awaiting fulfillment, which is peculiar. Yeah, that is. Yeah. We'll see what happens there. So this will be, I will wait and see what happens of this one before I, uh, go ahead and buy from them again, but we'll see. But, um, yeah, that'll be, that'll be cool. Um, one more thing on eBay before we move on. We're 23 minutes in.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I want to, I want to, but I wanted to talk about this. I see this in the notes and I want to talk about it.

TWSBI ROC 540

Myke Hurley: Um, so you, so you alerted me to a, um, Twisby ROC 540, which is the Twisby that I want the most. It's the one that you have. Um, so you, you sort of, you pointed out, it was you that pointed this out to me, wasn't it? That it was available on eBay. Yep. I was the highest bidder for a long time. Um, and it just ended up getting, but then I did go into a bit of a war with someone. Um, but, but I went, but this was sort of with a couple of days to go. Um, but I, I let them go for it. It, it, it finished up at $92 before shipping.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I was,

Myke Hurley: I was pretty surprised. I wasn't willing to go that high. We clearly between me and this person, we wanted it. Um, because it was just, I believe it was just two people, um, bidding on it. Um, because you know, we would, it would be one after the other. 16 bids in total.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Yeah. So I, I, it showed up in one of my searches and I alerted you to it. And I think at the time it was around 40. Um, and I didn't know what it would go for at the time. I didn't think it would go for 90 something. I thought, you know, I'd pay 60, $65 for it and maybe stretch maybe to 70. I don't know that I think, I think original, this was a used one, but it looked like it was in great shape. And I think new they were 55. So I thought, you know, it might go in the sixties, maybe 70, but you had to see it to go to $90. I was, wow. I was pretty surprised.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You can see it was, there was one guy at the start that I was bidding against. And then it was just me and this other person. And we were just, just going at it for a couple of days. Um, I priced myself at 60 pounds before shipping, which was like, not about $90. Um, and decided, and it went for only a couple of dollars more. Um, but I knew that if I would have put another bid in, he would have gone in again or she, I just thought at that, but at that point, it's really nice, but I'm not going to spend more than 60 pounds on this. Like I, I just, I drew the line because as well, it would have been like another 10 or 15 pound shipping. Um, right. I wasn't willing to drop like $150 on this.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I don't know what the manufacturing run was on these, but I think there's enough of them to where you'll, you'll be able to get one for a fair price eventually, because just last week, and you're not going to want to hear this. Um, but I, I look at the, the fountain pen network classifieds every day. I try to look at it once a day, but there's so many people on that. If something good comes up, it's gone pretty quick. And I think someone sold one for 47. 49, something like that.

Brad Dowdy: So, but, and it was, you know, within a few hours of posting, I just didn't see it in time or else I would, I would have just bought it and send it to you.

Myke Hurley: Cause we've got the five 80 on the horizon, right? The two five 80. And who knows there could be some colors and versions of that, but I want even more. So,

Brad Dowdy: right. So I, I wouldn't go crazy on this one. Cause I think you will, I think there's enough of them to where you'll be able to get one pretty reasonably. I mean, they were in stock like what, not even four or six months ago, they were regularly stocked items. So,

Myke Hurley: yeah, I could see the thing that is the most frustrating to me is I could have purchased one. I had the opportunity to, but just didn't, didn't drop the money on it for whatever reason. But yeah, it looks like mid, Goulet pens is saying mid March for the five 80. Yeah. I will be purchasing one of those as soon as they're available.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they're just going to have clear is going to be the mid March ones. And then the rest of the line is going to come after that.

Myke Hurley: Maybe, maybe I'll wait and see, but I will be buying one. I will definitely be buying one. I'm excited. I'm excited for that. Cool. So, um, there's one last thing before we move on. So I have purchased a color subscription.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, look at you. You, you just bit the bullet.

Books

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Um, the reason that I went on and did it now was because I now have like this pile of, of books sitting on my desk. Um, and when I got my color subscription, I wanted to have the box cause I've also bought the wooden archival box too.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Wow. Which is, you're, you're all in.

Myke Hurley: It was something that I wanted. I mean, I really liked the look of the box and I want somewhere to keep them. You know, I want my field notes to be kept somewhere. Um, and this is the perfect place for that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful box. Um, and you know, I haven't gone to the script subscription yet, but I probably just should, because the way things are going now, although their print runs will probably increase, you know, some additions in the past say, like pre day game edition, they would sell out within two or three days. And if I happen to be somewhere doing something or, you know, not on a computer for when it happened to drop, you know, I'd be left out. So I should probably just subscribe and be done with it.

Myke Hurley: I just feel the same way the way of where I am right now. I know I'm going to start purchasing them because it's going to get to a point where I'm going to decide that I want to own them all, whether I liked them or not when they originally came out. Um, and I don't want to be caught in a situation where they come out and it's like two weeks before payday and I can't justify them. And then they're gone. Right. And, and, and this way, you know, I'm going to get two packs. I'm going to get a bunch of other stuff. I'm going to make sure I get any of the little extras because they, they've become important to me now. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Being a nerd with this stuff. you don't, you don't get when you order it through retail.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. And as well, you know, we are now after watching those videos, we know that there are, you know, if you want to make sure you are the, the primo of collector, they have to have the, um, you know, the first run of, although of however many thousand in the back cover. God, we're so nerdy. It's, I know it's terrible. Well, like,

Brad Dowdy: well, like if your balsam fur ever comes, I'm anxious to see it because it should come with a black and white band being the retail version where my version, that was the colors version. It's like cream colored and red.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm interested. I'm interested for that too. I am. Yeah. It's, it's exciting. It's just, it's just fun. It's a nice question to have.

Brad Dowdy: We ought to stop this podcast. We sound like idiots.

Myke Hurley: I don't, I know it's terrible, isn't it? This is the show where like people, people say to me, so what do you, what do you do? Like what, what, what, what do you make your podcast on? So I tell him, it's like, and we, I do a show about, pens. It's like, but seriously, there's a, there's a big thing.

Brad Dowdy: Trust me. Trust me. It's a thing.

Myke Hurley: People like it.

Brad Dowdy: It's,

Myke Hurley: it's a thing.

Brad Dowdy: Like I said a few episodes ago, we are the normal ones. We are.

Myke Hurley: Everybody else is crazy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But yeah, so I got,

Myke Hurley: I got the, the boxes on the way and I will be getting the, the first color subscription soon. So I'm very excited. And, and it's going to be in a couple of weeks.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's, it'll be in March, which we're in now, obviously. So I'm guessing in the next maybe two weeks, we'll see what it is.

Myke Hurley: Cause I screwed up my shipping address. I put the wrong shipping address down. Oh no. So I put my home address and I never have things sent to my home address. I have everything sent to my loving grandparents house because there's always somebody there and they're happy to take packages for me. Yeah. Cause otherwise I would have to go and collect everything. Yeah. So I sent, I sent them an email at field notes and they were like, Oh, no problem. And we'll change it over. And so, can you like, can you make sure that it's also for the color subscription? Cause you know, I don't want, I want to make sure you've got the right address on file and they changed it and said, it's cool. It will be changed. And the first one will probably be out of in the next two or two or so weeks. Cool. I'm very excited now. Very excited. What's that? I'm very excited. Oh, good. I can tell.

Brad Dowdy: I was going to say, I was just going to comment on field notes. There's been very few occasions where I've had to email them for customer service things. And no matter how, I mean, they've obviously grown leaps and bounds in the four or five years that they've been around. Their customer service has been really great. I mean, they're like immediately fast responders. So they do a good job.

Myke Hurley: They were more nice than they needed to be. Like I didn't, I was just expecting, yeah, no problem. Like, but they would, you know, they were just very, very pleasant. So, um, shall we, I obviously, I mean, I say, obviously, I know that there'll be some people that will want to, to hear how the, um, Hiroshi Suku Konpeki has fared in my Twisby. That sentence in itself is insane.

Brad Dowdy: It is, isn't it? Yeah. At least you, at least you can pronounce it now.

Myke Hurley: I've been reading it, you see, to make sure. I actually looked at the bottle when I said that to you. Um, so yeah, we're, we're going to talk about that, uh, before we finish today.

Twisby Ink

Brad Dowdy: Next, next time, next time someone asks you what you podcast about, tell them you podcast about Twisby's with the Rose Shizuku ink on it and see what they say.

Myke Hurley: Or just, I just, I just discuss a Rose Shizuku filled Twisby's. obviously, obviously, obviously, no less. That's right. So let's talk about Squarespace and then we can talk about how, how the ink has fared for me. So, want to slightly go off, off course today and, and talk about sort of our experience recently with, with Squarespace. But Squarespace.com, they give you absolutely everything you need to make, um, an amazing website. They give you all of the tools. As it comes to building your own site online, whether that be blog, portfolio, a business site with Squarespace commerce that allows you to sell things instantly. Um, you can sell digital goods, physical goods, they have inventory management, order processing, email stuff. They have fantastic hosting for all of their sites, um, apps, statistics. You've heard us talk about it before. We love it for, for 24 seven customers, all of this stuff. But obviously me and Brad have been tinkering with our field. So with our field notes pages and getting those set up on Squarespace. And we've been doing that this week. And I just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about, um, how we did that. So like for myself, all I did was it was, it was very simple. I just set up a new page. Um, I took photos of all my field notes and uploaded them to Dropbox. And then what I did was, was I went into the, to the page builder, the layout engine that we've spoken about before. And I just added each one as an individual image. Cause I could have done it as a gallery, but I wanted each one as its own individual image in a grid. Um, and where people could, I could link as make links as well out to all of the pages. Um, so all I had to do was, this was my favorite part about it. So I clicked to add a new image and it brought up the little pain. And I was able to drag the images from my desktop into my web browser. And it uploaded them. Um, and I just thought that was so awesome. So it was like, I could just drag it and drop it on the little box and it would just upload it. And I just, I just liked that. Then I was able to drop them into the page. And then you're, you give, you're given like, um, ways that you can just resize images. Like say in any desktop application, you get the little points on the ends on the corners and you can just click and drag them, but you're able to do that. So I was able to drag it to the size that I wanted, then make the sort of the rectangle size that I wanted. And then I could just drag and drop them around the page to get them in the order that I wanted. I need to put them in a better order. I kind of just put them in the order that I took the photos. But I eventually want to put them in sort of date order like you have.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So what, so what I did is I actually made a mistake first. Um, I created the page, um, with the page builder and I created, I chose gallery. So I, I think I had 26, 27 images. So, and I took my, took my pictures. I uploaded them all to iPhoto to where I can tweak them a little bit. Um, cause I send them to Flickr also and iPhoto lets me sync it over there, but I'm able to just drag the picture out of iPhoto straight into the image page or the gallery page on the Squarespace browser. And it finds it there too. You know, I don't have to do anything weird. You know, I just drag it right out of iPhoto. It finds the image and uploads it. So I created this gallery and I thought, Oh, this is exactly what I want. You know, and I, I tagged each, each comment on each picture of what, you know, color series and year and, and everything was. Um, and then I finished it up and I looked at the page and, you know, it was just like a one single box with a gallery, like a slideshow that you, that you go through. I was like, that's not really what I want. I want them displayed all on the page.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I didn't, I was like, Oh man, I've wasted all this time doing it. Well, one, it didn't take me that much time. And two, with the tools that Squarespace offers, I knew it'd be easy to, to just create a new page. So I, I literally just deleted that page and created a new page with images. I mean, and it took me what another, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes, just switch them over there, which is really not a lot of time to create a full page, you know, with all the details and everything like that. So my mistake, it really didn't cost me that much time because it's so easy on the front end to just, to just build it anyway. So what my, my question to you is mine is like a, I guess you'd say it's a linear layout. It's just one after the other large pictures. You have to scroll like all the way down the page. Yours are smaller. Like you said it on a grid. So I didn't look at that option to do. So I think I might want to lay mine out kind of like yours did. So they, they kind of look cool how they're all gridded out on the page. I'll have to ask you how you did that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So like you just go back into the page builder again and you just need to, all I did was you just go to the bottom right hand corner and you see a little sort of an arrow and you can just click and drag the images. It's to the correct size. And then they have like the little dashes on the edges where you can sort of like make them larger or smaller, like to crop it to the size that you want. Okay. The way that I think about like when I'm, when I, whenever I'm doing something in Squarespace, I think about things in a very simple way because I, I don't know. I don't really know enough about web design to overthink things. So I'm kind of just like, right, how do I think this is going to work? And like nine times out of 10, that is how it works. So it was like, I wanted to resize it. So instead of going back in and trying to like change the, the size in the image settings page, I was like, let me just go down to the bottom right hand corner. Oh yeah, I can just drag it. Right. Okay. That was just the natural way that I would have thought to have done it, knowing what I know about computers and not web design. So yeah, go and, go and try out this sort of stuff yourself. I mean, I just wanted, we wanted to sort of explain just how easy it was for us to get these pages up and running. And we didn't, no code is needed. You know, it was very simple. It's just a case of dragging and dropping. And the images are now hosted on Squarespace too. So, you know, they're always there and you can click them and get nice larger images. And they look great on the iPad and the iPhone. So it's, it's really cool. It's, it's, it just works fantastically.

Brad Dowdy: Can I just add a couple other little things about Squarespace? A couple little changes I made this, this week that were real simple. I just wanted to comment. I didn't want to drag it out too long.

Myke Hurley: No, please.

Brad Dowdy: But there was, I'm weird about changing the, the link colors and the hover link colors on my website. I'm no, I'm no web designer. So I just kind of get bugs and, and up my butt. And want to, you know, want to see what a different color would look like and a different hover color would look like. So all I do is go pick out like, whichever color I like, like the hex code or whatever, and go to the design tool, pulls up the sidebar on Squarespace. I can see all the changes live. I mean, for me to change all the link colors and hover link colors in my website, probably took me about a minute, maybe two minutes, you know, hit save. And then everything's live. And then everything's live right there. I don't really have to go to all these pages and change all these design elements. So that's one thing I do. When you see the colors changing on there, that's just me kind of getting a, getting a whim to change things up. And with Squarespace, it takes about two seconds to get all that, get that change implemented. The other thing is RSS feeds. I get emails all the time about people wanting to know where the RSS feed is for my, for my blog. And what they're asking is, is they don't see a button on my, on my website. And with Squarespace, it's, it's not required. I mean, the feeds always live. You just go to your favorite reader, type in penaddict.com and it's going to pull down the feeds. I don't need a button on my Squarespace site. But since I get asked that question so many times, I did just add a link into the sidebar. Now you'll see RSS feed for those that feel they have to have a link to actually go get my feed. But in reality, you don't need it. It's actually so, so it's, it might be oversimplified, it's, it's not there because it's not required. So that's just one of those things that I wanted to mention for people looking for the feeds. Cause I do get that email once or twice a month.

Myke Hurley: There you go. Well, you can find out more about Squarespace by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. You can also find out more as well as starting a free trial there too. Squarespace, Squarespace plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan. And they also have an unlimited and business plan too, which you can find out more information about on the site. If you sign up for a year, you'll automatically get 20% off the total price. And if you sign up for two years, you'll get 25% off. You want to use the code 70 decibels free below the pricing information at checkout. You see the link, enter an offer code because this will save you an additional 10% off your first order. So go check out Squarespace, everything you need to make an amazing website. That was like a back to work length.

Brad Dowdy: It's like a 10 minute sponsor. Yeah, I know we don't intend to do it like that, but you know, when it also gives people, you know, a little bit behind the scenes of what we're doing with the blog and things like that. So, I mean, you know, and I wanted to mention a couple of the changes that I made just so people can see new features on the blog. And I actually have another new feature I want to do, but I don't, I don't want to, we'll save that for another time because it's not, I hadn't even started on it yet, but it should be pretty easy for me to implement when I do decide to.

Myke Hurley: Exciting. It sounds like the Dowdy children are very upset about the length of our ad.

Brad Dowdy: This, this has been going on for what, like 10 minutes now. Have you been able to hear this?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm, I don't know. I'm, I'm in another room, the door shut and, um, my wife's working. So on the days where she works and I podcast, you know, I get the kids all set up with, you know, my daughter's got, you know, pens and paper. She likes to draw. So she's out there drawing and my son's got all his trucks and motorcycles and he's out there. Um, and then I pop them down in front of a SpongeBob. So that, that's, I'm usually good for about 30 minutes. And now, uh, WrestleMania or something's going on. They're just playing. I mean, they're just, who knows what they're doing in there, but yeah, I apologize. Um, but yeah, this has been going on since about the time we decided to, uh, redo the square space read. They've been going berserk. And I'm just like, Oh my God. They're not hurting each other. Then, then if no, no, they're just playing. I was like, Oh man, I know Myke and everyone can hear this now. So my apologies. That's just, you know what? That's just the way it is.

Myke Hurley: Yep. If otherwise there'd be no show. That's right. So, um, I, we've been, I had loads of suggestions as I said, as I said on last week's episode for some inks. Um, and I chose to go in at the D pen, as I've been told by a bunch of people after listening to last week's show. Um, and I went for the Hiroshizuku, um, the Konpeki. I just love saying it. Um, initially I was, uh, very concerned because it seemed like my situation had gotten worse.

Brad Dowdy: The smudging or what do you mean situation?

Myke Hurley: The ink was drying slower.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. That's what I thought you meant.

Myke Hurley: Um, and I didn't know why. Um, and I was, I was a little bit concerned by that. However, over the last couple of days, that situation has improved severely and I'm very, very happy. Okay, good. I don't know what the change has been. It might've just been the fresh ink in there. Maybe, you know, um, it might've been because I've just washed the pen out and maybe I hadn't left it to dry for long enough. There could be a myriad of reasons, but, um, it still lays out a thick line. Like I like, um, the, the Twisby and maybe thicker than, than usual for me even, but I, that's one of the things I love about it so much.

Brad Dowdy: Remind me real quick. You're on the, you have the M nib on this one. No, it's old. Oh, it's okay. Broad. Yeah. It's a Twisby 540 with a broad nib. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Gotcha.

Myke Hurley: Um, so it's the line, as you can imagine, is very thick. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But what, what, that's one of the reasons why I think it's so amazing. Um, but the, so now it's drying very quickly. Um, it's, it's not instant drying, but it's drying fast enough that I only end up with a couple of smudges a day, as opposed to having to be careful with every, every word, you know, for the next 20 or 30 seconds as I was having issues with, with the noodlers. Um, so I, I'm very happy. It's kind of just like with any fountain pen for me now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, I think that's, um, um, a completely reasonable dry time. I mean, it's not going to be, it's never going to be immediate. I mean, that's just inherent in the ink properties, right? I mean, there's no shot, you know, it's not like it's a ballpoint where even then you still get smudges, but that's going to be about as quick drying as, as it can be. Um,

Myke Hurley: but I have the added bonus of the ink being beautiful. Yeah. Like the color,

Brad Dowdy: the color is stunning on the page. So I, shockingly or, or not, I have some followup that is completely related to this too. Last night I, I had my, uh, my Twisby rock, the one that you want. Um, I had it, um, cleaned and set to the side for the past couple of weeks. Um, cause I hadn't decided what ink I wanted to put in it. So last night before I knew we were talking about this, I loaded it up with the rest of the con pecky sample that I had. Um, the difference in mine and yours is my Twisby is the EF nib. And I have to say, I don't like it as much. Or because that color is so beautiful. It needs that broad nib or like my stub nib that I, I used that I did on the original review. Um, something like that. It, it needs that type of, I don't know. You need, you need to see that ache. I don't think it does as well in the extra fine nib, but I just loaded it last night. I haven't written with it that much. So I'm going to test it out and see, I mean, it's still a beautiful ink, but it's just more like a straight turquoise ink. And I don't get all the shading that I got when I was using the wide nib. So we'll see to be determined. Cool. But I think it suits the, the broader nibs better, at least that ink, because it's so pretty.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I like it very much. I'm very happy with it.

New Inks

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, and now you, you have some inks coming from our friend Joe on Twitter that I got, I got in and we'll do, this will be another episode, but I just want to give you a heads up. I tried the, the Bernanke blue and I think you, you might like that as far as dry time. It probably dries even faster than the compacting.

Myke Hurley: And very, very interesting. I'll look forward to trying that out. So it's one of the things I like about the Tewisbee is I can just dump that ink out real quick. Yep. And it cleans, it cleans very well. Yes. It's good. It's good for that. I can see why you chose it for your ink pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a huge, huge benefit for sure. Okay. That it, that it does that very well. Absolutely.

Myke Hurley: Right. I think this episode has run its course and you have children to wrangle. So you can find a brand online at pen addict.com. Um, he is also at dowdy, D O W D Y on app.net and dowdy ism D O W D Y I S M on Twitter. I am. I Myke. I M Y K E. I'm both too. Uh, thank you very much for listening to episode 43 of the pen edit episode 44. Sorry. At the pen addict podcast. Um, I am Myke Hurley and he is Brad Dowdy. And until next time. Bye. Bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye. Bye. !