The Pen Addict 54/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	54
Title:	The Chair Of The Desk
Release Date:	May 14th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Ana Reinert
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 54
Audio File:	Audio Episode 54
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 54
Length:	5050 min <br />0.833 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 54 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by the man who first stepped foot on the paper moon, that is, Mr. Buzz Dowdy. How are you, sir?

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. I like that. Man, you are good at this.

Myke Hurley: Thank you. I was just sharing with you my fear before the start of the episode, that whatever was going to come out of my mouth was whatever I said, and as I looked around, I saw my space pen and went with it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's why it's impressive, because I stress out about it for you, and then you just come up with stuff off the top of your head that I couldn't swing at all. So, yeah, well done by you, sir.

Myke Hurley: Thank you. Brad Dowdy. I figure I should just clarify that for any new listeners. Your name is Brad Dowdy, not Buzz. Yeah, not Buzz. Because we may have some new listeners now. We have a guest today, and I want to rush to get to that point, but just before we do, for current listeners of this show on 70 decibels, before the next episode, episode 55, this show will have moved over to 5x5. We mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. You don't have to do anything, but at some point over the next few days, or depending on when you listen to this, it may have already happened, and we apologize. You will see in your app of choice on maybe the iPhone or on the Mac or Android or something, it will show as the pen addict having maybe 50 unplayed episodes. We didn't get really, really busy and record 50 new episodes. It just, as when we switch our RSS feed over, it just pops up to say that these are new. So you can just mark them all as played. You can listen again if you really want to. I mean, feel free.

Brad Dowdy: That'd be good. Or at least download them all again. Just say, oh, here's 50 new episodes and just download them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's also good. That will look good for us moving over. Mr. Benjamin, I'm sure, will like the look of that. But yeah, so, and then from now on, you will have, you will be able to listen to the show on 5x5, and some point in the very near future, this show will broadcast live on 5x5.

Podcast Schedule

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's going to be fun. I'm actually looking forward to that. That's going to be a pretty cool deal. So our schedule fits into an open slot in the 5x5 live broadcast schedule. So we're going to go for it. Not yet, but hopefully in a few weeks or so.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so those of you that really love the show can listen along live and contribute. It will be good fun. But anyway, Brad, please introduce our illustrious guest.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm so excited. And this is someone I've known for a long time in the pen blogosphere. And she is known to a lot of people in the circles where we run. And I'd like to introduce Miss Anna Reinhardt of the Well Appointed Desk. Welcome, Anna.

Ana Reinert: Hello. Thank you. I'm very excited to be on the show.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, we're excited to have you. This is awesome. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and we've talked about it. So, gosh, we started, you know, pinging it around months ago. So I'm glad we were finally able to get it done. And I think all the listeners are excited, too.

Ana Reinert: Yeah, I've had a lot of people comment on Twitter that they were excited, I think, to hear what I sound like.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you sound wonderful.

Ana Reinert: Thank you.

Brad Dowdy: So we are certainly glad to have you. So a couple of things that I wanted to talk about, and we're going to, and Anna and Myke and I, we're going to talk about some specific topics later, kind of, you know, just like our basic format that we do. But I wanted to talk with Anna real quick about how she got started in pen blogging, because I remember way back in the day when I first started the pen addict before I even had my own domain when I think I was, I don't even remember my blog spot URL. I think it was penaddiction.blogspot.com. And I first started, you know, doing pen reviews and first started, I think it was probably about the time I started doing my ink links, you know, weekend recap. And back then there was hardly anything to post. And I found this blog, and I found this girl writing it, and it was you. And it was this blog. At the time, I think it was called Snow Angel. So for those of you who don't know, you know, the well-appointed desk has only been in its current format for, what, a couple years, but you go way, way back in doing this type of stuff, right?

Hallmark History

Ana Reinert: Yeah, strangely enough, I do. I went back and looked, because the Snow Angels blog is still there, and it actually started back in, I want to say, 1999 or 2000, when people just started blogging. You know, so it had originally been on Blogger and that kind of thing, and it had really been more of sort of a diary kind of a thing. And over the years, I got more involved in, I discovered Pencil Revolution back in, like, 2005. And I went back to check and see how long Johnny had been doing the Pencil Revolution. And so in about 2006, I started posting the occasional, like, pen review or pencil review or, you know, some other office tool thing. And didn't completely commit to it one way or the other.

Ana Reinert: And then about three years ago, I work at Hallmark. In case people don't know, I work at Hallmark Corporate Headquarters as a designer. We bring people in kind of on a regular basis to talk about business or design or anything like that. And we brought in a woman named Erin from a blog called House of Turquoise. It's probably not something that anybody who listens to this podcast would visit. And I kind of went because it was, you know, they have these lectures. If you don't go, they stop having them. So we kind of go whether it's something we're really genuinely interested in or not. But she's a home decor blogger. And her whole focus is places that are painted turquoise. Not kidding. Very, very niche. Very granular. That is extremely niche. It's freakishly so. But she talked about in order to be, like, and she's very successful. I mean, like, she does this blog full time. She gets paid from people. But she said if you want to develop a following for your blog, you need to kind of be very myopically focused to generate an audience. And so it was literally a kind of thing where it was like either I needed to commit myself to doing this or walk away from it and just, you know, read your blog, read John's blog, you know, and just enjoy it or do it and shut up about it. And so I walked back to my desk after seeing this woman. And I launched Tumblr. And I signed up for wellappointeddesk.tumblr.com. And I did it on Tumblr for about a year and a half before I moved over to running it on a WordPress blog. And that's sort of where I've lived ever since.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. And for those who don't know, it's wellappointeddesk.com. And we'll have all this in the show notes and everyone later. But if you're not familiar with Anna's work, that's where she's found most of the time right now.

Myke Hurley: As well as that, Brad, I also have in the show notes for this episode penaddiction.blogspot.co.uk, which I believe is your site. It's still up? It's still up.

Myke Hurley: I don't know why it's .co.uk, but it is. But it's there. I've got it. I found it. It didn't take very long to search. And there it is. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: That's scary. You know, not to totally hijack this, but that's what I'm good at. You know, I find sometimes in just random Google searches where, you know, people just like rip content like off of an old blog post. And they come up on these random blogger sites somewhere. I find some of my junk on there sometimes. You know, just these random posts out of nowhere from, you know, just these spammy blog sites. So anyway, I'm not surprised. It's at some other URL. Who knows what? I don't even know what that is. So, yeah. I'll look at the show notes myself and see what that is. But anyway, back on track. So, Ana, tell us, like, now, Well Appointed Desk, I think, is one of the best blogs in, you know, our genre. Kind of the pens, paper, stationery, everything that goes along with it. And you do a few more things other than that. So tell the readers who aren't really familiar with it kind of, you know, what you're doing there and, you know, kind of what type of posts to expect and things like that. So tell us a little bit about the blogs for anyone who's not familiar with it.

Ana Reinert: Well, I cover a lot of the same types of topics that you do in regards to pens, ink, paper, notebooks. But I've also tried to expand it a little bit to cover inspiring workspaces. I know there's a lot of people who work from home and might, you know, be looking for inspiration to plus up their office space. As well as, you know, I mean, I work in a beige cubicle. So looking at inspiring and on a floor with no windows. So I look forward to someday the opportunity of actually having a workspace that is more conducive to creativity. Strangely enough, I work at Hallmark and I say that my office space is very uninspiring.

Ana Reinert: But it's a very big building with lots of people doing lots of different kinds of work. I actually work around the corner from where they do brass tooling for printing presses. So my section of the building looks pretty industrial.

Ana Reinert: But, yeah. So I also try to include some, like, other things that people need for their day-to-day work. So things like apps, you know, desktop wallpapers, you know, things like that. I mean, like, if you can't, like me, if you live in a beige cubicle and you can't do anything about the environment, you can at least change the wallpaper on your desktop or you can add an app to your iPhone or, you know, other device that kind of helps you get your work done.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. And you started talking about this, and I didn't put this in my notes for the episode. But there was something very cool that you guys do at Hallmark, and you let me in on this a few years ago. I don't even know if this was pre-well-appointed desk or not, but, you know, I've done some posts in the past about index cards. And you told me this cool story of what Hallmark does with these index cards, and you sent me some from Hallmark. Yeah, and that just hit me. I totally forgot about that until just now you were talking about it. So I think share that story with everyone because I think this is really, really cool.

Ana Reinert: And this is one of the really cool things because at one point in time, a lot of the printing for Hallmark was done in the building or in the building around the corner. And so we had a lot of paper scraps, you know, when they would cut off the cards and stuff. They'd have these paper scraps. And one very clever man who was working for J.C. Hall, who was the founder of the company, had a pocket full. He had the guys in the print shop cut these cards down to 3x5s, and he kept them in his shirt pocket. And one day he was in a meeting with J.C., and J.C. said, oh, I need something to write on. And the guy pulled out this 3x5 and handed it to him, and he says, I need to get me some of those. And so they started just cutting the ends off and everything and just bringing these boxes over to the main building of these 3x5s. And so they sort of became this ubiquitous thing. There isn't a conference room or a desk at Hallmark that doesn't have a stack of 3x5s. And it was unusual for me when I came to Hallmark because I was sort of used to the culture of Post-it notes and, you know, those sticky notes. And I asked somebody, I'm like, where do I find some Post-it notes? And they said, I guess you can get them in our supply closet, you know, but most people just use 3x5s. You know, we recycle them. They're, you know, leftovers. It's just a good use of leftover stuff. And so I started using 3x5s and have used them ever since. I kind of have always used them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and you sent me, you sent me, you very kindly sent me, you know, a handful, probably 100 or 200 of them straight from the Hallmark offices. So I thought that was really cool. And I've definitely used those. And I think it's just great to have those laying around. And I mean, especially at a place like Hallmark where, you know, you need those ideas to just jot down and go for it. So that's pretty cool.

Ana Reinert: The funny thing is the writers, when they're writing copy for cards, will take a 3x5 and they'll fold it in half so that it looks like a little tiny greeting card so that they can write the editorial that they want on the cover on the front. And then they write it on the inside and then they give it to the designers. So there's like these little tiny cards all over the place of like the editorial that you should use on a card.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's hilarious.

Ana Reinert: It is pretty funny.

Brad Dowdy: So cool. Now, on the desk, on the well-appointed desk, I'm sorry, I call it the desk. I'm just used to saying it. That's okay. I do too. So if anyone hears me say the desk, I'm talking about Anna's website. So you started to do something pretty cool on there and something that I'm interested in and something, you know, that I want to share with everyone. You've started selling some products on there just like in a small web store. So how did that come about? Tell me, tell us about like the products that are on there. And, you know, how that all came about and, you know, what made you start trying to do those types of things. Because that's something that I'm very interested in doing, you know, with the pen addict eventually. Cool.

Ana Reinert: It was something that I'd been thinking about doing for a while and just trying to figure out. Because really, for the most part, the well-appointed desk is financed entirely by me. I do have some lovely sponsors. But really, what they sponsor is what I can do for my readers in the form of product reviews and free product and things like that. So I really don't generate any money. And so I hit a point where it's like when the bill comes due for the hosting, I'm like, I'm just bleeding money here. So I thought, well, what can I do to sort of generate funds for the site in a way that seemed to fit? You know, I didn't, I don't know, I didn't want to sell t-shirts or something. It just didn't seem like the right thing. And I am notoriously bad about buying and collecting vintage office supplies. Every yard sale, I just scavenge for old staplers and tape dispensers and everything. And so I really had, like, exceeded quantities of stuff in my house. So I said, well, you know what, I'm going to start to sell some of these. You know, every time I find a stapler, I'm like, oh, this one's my favorite. And then the other ones go into a pile. So I'm like, okay, there's this whole pile of really awesome staplers, but each one, the newest one is always my favorite. So I started to put those up. And then I wanted to be able to have something that was sort of an item that I could replenish on a regular basis. So I'm very active with the Letter Writers Alliance, which is two girls up in Chicago organized this group. I'm a group of people who really like to exchange letters, and they do pen pal services. You know, they'll hook you up with somebody that wants to exchange letters and things like that. So I write a lot of letters, so I thought it would be fun to make stamps, rubber stamps to put on letters. So the first one that I did is one that just says good mail. And that seems to be the favorite, and everybody really likes it. But then I designed several other ones, and it took me a while to find a rubber stamp manufacturer that I could work with and be able to offer the stamps at a reasonable price where I wasn't having to buy them at retail and then try to mark them up because it just made me feel bad and nasty. And I'm not going to charge somebody $20 for a one-inch stamp. I just couldn't do it. So once I was able to find a vendor where I could get the prices to where it seemed pretty reasonable, I was very excited, and I was finally able to put the site up. So that's been up for a month because I just got my first bill from Big Cartel. Well, that's cool.

Brad Dowdy: I think it looks fantastic, and y'all should all definitely check that out. I thought it was a great idea when I saw it, and actually I was jealous. I was like, I've got to get on the ball and do something because Myke and I have talked about it for years, me needing to step out and do something like that. So maybe this is my inspiration to finally get it done. So I will work on that in the future because I think your store is really neat. I think it's perfect for you.

Ana Reinert: Well, I look forward to seeing what you decide to carry in your shop.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. I've got some ideas. I've been taking some notes, and I've sent some emails and had some conversations with people. So we will definitely see what comes out of it. Cool. Awesome. Well, I want to get into a few specifics about pens, papers, some of the similarities that some of the similar products we use, some of the disagreements that we have on products. You should have a tag on your blog about calling Brad out on his post, and we're going to get into that.

Ana Reinert: I've only really done that once.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I'm just playing with you. It was actually like the gentlest, nicest calling out ever. So we'll talk about that. But why don't we let Myke pay some bills real quick if you're ready for it, Mr. Hurley?

Myke Hurley: Always ready.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: All right. Fire away.

Myke Hurley: So I want to take a quick moment to thank our friends over at Squarespace.com who make this show possible, and they give you everything you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace is a fully hosted, completely managed environment that allows you to create and maintain a beautiful website, blog, or portfolio. They give you all of the tools that you need, no matter how experienced you may be, with building websites to put something amazing online. You don't have to worry about hosting, integrating with other services, scaling. You don't have to worry about finding a designer either. They have beautiful themes. Their templates are fantastic. They all feature responsive web design. This means that they'll look fantastic no matter what device somebody is coming to you from, whether that's a mobile device or a much larger screen like a tablet or even like a laptop and bigger and bigger and bigger. Their sites, they reformat to look fantastic. They have a drag and drop platform which allows you to create pages. So if you want to create a custom layout for any or all of your pages, you can do that using their drag and drop tools. So you select what types of content you want to be on the page, like photos, text, social media content even. You can drag and drop them around. It's very, very simple. They have 24-7 customer support. They have statistics that are built right into Squarespace. So you can see who's coming to your site and where they're coming from. And when Brad ever decides that he wants to start selling things through penaddict.com, he can do that with Squarespace Commerce. Because with Squarespace Commerce, you now have all of the tools that you need to build a fully integrated store into your Squarespace site. You can sell physical or digital goods. You can manage all of your inventory right in your Squarespace site in the back end. So you can see what you can just enter in what you've got inventory wise. And as things are sold, it will take it down for you, which is very awesome. They have auto processing. You can print packing slips directly from Squarespace, create customizable emails and much, much more. And if you want to build a store, this is the place to go. I want you to go and find out more and sign up for a free trial. Go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. That's 70-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S. And if you want to sign up for a Squarespace plan after your trial period is over, their plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan and $20 a month for their unlimited plan. That's all inclusive, all hosting and everything. If you sign up for a year, you'll get 20% off that price. If you sign up for two years, you'll get 25% off. And don't forget to use the code 70decibels5 at 70-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S. And the number five, this will give you an additional 10% off your first order. And it will also let Squarespace know that you found out about them through this show. So thank you very much to Squarespace for their continued support.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Thank you, Squarespace.

Ana Reinert: All right, Anna. I have to say that my site would be hosted on Squarespace, except that my company has a firewall that blocks it.

Myke Hurley: That is horrible.

Ana Reinert: Yes. It does not block Blogger, Facebook, or WordPress. But for some reason, they have a thing against Squarespace. Sorry about that, guys.

Myke Hurley: That is a travesty. I'm going to write a letter.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to write it on one of those three-by-five index cards and mail it in.

Myke Hurley: You can write just one letter on each, and then they'll piece them all together, and they'll get a very strongly worded note from Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's right. I'll write. I'll do my best, you know, Hallmark card. You know, roses are red. Violets are blue. Stop blocking Squarespace. I hate you. I don't know. I don't know.

Ana Reinert: That's beautiful. And actually, after listening to your podcast, I did actually sign up for Squarespace, and I went through and got the account and everything, paid for a year in advance, and got to work, realized I could not check comments or anything like that during the day. It was totally blocked, and I called Squarespace, and I said, I am in this really awful jam. Can you help me out? And they refunded my money and were very sweet, so good customers.

Myke Hurley: Oh, that's awesome. That's a great story. See? Squarespace is awesome. We love it.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, Ana, we talked about some topics that we want to discuss, you know, on this podcast, and I thought you had a great topic that I've always wanted to explore more, and you have more experience in this realm than I do, and that's finding the best paper for fountain pen usage. And, you know, Myke and I talk about things all the time, like, you know, even before the episode when we were just chatting before we talked about it, you know, Myke, it's convenient for Myke to use Moleskine's at work. It's good. It's very portable. You use your fountain pens in it, Myke. You use, you know, the Bold, Twisby's, or whichever one you're using now. I guess you're probably using the Rock now a lot, too, huh?

Notebook Paper

Myke Hurley: That's what I use all day, every day.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, in the Retro 51s. But you use them in a Moleskine, and, you know, that's your primary paper for your fountain pen usage. For me, I'd say most of the time it's Rhodia. I mean, I know I'm known as the dome paper guy, and I use it, you know, for all my gel pens, ballpoint pens, pencils, everything goes in dome paper. But for fountain pens, I like the performance of Rhodia better. Now, Anna, you've tried way more than those type of things. So let's talk about that a little bit. What do you find that's good and bad about different brands and with different fountain pens and things like that as far as paper goes?

Ana Reinert: Well, for me, it's a cost-value kind of thing. And also, I'm also left-handed, like Myke. So I have other issues that sometimes come up, which is that some of the really high-end papers, like Clairefontaine, the ink sits up so well on the paper that even quick-drying inks take too long to dry. And I end up smearing what I've written and have it all over my hand. So the Clairefontaine, I haven't written the review yet, but I just got the 1951 books because they were in green. And they're beautiful. They're great little kind of mini notebooks, great for like work projects and things like that. But for me with fountain pens, I don't think I'm going to be able to use fountain pens with them because the ink takes so long to dry. It's great. And I think for a right-handed person, they would be awesome because they're like $4 a piece. So like cost-value, really good for individual projects or if you want a specific notebook, just a test inks or something. But for me, the paper's too good. So I have to kind of make a trade-off. I have, ever since you had mentioned the Piccadillies, I had been looking for one. And I finally got one. And for me, it hits a real sweet spot that the paper is a little bit thicker than what's in a Moleskine. But I don't have as much issue with inks drying because it is a little bit more absorbent. And you can't beat the price point. They're like $5 to the equivalent Moleskine, which is almost $20.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. And I think that's why you use the Moleskines, right, Myke? Because being left-handed, it's a more absorbent paper. It really helps in that aspect, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean, I don't have any issue with them. I've been using – I was using Moleskines before I really started to get into this stuff. So I didn't really feel that there was an issue. And then after I started branching out, certain paper types weren't being so kind to me. I mean, Rodeo was excellent. And as I said, I'll probably – I definitely will go back to Rodeo at some point. But I don't know when that will be. And field notes was a problem. But as we discussed with the most recent, that's not been the case. Like the paper that they've currently got in the America the Beautiful set is very kind to Fountain Pen.

Ana Reinert: I was very impressed with the paper in those field notes. I was very excited. I don't know if you guys know, but I'm actually friends with one of the guys who works. For field notes. And so he and I have talked back and forth over the years about what they've been doing. And I sent him a very nice email about how awesome I thought the new ones were.

Myke Hurley: I love them. I love the design. But the paper thickness and just the quality of the paper is perfect. It's perfect. And if they continue to make these, I will continue to be very, very happy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I've been talking about it for weeks about how I did some Fountain Pen ink tests on the America's Beautiful edition versus just one of the basic editions. And I finally just got around to taking the pictures for the post. So hopefully in another week or so, I'll get around to editing that and posting that. Because I know I've been talking about that for a while. And there is a good difference. And that actually prompted me. And I told Myke this offline. I'm just, I need to make, I'm making a chart of all, you know, going back and looking. Since all the paper information is in the back of all the field notes, books, I'm just going to make a chart for everyone. Because people started asking, well, once this America's Beautiful edition came out with a different paper weight, paper density, they started questioning, well, what's in these other ones. So I'm putting together a spreadsheet that I'll share with everyone once I get it fully populated with all the paper information of all the notebooks they're releasing. And there's a pretty wide range so far that I've found, which I didn't realize before until this one really piqued my interest with the really heavier paper. So that's pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: Funny thing about that, and this is a little behind the scenes, to mine and Brad's conversations, and also a bit of insight into the type of person that Brad is. I had to help him with some of them because he wouldn't open some of the packs if he's filled notes. And he knew that I would, so I had to fill in some gaps for him because he has some packs which are unopened that he refuses to open. So I either had to open mine, which I'm fine with, or just get the right ones for him.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep, and there's going to be a few more coming too.

Brad Dowdy: That's great. That's great. So now there's, I guess the easiest way to say it, there's a new kid on the block in the fountain pen world that I've been hearing about and you've been hearing about. It's called Tomo River Paper. I'm assuming I'm pronouncing that right. I've never heard it been said out loud other than reading, but it's T-O-M-O-E, right, I believe?

Ana Reinert: I don't think I've heard of them.

Brad Dowdy: Have you heard of this? You haven't heard of this. Okay, so it's this, I don't know how to explain it. It's like, it's like if you were wrapping a present and you know like the, you know, the white paper that you've stuffed in the, you know, like in the box or something, just kind of like the filler paper, that really thin, thin, thin white paper. Well, this paper, it's this Japanese paper, and we'll put a link in the show notes. It's, there's a website that everyone keeps pointing to. It's called Nanami Paper, N-A-N-A-M-I paper.com. And they sell, it's called Tomo River. And it is, one of the listeners, Rachel, hi, Rachel, thank you for sending me samples of this Tomo River paper. It looks like you would not be able to write on it at all. It's so thin and so fine, but apparently it handles the paper that handles the fountain pen ink just like incredibly, incredibly well. And it turns out it's used in lots of, I think in some diaries in Japan, some planners, I think it might be Hobo Natchi. I think they might use the Tomo River paper. But this stuff will blow your mind. So you have to check this out. And I haven't done a review on it yet. But it's, it's like, it's really hard to explain. And that's why I keep struggling with it. It's, it's like Kleenex thin. I mean, it's that light, that thin. It looks terrible. It looks terrible. And it feels terrible. It's like this crinkly paper. But when you put your pen on it, it doesn't bleed through. It doesn't spread. It's, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of tracing paper. That's what it reminds me of.

Ana Reinert: And I was actually going to say, this is sort of how I came to fountain pens in the first place, is that one of the things that I like to do at work is actually do hand lettering. And so I kind of came to fountain pens because I had been using flexible nib dip pens. And we have a whole department of people who are incredible lettering artists that do all of this hand calligraphy. When you see it on a greeting card from Hallmark, nine times out of ten, it was hand lettered. So someone sat down with literally a piece of this. And most of the lettering artists do work on what's either called marker paper, which is a little bit more opaque than tracing paper, or they work on tracing paper because it does, the ink does sit up on the paper, but it takes a long time to dry. Right.

Ana Reinert: So, again, for lefties, it's a challenge. But for right-handed people, it may work really well if you're willing to sort of wait for the dry time.

Myke Hurley: Yes, I'm putting a link in the show notes to a fountain, FP Geeks, Fountain Pen Geeks review of the Turbo. And they have like a – it looks pretty extensive. And one of the images that they have is of dry time with different pens and different inks. And it looks terrible. Like it looks like it just doesn't dry for like half a minute in some cases. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So maybe for a lefty it might not be so good. But it's a fascinating looking and feeling paper. I haven't done a review on it yet. But yeah, what were you going to say, Anna?

Fountain Pen Geeks

Ana Reinert: Oh, I was going to say the review on Fountain Pen Geeks was actually by Aziza, who is somebody that I follow a lot on Twitter. She does some great fountain pen reviews and stuff too. So if anybody hasn't read her yet, we will – I'll find her website and put it in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's gourmetpens.com. Aziza is a great friend of Pen Addict. She does some awesome reviews. And now that you say that, we're going to have to get her on this show. Yeah.

Ana Reinert: She's on Fountain Pen Geeks podcast now. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And she does some of the fountain pens TV and all that stuff. So they're doing a good job over there.

Myke Hurley: I really like her Instagram.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. She does a good job. And she's the one – I give her a hard time because I guess it was her husband that gifted her every color of Oro Shizuku ink. And it was like the coolest thing ever. She like took a picture of every bottle like on the shelf. I was like, oh my gosh.

Ana Reinert: I saw the pictures but I didn't hear the explanation for how she acquired all of those.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I think her husband – I don't know if it was a birthday or anniversary present or something. But that was one of the coolest things I've seen on her blog. I was like, wow. Now that's a gift.

Ana Reinert: That's impressive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's cool. So I've got this Tomo River paper and it looks silly. It looks ridiculous. And it's just getting rave reviews. I've got to try it. So I will work on a review for it. You know, it doesn't come in any other format right now other than like these loose leaf sheets like you see in their review. And I know there's someone that's buying these and binding them into journals and things like that. I forget his name. But I'll put it in the show notes if I can think of it. And he's – Julie at pens, paper, inks, whatever has done a review of this product, this journal that this guy is making with this Tomo River paper. But anyway, if any listeners out there have used the Tomo, I'd like to hear – shoot me an email or a tweet and just let me know your feedback on it, what you think of it and how it's doing.

Brad Dowdy: So one thing you mentioned just a second ago, Ana, was the hand lettering. And I wanted to mention his name, and I'm blanking on it. But there's – I know I follow someone I've had conversations with on Twitter several times, one of the calligraphers at Hallmark. Is it Josh?

Ana Reinert: Yeah, Josh Scruggs.

Brad Dowdy: Josh Scruggs, yeah.

Ana Reinert: He's actually one of the type development designers at Hallmark. So he actually takes – he does his own hand lettering, but he also takes lettering that other people have done and converts it into fonts. So we actually have our own font development team, which is my dream job.

Brad Dowdy: So – yeah, that's pretty cool. Just saying.

Brad Dowdy: I'll tweet Josh. But he's a super nice guy. Yeah. And he's active on Twitter. So I'll find his Twitter name. We'll put that in the show notes. I'll go stalk him. But Josh is a good guy. And he's done some stuff for JetPens years ago doing some calligraphy samples and things like that. So he's a really good guy. Really good guy.

Ana Reinert: Yeah, he does beautiful lettering.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So another thing, and you mentioned it, and we mentioned it before last week when we were just talking on our own, that one thing that's difficult, and it came up earlier talking about index cards, you mentioned Post-it notes.

Post-it Notes

Brad Dowdy: And I hate Post-it notes. And not for their utility. Their utility is awesome, but it's some of the worst paper ever. There's no pens that work on Post-it notes that I think – except maybe a Sharpie. They – it's like they're coded. They reject ink very well. So is there something besides a Post-it, besides an index card? Have you found anything like that that's good?

Ana Reinert: I really have not. And, you know, I've looked at other companies. I know that, like, companies like Chronicle Books often do really nicely designed Post-it notes that, you know, are created by artists and things like that. And they stick terribly. They resist ink. I've just had no luck. Like, Cavallini does the same thing. It's just – if anybody out there knows of, like, the world's best Post-it notes, we want to know about it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We were talking about that offline, and we couldn't come up with anything. And I think the reason is they have to have that adhesive on the back. So the coating on the writing piece of the paper has to be, you know, able to stick, you know, to make that pad together. So I think it just turns into just, like, tragically bad paper to write on.

Ana Reinert: And I'm wondering if it's one of those things where you have to go really old school and get that, you know, that tamping powder that comes in the little, like, cheesecloth bag. And you have to, like, tap the paper first to, like, remove the film or the oil and create a new surface out of it. But I'm like, really? Who has time to do that with a Post-it note?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're not going to go – I'm not going to go medieval on my Post-it note.

Ana Reinert: I think that should be the title.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's a good one.

Brad Dowdy: And then another thing I wrote down while – just while we were talking, and I forget – you're into so much stuff. And we could talk for hours and hours and hours. But one of the other things that I'm just starting to get into on my blog and in my fountain pen purchasing, and Myke's kind of getting the bug a little bit, but you're a lot more experienced, is in the area of vintage fountain pens. Like in Estabrook, when I was talking about buying an Estabrook, you were sending me all these links, and you've done all these reviews. And you buy a lot of vintage stuff, don't you?

Ana Reinert: I do. And actually, to be honest, I started in fountain pens with vintage Estabrooks.

Ana Reinert: One of the things that while I was learning to do hand lettering – and I'm still learning. I have by no means – you guys have seen my writing on the blog. I write terribly. But while I was learning, one of the things that is challenging is having to continually dip like a crow quill or a flexible nib repeatedly. And I was actually in practicing. So someone had suggested that I look at this vintage fountain pen that had a flexible nib. And then that way – the one thing I didn't have to worry about is how often I was dipping the nib into the ink to get ink on the paper. And that was my first – and then he showed me – he's one of my friends at work. His name is Rob. He showed me his – one of his vintage Estabrooks, and that was one of those beautiful sort of icicle ones. I think I put a picture up recently when we did our show at Hallmark of his tray of Estabrooks, which is glorious. That's right. This tray of maybe 30 or 40 Estabrooks in a range of colors. But he actually gave me one of the infamous flexible nibs. I think it's 9128 is the number on the nib to use. And so I went and bought a – I went on eBay and I found a pen that I could put the nib in because they're – that you can twist in different nibs. And that's one of the great appeal, and I think that's why Estabrooks were successful for so many years was that, you know, if you were in accounting, you could get a very firm, firm, fine nib. If you were, you know, somebody who was just addressing their, you know, thank you cards or something, you could get more of a decorative nib like a flexible or a stub. But, yeah, and then they were, you know, they were very inexpensive. They were often known as dollar pens, you know, because that's how much people paid for just a single pen. But, yeah, so that was actually how I got into fountain pens. And then I realized that maintaining an upkeep of an Estabrook was not conducive to sort of everyday use. Right. And so I started looking for, was there a modern pen, fountain pen that I liked using, and that sort of opened the floodgates. Now I have lots. But I do tend to stay on the cheaper end of fountain pens. I have not crossed the line into pens over $100. I'm having trouble with that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I used to be that way.

Myke Hurley: Brad doesn't have trouble with that.

Lefty Writing

Brad Dowdy: I used to be the worst, and I've been called out on it several times. It's like, you know, I can never see myself spending, I used to make comments all the time on the blog, I can never see myself spending that much money on a pen. I can't see myself spending that much money on a pen that I would never use. I would just sit there and collect dust, and now look at me. So, yeah, I've got a problem, that's for sure.

Ana Reinert: That's okay. It's a good problem to have.

Brad Dowdy: It is. It is a good problem to have.

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of problems, you've been a little bit of a thorn in my side in the past.

Myke Hurley: I don't need to be.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not. I say that in all of Justin, and Anna and I are the best of buds. But she likes to point out a few areas where she disagrees with me, and I think that's awesome. That's why, you know, writing about pens and paper, what you would think would be like the silliest thing ever, and no one would have a conversation about it. But it's a really personal thing, and what I like is not going to be what Myke likes or what Anna likes or what the listeners like. And, you know, we all have to, you know, adjust things to fit our particular situations. And, you know, like you've talked about, you know, I'll put a link in the show notes to where you, I did a, Myke and I did a podcast where we did a gift guide back in December. Or just, you know, just kind of touched on some basic, some main areas in pen purchasing, you know, beginner pens, fine pens, Kickstarter pens, things like that. And, you know, like some of the ones, like I put for a beginner fountain pen, like I put a Lamy Safari. But, you know, that's a pen that, like, you know, there's certain things about it, especially being an lefty, that you're not a huge fan of the Safari for like an entry level pen, right?

Ana Reinert: Personally, for me, no. And just for the record, when I listened to that podcast, I was literally yelling, like, what are you guys talking about? That's not the only option. And, yeah, so that's why I had to write the post, like, right then and there. I was like, I'm sorry, but I got to put my two cents in here. But for me, and actually, it was funny because I thought of that post. And so I pulled my, I have a Lamy All-Star, which is the same as the Safari, only it's in an aluminum case. Case, body. I pulled it out. I tried it one more time. And that thing still gives me nothing but trouble. And so I think for some left-handers, it's just, it's harder to get just the proper angle with those. And so my instinct on that is it's not necessarily the first pen I would recommend to someone who is left-handed. And I also think that there are, you know, it's one of those, like, pros and cons things where it's nice that the Lamy's, you can switch out the nibs very easily. For maybe, what, $10 or $15, you can swap out nibs. So it's, you know, it's not a huge investment if you discover that medium is way too broad for you or the extra fine is too fine. And you can, you know, adjust that. But, yeah, it is not my favorite pen. I'm sorry. I think they're pretty. I love all the bright colors. But, yeah, that's not, I'm actually thinking I'm going to unload that on somebody. Anybody want it?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. Do you have the lime green one? Certainly you can't give that up.

Ana Reinert: I don't. Actually, mine is sort of a blue-gray metallic.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Oh, that's right, the AL star. Gotcha. So what do you recommend since we've got you and the other super lefty and Myke? What do you recommend for left-handed users? This is a question I get constantly, and I'm sure you get it quite a bit too. It's, you know, what are good fountain pens for lefties? What are good pens for lefties? Do you have some particular favorites?

Myke Hurley: I was just about to say, because I just put this in the notes here. Yeah, because we have always said that we would love to do, and this is right back from the start, a lefty-righty episode. We've never done it. So I would propose, lady and gentleman, that we have Anna back at some point in the very near future to talk about this. And I don't know, Anna, maybe you, I don't know if you know off the top of your head, but you might want to prepare papers and pens that you would suggest for a left-handed person. Okay. Because I think that that would be very, very useful, because people have always asked for that. And also as well, I think it would be good, because I think between left-handed people and right-handed people, there are far more differing writing styles in left-handed people. Because the safari, I have no problem with. So what I will do as well for that episode, if Anna, you're willing to oblige, I will take a picture of how I hold my pen to put for that episode. Because I think there's some very interesting sort of little points to that, which could make it very different. So if you would both agree, I think that would be a lot of fun.

Ana Reinert: Absolutely. And I can share a picture of my wonky writing style, too, if you guys want to see what I look like when I write.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we'll all do it. We'll all put something together for that episode, and we'll work on that.

Brad Dowdy: I'll spearhead that, and we'll put some topics together, and we'll do a full lefty versus righty episode. Although it's going to be two versus one. I'm not sure. I like that.

Myke Hurley: Cool. Well, maybe we'll have to find somebody else for you. But left-handed people are so, you know, we are so underrepresented. Maybe it's about time that we get, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So that'll even it up a little bit. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Cool.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, cool. Well, we'll plan on that. So one more thing I want to challenge Anna on is her, you know, I know she loves everyone who reads Anna's blog. She's a huge fan of green, and I love green, and lime green and everything. And then she caught an episode of Pilot Metropolitan. Well, I wasn't bagging on green. I was bagging on gold. So she went out and maliciously ordered a Pilot Metropolitan in the gold just because I wouldn't order it.

Brad Dowdy: So she gave me a hard time about that. So I can't do it. There's no way I could own that pen.

Ana Reinert: Okay, two points. One, it was the only one left on JetPens.

Myke Hurley: That's why I've got the gold one as well. Yeah, both of y'all.

Ana Reinert: And the second, it's really not as bad as you would think. It is a brushed gold metallic, and it writes so well I can sort of overlook. It's lovely on the inside.

Myke Hurley: There you go. You may have heard the episode, Anna, but I wonder if you agree with me. It writes very well, but there isn't enough to that pen that blew me away. I was very impressed with it, but I wasn't very like, wow, this is the best thing ever.

Ana Reinert: It is very much. And I think we've both had enough experience with a lot of different kinds of pens, higher end, lower end. But to be honest, it's one of the pens that I would recommend to someone who is saying, I'm just getting into fountain pens. Can you recommend something that's going to write well? It's going to be easy to use. I would actually, you know, I mean, for $20, basically, you can get the pen and a converter for it. It writes really well. It's not super pretty. It's not super fancy. But for the price point, especially for somebody, you know, for guys, for people with larger hands, you know, I mean, to most girls, I will recommend a Kaweco Sport in a heartbeat. It's small. It fits in your pocket. It's they write beautifully. They're $20, $25. Just an exceptionally easy to use entry level. But actually, the Pilot Metropolitan, I, you know, again, it's not, you don't have the range of colors and options that you would with like a Lamy. But you're right. It's just kind of a very aesthetically, it's just kind of middle of the road. Maybe if we both had like the silver one or the black one, we would have different feelings about it. Yeah. The gold is just.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I'm holding out for. But you're right. This is a huge value proposition pen. And I think that's why it's getting such rave reviews, right? Because it writes wonderfully. It's got, you know, I love Pilot nibs. So I know I'm going to like it when I get it, but I'm just holding out just because they haven't been in stock. And I refused to buy the gold one because I'll review it and I'll never use it again. And that's a pen I want to use, want to use in the future because, yeah, it looks pretty cool. And I think it is going to be one of those pens that gets recommended a lot for an entry-level fountain pen.

Fine Nibs

Ana Reinert: And like you, Brad, I really like fine nibs. You know, I go for the 0.3, you know, in my gel pens and stuff. But this is a medium nib and I don't have issues with it. It's a little bit wider than I'm accustomed to, but not so much that it makes me not want to use it. So, I mean, I think it hits a sweet spot and I think for a lot of people it would be a very comfortable pen to use.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and we're going to link your review in the show notes. And your writing sample, the medium, it's a very fine line, which is, you know, we talk about all the time the difference between Japanese and German nibs. So I think it looks great. I could even swing a medium in this with no issues at all. So, yeah, it looks really good. It looks really good. So, I think we've covered it today. Wow. This has been a fun episode and something I definitely wanted to do for a long time. And, you know, we're definitely going to have you back soon. And we'll definitely get – we'll work on this lefty-righty episode. I think that will be fun. And I'll have to see if I can get some backup on this one and see what we can do. But regardless, I loved having you. I definitely want to have you back again, hopefully frequently. Thank you. We can talk about all kinds of different things. I thought you were fantastic. Yeah, I agree. And I think the listeners are going to love hearing you and love this episode. So thank you so much.

Ana Reinert: Great. Thank you so much for having me.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely.

Myke Hurley: And I tell people where they can find you online.

Ana Reinert: I can be found online at my blog at wellappointeddesk.com. You can find me on Twitter at wellapptdesk.com. And you can find me on app.net at Anna, A-N-A.

Myke Hurley: And Brad is dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y, on app.net, dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, on Twitter. He also writes, of course, at penaddict.com. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you very much for listening to episode 54 of the Pen Addict podcast. We'll be back next week. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.