The Pen Addict 595/transcript

From RelayFM, this is the Pen Addict episode 595. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, ShipStation, and Factor. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Brad Dowdy.

Hi, Brad. Hi, Myke. How are you? I'm good. Well, a little sad today, a little jealous, envious. I listened to last week's episode today. Great conversation with you and Toasty, but it didn't make me feel good. You know what I mean?

I'm just like, oh. Because in another timeline, me and you went to Japan last year. That was the original plan. 10-year anniversary, go to Japan, but then that all got derailed, and now here we are. And I really want to go to Japan.

And hearing all of those stories, just made me want to go even more. Yeah, so you actually weren't in Japan last week. Correct. Unfortunately, but we did talk about Toasty's amazing stationary adventures. How fun was that episode?

That was great. Just listening to all that. I mean, that's a five or six hour episode in the making, like if we had that opportunity. Just, if you haven't gone through and checked out her Instagram, just like the photos and the whole trip and everything that she put together was really great.

So I was glad we got to sit and talk about it for a little bit because it truly, truly was great and lots of great feedback on that one. So thank you, Toasty Treat, for sharing some time with me, telling me about your travels in Japan and making Myke and I immensely jealous.

Indeed. So obviously, we've had some weird scheduling the last few weeks. We're going to talk about where I was last week, but there is one more scheduling item and I think we should then be cleared up. We won't be recording next week. So we're going to be taking Christmas week off.

The show will be back on the 3rd of January. So we'll be off the last week of the year because we no longer have to try and line things up so we can take a break. We used to do this. Then there was a couple of, I think it was at least one year, maybe two, where we realized if we just did a show every single week, we'd line up exactly episode 500 with the 10 year anniversary of the show.

I think it was 500, right? It was, it was. So like it would have been the exact day, the exact day, the exact anniversary to record the 500th episode as long as we didn't take a week off, which we rarely do. But I am glad we do like the end of the year, like the week off, like it's totally good, like it's proper and it's what we should do.

But we did, we did do some advanced math and like, oh yeah, we need to keep going. And there was actually a little pressure there. It's like, don't get sick. Don't get sick. Don't get sick. Yes. But we did it.

So that was fun. That was fun. So yes, we will be off next week. We'll be back on January the 3rd. And that leads into the next topic.

I just wanted to give a shout out to one of your other shows, Cortex. Was this actually episode 150 of Cortex? Yes, it was. Yeah. Which is hilarious. So that's a good convenient, yeah, good convenient round number there for your yearly themes edition with Gray. I want you to talk about that, but without telling your theme, and then we'll revisit that with a good reason coming January 3rd.

So tell me about that episode real quick. Yeah, a number of years ago now, probably like five or six years ago, Gray and I started the yearly themes idea for Cortex, where this is the thing that Gray had started doing himself, and then we adapted it together and grew it into this idea where instead of setting resolutions at the start of the year, you set a theme.

Because resolutions, they suck, frankly, because they are fixed things that you can succeed or fail on, and a theme is more of a guide. So for example, if you had said, I want to read five books this year, that's your resolution. If you read four books, you failed, but you read four books, which is great.

So if instead you were doing a year of reading, then reading those four books, that's all upside. And like, let's just say, imagine something happened halfway through the year, a new career opportunity came up for you, but it required reading technical papers. Well, you could include that in your year of reading, that would not be part of a resolution.

Like a yearly theme is like a guide, it draws you through a year, it's something you can keep coming back to, right? And you can help it make, you can use your theme to help you make decisions. So Gray and I set a theme for ourselves every year, which kind of encompasses our working life and our personal life, sometimes one or the other, sometimes both.

And on the yearly themes episode, we talk about and review our previous year. So we review 2023, and how our themes were for 2023. Mine was the year of the weekend. And then we look forward and set our themes for 2024, which as we said, I won't spoil yet in case you do want to go listen to the episode.

And we kind of look forward to what the year is going to be. And then over time, we created the theme system journal, which is a loosely guided experience for you to help you stay on track with the themes, right? So if you write down what your theme is, then you have journaling pages where you write every day with the idea being that if you're writing in your theme system journal, you should be reflecting on your yearly theme and using it as a guide to kind of move you through the course of the year.

So, but I really recommend the themes episode. It's one of my favorite episodes of anything that I do in the year. And this one was really interesting. There's like a bigger side in the middle of it where Gray is kind of like talking about something that he's been thinking about as a content creator.

So it's a very interesting episode that I think you might dig. Yeah. So I think it's kind of like the main kind of crossover episode, even if you're not a regular Cortex listener, but you're a Panatic listener and you're into stationery and you're into journaling and planning and thinking about these things.

It's very helpful in the context of this show as we talk about, you know, all the uses for our different stuff. And a lot of us are tracking things or journaling things and planning things. So it's a good crossover. So coming up on our next episode, which again, we're off next week.

So January 3rd, when we're in the new year, we'll do our stationary resolutions, even though it's not really like resolutions, like we're avoiding for the themes. We're just like our kind of our ideas for stationary in 2024. So if you have any ideas or stationary resolutions that you're working on for 2024, I'd like to hear them.

And I'd like to, you know, maybe read some on the show. So where can people send those comments to us, Myke? Send them in at penaddictfeedback.com. You can just select follow up or whatever you want, but just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send them in there.

So we'll do our stationary resolutions first week of January. And I'm curious to what everyone else is thinking about coming up for this next year. So I'm curious what I'm thinking about. Me too. It always, it always sneaks up on you.

And there's, and I talk about this throughout the year. It's like, I'm always changing my systems or changing how I'm thinking about, you know, buying things or using things. And I think it's important for us to talk about, especially like as it relates to the stationary landscape as a whole and your personal stationary usage and all the things like that.

So with that out of the way, I wasn't sure we were going to approach this topic today, even though I knew why you were off last week. I didn't know if this was going to be a topic for our show, but it turns out it might be the best topic for our show.

So let me let you, let me let you describe what you did last week. So there is more detail to this in the Cortex episode that we mentioned, but last week I was, I went to college last week. I did a short course at the University of Arts in London called Introduction to Product Design.

So obviously this is where my life has taken me over the last few years, purposely and intentionally moving more into thinking about products, how to make them, how they impact people. And I find myself in situations now where I'm talking with people who have much more base knowledge than me and I've gone through mostly okay, but I would like to feel more confident.

And so I thought one of the ways to do this is to try and learn. And I found that these were a thing you could do. You can pay a fee. It was expensive, but not crazy.

It was like 700 pounds. And you have, I was part of a small class with a tutor for five days at the college. That was really important to me. I wanted to be able to immerse myself in it.

You can do some of these things over Zoom and you can do like a couple of hours a week, but that, that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to actually go and immerse myself. And I was even more so actually the, the building was all like concrete and stuff.

And when I was actually in the classroom, I didn't get cell service, but there was wifi, but I never connected to it. So for the entire time that I was in the classroom, I had no one could get in contact with me. And that was like an intentional choice that I decided to keep.

And so basically I would only come up for air once at lunchtime during the day and then would again after the class was over. So this was something I'd been, I booked it a few months ago. I'd been really looking forward to it. And it was fantastic.

Like we did a lot of things that were like, we just talk. The main thing that I took away was I just loved being in that environment and just thinking about design. And it was just so fun and interesting. And obviously in a week, there's only so much you can do, right?

So effectively we, we spoke about design, like what is design? Well, you know, like it was a small group that we're kind of just talking about what design means to us. What product design means to us, what our preferences are. Then we did a little technical drawing and storyboarding and orthographic drawing.

And then the last two days we ended up building, we drew out an idea and then built a model of it in card. And it was a light. We had to build like a lamp of some description. And so that, it was really interesting to go from like ideation to technical drawing to storyboarding.

The storyboarding, you use it to like show how someone might use it in their life to then getting like a bunch of card, some scissors, craft knives, and a hot glue gun. It was the first time I've ever used a hot glue gun. I realized I've just never used one before.

And built a little model at the end of it of a little lamp or a little light, like a work light that I built. It was fantastic. But, and we can talk about it more if you want to, but the reason I wanted to bring it up specifically on the show is we had a required materials list.

Yeah. Which included a lot of stationery, including some things. School supplies, baby. Exactly. Some things I never even knew existed, which I had, I didn't understand what they were, but I bought them and now I understand what they are. And then I also took some stuff of my own.

So we can get into that, but I wondered if you, if you had any questions for me first. I do, but I think it's going to be for after the supplies list in more of a general broader scope. So yes, I do. So I'll tell you that these are the list, the list of things that we were told to bring was kind of like, and I'll tell you more about what I chose, like some scissors, knives, a ruler, like a craft knife, a ruler, coloring pencils.

And the first thing I'll talk about, which is an A4 layout pad. I didn't know what that meant. Like in my mind, it was like, well, you know, it's just like a A4 pad of paper. I'd never heard of layout paper before.

Are you familiar with layout paper? Do you know what it is? Not really. I am, I'm looking at it now. So I, if you would have told me this, I, this is not what I would have, would have come up with.

Yeah. Basically what it is, it's just, it's just thin. And the reason you want it to be thin is so you can trace really easily, but it's not tracing paper. It's just a very thin, regular paper. So like, you know, it takes to pens and pencils and all that kind of stuff as a piece of paper would, but it's very thin.

So obviously like it really does, it bleeds through. Anything you put on there will show through to the other side. But that doesn't matter because the real key is like, for example, if you've like sketched something out, right? And then you want to show it neater or show it in a storyboard or adapt it.

You can very easily trace through the paper. That's all. That's why like apparently it's used by a lot of product designers for this reason. Like it's very easy to iterate a design using a layout pad because the paper is thin enough that you can just keep tracing over and over and over again.

Yeah. It's basically a way to get like depths and layers that you add on a digital layout. Like if you're designing your lamp problem, right? You would have an under layer of like the bulb or the lighting system and then a layer on the top that would be like the shade or the cover or things like that.

And you can continually test these things on top of each other, right? Just bringing them back and forth. Yeah. That's pretty cool. No, I did not realize that this was a thing, to be honest. So that's great. We needed like felt pens, like ink pens. So like fineliners.

And they gave us like we needed a 0.1 millimeter, a 0.5 and a 0.7. Yeah. I love how specific they are. Yeah. I don't know. Having done the course, I don't know why they were so specific. I used all three though.

Like it was useful to me in my technical drawing, but they never told us to use one or the other. But I think it's just because they know that these are probably the ones you're going to need. And I went with Copic Multiliner SP for mine. I have so many questions about this.

Have you ever used one of these before? Because this is one of my favorite pens of all time. Yeah. I've used the Copic. I don't know if I've used the SP.

The SP in particular. Yes. Yeah. It was. It's fantastic. Oh, yeah. They're crazy expensive. Yes. They're so expensive. But they're so good. As you'll see through this stuff, I decided to treat myself when it came to. Because here's the thing.

I was going to have the opportunity to buy and use stationery that I never do. And so I was like, well, I'm going to get good stuff. Yeah. It was like. Yeah. The layout pad wasn't expensive. I went with something from a company called Daler Rowney.

But I found stuff that was way cheaper than the four pound that I paid. But it's like, no, I'm going to pay that. I'm going to get the nicer ones. It's the same. It's like the multiliner is like eight pounds each.

Yeah. I kind of decided to. It's like with all of the stuff that I use. I use nice products. Because if I use the nice products, I'm more likely to use them.

That's the thing that we're always talking about. And so I wanted to get nice stuff. Because then I was going to be more likely to use that stuff. And that's how it ended up working out for me.

And I thought it was really cool to have these nice things. And yeah, the multiliner, the Copic multiliner is pretty cool. Did you get all black on those? All three of those colors black?

Yeah. Yeah. I figured. But yeah. They didn't specify. But that seemed like what they would have wanted. Do you know? Sure. Sure. Yeah. Love them. They wanted coloring pencils. And so I went with Caran D'Ache Prismello coloring pencils. I didn't particularly care about the Prismello thing. This is like.

They're like. They can also be watercolor pencils. Gotcha. That's what this range is. But I ended up just going with like. I know Caran D'Ache products are good.

And the colors were good. And I found a pretty decent deal on like a box of 12. I think I went with. Okay. And so. Yeah. And they were really great.

Like I was happy that I did that. Because I also. With what I was doing. I needed red, yellow, and orange. And the box that I had.

Had like two reds. I got an 18 pack. It had like two reds and stuff. So it ended up being pretty good for what I needed.

So I was happy that I actually went with the larger box. And I really only did it because I got a good deal on it. But I ended up with like a few shades of some colors. Which was pretty helpful for what I was trying to achieve. Yeah.

I haven't tested these out. Because I'm pretty set in my color pencil ways. Like once you find a set that you like. You don't use. You know. At least I don't.

As not an artist or designer. You don't wear them out like you might other products. So you kind of stick with them. But these look interesting to try at least.

I decided to get an eraser. And just so I would have something just more sturdy. And I went with the Tombow Mono Zero eraser. And I got a lot of use out of this thing.

Yeah. So I was very happy with this. Number one eraser suggestion in the world of all time. Yeah. Without question. In any format. Like you have like the pen style. But you can just.

Their blocks are fine too. Yeah. I think when I was buying. Like I bought some of this stuff from Colt Pants. I think I just like.

Sorted by most popular. When it came to stuff like the eraser. Yep. We needed a ruler. And I went with the Midori multi ruler.

Because I thought it would be helpful. And it was. I'm laughing so hard. Because. Like two weeks ago. We did this whole ruler.

Display. On Twitch. And this is the ruler. I decided I need to buy. So how did it work for you? Oh it was fantastic.

I mean it's really well made. And it's very simple. I mean the fact that it's just plastic. Is helpful. And. But the fact that I could use it.

As a 30 centimeter ruler. But also could just use it. As a smaller ruler. Was like very helpful.

For what I was drawing. So it wasn't so cumbersome. The angles. I actually used a little bit. Like to. To just try and apply.

Try and like draw stuff out. But not massively. The only thing I'll say. Is like because it does bend in the middle. If you're drawing a 30 centimeter line.

Sometimes you do get a little kink. In the line at the middle. Gotcha. You know. Because like. If it's not perfectly flat. Which it kind of never really is.

You know. If you're drawing straight the way down. You might get like a tiny bump. But realistically. Okay. That's not that important. I needed a knife.

And some scissors. And I found. Something I just thought. Was interesting. I thought was interesting. I thought was interesting. Called the slice. Ceramic precision knife. And the slice ceramic scissors.

So the ceramic blades. Which I thought might be kind of cool. To try that thing out. The precision knife. Was a little weird.

It's like. You're supposed to put your finger through this hole in the middle. Like. I should have just got the craft knife. I literally hate this concept. Yeah. I did. I'll tell you right now.

This was not good. And what I ended up doing. Was kind of like. Gripping the whole thing in my hand.

And using it. Just around it. Yeah. Staying away from the loop. Yeah. When I was like. When I was buying it. I didn't see that this company.

Just also makes craft knives. And I. And I should have got those. Because I would have been way happier. With just a craft knife.

Like. I have like an exacto knife. At the studio. But I kind of. Like. I'm carrying it around. Backwards and forwards each day.

Like. I actually didn't want. A blade blade. In my bag. Right. Right. Right. And. You know. These are. They still do the job. But they're not a shop. Right. So I thought I would go with that.

And. No. I should have just got the craft knife. You would have to have. Like. A very specific. And. Almost static. Use case for this. Like. There's not a lot of.

I don't know. Like. It doesn't. It doesn't seem like. There's a lot of flexibility. And angles. And cutting styles. It feels very rigid. And like. You would have to like.

Work around. You also kind of. Can't put the pressure. On the knife. That you need to. Yeah. Because like. Really strange. With the craft knives.

Like. The professor. This looks like a problem. The advisor. I can't really think about. To call the guy. He. He would suggest. Like. Stand up. And put your weight on it.

Right. Like. To really cut through. Sure. A piece of card. You know. Like. And you can't do that with this. You know. Yeah. This looks like a good product.

For the design class. Because I think this would. This would. It's such. It's so small in scope. Compared to like. What the. It's like fixing a problem.

That doesn't need to be fixed. Honestly. This was. This is an over-engineered thing. Yeah. Wow. I've never seen this before. Yeah. The scissors were cool.

And their knives. Their knives look cool. And I would prefer. One of those. Than this. I've used this company's box cutters before. Okay. And so. Yeah. They make interesting products.

Everything else looks good. Yeah. I do recommend their product. I'm actually gonna. When my Keen comes. I'm gonna buy some ceramic blades from them.

And see how they fit in it. Because. Gotcha. That might be kind of cool and interesting. Not necessarily. Like. I actually just think the regular blades are better. But. Because they are sharper.

But. You know. Give it a go. But. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't necessarily recommend that. But the scissors they make. Were pretty nice. Actually. Yeah. They look good. They did the job.

Although. On the ones that I got. They have. I got the small set. And they were a bit too small. For my fingers. Okay. But they make a few different sets.

It's company of scissors. So. I would maybe go with the regular. Size. But they were really good for. Like. I was able to get Brad.

All of this. All of this. In my Sinclair. Oh. Wow. Okay. Yeah. The. All the multi liners. Well. Obviously not the coloring pencils. But. The eraser. The ruler. The knife. The scissors. And the three pens. I'm about to mention.

Sinclair. Which I was very happy about. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. That's perfect. So yeah. And then I took three pens with me. That was just. What I wanted. I took my Mark 3. Which is what I did all my drawing with.

I took a Mark 1. Just for. Some notes. And I also took. A 3776. Nice. I had the nicely. Lass. I took that. Because. Did you ever use it?

Yes. To take notes. I would take it. Okay. Because I also. Obviously had a sidekick notepad. With me. Which is what I took my notes on. And then also became like a conversation.

Because it was like. Sure. Everyone was like. Why are you here? You know? And. For everybody else. Or there was one person who worked for a large company. And he worked in design at that company.

And he came for a refresher. But everybody else was. Was. Was. Had done some kind of college degree. And. Wanted to move into a different area.

Like. They went to move into design. So they were taking the short course. To see how they felt. And then I was like.

Well. I make products already. And. So yeah. It was. Everyone was super nice. And really intrigued. And. Lots of people have really nice things to say. About the sidekick notepad.

So that was pretty cool. And yeah. It was a fantastic experience. And I got to use a bunch of cool stationery for a week. Which I'm always happy to do.

Yeah. That's really cool. Like. I'm a big kit builder. Right. That's why we take questions like that. I did my vacation kit. Which I'll do. Like a short follow up on.

Here later in this episode. But I did that. And you know. We get all kinds of questions. If you had to do X. What would you carry?

So I love all that stuff. So it's pretty cool that they gave you a list. And then you could just kind of expand it to how you were doing it. So I guess really the only questions I have was just like general overall experience.

You feel like this was something that was worthwhile. Even though it was like only like. It was like one full week. And like you took time off to like do this.

Like it was comprehensive. Like as much as you can get in a week. Did you feel overall like you took something away from this. And you have some ideas you want to explore.

Just in the general sense. Recapping this. And you may have already covered it on Cortex. But I haven't listened yet. No. We haven't recorded since.

And I probably will touch on it. I'm pretty sure we haven't settled what we're doing for the next episode. So I do want to answer your question. But before I do answer that question.

Let's take a first break. And thank Squarespace for their support of this show. Squarespace are the only one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. You can stand out with a beautiful website.

Engage with your audience and sell your products, services, and the content that you create. Squarespace has got everything you need all in one place. One of the things that I was actually quite struck by is that, you know, on that course, a lot of people have portfolios that they're working on.

This is like the perfect kind of thing for Squarespace. They have like the website templates are so beautiful. And they have designs for every category and use case. It's very easy to customize the look of it and update the content and add features to fit your unique needs.

You can even get a domain with them if you want to. Right. So you can have it all in the one package. It's very easy to make your Squarespace template do what you want. So your idea, brand, business, or art stands out on every device.

And they've made it even easier to customize with the new Fluid Engine, which has a drag and drop, reimagined drag and drop technology for desktop or mobile. So you can set up a site for your portfolio. You can set up a site for your business, a site for a blog.

You can even have a store. So maybe actually you make your art and you want to sell some of it. But if you sell physical or digital goods, Squarespace has all of the tools that you need to start selling online. And you could organize everything in their asset library where you can upload, organize, and access all of your content from one place.

No more scrambling to find that right piece of art. You can manage all of your files from one central hub and use them across the Squarespace platform. It's a real time saver if you're building out your website. Go and check out squarespace.com slash penaddict and you can sign up for a free trial.

This will let you build the whole website. You can go in, tinker around, see how it looks, see how it works, see how it feels for you. And when you're ready to launch, because I know you're going to be sold on it, go to squarespace.com slash penaddict.

Use the code penaddict and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict, all one word. When you decide to sign up and you will get 10% of your first purchase and show your support for the show.

A thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of RelayFM. You nailed the portfolio option for this using Squarespace. Pretty good. That's perfect. What do they call that? Content synergy right there.

So you asked me, did I feel like I took something away from it? So yes, definitely. I think one of the biggest things I took away from it was quite complicated and I'm still trying to wrestle with it, which is like... I want to do more of this.

How much do I want to do? I'm dying laughing because I literally had this conversation yesterday with our friend Kathy for the Spotlight podcast on RelayFM. Literally, how do you decide to make more stuff and where have you failed before and what do you want to do? I will say, so Spotlight is available to RelayFM members.

If you remember, you get access to this. Kathy interviews somebody every month and Spotlight has a bunch of different stuff, including Backstage, which is our behind the scenes podcast that me and Stephen make. So let me just restate that. Obviously, I want to make more products.

That goes about it. I'm talking about education. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Interesting. This is the thing that I'm wrestling with where it's like, well, I mean, they have some other short courses. This is what they're called, which I may do.

The problem is the stuff that I'm most interested in is online, which I don't really want to do. They have some that are online and some that are in person. One of the in-person ones is a three-week course, which I actually don't think I would be able to realistically make work and allow all of my colleagues to still want to work with me.

Because if I was making a bigger change, then we'd have to get around that. But three weeks is kind of annoying. But maybe. It's an AutoCAD course. And I think that you kind of need, even though it's a beginner's beginning course to AutoCAD, I think I may need to have a bit more technical drawing experience before doing something like that.

Yeah. So Brian designed all our stuff in CAD, AutoCAD, those types of programs. When I was talking to like the, when I was talking in my class with people and with the professor, they were like, realistically, for CAD, you should use one of these online learning platforms to start with anyway.

So because like, that's kind of the best way to get started. And I actually would agree with that. Like what I really want to do is like more like theory and stuff like that. I mean, and genuinely the easiest way to do this to go back is to go to university.

And I just don't know. I don't know yet. Like I could do it. Right. And I'm sure it wouldn't be very easy, but I could do it.

And, you know. Yeah. Make it work. But I need to, I need to think about if that's really something that I want to do. I like that you're thinking about it though. Like I think that's a good takeaway. It's like, okay, like I, you're getting some enjoyment out of this.

You're getting some work benefit out of this. Yeah. And you're scratching a creative itch that is, you know, maybe not quite, you know, bursting at the seams, ready to jump out. But, you know, you're going to allowing these other pieces of ideas to start percolating to the top.

And what do I do with these things? And how do I make them better? And how to, do I, you know, follow a project from start to fruition and fulfillment? Yeah. I think it's super interesting.

Like at certain points when we were working on projects, it's like, oh man, this is just what I want to do this. You know, I just want to sit in a room and like think deeply about making things. You know, where at the moment in my life, and this is a thing where I just need to maybe work out how I make this work for me.

But at the moment with design, I'm like stealing a few hours every now and again, right? To like work on ideas that I have rather than like just being able to fully immerse myself in that mindset and like sit and really think about it. And so, yeah, I'm not sure yet.

I'm not sure yet. But I'm going to try and find other things to do that might give me some of this and then see how it makes me feel, you know? Love it. Love it. So, good. I'm glad we talked about this this week. I was hoping we would and not just because of the stationary part because you and I both like to make things.

Like it's fun to make things, but it's not as easy as it seems. So, all right. Well, let's dig into some stationary stuff that I wanted to follow up on. And most of this is follow up from some recent episodes, some different things I've been writing about or talking about.

And the first up is we got some feedback on the Pilot Lightiv, which is a fountain pen that looked very similar to the Pilot Explorer. And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago because I had some neat colors coming out and I'd just seen them for the first time.

And it's the first time I had come across the Lightiv branding and our listeners let me know that this came out about two years ago. So, right around this time in 2021, the Lightiv series came about. And as best as I can tell, it looks like a regional name change that there's no difference in the pen as far as I can tell.

But if I look on like in the U.S. market, the Lightiv doesn't exist right outside of Amazon. So, I think that's all it is. So, I'm going to figure out where to order one from, just the Lightiv series. And I went ahead and ordered myself an Explorer because I've given all the ones that I've already owned away and do a comparison just to see if they're identical.

But I kind of want to get one of the new ones because that's the point. I mean, they're cool. Like if I want to buy something, I just don't want to waste it. I want a cool color like those orange or blues that they have for the Lightiv.

So, I want to check that out. But I think that's going to be the end result. Now, I did in some quick searching, these new colors are popping up on some of the Japanese sellers via eBay. And they're like $70.

So, that may not be in the cards because the regular Lightiv is priced the same as the Explorer, which is between like $20 and $25. So, the new colors may not be in the cards because that would just be not a smart thing to do. So, we'll see.

I'll try a regular Lightiv and just see if they're really just the exact same thing like the Pilot Metropolitan and the Pilot MR were. Even though they charged quite a premium for the MR version for some reason. I think it maybe came with a converter. I can't remember the exact deal with that.

So, that's something I want to play around with. Next up was my real discovery. And I'm really confused as someone who loves gel pens as a category that I missed the differentiation between the Uniball 1 and the Uniball 1F. So, the 1 is this gel ink pen that Uni came out with two years ago.

Something like that. They're reasonably new and the concept is that the refill is a much more saturated pigment ink and the colors are deeper and more saturated. Like the blues are bluer, the blacks are darker, things like that. Right. And it's fine. Like the ink, sure. Okay. Like it's not like world changing.

But technically, is it more saturated than their basic blue? Yes. That's fine. And I loved the design of the barrel of the one. But the way the cartridge performed, if you take a .38mm tip and compare that to the Signo DX .3mm tip, the ink performed different enough to make the line width wider.

So, I preferred the standard DXs and Signos and other standard Uniball ink pens, even though this one is perfectly fine. So, then later, I don't know, maybe a year later, they came out with the Uniball 1F. And I didn't even notice the designation, the F designation. I just noticed that they did some solid colors, right?

So, the original ones were white, and then they had a bit of color trim to match the gel ink color. So, like a sky blue had like a sky blue ring around the barrel. Well, these, the 1F came out, and it's just like a solid olive green. These same colors that have been so popular, the kind of like the matte-y looking colors, like more subtle, less vibrant colors, olive green, orange, light pinks, mauves, things like that.

And I thought, I literally just thought, oh, it's just this full monotone barrel design color. But they actually technically changed the barrel in a substantial way that I had no idea. I thought they were just charging more for this monotone series of pens. The giveaway is the metal tip on the end of the F, which the standard 1 does not have.

And it's not just that, it's, that is the, basically, the termination of a larger brass insert inside the front end of the barrel, which is not removable, so you don't see it. And these are solid barrels, so you don't see what's in there, unless you open it up and look in there.

And it doesn't necessarily feel markedly heavier, but it changes everything about this pen. And I couldn't figure out, I kept reaching for this one specific olive barrel, Uniball 1. I was like, oh, I really enjoy writing with this. I really enjoy writing with this.

And where the standard Uniball 1s, I would never pick up again. And I couldn't put this one down, and I couldn't figure it out why, until I realized I got the other one out. And I was like, oh, it is actually heavier. Why is it heavier?

Well, it's this whole brass insert in there. So, it was this really weird realization that I came to, that I was like, why didn't I know this before? Like, I felt like I should have known this and noticed this before. So, I love this pen.

And that's kind of the big takeaway from it, because it just feels so nice when it's writing. It's weighted towards the tip, and I have a huge preference for pens that are front-weighted like this. The only issue, well, there's one minor and one major issue. The minor issue is it doesn't have the rubber grip like the standard One.

So, it's a slick barrel. That doesn't bother me. The bigger issue is that it's like three times the price of the One, and I don't understand completely why. I don't think it should be that much variance.

Like, okay, I can see charging a premium for it, but you go from like $1.80 to almost $4, or over $4 even. Just to get a front-weighted barrel in what's essentially a disposable pen, even though they're refillable. That's a big stretch, but to me, it's been worth it.

So, it's my nice little fancy $4 gel ink pen that has been one of the, it's probably been my most used pen over the past two or three weeks. Once I discovered this, I'm taking my show notes with it today, and I just carry it around with me at all times.

And I wanted to talk about it because I'm surprising myself with it, right? It just caught me off guard. And that's one of my favorite things about stationery as a whole. When I get caught off guard by a very simple, basic product, that's like one of my biggest draws.

And we lose you for a week. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I ramble for 10 minutes about a stinking gel pen. So, yeah. It's fun. But I think Uniball should market that a little bit heavier because they're certainly charging you for the privilege of it. Let's lean into it a little bit because it's a really good pen.

So, I like it. Last one, Myke. I don't know if this one was up your alley, and we've talked about this before. And I said I was going to get one because I thought it was beautiful, at least on the pictures. It's the Platinum 3776 Sands of Komodo.

Is this your style of pen? Do you like this? Oh. This teal rose gold? Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is, I want to say, this is a very nice pairing.

I don't think it's something that I would buy because it doesn't feel particularly unique as such. Sure. But, you know, I do like it. And anyone that likes the look of this, I thoroughly recommend that you buy it because, I mean, this is such a fantastic pen. Yeah, it's a top tier color combination for me.

And I did something a little different in ordering the medium nib, which I know is your preference. For the 3776, it's probably the best writing size for Japanese nibs as a whole, right? Just for general writing. So, I wanted to experiment with that anymore.

This is only my second 3776. I have a UEF nib in the Chartres Blue. So, this is, I wanted to add this to the collection here just for, you know, using because it's beautiful, but also for reference and seeing how this medium nib works and all the things.

So, really, really beautiful. It definitely delivered on what I was seeing in the pictures. It definitely delivered in person. So, it's very, very cool.

So, not much to say about that because if you've heard us talk about the 3776, you know we love it. So, this is a more limited-ish one, but not really. So, they charge you the premium for that. So, it's a little over 300 bucks.

So, it's not exactly cheap, but really beautiful. Very happy with it. It looks nice. As I say, like, I'm not jumping for it because I also actually do, now I know that they do that and it's what I have. I like when they also do something with the body.

Like, it's not just simple. Yeah, this is a smooth body. So, they'll do different etchings, different finishes, different lines, different marks, and still keep the translucency there. Yeah, because that's cool.

But this is a smooth barrel. Yeah, I like it when they go a little bit more out there, to be honest, because I know that they can. And when they do, it's fantastic. And that would be their next price point.

Now, I'm charging you $400 for that. But if you don't have a 3776 and you think this looks cool, I could not recommend you buy it more. You know what I mean? Like, this is just a pen that everyone listening to this show, if you are into, like, $200 fountain pens, right?

Or, like, you know, you're into that kind of bucket or $300 fountain pens, you should own one of these. You should have one in your collection of 3776, especially if you don't have a platinum nib, because they make the best nibs, in my opinion. I agree. And it's one of the easiest pens to recommend at this, like, $200 to $300 price point.

I think you can still get some of the standard colors for under $200, which is exactly the same as this. Like, no difference in the pen or the nib or anything like that. So, yeah, easy, easy, easy recommendation. You know what else is an easy recommendation, Myke?

Tell me a little about it. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Factor. This bustling holiday season, you might be looking for nutritious, flavorful meals to fuel you on those jam-packed days. Factor is America's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service.

It can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietician-approved, ready-to-eat meals that are delivered straight to your door. You're going to be saving time, eating well, and staying on track of your healthy lifestyle while tackling your holiday to-dos. With Factor, you can cross meal prep off your list this holiday season.

Their fresh, never-frozen meals are ready in just two minutes, and you have more than 35 flavor-packed options to choose from every week. This is actually, like, a very good idea, right? Like, you are dealing with the holiday meal, and especially if you're in America, again, right?

Like, after just doing it a month ago. Yeah, trust me. If you're able to not have to think about the average meals that you're having every day, right? Like, your breakfast, your lunch, like, and your dinner. Like, you're not having to think about those other than the big meal that's coming.

I mean, that is, like, five stars, and Brad's going to tell you how good this food is. I've been having them for lunch every day this week. Like, for me, working from home and usually just being responsible for myself for lunch. You know, the kids might be in school.

My wife might be at work. So, I just need a solo, easy-to-cook lunch right in between, you know, recording a podcast and then going to ship pens. Popping a factor in the microwave. Two minutes later, I'm eating, like, a wonderful – yesterday, I had a wonderful pork tenderloin and green beans.

And today, I'm looking at chicken marsala, I believe, is what I'm prepping for today. So, we have to stake a claim on the different meals in the box when they get home because my son will eat them, too. Yep. So, we'll kind of sort out, you know, if I get six meals, we'll kind of sort out, all right, I get this, you get this, and we'll have a little factor meal draft and make sure we're not eating each other's favorite meals out of the factor selection that we got for this week.

So, it's been great for us. And also, again, holidays, right? We all – not all, most of us, I'll say, indulge a little bit too much during the holidays. So, if you're looking to balance that out, you can look for some calorie-conscious options that don't skimp on flavor.

Factor have delicious, dietician-approved, calorie-smart meals with around or less than 550 calories per serving. Or if you need an extra boost to support your wellness goals and feel your best, try Protein Plus that feature 30 grams of protein or more per serving. You can rest assured you're making a sustainable choice because Factor offset 100% of their delivery emissions to your door and source 100% renewable electricity for their production sites and offices.

This December, get Factor and enjoy eating well without the hassle. Simply choose your meals and enjoy fresh, flavor-packed meals delivered directly to your door, ready in just two minutes, no prep, no mess. Go to factomeals.com slash penaddict50 and use the code penaddict50 for 50% off your first box.

That is the code penaddict50 at factomeals.com slash penaddict50 and you will get 50% off your first box. Thanks to Factor for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right, Myke, we got a shout-out of the week, which I always love to shout out our Meet Your Maker post that my friend Caroline writes every month for the penaddict.

You can find them at penaddict.com. And this month, she talked with Tim Cullen from Hooligan, Georgia. So Tim is interesting in that, unlike a lot of the different makers that we've covered before, you don't click over to Tim's wonderful website and buy a pen. You start a conversation with Tim because he does only custom work and commission-based work.

And if you look at some of the pens that he's created, you will see why. These are very personal, very unique, and very complicated and detailed and beautiful, right? I love these. You know, I don't have anything from Tim yet, but looking at the nibs, like maybe I could start with an engraved nib, which look unbelievably cool, like he does different Yovo and Bach fittings and does engraving on some of these steel nibs and gold nibs.

So I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for some of these in the future. But I just wanted to give a shout-out to Tim. The work looks amazing. And thank you, Caroline, for always coming through with these great stories about these makers in our community.

I very, very much appreciate it. We love it. You'll have to see it. I love it. I might see some of these makers that we've talked about before. As a matter of fact, I know I will see some that we've talked about before at the upcoming California Penn Show, Myke, because I will be there.

So I have booked my first Penn Show for 2024. My travel is booked for California Penn Show, which is February 16th through 18th, just outside of L.A. I think it's in Torrance. It's in Torrance, yeah. So basically, you know, right there.

You know, I think it's like 10 miles from the airport or something like that. It's close to the airport. Yeah, it's close to the airport. I mean, go ahead.

I don't know. This is as funny as me. I went to Google Maps to look because it's just like every Penn Show says it's one place. It's always like next to the place. I feel like that is just like the general rule.

Like it's just next to the place, except London. Gotcha. Yeah. You know? It's in the place. But this one is good, I think, because it's actually a little bit southern, which is nice. It's like a nice kind of vibe there.

And also, it's pretty close to the airport. And the airport is LAX. So I guess you kind of get away with it that way. Yeah. So I think last year, so this is their second California Penn Show from the showrunner.

So last year was at an even closer, I think, pretty much hotel airport. Right. Or airport hotel, I should say. This is better than that. This is better. Don't do that. So they've moved a little bit down the road here.

So I look forward to experiencing that. I know everyone that went last year had lots of positive things to say, especially with them just getting started. Go to the beach. Yeah. Not far from the beach there.

So it looks like there's like, I don't really know torrents, but it looks like just like looking around at Google Maps, like there's stuff, you know? Yeah. Which is always good. That's the good thing, right? Have it near stuff.

Like this is something that like we don't see enough of, I think. Like I love the San Francisco Penn Show, but it's not near any stuff, you know? It's the same as Atlanta. Atlanta's not near any stuff.

It's at a new place. Oh, they moved it? San Francisco's at a new place, yeah. Where? Last year was their first, it's closer to the airport, but I can't remember which city it was in.

So we were in Redwood City before. Yeah, that's where I went to. Which was in like a corporate location. Yeah. And then like food and stuff was close, but you had to like go across like the interstate.

Can't walk. You pretty much had to drive, yeah. So I'm not sure on the new one. I think it was much more convenient to food and stuff like that from what I hear. So I haven't been to the new one.

But Atlanta was historically bad about that, but now they've built up some restaurants like right across the street, like a pizza place and some other things. But there used to be nothing. Oh, yeah, look at that. I'm looking at the website now for the San Francisco Penn Show.

It is the airport hotel, though, which I intend not to be a super big fan of. But there's stuff around. There at least there's stuff around. Yeah. So but I appreciate the close access as opposed to like Chicago where it's airport, then 45 minute drive, right?

Yeah, I mean, that does suck. And what I would say is like it depends, right? Like if you're traveling, I think it's best not to be near the airport. True. Chicago is good because it has stuff.

Yeah. So we literally you pull up to Chicago and you walk to stuff. Stuff is the most important thing. Like no matter what, even if you're next to the airport, like if you can walk to restaurants, like that is prime. Like in my opinion, because if you if you're like, oh, you got to eat in the hotel or get a Uber.

Like it's like that's not I don't like that so much. Right. Because we're usually exhausted and tired and just want food. Exactly. Speaking of food and stuff, I am back from my vacation and I talked beforehand. And as I mentioned earlier in this episode, I did a travel journal and I just wanted to do a quick recap on that.

So I took a field notes, a Fisher space pen and a Kuretake fine liner and it went really well. I carried the notebook with me daily. I usually didn't stop and write like in the middle of the day. Right. Like it was just myself and my wife.

And, you know, I don't the goal is to spend time with your partner when you're on these trips. So I don't want to stop like, hey, let me go sit on this bench and and write and do some other things. So I'd usually either at night or first thing in the morning, write in my field notes.

And I filled, I don't know, over half of it with either writing or, you know, receipts and images and tickets, you know, that I tape these in with washi tape. You know, like we went to the tramway in Palm Springs, which is this really cool, you know, lift up to the top of a mountain and has hiking trails up at the top.

And, you know, wrote about that and just all the fun things that we saw and did during this whole trip. So it worked out really well. And then when I got back, I was actually thinking this while I was on the trip because I like collecting different ephemera to put into my travel journals when I do this.

And I was thinking, well, I've seen several of my friends who do a lot of journaling use these little sticker printers or these photo printers. And we've all probably seen like different types of small photo printers where you can print directly from your phone into a device. And sometimes you could have like a camera, like an Instax camera that does like the instant pictures that you can hand over to people and or use them for journaling, things like that.

So I ended up buying called the Kodak Snap, but it's really the zinc technology that's used. Z-I-N-K. Okay. Or maybe it's Z-Ink, but there's not a dash in there. But it makes a photorealistic image.

Looks like a camera print, but it's on sticker paper. So you can make these stickers from images in your camera roll on your phones and use them to paste into your notebooks, your journals. You know, they're obviously great for any type of journaling that you want to do.

It doesn't have to be like travel journaling, but like your daily journaling. Yeah, Kodak. What are you printing? What are you using to print them? So the device physically is called the Kodak Snap.

Okay. And it's a little handheld device. It's no bigger than a field notes. It's very tiny. I think it was about 60 bucks. Is it Polaroid Snap?

I'm being annoying here. I'm really struggling to find that exact thing because I can find Kodak Print-O-Matic and I can find Polaroid Snap. Nope, it isn't either of those. Kodak. Oh, you know what?

Because I'm telling you the wrong name. The chat's probably yelling at us now. Step. Kodak Step. S-T-E-P. I thought it was Snap.

There it is. Now I got it. It's the printer. It's not a camera. Yes. It's not a camera. Yes, it's a printer.

So it has the photo sticker paper that you put in, which is the zinc technology piece of the thing. So my apologies. Yes, Kodak Step. I wrote that wrong. No, we got that wrong. I wrote it wrong in the show notes is why.

I was fixated on that. But yeah, it's small, portable, handheld. Like I'm going to take it when I go to the California Pen Show, right? And you can sit there and take pictures and print out a sticker sticker for someone to put in their journal.

Like while we're sitting there and, you know, having a drink, sharing pens at night. And I just thought it was a cool little accessory. Yeah. That will be like additive to my journaling experience. So maybe that'll be a stationary resolution in the new year to journal a little bit more.

And you can do, you can modify like the image layouts and you can do like four smaller images on like a single, on a single sheet. So you can cut out like four stickers instead of having one larger, like two by three sticker. So it's very cool. I'm very happy with it.

And it seems like a fun little accessory. So yeah, that's how my vacation ended with me buying more toys to journal with. So I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. I've definitely printed out some pictures and taped them into or just stuck them into my notebook.

And it works great. Yeah, I will say this is interesting to me when listening to last week's episode too about the idea of a traveling journal, right? That you use it to note things that you've seen or done. Because that was something Tosdy was doing, right, with the actual travelers, right?

Like this. Yes. And then getting it stamped, like doing the whole thing. I thought it's kind of a cute idea, right? Like if you're having a nice little holiday, like you want to remember it. It's like a nice way to do it.

I will say that this is not the same thing, but like Apple have their journaling app now, right? It's actually really good for that. Because if you're taking a bunch of photos and walking around, like these are the kinds of things that the app recommend to you. Of like, hey, do you want to write about this thing you did?

Here's a bunch of photos. Exactly. And like a walking path that you took. And so the Apple Journal app is actually pretty good at this. But obviously, you know, no one wants that digital nonsense, right?

We want pens and paper around here. Are you kidding me? But yeah, I did dabble with the Journal app. And I do like how it pulled like on all my trip pictures.

It's like, hey, this is what you did on this day. I was like, oh, that's pretty fresh. I like that. I just wished that it could pull information from other apps, not just Apple's apps. Oh, yeah. I had some challenges with it for sure. It's very basic. It's very basic.

And it's like, I want to do some very simple things. I was like, huh, can't really do that well. And again, then you move to day one. And what is kind of cool, like the suggestions that it makes, day one can pull those into.

Exactly. So Apple built that as an API. So if you're a day one user, day one just got better because of this. Yeah, exactly. You love to see it, Brad. You love to see it.

So, but back on the stamps. So like we went to Joshua Tree National Park. And if you go to like the visitor center, when you pull in, they have all the stamps. So you mark your, you get like a passport stamp, you know, December 7th, 2023.

You know, I stamped my journal. And I have my Junior Ranger stamp, Myke, for Joshua Tree. Thank you. Thank you. Explore, learn, protect. So yes, I got my Junior Ranger badge stamp there. So yeah, I just, oh, you mean you have all these stamps?

Sure, I will use them all. So yeah, it was great. It was great. All right. This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. It is the calm before the holiday storm.

But don't let that stress you out. You can prepare your e-commerce business for the holiday rush right now just by using ShipStation. With ShipStation, you can easily automate shipping tasks and manage orders in one simple dashboard. You can quickly and easily update crucial order information and reduce errors.

ShipStation provides effortless integration everywhere that you sell online, including Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Shopify, and more. And you can also manage orders, print labels, compare rates, optimize every shipment, and automate delivery notifications. Simplify and automate your shipping no matter how big your business grows. ShipStation has enterprise solutions that reduce warehouse costs and improve profitability.

ShipStation's robust automations and reporting makes scaling easy. And as your business grows, you can save thousands on shipping costs. Brad, is ShipStation helping you out with the holiday storm? We got ShipStation smoking.

That's what I'm like. It is on. But yeah, I love that. I can just walk in to the shipping department here at the house, fire up the computer, and click on ShipStation, and boom, all my orders are in there ready to go. And I just start working, right?

ShipStation makes it easy. You know, it just automatically deposits the funds when I need more shipping. I have all kinds of shipping options based on what customers would like to use for their shipping platform of choice. And it's all built in there.

ShipStation, it's so simple, so easy, and it just works. It's why I've probably been using ShipStation for at least a decade at this point. With ShipStation, you can even get industry-leading discounted rates from USPS, UPS, DHL, and GlobalPost of up to 84% off. Over 130,000 companies have grown their e-commerce businesses with ShipStation.

Brad's is one of them. And 98% of companies that stick with ShipStation for a year become customers for life. Set up your business for holiday success this holiday season with ShipStation. Go to ShipStation.com and use the code PENADDICT today and sign up for your free 60-day trial.

That's ShipStation.com and the code PENADDICT. They'll know you also heard about it on this show. Thank you to ShipStation for their support of the PenADDICT and RelayFM. Should we finish out today with a couple of Ask TPA questions, Mr. Dowdy?

Yeah, let's do them as we get further and further behind the list here. I think we should catch up on some of these for sure. I'm going to start out with a question from Eric. And Eric has a demand for you, Brad. All right? Okay. He demands information.

Why hasn't the PenADDICT ever reviewed the Paper Mind? I can't even say this. Passipide? Passipide? Yeah. Passipide. I don't know exactly. P-A-S-S-E-P-I-E-D. Passipide.

Notebook. It's by far the best notebook I've found in the standard A5 hardcover category that I use. The Japanese paper inside is unusual and fantastic, both showing inks very well, and it's very pleasant to write on. The notebook itself is well constructed and beautiful with a refined linen cover.

The notebook should be getting all sorts of praise. I never hear about it, and I worry if the word doesn't get out, it's going to disappear. Wow. Call me out, Eric. Jeez. I know. So I actually Googled this, and I don't know if this is part of your answer, but they were a sponsor on the PenADDICT at one point.

They have been. So I'm friends with Blake over at the Paper Mind does some awesome, awesome notebooks. We actually have the Passipide notebook, Eric, so it will be coming soon. Oh, great. We've had it for a while. I believe it's in Kimberly's hands right now.

So, you know, it's just in the rotation. It's slotted in for a review. It has, you know, we're not always the most timely bunch, and I do that on purpose, to be honest. Like, I don't want to be forced into, you know, doing things.

We want these reviews to come naturally when they come in the workflow. So you can bet we will review this notebook coming soon because I have heard lots of positive things like Eric is mentioning. And I've used, you know, other products from the Paper Mind very successfully. Like, I'm a bank paper person, right?

So they have a bank paper model that I've used, used for a lot of reviews. You see it in a lot of reviews that I post, including the one I did this week. But the Passpeed we will have soon, I hope. Hopefully in the next month or two, we'll get a review up on that.

And then I'll see if I need to get another one to test out for myself and see what Kimberly thinks about it. So I believe that's where that notebook is currently residing in Kimberly's hands. You successfully survived being put on blast. Yeah, that's right. I like being put on blast.

Like, yeah, it's good. Like, we miss a lot of things. Heck, I didn't even know Uniball made an F1. -huh. - So there you go. I miss lots of things.

John said, I recently bought a Pilot Vanishing Point of a fine nib. I already own one of a medium nib, which is my go-to Pilot nib size. I like the finer size, but I'm curious. Why does Pilot make their fine nibs so much finer than their mediums?

I feel like their fine is a proper Japanese F, a Western EF, while their medium is close to a Western M. I think this is more, you're going to find this more in the Vanishing Point nib. This is kind of a timely question, even though we've been sitting on it for months.

I just loaned out a couple of Vanishing Points, one with a fine nib, one with a medium nib to a friend, and I just got them back. And so I was writing with them. I was like, wow, this medium is really wide. And wow, I love how fine this fine is.

So I think you're right in this assumption, John, but I think that it ends, it starts and ends in the Vanishing Point size. I think their full-size nibs, like starting at their number 10 size nibs, I think you're going to have a better scale of going from a fine to a medium in the full-size nibs.

At least that's been my experience with Pilot's nibs. And this is also why I never recommend the Pilot Vanishing Point extra fine nib, and I do recommend the Pilot extra fine, you know, number 10 size nib, like in a Pilot Custom 74. Because the extra fine in the Vanishing Point is too fine, too fragile, and it's kind of an outlier.

If you want that in a nib, it's great for you. But as someone who loves extra fine nibs, I can't use the Pilot Vanishing Point extra fine nib. I think there's a little bit more of a gap in the sizing when you make those nib jumps from one to the other, but specifically in the Vanishing Point category, not in their full-size category.

At least that's my kind of anecdotal evidence to that. But I agree with what you're saying, John, and I think it's contained to the Vanishing Point nib more than anything. And Kelly asks, what is the recommended way to ship pens when you don't have their original packaging? I do a few different things because I do ship a lot of pens that I give away and the original packaging is gone.

I'll usually just bubble wrap and envelope them and sleeve them and then put them in something else, right? Kind of like a, almost like a two-layer approach. I'll just do, if I just have a pen, I'll put it immediately into bubble wrap. Just kind of like roll it in there, tape it up tight.

Then put something over the top of that, like a smaller envelope, and then just put it in a larger envelope to ship. Because if you're also worried, right, I'm sure you could buy tubes from like a hobby store pretty easily. So you can get tubes, like we use tubes for spoke design.

So actually, that's probably a good thing. We literally buy a couple of different diameter tubes for our pencils and then for our wider standard pens and things like that. And certain tubes you can cut to size, right? You can buy like, I don't know how long the tubes are, maybe 18 inches.

And you can cut them to size and have extra caps to enclose the tube to whatever length you need. So that's a pretty good thing. And then I would still put them into another, you know, I still put those into a bubble wrap sleeve and then inside of a box.

So yeah, I'll have to find out where we order those tubes from. I can't remember it off the top of my head. It's basically like an engineering supply company where we get these tubes. So that's actually not a bad idea at all.

If you would like to send in a question of your own for a future episode, go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can write them in there. We're also asking for your stationary resolutions and we're going to talk about that in our first episode of the new year, which is our next episode.

As we mentioned earlier, we'll be back now in January. So we're taking a small break over the Christmas period. So we'll take the opportunity right now to thank you so much for your listenership over the last year. We really appreciate it.

You know, this is one of those, the pen addict is such a little joy for me. I love working with you, Brad, as is obvious by the amount of time we've worked together now at this point. And it's just a fun little time and it doesn't feel like my other shows.

And I really like that. And so I just want to mention at this point, I'm very thankful that this podcast exists for us and in my life. Well, thank you so much. I would comment on that and reciprocate, but I just recorded Spotlight and I don't want your head to get too big.

So I'll just listen to that. Yeah, baby, I can't wait to hear that. And you can have all your platitudes on there. I just want people to talk about me, you know.

I just want to be recognized in my lifetime. That's all it is. But no, this is one of the most fun and enjoyable things that I do. And I have you to thank for that.

Appreciate you. Another great year in the book. Appreciate all of you. Appreciate our sponsors for this episode, ShipStation Factor and Squarespace. If you want to find us online in the meantime, PenAddict on Instagram, Threads.

Yeah, ish. Yeah. And Mastodon. Dabbling, dabbling. You can find Brad streaming three times a week over at twitch.tv slash PenAddict. You can find Brad's products over at SpokeDesign.com. You can find mine at CortexBrand.com. Sidekick Calendar Companion is a thing that exists now.

If you are not keen on the Sidekick notepad or maybe you are keen and would like a seven-day agenda version that's now available for you, if you want that. You can find me. I'm imyke. I-M-Y-K-E on Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, and everywhere else. Brad, do you have anything new that you want to call out at SpokeDesign before we wrap up today's episode?

Or anything specific? Yeah, we just did. Brian just made a bunch of our Model 6 pencil, which has always been a popular option because it comes in two different grip diameters. We still have, we just, that was our last kind of inventory push before the holidays, so we're not really going to be shipping much out at this time of year, but we still have a bunch of those in stock.

And I know those are very popular item when we get them in. And Brian loaded us up, and so we're ready for that. And we have a bunch available for you, including a couple new colorways. Heck yeah. Looks good. - - That's a fun looking, oh, I like the red and blue one.

It's very Spider-Man. Yeah. That's a really cool one. Always does super well. As it should. Also go to penaddict.com where you'll find reviews, which sometimes the team can be bullied into doing.

Turns out. Eric. Turns out. Eric. Thanks, Eric. Eric. But thank you all. We'll be back next episode in two weeks. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.