The Pen Addict 468/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	468
Title:	The A's got a Hat On
Release Date:	June 30th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 468
Audio File:	Audio Episode 468
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 468
Length:	6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 468, and today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet, ExpressVPN, and Micro.blog. My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. How's he gonna sound? How's he gonna sound? Hi, Brad.

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

Myke: Oh, wow. Look at that. The deep, rich, dulcet tones of your microphone.

Brad: I probably won't live that down for at least another week or two, but yes, I am back on the mic, the real mic, talking to Myke about pens for at least the 468th time.

Myke: Brad did send me the picture that I wanted, which was the picture of the microphone just sitting on his desk, ready to be packed up.

Brad: I was so mad. I was just like, I was so convinced I had done a great job, and we talked about it last week. I'm not gonna rehash the whole thing. And then, like, when I got home, that was the first thing I went to go see. I was like, let me go see if the mic is really where I think it is, because if it's not, then I'm in a real pickle. Can you imagine? I didn't even think about that. You may have actually just lost it.

Brad: But no, there it was, literally right where I had unhooked it and wrapped the microphone cord and just, you know, did such a good job and left it sitting right there. It is a thing that I did, and I'm actually glad to be back on this microphone. It is way more comfortable that I noticed from last week, sitting in this chair with a microphone on a mic stand with my headphones in and a microphone stuck into my face than sitting, you know, cross-legged on a bed with AirPods in. I did not like that one bit. I hated how that felt last week. Just for me, you know, recording the show, I was very uncomfortable the entire show.

Myke: That was one year. I don't remember. This may have been when we were in D.C.? I know what you're gonna say.

Brad: Nope.

Recording Locations

Myke: Where were we when we recorded on a bed?

Brad: Yep, Atlanta. Really? Yep, we did it with, like, the, you know, the queen-size bed sitting across from each other with microphones in our hand. It was absolutely Atlanta. I remember this. Yep, I think.

Myke: Huh.

Brad: Because we wouldn't have brought that much gear to D.C., I don't think.

Myke: I'm, where did we record in the D.C. adventure, then?

Brad: D.C., I found a bullet casing under my bed. That was cool.

Myke: That was very cool. Yeah, that's what they call that. So, when we recorded in the D.C. pen show, where were we? I'm pretty sure that we recorded in a hotel room sitting on beds opposite each other.

Brad: No, because, let's see, I'm thinking this.

Brad: What year do we do, D.C.? I don't even remember. Like, did we do a live show? We didn't do a live show in D.C., right? We didn't do a live show, no. Yeah, so, it seems like that room, maybe them just thinking it was with me and Jeff, like, we had this weird room, and we had to get, like, a cot, right? Was that, I remember that from D.C. one time. I'm pretty sure it was Atlanta. This is a good show, Myke. How's it going?

Myke: It's the greatest. Everything is going fine. Okay, nevertheless, I mean, really, there is a way to, I'm actually just going to start looking for my photos on my phone now to try to work this one out. But you're back.

Brad: Yes.

Myke: Congratulations on taking a vacation.

Brad: Thank you.

Vacations and Work-Life Balance

Brad: It's weird. Like, vacations have become a weird thing now. Like, when I work for myself, you have to plan way ahead, and then you have to, like, catch up when you get home when you can. And I feel like I did a pretty good job. Like, I was able to enjoy my vacation, which is key. Like, anytime anyone goes on vacation, you want to be able to escape, and I did a good job. But it got me thinking when I got back, as I normally do, I think weird things about stationary. That's why we're here.

Myke: I found an image, August 2017, of me editing the show, sitting on a bed with two microphones that were also on a bed. We recorded the DC Pen show sitting on beds opposite each other.

Brad: We should have bet something, because I would have gladly taken the L on that. I was pretty sure it was Atlanta. Yeah, good job. How did you find those pictures? I don't have that type of management or efficiency.

Myke: August 2017, and it came up.

Brad: Seems like you're a computer guy who does these things for a living. A nerd. Mm-hmm. Big nerd. So, I'm a nerd about stationary, and being the way that I am, I overpacked for a time period and a use case where I wouldn't use a fraction of what I brought, right? I think we're probably all guilty of that from a stationary perspective. Especially, a lot of people going to pen shows tend to bring more stuff to pen shows than they really think they would use at the time of the pen show. And that's what happened on this vacation. So, you know, I probably had a dozen pens and pencils and several notebooks. You know, part of it was because I wanted to show my sister and my niece, who are really into this stuff, some of the things that I'm into. And, like, you know, some of the spoke stuff that they haven't gotten to see in person and things like that. So, I overpacked. But I didn't really use anything while I was on the trip, right? When I journal, I don't tend to do, you know, vacation day one. It was a beautiful day at the lake. And I got bit by a mosquito, and the fish were jumping. And, you know, that kind of stuff, right? I don't, that's not my journaling style. So, I didn't really use anything. But when I got back, it's just like I wanted to do, like, Scrooge McDuck jumping into the gold pile of all of the stationary stuff I had laying on my desk. I'm like, oh, yeah, here's this notebook. And, oh, look at this pen. And I'm grabbing all this. Oh, I haven't used this one in a couple weeks. Yeah, I'm in. It was this weird, weird feeling. And it was a good feeling. Like, I was like, gosh, it is just weird that I, like, I spent probably more time thinking about what I was packing stationary-wise for this trip than actually using stationary during the trip. And then when I got back, I was like, give me all the pens and give me all the pencils and check out this paper. And, oh, I haven't used this pen in a couple weeks. Let's see if it was still right. I was excited. So, that was cool. Like, I really, really like that. So, any other trip, aside from this one where I'm actually packing things to show other people, I would pack very, very little stationary. Like, singular notebook and then probably no more than three pens. Like, a Sinclair full of goods, right? Which is not CoSinclair. It's a three-pen slot and, like, a notebook slot, which can hold, like, a pocket-sized notebook and index cards. That's it. I am good because I don't need my journal. I don't need my planner. All of these things. But when I got home, all that stuff was here. And I just, I started just tearing it up, man. I was into, like, let me get this planner going. Let me get this journal going. All these things. So, it was a weird, weird feeling. So, and I guess it was good in retrospect that, like, you know, I just took a break from that stuff that made me, you know, enjoy it more when I came back. So, it was fun.

Myke: I do. I greatly appreciate, though, how much you continue to love this stuff. Like, I think at a certain point, like, I know some people that are like this. Like, you end up building part of your personality around a certain thing. And then, over time, you kind of might be a little bit stuck in that thing. And then, you don't come to resent it, but you just don't love it the same, you know? That's definitely not the case for you. It doesn't feel like that anyway. Like, I can imagine it being very easy for you to just be like, I'm the pen guy, so let me try out the pen stuff. Right? But you're not like that. And I just, I really look up to that and try and maintain that for myself, you know? Like, if I ever feel like I'm getting fatigued on something in the various spheres in which I'm interested in, then I try and find something new within it to get excited about or, like, try and change my state of mind. Like, this happened to me big time a couple of years ago where I was getting, like, increasingly frustrated with decisions Apple was making and the products that they were making. And was just finding myself just spiraling into negativity all the time. So, I made, like, a concerted effort to not do that. And it really helped me. So, yeah, I just, I find it fascinating. It's one of the reasons I enjoy working with you.

Brad: Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that. And it's not fake or phony. Like, it comes naturally to me. Like, I feel like I'm just built for doing this. Like, this is what I do. And I don't, yeah, obviously I wouldn't be, if I wasn't doing it, I wouldn't be doing all of this, right? But I would still just be totally knee-deep in stationary. And I've said it before. Like, I can't not do this. Like, it, every little thing excites me still. So, now, the things that get me down and, like, you know, made me, don't ever make me rethink it. But it's, like, the actual, like, oh, the administrative part of this. Like, that's, like, that's a job. Like, you know, that stuff is, like, oh, gosh.

Myke: Yeah, that's the unfun part, right?

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Myke: It's the thing people don't think about or talk about when it comes to, like, working for yourself. It's, like, well, if you work for yourself, then you've got to do everything. Yeah. There's going to be stuff in there you're not going to like.

Brad: Yeah. But, like, the little, you know, the literal product stuff is just, I've said it a thousand times. Like, you give me a $1 pencil or a $1,000 pen and I will be able to talk as well about both of those products as, you know, as if they were the same price or had the same function or do the same things. Like, that's just what I, that's how I think about these types of things. And I love it. So, yeah, that kind of leads into this little next tidbit since you said that. I put a big circle in my weekly planner this week because I'm actually switching planner layouts on July 1st. And I'm, like, stupidly excited about this. Right? It's, like, you know, on the outside, it's, like, hey, I'm going to schedule my day more. And that seems kind of boring and lame and it makes you feel like work. But at the same time, the layout that I'm using right now doesn't work for me anymore. Like, I'm figuring things out as we go. So, can we talk about this for a second? Like, how I do my plannering?

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: So, we've talked about for years kind of how different products we've used. Like, I've tried and failed at, like, the Hobonichi Techo, right? It's, like, the single page per day but just, like, an open page, right? Like, you know, July 30th blank page go, right? Like, eh, that doesn't work for me, right? I can't just, like, okay, I don't know what to do here. And now there's also a rule that, like, every day there's a page for this and I don't know what to do here. So, I found years ago that Midori slash Now Travelers had this layout where they took a single page and broke it into seven days. I was like, oh, okay. Like, you mean I can take this singular page, have seven days on it, and I can jot down the tasks that need to get done on these days. Cool. Like, that's a layout for me. And then I went into the William Hannah Plannerdom and have that layout, same layout, seven days on the left-hand side of the page, blank page on the right-hand side of the page.

Myke: Yeah, and the seven days are, like, broken down into, like, horizontal rows. So, you have each day and it's got, I don't know, say, five centimeters or something. I don't know, maybe a bit less.

Hobonichi Techo Usage

Brad: Yeah, so let's say, like, eight lines. Yeah, eight lines. Okay, or seven or eight lines, whatever it is. I don't even know. And we'll put a link in the show notes so y'all can see what I'm talking about. But yeah, like, five centimeters. So, like, Monday, horizontal across, and then I can put in these little tasks in this day. Okay, and a few months ago, I felt like this wasn't doing my workday justice. Okay? So, what was happening was when you lay it out like this, what I discovered is when I lay out my planner like this with just, like, a task and a checkbox that I'm saying every task is equal. It could be time, it could be effort, it could be, you know, amount of work, whatever. But, like, every checkbox is equivalent in this layout. So, it was only ever getting, like, the basic tasks. Like, well, it's like, I need to answer, you know, a bit. For example, I've been off on vacation for about a week and kind of ignored my email. So, I need to set some time to work on email. Like, that's part of my job. I need to spend an hour or two going through the four email accounts that I have to make sure I'm caught up on everything. Well, that, you know, checkbox would be equivalent to, you know, the podcast prep checkbox, which happens every week where we have to, you know, have to spend some time, like, putting together the show notes. And that would be equivalent to the shipping. Well, how many orders do I have for shipping? Do I need two hours today or do I need four hours today? So, this layout was falling short. And it's been, like, I've been on this layout for years now. It's my favorite because I could have these tasks and then I could have an open space for notes. And what I realized recently, and I've been sharing a bunch of this on Twitch and kind of working through what I need, is I'm going to switch into a page per day layout. And on the left-hand side of the page, say one-third of the page, it's going to have basically a 24-hour schedule. I guess it's probably less than that. I don't even know. Yeah, it's like 6 a.m. to midnight, right? I don't need that whole thing, but that's just, that's what is, fits efficiently on the page and that's more than enough for me.

Myke: A 24-hour schedule makes no sense. Yeah. Nobody needs that.

Brad: Yeah, like, I'm good at 2 a.m. It says sleep. Yeah. Yeah. That's what goes there, sleep. So, yeah, so what I'll be able to do now is to have a singular day go, oh, email, you know, I should do that from 8.30 to 10. And then podcast prep should go from 10 to 11. Or, you know, stream should go from 2 to 4, whatever these times are, and not have all these equally weighted checkboxes. This is me overthinking the whole thing, right? And I've also been taking more notes on the extra page. So I've been running out of space on the 7-day-per-week in the single blank page. I'd be filling up that page of notes on the blank side. So now I have, like, two-thirds of the page to explore notes. Like, I could be taking, like, today as I go, a lot of times as I work, this is also why I'm switching to this mic, I'll be working on whatever task. And my brain is wired such a way as that triggers two more tasks that I need to write down. And I never do. And having this layout would give me that space to kind of lock in all of these thoughts and all of these ideas and all of this movement that's going on in my head and going on at my desk. So I was able to get this layout. I assumed this layout I'm moving to is pretty normal. And I was assuming William Hanna had it, and sure enough, they did. So I went and ordered them. And I had to pick a date to start them on. So I figured July 1st, that's a good date. So I'm excited I get to start this new planner tomorrow. And I'm way into figuring this out. Because I don't know how your days go, and you can explain it a little bit. But I tend to get lost out to sea a lot of days. You know, I'm efficient right up to the point to where I'm not. And then I start paddling out, and I can't get back into the workflow again a lot of times. And this is going to help me with that. So I'll be able to lay out my day each day or even partially the day before, because some things are fixed on the time schedule. So I'll be able to go ahead of time a little bit. But yeah, this is an effort to keep me swimming along the right path. A lot of ocean metaphors here, Myke.

Myke: It's because you've just been on vacation.

Myke: I have a lot of questions and thoughts about this. Oh, interesting. So I think it's probably time to take a break and then come back to this. Because I don't know how long we're going to be talking about this. So let's take a minute to thank our friends over at micro.blog. If you're a pen addict who wants to share your love of pens, ink, and stationery, join micro.blog where you'll find kindred spirits. Micro.blog is an easy-to-use blogging platform where you can write short or long blog posts, share photos and videos, and even host a podcast. What I really like about micro.blog is it is something modern from a different time of publishing on the web. So like back when it was much more of like you owned your own stuff and it was yours, and you could also share it with people. So we talk about it as a blog here, but it's also a social network. But the posts that you write are distributed amongst other people so they can see them in an app or on a website of like, here's a bunch of stuff together. But they also exist separately on a blog that you can control. And that's why you can share so much mixed media. So it's more than just that place to post your stuff. It's a friendly community of people with a wide range of interests who can share and comment via micro.blog's social timeline. And this is backed by a strong community guideline that is enforced by moderation. Micro.blog is different because there are no ads and there's no algorithm choosing which posts appear in your timeline. If you follow someone and choose to follow them, you see their stuff, right? It's not being like kept from you. If you've always wanted to share your love of pens or anything, honestly, but have felt lost or discouraged by bigger social media sites, check out micro.blog and meet fellow enthusiasts and the rest of the community who share things that they are interested in and things that they love. Micro.blog hosting starts at $5 a month. You can use your own domain name and you can even cross post this content to Twitter, Tumblr, if you want it to reach other audiences. You can use your own domain name. Your posts reside on a blog that you control and you can use micro.blog via your Mac, iOS, Android and the web as well. So basically everywhere. If you're ready to try a different blogging and social media experience, head to micro.blog slash penaddict where you'll be able to sign up for free and try all of the features of micro.blog for two months. Micro.blog have doubled the trial period for all penaddict listeners. Go to micro.blog slash penaddict for a two-month free trial. A thanks to micro.blog for the support of the show.

Brad: So I'm literally just getting into micro.blog. When they decided to sponsor last week, I told you about my background with them. And then I was waiting until vacation ended and I kind of got back in my flow. I'm going to start using this a bunch. And one of the coolest things, Myke, is if you go onto their Discover page and you click, it says some recent post from the community. It's a lot of emoji-based links, which is pretty cool. So you go to that little Discover link. You hit pen and ink. And there's all kinds of people writing here.

Myke: And they just created that recently in advance of we were talking about it last time. So you can select from the little drop-down. You can select pens. And you can see all types of fountain pen and pen-related content. It's awesome.

Brad: Yep. So I'm going to be leaning into this a little more going forward. So, yeah. It's very, very cool. So I posted my planner, my circle excitement day picture on micro.blog, Myke. Thursday, July 1st, is circled. And I'm excited because it's a new day. Yeah.

Myke: Okay. So I'm not about to tell you you're in trouble, right? I know.

Myke: Okay. So you said that one of the reasons you wanted to change from this system of these, like, little boxes for each day and then some notes on the side is that you were finding that the box, the kind of the small boxes meant that you had to give an equal weight. And I can see it from the micro.blog post that you've put in the notes. And I'll put it in the notes so people can see, right? It's just they're smaller. You can maybe fit five tasks and you can put a box around each of them unless you want to, like, start writing them next to each other or something. And you were saying that you were concerned that it gave equal weight into everything. So what you want to be able to do is put them on a calendar so you can block out time, right? Mm-hmm. These are two different productivity systems fundamentally, right? Mm-hmm. You have gone from a task-based system to a time calendar-based system. Mm-hmm. I just want to make sure that you're aware you've done that.

Brad: So I think maybe to continue what I was saying, and I wasn't going to mention this until you mentioned this, or it didn't cross my mind that this would be a thing, the tasks are not going away. They're now digital and always have been.

Myke: Okay. This makes more sense to me.

Brad: Yes. So everything that you see that has a checkbox next to it is in Todoist.

Myke: Yep.

Brad: Okay. So now, but what I'm finding is, okay, like we were talking before the show that like I'm working on printer stuff, right? Mm-hmm. Well, I need to organize specs and get paper types and get dimensions and all these things so I can get quotes. So the checkbox would be get printer specs.

Myke: Yep.

Brad: But what I need for my day to actually survive is from 1030 to noon is to work, collect all the printer specs.

Myke: Mm-hmm.

Brad: So both of those things will actually be working in conjunction. I'm just taking the task list.

Myke: I think this is a smart way of doing what you were doing because this was always the thing that we would talk about is that you handle all of your tasks in Todoist and then you'd write them out in the planner and then you check them off in the planner and then go check them off in Todoist. And that always felt a little bit redundant to me. Mm-hmm. But like I understood it because it's like, well, you just want to use your pen and paper products, right? But you also don't want to forget anything.

Brad: Well, you want to think about it. Yeah. You want to think about it. Yeah. You know, you don't want it to be stuck behind a screen when you're not looking at the screen for a couple hours. And, you know, it's just like a duplicative. Yeah. I see that it's a little bit extra, but like it just, it's the way I think about it, right? Like if I write it down, it's real.

Myke: Yeah. But I think having these two systems makes a lot of sense because now you have the tasks, but you don't have a plan for the day for them. They're just a set of tasks. But now you can sit down and be like, if I'm going to actually, you know, you can do it in the morning. You can look at what your tasks are and you can be honest with yourself and be like, before you even start the day, I'm not going to do all this today. So let me just talk, like look at what I can do and what I think I could do. Now, of course you could also do this like somebody, anybody could do this with another digital tool, a calendar app, right? Right. But you don't have to do that. I actually think that this is a, I think honestly, like for me, I think like a paper calendar for time blocking makes more sense than digital calendars for time blocking. Like I know some people that do this and I just think that it could be more effective to actually do this stuff on paper. Like I don't really, the only thing that goes on my calendar is appointments. Yeah. Everything else goes in task lists.

Brad: Yeah. Digital calendars are literally the worst set of productivity apps.

Myke: Interesting.

Brad: They just are. Like tasks, task managers are great. Productivity managers are great. You know, all your omni focuses and things and all that stuff. Like calendars are like good for appointments and they're just not as good for time blocking.

Digital Calendars vs Task Managers

Myke: I don't think so either. Like I, it's not, I've never wanted to do it. Yeah. And it is on very rare occasions. I will put like a task in a calendar in the sense of like, you know, I, so like one, one example for me is actually something I just done. I know I have a big edit coming up in a couple of weeks and it's at a time when I have a lot of other things going on. So I just blocked that time out in the calendar. So I realized, like remembered, don't put anything else in here. But honestly, I never do this. This was like a standout thing for me that I did do it because it's a task, right? But anyway, I really like this, this, I think that what you're moving to here, at least it makes more sense to me because it doesn't really feel like you're just duplicating the same stuff from one place to another and then having to reconcile it back again.

Brad: Yeah. And I see what you're saying like about that and why that was, didn't make a lot of sense for like how I was doing it. And it turns out like I've broken that system, right? That system no longer works because the way I work, I've discovered that that doesn't work for me anymore. It's broken. So I'm going to, I'm going to do this, even though I've kind of always done this type of thing, like me rolling into this is not going to be like a sea change type of situation. It's just going to be a little bit more organized and that's what I need. I'm not going like full productivity guru here. Like that's, that's something that would force me to lose all of my hair, but I'm doing things that are just going to help me get through the day better and be happy at the end of the day.

Myke: Going to change like the physical size of the planner. I mean, cause you were going before with like seven days over two pages and now it's a page

Brad: per day. So fun thing, Myke, about disbound systems is you can add and remove pages as you go. Yep. So I put in originally, let's see, starting Thursday, I think I put in a month and I think I could probably fit in two months in this planner cover without overrunning it.

Myke: Do you have anything else in the planner? I don't remember anymore.

Brad: Yeah. Blank sheets. Like I have two sections of blank sheets. One is kind of like a business section and that's all like William Hannah planner sheets, just like a dot grid sheet. And then the back section are a five Mormon croquis pages that I've, I've hole punched. And I just got some Kukuyo printer paper that you can get in bulk. Like it's nice. It's good fountain pen friendly paper. And it comes in like a 500 sheet, like ream of paper and it's a five size right out the gate. So I just have to hole punch it. So I'll be switching that out with like the croquis and that, cause I like to have those papers in the back just to play with. And then I have like the middle section, the middle section actually might go away now that I have more singular page notes in here. But like what I'll take the middle section for is say, like I was alluding to the printer stuff before is I'll just kind of collect all my notes there. Like, okay, I need to get, you know, paper type, paper size, you know, print files, like just kind of make a list of, Hey, printer job, whatever I'm going to call it here. And then that would go on like this bigger note page in the middle of the book. That way I don't have to go hunt it down page by page in the calendar area of the book, if you will.

Myke: It's funny. I've never seen this thing. We've been using it for so long now and I've never actually been able to see it.

Brad: Yep. Yep. I keep using it and it's, it's good because I'm just making it more and more work for me. Right? Like you start with a certain thing and you figure it out. Like this works, this doesn't work. And with this type of notebook, it's not like a singular bound notebook, like a Hobonichi was like, well, two months in, it doesn't work. What do I do now? Well, this one I can kind of change as I go. Right? I was like, Oh, I want to try something else because I think it's going to work better for me. And I can add in extras that make it even more enjoyable. Like with the extra paper in the back, you know, it's a, you know, it's, it's, it's not cheap. It's expensive. And you have to have like things like a hole punch to be able to add things like the Mormon croquis paper in there or the Kukuyo printer paper in there. But you know, I've been using it long enough now to where I feel like those extra costs are worth it because it's, it's all here.

Brad: The only thing it really, the only thing this book isn't is like a journal, like nothing journal style goes in here. Right.

Myke: You're not, you're not writing like your thoughts and feelings and stuff. No, no, no. All right.

Brad: No.

Brad: Okay. So yeah. Yeah. It's good. It's, it's working. And I'm excited to try these new pages to see if my assumptions are correct on how this is going to work for me. I think it's going to work well.

Myke: Yeah.

Myke: Very cool.

Brad: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. You know what else is very cool, Myke?

Myke: Tell me.

Brad: A DM I got from, I'm just going to call them my friends at Drillog because I'm trying to get in their good graces. Our good friends at Drillog, Myke.

Brad: Okay. I'm trying to get in their good graces. You know Drillog. All friends at Drillog. They're the highly engineered dip nib pen that is literally made just for me and probably no one else on the entire planet because they're very expensive and it's a micro metal tip. Right. You look at these things and you're going, wow, I'm going to pay $300 for a dip nib pilot high tech C. That sounds terrible. Except to me, it sounds like the greatest product in the history of the universe. So yeah, I, y'all heard me rave over this product for having never touched it. Right. Like I've literally never touched it. It might be terrible. Right. Like all this is going to come down. I'm going to get one of these and it's going to be like womp womp. And it's like, they just lit a bunch of money on fire. It's bad.

Brad: But you know, at least like what I'm seeing so far is it's been positively reviewed from the very few specific people that this is made for. Right. This is not made for everybody. Like under no circumstances is this pen for everybody, but it is totally for me. So they sent me a DM. And I mean, believe me, I'm not, I'm not the only one. It was very boiler, boilerplate content, but they're coming to Kickstarter, Myke. That's what we alluded to a couple of weeks ago saying they were going to do a crowdfunding thing, but we didn't know what it was going to be. I assumed Kickstarter now that Kickstarter has expanded to some other countries, including Japan. So they are going to be on Kickstarter and they wanted me to share the upcoming project page where you can log into your Kickstarter account and be notified when they launch. So you just click this little save thing. Go press the button. Look at that picture on that page, Myke. Huh? Look at that picture on the drill log page. It's good. Drill log Kickstarter. Oh, I need that. I need that.

Myke: I will instantly back one of these. Like I'm in. I am in it. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. Look at it. I know. Right. Look at it. It's beautiful.

Brad: Mm-hmm.

Brad: Yeah. So guess what? What? I gave them my shipping address already. Uh-huh.

Drillog Pen Excitement

Myke: Did they ask for it? They asked. Did you just give it to them? They asked.

Brad: They asked for it. So hopefully, you know, this is coming from Japan to me. Hopefully, I'm going to get an early look at what they're offering for Kickstarter. That's the working plan. You never know how it's going to work out. And anytime I do get things like this and I like them, I always back them. Like this doesn't like change me from like, oh, I got my free one. No, I'm not going to back it. I always back these products. So hopefully, I'm going to be able to get some samples. I don't know exactly what they're sending, when it's going to be sent. But we have finalized our communication, ending with my address and a thank you for sending it to me. So hopefully, I'll be able to talk about them. They're like totally cool with me when I get them just like talking about them. So yeah, I'm sure that doesn't hurt their marketing efforts, having some dude that's independent, like literally fawning over their products.

Myke: So you don't usually get this excited.

Brad: I'm probably overselling it.

Myke: I don't know. You don't usually, you're pretty hyped up about this, like in a way that you're not really usually.

Brad: It's a very unique product, right?

Myke: Which is why I want it. It's like the same reason why I like the Pencho PEN XO lead holder.

Brad: Right. I like products. I like design companies who come out the gate and say, either through words, marketing, or design, that this product is not for everybody.

Brad: And that's what Drillog has done by the design of this pen. You know, they're never going to come out and say that in words. But they are committed to saying, this is what we do. So it is probably not for you. But some people are going to really dig it. And I get behind, like, that's how I think about products. Like, I'm cool with not making a singular product for everybody, if that makes sense. And I think that's what Drillog is doing here. And it just has me, like, I'm committed to, like, learning more about this. Because it speaks, oh, it's like, oh, like, this checks all my boxes, right? I was like, I'm in. And you don't get, you don't often get this in our world, right? You know, when's the last notebook that's blown your mind, right? So, like, we get some of this in pens and pen design and mechanical pencil design and, you know, ballpoint pen design every now and then. And I just find the idea and the statement that they're offering to be, like, just really, really compelling. Like, that's why I get into a product like this more so than, you know, the next Montegrappa fountain pen, which I will love to use, right? Like, I love my Montegrappa pens and, you know, I have a Mia Meteor shower and it's awesome, right? And I just thoroughly enjoy it. But, like, this is telling me a different story and that's what I like.

Myke: All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They sell the products that you are looking for from the brands that you love. They sell rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, anything you want from brands like Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco, and many, many more. And they're an authorized dealer of all of them. They have fast and reliable customer service. They give a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high-quality products. Pen Chalet also do tons of discounts. A couple of times a month, you'll be able to go to Pen Chalet and find some new stuff. And, of course, they have some special discounts for Pen Ellic listeners that I'll get to in a moment. As well as adding new styles of pens every single month, Pen Chalet also sell limited edition products and accessories. Pen carrying cases. They sell ink refills. They sell pen holders and cases and all kinds of stuff. Really awesome products across the board. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. And they sell internationally as well. Great shipping rates also. So take yourself now to PenChalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Pen Addict. This is where you'll get a 10% code to save 10% on anything at any time over at Pen Chalet. And you'll be able to check out this week's special offers. Like what, Brad?

Brad: Ooh, buddy. We got a good one in here. Sneak Attack from Ron, Diplomat Arrow.

Myke: Oh, you're a friend.

Brad: What did I just... My friend, the Diplomat Arrow. Not Myke's friend. This is my friend, the Diplomat Arrow. I would 100% order one of these if I didn't already have one on order. So I have a pre-order one from a different higher-end model because I'm already familiar with the base model, which is what this is. Price point, stunning. It's, yeah, good, good stuff on the Diplomat Arrow. They also have the Diplomat Traveler, which I have never used, but I know people enjoy that pen a lot. And it comes in, it has one of those barrel options where you have like the torch barrel and it's really inexpensively priced. It's a thinner pocket, not pocket pen, but just like a thinner barreled, smaller, like a number five nib pen, right? It's a traveler.

Myke: They have a ballpoint version as well on here too.

Brad: Yep.

Myke: But further down the page.

Brad: Yep. And then the Panider Arco rollerball, I have not tried that. It's certainly a unique looking pen. I don't know if anyone's into the rollerballs, but I like Panider's style. And I want to say one thing off the page, Myke. If you're a Visconti fan, and I know that Myke is not necessarily a Visconti fan because of the clip. I don't know what's gotten in the water at Visconti, but they are going full bore right now. I've seen so many new Visconti releases. So if you're a Visconti fan, they have a bunch of new Van Gogh style pens. They have like new, I don't know, some of their bigger models, the Opera Master. All kinds of new materials, all kinds of new colors. I am, they are tempting me with just the volume of products they're putting out in. Pen Shelley carries them all.

Myke: Looking at them now, some really nice colors there.

Brad: Yeah, it's really good. That's what, you know, I like the bright pens. And so that always stands out to me. And when I see them and every time I turn around, it's like, that's a Visconti. This is a Visconti. I was like, oh man, I'm tempted. So there you go.

Myke: Of course, you can use your 10% code to save on those. Or you can go and check out the offers we were talking about at penshella.com. Just click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict or one word. A thanks to Pen Chalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: Weird little topic kind of related to Pen Chalet and to various other pen shops where you need to go shopping for these pen maintenance supplies that I just picked up. I wanted to just tell you, Myke, and the listeners a few little things that I use on a not daily but probably weekly basis to help keep my fountain pens in good shape. There's two main things that I ordered. What I needed to do is I needed to order some parts for the shipping department for spoke pens. So I keep a set of, you know, a loop, micro mesh sandpaper, brass shim in the shipping department desk, which means I don't have it at my desk in the house. So I wanted like a second set of all these things that I use. So the brass shim, if y'all don't know what this is, if you're an avid fountain pen user, even if you have just like one or two fountain pens and you use them a lot, what this brass shim does, and we'll link to all these things in the show notes. It's a lot of much shim.

Myke: Yeah. It makes like, I find it physically uncomfortable because it's almost like onomatopoeic in a way for me. Because in case you don't know what one of these things is, I didn't want to say it. It's an incredibly thin piece of brass.

Brad: Yeah. Let's call it a brass sheet, Myke. Let's call it a brass sheet for your benefit.

Myke: And all I think about is how bad a paper cut you could get from one of these.

Brad: It's dangerous a little bit.

Myke: Yeah. And that's the word for some reason to me, shim, sounds.

Brad: That sounds like that sounds like a under your fingernail torture.

Myke: That's exactly what I'm thinking about.

Brad: So let's call it a brass sheet. I just wanted to clear that up for you.

Myke: Thank you.

Myke: Dangerous, these things.

Brad: But what this thing does, Myke, and you would get benefit out of this. I've used one. Okay, good. You didn't cut yourself, did you?

Myke: Mm-mm.

Brad: Okay, good. You take the corner of this sheet and you, on your fountain pen nib, it has the breather hole. Like in the middle of the nib, you stick the corner in there and then you drag it through to the end of the tip. And what it does is it cleans out paper fibers or if any other gunk has gotten in there. It's not something you need to do every time you write. But like if you're using a pen a lot, especially on poor paper that might actually get more fibers in. Like if you're at work and you're stuck using the copy paper but you really would like to use your fountain pens on that, you're going to find it at some point writing worse. You're like, why is that? And well, it's because it has this little gunk in there that you can't really see. That's what the shim does. It gets it out. I love that. That's probably my most used thing. My second most used thing is 12,000 grit micro mesh. So it's a little foam backed sandpaper board. It actually, it's such a fine grit mic. It feels like suede, right? It doesn't feel like sandpaper because you don't want to damage your nibs. You're not buying these products to like modify your nibs. But if you have a little, I don't know, lack of smoothness on your nib, like you feel a little tipping in the wrong place. And, you know, the nib is actually, you know, in good shape. It's not, you know, misaligned or crooked or something weird like that. You put a couple little drops of water on here on the micro mesh pad and just draw some lines. And you just kind of work through. I was learning yesterday, I would do figure eights and infinity symbols. And everyone's saying that's really not the best way to do it. Just draw straight lines in every directions, you know, up, down, sideways, angles, all that. Or write your name, you know, do the motions you normally make with your pen. And you just do it really lightly and just a few times. And it will kind of like knock the edge off, if you will, on the smoothness of the fountain pen nib. So it's really, really great. And the last thing, I do use a loop. You don't necessarily need a loop. But if you really get into this, it's hard, especially the older you get, like me, Myke, to see the nibs and the nib shape. If you have a real problem.

Myke: A loop is like a tiny little magnifying glass, right?

Brad: Yep. Yep. It's a tiny little magnifying glass, like a single lens thing. And it just, you can lock in on the nib and see if it's misaligned. And that just gives you some ideas. And if you're new to this and are trying to figure out, oh, my nibs do look misaligned. You know, this left one is up high and this right one is down low. What do I do? Well, a listener in the Twitch chat, Alan, sent me Richard Bender's nib smoothing workshop notes. And we'll put the link to that in the show notes today. And you can read that. It's only like 10 pages long. It's from a class that he offers at various pen shows, which, you know, when we go back to pen shows, we'll see all the classes scheduled for the week. And that's one you can go to. And it's very valuable if you are into fountain pens at all. Like, you don't have to be like someone hardcore into this to learn how the basics of making your writing experience better. And that's what these tools are that I use. I keep them at my desk and whenever I feel something weird, that's all I need to kind of make my writing experience better. And, you know, this document is a good little mini class on that. Like I said, it's only 10 pages long with images in it and it kind of gives you the basics. So it's really cool.

Myke: Very nice. I'll put a link to this in the show notes.

Brad: Yep. So like I said, again, these are like the things I keep at my desk and are used probably weekly. It's not a daily thing, but, you know, you pick something up and you say, oh, this is a little bit weird. This is all you need to kind of clear that up.

Myke: But this is one of those things, though, if you're going to start doing this, you've never done it before. Do always do less. Yes. Then you think you might want to. Yes. You can always continue working. You can't reverse.

Brad: Yes. You can get in trouble if you are overly aggressive with some of this stuff.

Myke: Mm hmm.

Brad: All right. You want to hit some ask TPA?

Landscape Writing Pads

Myke: Yes, I definitely do. This first one comes from my pen needs ink. I have caught the landscape writing pad bug with the panel book. Can Myke tell us how he makes his notes in this landscape format? Does he make columns and block off sections or does he just write long sentences all the way across the page? So I'm a big fan of the panel book. I've been using one every single day for years. This is one of the Studio Neat products. For me, I use the panel book in two different ways depending on what I'm doing. So if I'm just using it to make notes of some description, maybe I'm on a call, like a meeting call or whatever, then I will just write left to right across the whole page. When I'm making notes for podcasts, the panel book has these very faint markings to help you make columns on the paper. They can be used for a few different reasons. It's a very smart design by Tom and Dan. And I take these markings and I kind of draw over them with the pen that I'm using so they're more prominent. They're not prominent enough for me when I actually want to pay attention to them. So I just I kind of will make three columns and I just write all of the timestamps for each show that I'm recording, like all the stuff I want to go back and edit. I just write them in the columns. That's how I do that.

Brad: I love landscape format, like everything could be in landscape format as far as I'm concerned. I mean, there's some issues like I couldn't really have my William Hanna Planna in landscape with the discs in the middle because I use both sides of the page and I wouldn't want to be reaching over the discs to use the top page. But in general, I will use pocket notebooks in landscape. I will use regular bound notebooks in landscape all the time. I just think it's a it's a cool layout in the pano book. I've used it like Myke does. The one thing that Myke does that I will never do is write continuously from left to right the full length of the page. I'll if I'm going to like say if like to use your example, Myke, if you were if I was in a meeting, I would write half the page. All the way down and then go up to the next top half of the page. Like if you had a book open, right, like you had the left and right side of the page filled. I would never write consecutively all the way across the page. But otherwise we use it the same. I also use it in the vertical orientation. I've used that before to do certain things. So I don't know. I I will never like knock a landscape notebook when I see it. In fact, it would probably move it up the charts for me because that means it's probably laid out to use in any direction you like as opposed to singularly in portrait mode.

Myke: Yeah, OK, I see that.

Myke: I never use the pen and book in portrait mode.

Brad: I use it less that way, but I have done some like product drawings and sketches where I just kind of continue down the page and it works good when you're sitting in a chair or something like you can put it on your knee and work down that length of the page. But I would definitely use it more in the traditional landscape format.

Myke: What I like about this format, which is the insight that they came across in the first place, is most people have this space on their desk between themselves and their keyboard. Right. It's why it fits so well. It's otherwise unused space. It makes it kind of perfect, really.

Brad: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yep. And that's why this pad type of format is so good for computer users. Right. This is really like what it's for. Another good way to use it in the vertical format, too. Like if you're used to A5, you know, you can start it like that in that vertical format. Then all of a sudden you end up with it below your keyboard. You're like, oh, dang, that actually works pretty well, too.

Myke: All right. Let's take a final break and we'll get some more asked EPA questions. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. You may not have noticed this, but when you open an incognito window, there's a little note and it tells you that your activity could still be visible. If you really want to stop people from seeing the sites that you visit for any reason, just use ExpressVPN. Think about all the times that you've used Wi-Fi, public Wi-Fi, a coffee shop, hotel. Without ExpressVPN, every site that you visit could be logged by the admin of that network. And that could still be true when you're in incognito mode. Your home internet provider could also see and record your browsing data. And in the U.S., they're legally allowed to sell that data to advertisers. ExpressVPN is an app that encrypts all of your network data and reroutes it through a network of secure servers so that your private online activity stays just that. Private. ExpressVPN works on all your devices and is super easy to use. The app just has one button. You tap that button and your browsing activity is secure from prying eyes. I love that ExpressVPN is available to me on all my devices. My Mac, my iPhone, my iPad. It's always there when I need it. And I'm connected to a Wi-Fi network that I don't trust for any reason. I just turn it on. It's fantastic. Everything works really smoothly. I can watch video. I just browse as normal. Perfectly fine. I love it. So, stop letting strangers invade your online privacy. Protect yourself today. Go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That's expressvpn.com slash penaddict. And when you go there, you'll get three extra months for free. e-x-p-r-e-s-s-v-p-n dot com slash penaddict. Go there now and learn more. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: All right. I'm excited for you to read this next one, Micah.

Myke: Okay. All right. So, this next question comes from Gustavo. Gustavo has – this is a longer question, so bear with me. There's something that has been gnawing at me, and I know that you guys like these kinds of questions. Clearly, Brad does. He said it already. I was trained to use the Palmer method through elementary school, but had to drop it for print writing in high school. So, I ended up with a mix where I make my e's script-like. Sometimes having a script-like e and a block-type e in the same word, but that's not the main issue here, I think. Brad, can we pause?

Myke: Sure. What's the Palmer method?

Brad: There's a lot to take in. It's a cursive handwriting method taught to students in the U.S., basically a book, and it says you make your letter shape this way, and this is how you connect your cursive. What do you call it? Joined writing? Joined up. Joined up. Joined up writing. Joined up. And the right format in every letter has its own rules, and it's just like what you learn when you're eight years old in school.

Myke: So, yeah. So, Gustavo has basically found himself in a situation where sometimes the e's are script-like, and sometimes they're block, and it seems like they can't control it. Eventually, from college into my professional life, I adapted two main changes to my writing style, which were, one, slashing all my zeros, even if I have to go back and do that, which I enjoy. Two, changing my Palmer-ish single-story A's into a double-story printed A. I quite like how a handwritten double-story A pops out, at least for me. Now, if you don't understand what that means, double-story is, I've never heard it before like this. I am so into this as TV. I love this. The way that this is, I don't know if this is the actual way you write this kind of A, but this is, you have like a simple A where it's kind of just like a C with a straight line, right? Yeah. Or you can have the one where it's like a C with a backwards R on top of it, right? So the A's got a little hat on. So that's the double-story A. So that's the setup for the question. This isn't the question. This is just the setup. Yes. I actually still don't even have the questions. I still fail to have a 100% consistent use of these changes while writing, making me feel a bit insincere as I write, making these changes that are still not entirely natural to me. So here are my questions. Have you or Myke ever changed your writing style in a similar manner? And is this a thing where practicing doing drills over and over is recommended?

Brad: Where do I start, Myke? I'm so excited. Mm-hmm. Let's just start with the questions. Okay. First. All right. And then we'll talk about the specifics that Gustavo's talking about. Have you or Myke ever changed your writing style in a similar manner? Yes, 100%. Yes, 100%. I have written entire blog posts that I don't even know if I could search for. Oh, I found it. So I have a blog post titled four, just the number four. And we'll put that in the show notes. Um, where I discussed changing my handwriting from a closed top four to an open top four.

Myke: Mm-hmm.

Brad: And how I did it. And how I did it, practice. Yes. It's literally as much as drilling the new shape into just like making it second nature, right? You have to change your muscle memory. Because what happens a lot of time when you're writing is you're writing elementary. And you're thinking about the word and how to spell it, not necessarily the letter shapes you're putting down. So you have this muscle memory that the E's and the L's and the M and the T, they all do this shape because it's automatic. Well, you have to break yourself. So like if Gustavo's saying, I have a script E and a block E on the same word, elementary is a good word for that. It's got three E's in it. The first one might be script and the third one might be, you know, the block style. What you have to do is just, I would just literally get a pad of paper and fill the entire thing up with the new shape that I wanted, right? And I would do that for, you know, do that drill for a few times a day for a few minutes a day. And then it starts converting. You're still going to have a mix of letters for a little while. And then all of a sudden it just turns over into the new shape. So I think I've done a second post. So that one is called four. Which one did I do? I did. This was the second one I did. I think. I don't know. It seems like I've done another post on this before changing a different letter. And I can't remember what it was. But when I do it, this is how I fix my or change my letters, right? I figure out which one I don't like. Let's say Gustavo's A, which I like your description, Myke. That was perfect. So I never write an A like a closed off script A where it looks like you said a C with a line down it. Um, I never write that A. I write a block letter capital A mostly. And I do have in my arsenal when I want to write lowercase, I can write the double story A as Gustavo puts it. Which I think is a really cool looking A. It's just slower. And that's another tip, right? You have to slow down when you're trying to change these things. Because that's what gets all of us in writing is our brains get ahead of our hands. So we don't realize it until it's too late that you've already made the wrong shaped A until you've finished writing the A, right? That's what happens when you're thinking about changing these things. So you just have to continue to drill it. Get a sheet of paper. Do it for five minutes. Like you don't have to sit there for an hour and drill it. Because it's not going to come automatically. Do it for five or ten minutes. Start integrating it into your writing. Tomorrow, drill it again for five or ten minutes. It's never taken me more than a few days to have like a, I don't know, 95 to 99% success in changing a letter. My other tip is one letter at a time. Or one number at a time. Don't try to change your A and your E at the same time. Get the muscle memory correct for one letter. When it just becomes the norm, then fix your next letter or your next number. Don't do multiple ones at a time. Because then you've broken your brain and your writing at that point. You have no more flow in your writing. And what you want is the new letter design to just be part of the flow. To where you don't have to think it anymore. And that's the new muscle memory for that. Once you start getting more than one in there, you start breaking like that connectivity between your brain and your hand. I think. Like I'm not a scientist. I don't really know. But that's what's happened to me. You just break everything by trying to do multiple letters at a time. Unless you just want to practice writing an entire alphabet. But that's not going to help you change anything. To actually change, you have to focus on the singular letter until it's fixed. And then you can move on to the next one. So those are my thoughts on handwriting, Myke.

Myke: I've literally made no concerted effort to ever change anything in my handwriting ever.

Myke: Because, I mean, I think one of the things for me is my handwriting is for no one but myself. And I think maybe people that, as adults especially, try and make a big change. It's because other people are seeing their handwriting. I assume this is not the case for everyone. Like some people might just do it as a fun project or as a thing they just want to improve for themselves. But I think in a lot of instances, people would make changes for other people. One thing that did change for me, and I spoke about this a bunch, is this has changed over time and I leaned into it, is my mixture of block caps and joined up handwriting. Which I do. And I interchange between them. Like Gustavo, sometimes in the same word. And I started doing that as an adult and embraced it. And now I kind of don't care. It's how I write. Yeah. And I'm perfectly fine with that. And it's kind of, I just let my hand to do whatever it wants to do. I don't make any concerted effort for it.

Brad: I was just going to say, now that you said it out loud that you do the mix and I know you did that. I've never had like a mixture of joined up and print. That's never been a thing for me. But I think it is for a lot of people.

Myke: So, yeah. Super interesting. And I agree with what you're saying. This is a practice thing. You've got to make it a habit, right? Yeah. If you do want to make a change. But I can't imagine it's easy.

Brad: Yeah. So, we've got to hit this next Ask TPA. Yeah. I moved this one up. Because it's kind of a part of and a continuation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They go together.

Myke: This is from Kenny. He says, for the past couple of years, I've been able to improve my handwriting to the point where I now receive compliments on it. However, I've noticed if I ever need to hurriedly jot down a note, all my progress goes out the window and I revert to my old chicken scratch penmanship. Does this ever happen to Brad? How quickly does Brad's impeccable handwriting degrade if needing to quickly jot something down, if ever? I do take a personal offense to the fact that Kenny never even bothered. Didn't even bother. Like, didn't address the question. Like, Gustavo did, right? Where it was to both of us. Kenny was just like, Myke has no answer for this question.

Brad: I mean, is he wrong? Yeah. Right? Like, Kenny knows what's up. Like, that's the deal. Like, Myke's good just with whatever he's got. It's good. Myke's handwriting is his own. He enjoys it. We enjoy it for Myke. And we don't need to ask Myke any handwriting tips.

Myke: I mean, I guess for me, it's just I would do the inverse.

Brad: Right?

Myke: What do you mean? So my writing is just my writing. Yes. But if someone needs to see it, I take more of an effort. Right? So it's like the inverse of this.

Brad: That's the only time I change it. So to answer Kenny's question, there is an instant degrade as soon as you go fast and in a hurry. Like, anytime I have to write a signature, like if I'm signing paperwork, there's external pressure for me to provide that information on a sheet of paper. And it always turns to crap. It just does. Like, I don't like my signature. Because it's never not written under duress. Right? The only times I ever write my signature these days are under duress. Someone needs it for something now. I was like, okay. And it's terrible. I could practice that. I don't. I do have a block signature that I will break out when I do have time where I won't actually use like a cursive or joined up writing signature that I do enjoy. But I don't ever do it under duress because it takes too long. Right? And it's too neat and clean and probably easily copied. So my terrible handwriting goes. So I've gotten better in general writing to be okay with just the fast, messy handwriting. Because let's be honest, Myke, my handwriting only gets so messy. Right? It's still legible. My bad handwriting is still legible to me. And that's all that matters. Right? Like you said, if I was going to show this to someone else, it wouldn't be messy in the first place. Because I'm going to slow down, try a little bit harder. Sure.

Brad: So I can turn around that degradation really quickly with taking time, you know, just taking time to write. And the one thing that always helps me get back into like a good writing style is to lengthen my letters. Like, does that make sense? Like I try not to get too vertical on my letters and try to get more horizontal on my letters. And that helps my, that's specific to me because of my writing style. Like it's a block print writing style. So if I slow down and not obnoxiously like stretch them out. But if I slow them down and try to get a little bit wider on my letters, I can reverse anything, any mess I've made pretty quickly. I've learned to do that over time. And I've learned to accept that, hey, sometimes I just got to write down things fast. And this is how it's going to look. And it's perfectly fine. And sometimes when I am trying to take my time and I think, oh, this is looking crappy. Then I'll slow down, widen the letters a little bit. And that cleans me up pretty quickly. If I would ever get back to practicing, my handwriting could be even better. Like I used to have like photorealistic, like, you know, blueprint handwriting back, you know, 20 years ago where like I would be questioned. Like if this is real or is this a stamp or is this printed? Things like that. When I'd write checks. I had been to the bank on several occasions where I've been questioned like, or at least not questioned like this is, this is bad or fake. But like what is happening here is like, is this come off of our printer? What is this handwriting? I was like, no, that's just how I write. Like I don't do that anymore. But I could probably get back to it if I spent the time. But I'm not super interested. I like nowadays I have the tools that help me write like that being like stub nibs and cursive italic nibs. That's those things I've learned over the years help like show off my writing better than like a standard pen does. So, yeah, that's one of those things I learned over the years.

Myke: If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of The Pen Addict, just send out a tweet with the hashtag RSTPA. Or you can use question mark RSTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. Or you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. If you'd like to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, knock.co, spokedesign.com as well for Brad's products. You can go to twitch.tv slash penaddict where you can see Brad streaming multiple times a week. And you can find Brad on micro.blog. He's at Brad. He is penaddict on Instagram and dowdyism on Twitter because why not? Why not? Why not?

Brad: Why not? Well, really, because the guy on Twitter won't sell me the name. Uh-huh. And then I haven't checked it on microblog if I can switch to penaddict. So, I'm efforting all these things, Myke.

Myke: I know you are. I know you are. You can also... Is there anything else? No, I think we're good for you now. I'm Myke. I am Myke. I stream pretty much once a week at Myke.live, looking at keyboard stuff. And you can find my products at cortexmerch.com. We'll be back next time. Until then. Oh, thanks to our sponsors as well. ExpressVPN, PenShallet, and micro.blog. Thank you for listening. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.