The Pen Addict 610/transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 610. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet, Unipizza Ovens, and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Good. How are you? Good. It feels like it's been weeks since we've talked, and it's actually been weeks since we've not talked, so I don't know why it's been. It seems so long since the last episode.

Atlanta Pen Show and vacation experiences

Myke Hurley: Why could you have been on vacation and the Atlanta Pen Show? You know, for me, I just had like a regular week, so if this feels like normal to me. But like, you've had one of those, like, weeks that feels like two weeks, I guess.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, definitely. Like, I'm definitely in the what day is it, what time is it, where am I type of situation. And it was like all super chill stuff, like vacation and then going into the Atlanta Pen Show, which we're going to get into in a minute. But like, it's just chill. It's just easy. So yeah, like, it's good stuff. So I guess let's get right into it with some good stuff I was at at the Atlanta Pen Show, Myke, this past weekend. So let's how about I do a little recap here of the show. Let's get it. First thing I'm concerned about is we might not have a home for the podcast if we ever want to do it again. Which I'm really... Yeah, I'm not surprised that the Atlanta Pen Show just kind of expanded into that room where we would record. So I apologize, Chad. I am going to be talking a little bit about like the layout of the show because Myke and I are so familiar with it. And hopefully I don't leave you out of the conversation too much, Chad, or listeners. But yeah.

Myke Hurley: You're such a streamer.

Brad Dowdy: I know. Talking to chat. It's just in my lingo now. Well, I have Discord up in front of me too.

Myke Hurley: I know, but we wouldn't really say chat like that, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. I'm definitely a streamer. But anyway, before I get into that little initial thoughts, I just want to preface this by saying I'm super biased towards the Atlanta Pen Show because it's close to me. It's an hour and a half drive. It is very easy to get to. It is a very chill show. It's, you know, it's on the smaller side of the ledger compared to say like a Baltimore. Like it's smaller than Baltimore, but bigger than some of the other shows, you know, like Triangle or I don't know some of the other ones I've been to. But it's a great show. Right. Show promoter Jimmy Dulliv does it right. Like it's just makes everything easy. Right. It's like nothing over the top. You know, I would I would want more from it. Right. If I'm going to like pick nits like I want more things and maybe we'll talk about at the end after I kind of go through everything here. Or what I want in a perfect Atlanta Pen Show. But yeah, like it's just easy for me. So, yes, I am super biased towards the show for for that aspect of it. And so, yeah, I rolled in Friday morning just before noon and walk right into the show and I go into the room on the right. So the way this is set up is there's a although all the show ballrooms, if you'll call them that, are all right together, but they're in three separate rooms. Right. There's a room on the right, a room on the left and a room on the back and a hallway that runs in between them. All of those spaces have vendors in them. Right. So it's it's pretty well laid out. All kind of convenient. Don't really like once you pass like the where you get your ticket, everything's kind of there. So I walked in the room on the right and that's traditionally been the smallest room. It's had maybe a dozen tables. That's where you have some of the makers like Jonathan Brooks and Mythic Pens and Mark Bacca. So this is like their traditional spot. So one thing, if you're new to pen shows, a lot of pen shows around the country that are in the same hotels in recurring years, a lot of the vendors will just keep their same spot. So I'll be referring to that about this show because it hasn't moved in since I've been going there, which has been 12 years. So I walk in that room and it's normally just like the small boxy room, about a dozen tables around the outside wall, a couple in the middle. And boom, it's just been opened up completely, like doubled in size. So, you know, like a traditional basic hotel ballroom, they have those sliding walls. Right. So what it did was basically open up to where our podcast space was. And it's great. Like I walked in, I was like, oh, yes, this is great because they put in another 10 or 12 tables and that backside of the room. And then they had room for a couple of round tables for and chairs for people to sit and hang out in. Right. It made the room. It relieves some of the pressure from that room, if you will. Right. And is as far as volume of people. So that room could get pretty tight. And it was kind of like a like a singular walking path around the room. And this just kind of opened it up, had room for more tables and just let the room breathe a little bit. And it was great. So that was super, super noticeable. And I really, really enjoyed that.

Brad Dowdy: The other two rooms remain the same, same space, same size. The hallway was packed, like full of tables, too. So like the full length of the hallway was full, which it normally is. But it seemed like there was even like one or two more tables in there. The room in the back had, I don't know, it was just like everything was just kind of buzzing. Like this show never gets overly packed. Right. You're never just like, you know, maybe for an hour on Saturday afternoon. Right. You're you're maybe can't walk the way you want to, you know, in the path you want to go through the show just because of the amount of people looking at tables on like both sides of an aisle. Right. It's hard to thread the needle a little bit there. But like that's understandable. Like you. I hate to say it like this, but you kind of want that. Right. Like there you do want the show to be busy. Right. Because then, you know, you're getting good attendance and hopefully vendors are having a good weekend, but you don't want that 24 seven. Like you don't want that from the time the doors open, the time the doors close. If you're just like packed in like sardines, everyone's going to hate that. So there's definitely busier times and non busier times. So Friday, you've been to the cookout that the weekend pass holders and vendors get. We were blessed with perfect weather this weekend. Atlanta. I I'd have to think about this before, like completely committing to the statement, but it has some of the weirdest weather of all the shows. Right. Like if we go to Baltimore, it's probably going to be cold and you mean maybe rainy. We've had snow there before, but it's like consistently, you know, pretty cold. You know, Philly's cold. San Francisco is nice. You know, LA is nice. You know, Chicago is pretty, pretty mid. It's right there in the in May. So you can get some cool nights. But Atlanta, we've had like tornadoes. We've had freezing, windy weather. We've had some nice warm weather. Like it's been like we've been in pants and jackets there before and we've been in shorts and T-shirts there before. So it's it's a weird show. But we had perfect weather. And it's nice to see everyone that comes in on Friday who's spending the weekend usually goes and hangs out at this cookout. And it's great. So we did that. You know, we hung out at the bar. The bar is consistently bad in Atlanta. And they lived up to that again this year. Like it's like a it's almost like a boring topic of conversation. It's like a given. Right. Like to this point, like no matter what we ask for, it's not really going to improve. And I thought the bartender actually did a good job. They're just behind the eight ball from the jump. Right. Like at one point on Friday night, he was like, OK, we're going to close for about 15 minutes because I need to go wash dishes. And because I'm out of glasses. I was like, it's like 830, you know, it's like, all right, because he's the only one working. And he's like, all right, we're going to close and I have to go. I'm out of glassware. And so I'm going to go wash dishes. I was like, you know, it's just it's weird. It's never not weird.

Myke Hurley: You know what I mean? This poor guy.

Brad Dowdy: No, no qualms about him. Like, like he was great. So I think his name is James. Shout out, James. He did a really good job. But like he's he's just behind it from from the jump. So anyway, I know that's not the biggest deal at it at at a pen show. Like this is not the stuff that people really want to hear about the pen show. But it is tied into the pen show experience for people who are spending one or two nights at a pen show. So that, you know, the hangout spaces, you know, after the show hours, like make a difference to a lot of people's experience. But in general, totally fine. It's just it's to the point of just being hilarious at this point. It's like it's just all right. What are we in for this time? I was like, oh, yes, they have managed to top themselves once again. So what I did on Friday was hammer my shopping list. Right. Like the list of things I wanted to see or acquire.

Brad Dowdy: I think I got everything I wanted to on Friday afternoon. So I had, you know, a solid five hours at the show. Like I spent, you know, from the time I got there until about five o'clock, I was I was in the room talking to people, seeing people. And getting the things that I wanted to get right. Which we'll get to that stuff for sure here in a minute. And then Saturday I take because it is going to be busier than Friday. So this is just how I do the shows. So I take care of like as much as my list as I can on Friday because Saturday it's going to be like super busier. I'm going to be talking to more people. I'm going to be hanging out more. So like I plan to just kind of have a chill day Saturday and talk to people and, you know, maybe see things I didn't get to see Friday or, you know, just kind of hang out and chill. Show was very busy. But I did get a lot of time to spend with friends and attendees and helping some people out. And I got to spend a lot of time with vendors, which is I'm going to do a specific topic here on that in just a minute because there was a kind of a consistent theme which surprised me from the vendors. But in general, Saturday was fun, like just hanging out. Right. I actually, you know, got there about 1030. Like I don't have to roll in there early. I went, you know, mid afternoon, ran across the street to Starbucks, got a coffee and chilled for it. Did it like a 30 minute decompress. And then I had the idea of, well, like I'm kind of done with what I need to do. So let's have some fun. So I went on an Instagram rampage. Um, basically did a Q&A on Instagram where I answered people's questions out of one base post and then would answer with an individual post about, um, the question they asked. So that was like really fun. That's something I'll do at more pen shows because it turned out to be like a really fun thing. And people enjoyed that. Even people at the show, it was funny. I was take the questions on a post and then I would go to answer them and I'd tag the vendor or whatever. Like if I was talking about a vendor, I think I had three of them come up to me later say, oh, thanks for tagging me in that post. Oh, thanks for tagging me in that post. Oh, thanks for tagging me in that post. It was just kind of funny, uh, to see, uh, the vendors like go out of the way to come in and like, thank me for just like putting their tags in the Instagram post. So that was fun. So the broader picture I want to talk about before we get into the pen show hall was a recurring theme from vendors, which I didn't expect. And this was unprompted answers. Like I go, I talk to as many people as I can right at these shows. And especially since I haven't been to a show this year, I haven't seen a lot of these people at shows since DC, maybe Orlando, some of them. So I haven't gotten to see a lot of people. And like at DC, there's not a lot of time to spend, you know, with these vendors and kind of pick their brains. So it was mostly, I would go to these vendors, see what they're up to. Right. And maybe, let me see if I can count.

Stationery market trends and vendor strategies

Brad Dowdy: Five separate times, I was told how one excited they were just about the landscape of stationary, but two, how they were each focusing on.

Brad Dowdy: Kind of reimagining their product lineups and how they position themselves in the market. And this is unprompted conversation that they're just having with me. Hey, let me show you what I'm doing. Here's why I'm doing it. And here's what I'm thinking for the future. Like they were, this was, these were just like the general conversations that people were having with me. And this goes for makers. It goes for retailers. It went for so many different people in the industry. Like it wasn't one same type of vendor. Like it wasn't all retailers telling me the exact same thing, or it wasn't all makers telling me that exact same thing. It was across each of them. And while the concept was different, I mean, the concept was the same. Each of them had a different idea on how they were going to execute, like changing up their product lineup, positioning themselves in the market. Like say, like for example, a maker might want to, might feel comfortable with the current product lineup they have. And now they're thinking about mixing in, hey, should I do a more premium offering? Or conversely, should I do a more entry level offering? Vendors were thinking about how do I work with the newcomers to the space? And what do they see? You know, my offerings, you know, are they welcoming to a newcomer, right? It was just super unique. Like I literally heard it from one of the first people I talked to. I was like, oh, that's really cool about how they're thinking about their position in the market. And then I would go talk to someone else and they would literally have the same conversation with me. But going in, say, if one was going, oh, I'm going to focus on more like high end specialty stuff. The other one would be is like, yeah, I want to work on, you know, my entry level offerings. Like it was really, really interesting to see how much all of these vendors were thinking about this. And they were all generally like very positive about the landscape, which was nice to see. So that was kind of a surprise, I guess, in that everyone in that room was thinking about how they can continue to do their job better. And not that you, I shouldn't be surprised at that. But it was that the amount of changes that they were talking about were more than just like standard. Yeah, I'm going to make a new pen design or, yeah, I'm going to start carrying this product lineup or, you know, whatever it is. It was like very specific. I want to try to focus on this type of customer. And here's how I'm going to approach. And I was like, dang, OK, let's do this over and over again. So it was very, very cool. It was enlightening. And I guess maybe it's just because it's been so many months, probably, what, eight months since I've been to a show. So that's a pretty long amount of time. And just like the product runs and things like that and having people having time to talk about that stuff. I thought it was enlightening and kind of cool. Like I enjoyed hearing that. I was my ears perked up every time someone was talking about here's what we're doing next. And those things from one vendor to the next would be completely different, but they were all equally as excited. So that was kind of nice to see.

Myke Hurley: Definite maturity in the market or like amongst the vendors and stuff, right? Like if that's where people are at.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And just to kind of tie a bow down before we talk about the stuff that I came home with, still quite a few new makers, you know, out there. Some a lot of first time vendors. A lot of second time, you know, appearances at the show that, you know, have ramped things up. You know, a lot of retailers, you know, like traditional, you know, online or brick and mortar type of retailers, like still doing their thing, doing well. So it was, Atlanta retains that good mixture of all the things. And like I didn't go lacking for anything at the show. And it was just in general, a really, really good time and really fun to see.

Purchases made at the pen show

Myke Hurley: All right. Let's take a break and talk about the stuff that you, I'm sure, bought at the show. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh man, I would like to go to a pen show, but in my own home. Well, why don't you take yourself over to Pen Chalet? Because they have the products that you're looking for. So whether you want a new fountain pen, a new mechanical pencil, a new fountain pen, a new rollerball. I said fountain pen twice. Maybe you really want a fountain pen. Maybe a double-ended fountain pen. Indeed. Or so much more. They have all of your favorite brands and they have the accessories that you're looking for too. Whether you want some new ink, a carrying case, maybe you want a fountain pen converter. No matter what it is, they've got the stuff that you're looking for. Pen Chalet have very fast and reliable customer service. And every two weeks, they're adding new products and new specials to the store as well. And you're going to be able to go there and see cool new stuff. You get free shipping on orders of over $75 in the United States, but they also sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to penchalet.com slash penaddict. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict. And you will get 10% off anything at any time at Pen Chalet. And you will get to see this week's exclusive offers for listeners of this show. That is right. We have a URL of our own now. Penchalet.com slash penaddict. That's where you can go. Brad, what have you found over at Pen Chalet this time?

Brad Dowdy: One, I'm finding an awesome upgraded URL. I love that. So that's amazing. So thank you, Ron, for doing that. That is super cool. I don't know why that excites me. And they've been a sponsor for like eight years. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. Thank you.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting pen. Oh, gosh. Okay. There's several. I'm just getting to the site. So the Platinum did this weird thing a few years ago where they took the Procyon, which was one of their popular, like, I don't know, mid-range models. I don't even know if I would classify them as mid-range. But they were like 50, 60 bucks. So the Procyon, it was very good. Very good pen. Very well received. It was like the continuation of the upgrade between like the Preppy and the Plazier and some things like that. So the Procyon just kind of ramped it up a little bit more. And then they, I think they were popular enough that they said, oh, let's do something cool with that and add Maciej artwork to these Procyons. And so they did that. This was like a couple years ago. And they were, you know, that obviously ramped up the price significantly, right, when you have like kind of these custom artwork added to the pens. And now they're on here for a price that's not too much more than the stock Procyon. And like, I would totally be into one of these. Like, I might have to look at these after the show because I think, I think there's just a, it's cool to get like a pen that you love and then have added artwork on it. Another crazy deal that actually stopped me in my tracks was the Pilot Custom Heritage Special Edition fountain pen. So you might remember this from, I think it was more than a year ago. I can't remember if it was last year or 2022. But the Pilot Custom Heritage, they made with some acrylic blanks where they put, they have like an acrylic swirl barrel. So they have like a green and a blue and a red and things like that. And maybe like a black, like a grayish black. And they were definitely at a premium to the regular ones. And now they're back into like a really nice price point for that pen. And then like if you scroll down, like, gosh, there's more Platinum 3776s. Yeah, I love the Sans of Komodo. That's one that I have. I think I even bought mine from Pen Chalet. That's a great pen. And, you know, Fisher Space Pens, which you never see on sale. And the Kaweco Art Sports as well. Like I have not finished going through this site, but it's a bunch of good stuff. If you want to have your own pen show at home, I would start at penchalet.com slash penaddict right now. And like, yeah, I'm still scrolling. So it looks fantastic.

Myke Hurley: Thanks to Pen Chalet for the support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, let's talk about some things that I bought. Some of which you can probably get at Pen Chalet. For sure. So if you're new to the show, I just kind of want to explain like how I shop at a pen show. I might buy, I come home with a lot of stuff. And I would say 90% of it is not for, quote, me, right? It's obviously for me to use, but it's a lot for reviews and it's a lot of stuff for giveaway. So like I bought all this stuff, but out of all the stuff that I bought, I bought one thing for me that I'm keeping. One pen at least. I am going to keep something else, which we'll get to in a second. I got my Pelican Orange Delight, the M200 series. So it's the orange barrel demonstrator. We've talked about it several times this year. We talked about it in last week's preview that I wanted this. And so we talked last Wednesday. You published the show. Within an hour after that, I had a text saying, hey, I got an orange delight. And I can put a nib grind on it for you. Who do you think might have texted me?

Brad Dowdy: Our good friend, Mark Bacchus. So shout out, Mark.

Myke Hurley: I was trying to like work out my brain who would have it and would also do nib grinds. That was what I was getting stuck on.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So Mark was in my wallet before I even left vacation because he's like, hey, here's an offer you can't refuse. And I'm like, you know what? You're probably right. So I got my Pelican from him. I got a fine nib on it. And then I got him to put a cursive italic grind on it. And I'm so happy with this pen. I forget. And this is something for people who are curious about Pelican pens. And this is actually something that I like about Pelicans because I, again, I love Pelicans. But I don't buy like the gold nib Pelicans because those nibs don't work for me. But the steel nibs generally do. And the 200 series is like their smallest. Well, I won't say their smallest, but it's kind of like their most well-known small series. They have the 101 series, which is a different concept altogether. That's a little bit smaller. But this is a small light pen. This is a pen like not everyone's going to like. This is a pen that people who love Pelican may not even own one of these pens, right? Because they're usually going for the 600s or the 800s or sometimes even the 1000s. Like the bigger models. The ones that only have gold nibs in them. Things of that nature. My plan for this pen, which I have already said, is I got this pen to be like an all-day, everyday writer. Practically an EDC type of pen. Because that's the size of this pen. That's the weight of this pen. So I wanted a good nib experience with it. So that's why I got it ground immediately before I even used it. And it came out great. So I've been using it the past couple days. Since I got home, I inked it up with... The hardest thing was to decide what ink to ink it up with. And I waited until I got home. And I had a bottle of Pelican Edelstein Smoky Quartz, which is a brown ink. Which I've actually never used. It was... I think it was a gift from someone who had like a Pelican Hub. I think this was like a Pelican Hub giveaway one time. And I ended up with a bottle. I don't think I ever inked it up. And it's kind of perfect for this. It's browner than I thought it was going to be. So I inked it up. So I have like a brown ink in my orange and gold pen. And it's kind of perfect. So very, very happy with that. So that's what I bought for myself, right? So that was my game plan. And, you know, I have this Pen Addict 100 set up. And I've probably creeped over into the Pen Addict. And, you know, we're probably getting into like the 103, 105 range now. So we're going to have to handle that here in the next month. Because like all these other pens that I've bought, like they're not for me, right? They're going to be used for other things. But this one is, right? And this is, you know, not a cheap pen. And it goes into like the category of, hey, this is my pen that I want to own and keep it in my collection. So it has to be allocated for. So we will work on that. Now that I am home from a pen show and don't have another one booked until this summer, we will be working on creating some space, if you will. The other thing on my list, like I really, I really did a good job with my list. I got everything on the list. So I wanted to see Michaela from White Bear Pens, who is a new maker. This was only her second show. And I got to meet her at last year's Atlanta Pen Show when she wasn't making. She was just like learning about how to make things. So I wanted to be sure to spend some time with her, see her pens. I picked up a couple of models from her that I'll be using for reviews and giveaways and things of that nature. So I got those. That went really, really well. I really like the pens that I picked up from White Bear Pens. I also got the two new Lamy All-Stars. They weren't really all over the show, but I got from Van S. Pens. Had both aquatic and fiery of the All-Stars. And there was a weird thing with this lineup. And this is a broader conversation in the Hire Me Lamy category. They offered in the aquatic, which is the blue. So each of the pens has the fountain pen, the rollerball, and the ballpoint. And all those safaris had the fountain pen, the rollerball, and the ballpoint. Randomly, the All-Star Aquatic Blue had a pencil. And I thought that was the strangest thing I've ever seen. Because as much as I love Lamy, I have very strong opinions about the pencil in the Safari lineup, which is the one that I've reviewed before. Because how people use pencils, they rotate them in their hand, right? In the non-Kuritoga category.

Brad Dowdy: And Lamy insists on having a molded grip in their mechanical pencils for the All-Star and the Safari. And it's just a bad experience, right? Like, that's not how people use pencils and want to keep their grip in the same position using a pencil. That's just not how it works. But then they just randomly, out of these four new colors that they did, they dropped in the blue mechanical pencil just randomly. Which I think is super odd. Like, I would do none. Or I would put it in the Safari lineup. Because now you're charging more for the aluminum barrel for the pencil. Like, if you want to have one pencil, you put it in the cheaper category, I think. I don't know. That's, again, that's in the hire me, Lamy category. Like, this was a very strange decision. And completely insignificant to reality. But my reality, it stood out like a sore thumb.

Myke Hurley: I didn't even remember or know that they did an All-Star mechanical pencil. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's, like, I would never recommend the All-Star of the Safari mechanical pencil. You need to get up into the 2000 to have, like, a good mechanical pencil experience with Lamy, I believe. So, it's not their thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. What does make a lot of sense to me was Lamy Dark Lilac. I did want to go ahead and get that on Friday. Because it did sell out pretty quickly. Hopefully, it's going to be, like, if I didn't get it, it wouldn't be a big deal because it's going to be a stock item.

Brad Dowdy: But I did get Lamy Dark Lilac. I am keeping, I bought two bottles. One I'm giving away already. It's on the blog this week. If you listen to this today or tomorrow, you have time to go enter the Lamy Dark Lilac giveaway on the blog. And I have not inked it up yet, but I'm keeping a bottle for myself. So, between the Pelican and the Dark Lilac, that's what I bought.

Myke Hurley: But why are you keeping it? Just for fun.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I want to have it a test. I like a good dark purple anyway. So, and Lamy inks are so cheap. They even raised the prices, like, a couple years ago. But they're still only $12 for a 50-milliliter bottle. I mean, it's kind of, like, why not, right? But, you know, at a pen show, why not? We'll get you, we'll require extra bags on the way home if you say why not too much. So, yeah, that was. Before we continue.

Myke Hurley: Take a second break and then we'll get back into your hall.

Cooking and pizza ovens

Brad Dowdy: I'm cooking, Myke. Indeed. So, we might as well talk about cooking.

Myke Hurley: Are you getting up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit?

Brad Dowdy: Thankfully, no.

Myke Hurley: Well, then you'd be no good for cooking a pizza. This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens, the world's number one pizza oven company. They let you make restaurant-quality pizza in your own home. You've got to get to those high temperatures because that's what will get you the results that you want in a very quick time. You'll be able to cook pizza in as little as 60 seconds. The high temperatures is what sets an Uni Pizza Oven apart from a conventional home oven. They're also incredibly quick to heat up. In just 20 minutes from turning them on, you'll be at temperature, which is enough time to get all your toppings ready and get your first base started. Then you'll be ready to go. And you'll have pizza faster than, like, you'll be able to, like, cook pizza faster than you can make it. You know, that 60-second time is no joke. They have a whole range of wonderful ovens over at Uni Pizza Ovens. You could get the wood pellet-fueled Fyra 12. They have the multifuel Kara 12G for maximum portability. It's made for those who like cooking on the go, camping, and getting out into the wilderness. If you want the convenience of gas but love the flavor of wood-fired cooking, then you can check out the Karu line. But, you know, so you get wood and charcoal out of the box with those models, the Karu models. But you can also add an optional gas burner for cooking flexibility, too, so you could do whatever you like. They have great options whether you want to cook with wood, charcoal, gas, or even electricity with the Volt 12 pizza oven, where you can make pizzas both indoors and outdoors. This is the oven that I have and adore. I know that Brad has one of the Karu ones. Yep. And so we have like a whole variety here at the Pan Addict Podcast. I like the flexibility of being able to cook indoors and outdoors. And that's why I love that I own the Volt. Like it's really, really amazing for me. We love cooking pizza with our Uni Pizza Oven. And I'm very confident that you will, too. But Uni Ovens are for more than just pizza. You can cook juicy burgers, sizzling fajitas, buffalo wings, and so much more. Uni Pizza Ovens start at just $299. With free shipping to the US, UK, and EU. And they also have a vast variety of accessories. Cast iron cookware, pizza peels, thermometers, and so much more. You can even buy groceries from Uni. You know, like the stuff you're going to need to actually cook the pizza. Toppings and sauces and all that kind of stuff. I like to buy our stuff from Uni because I know that they've done the taste testing and the hard work. And then I can just benefit from their experience. Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Uni Pizza Oven. Just go to uni.com, O-O-N-I.com, and use the code PENADDICT2024 at checkout. Uni Pizza Ovens are the best way to bring restaurant-quality pizza to your own home. So just go to O-O-N-I.com and use the code PENADDICT2024 at checkout. Now, our thanks to Uni Pizza Ovens for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I have a few more things I picked up. And this is all, again, like this is all going to be reviews, giveaways, all kinds of stuff I'm going to use for like the blog and different things. So I definitely picked up the Retro 51 Turtle Rescue. I think this is one of the cooler ones that they released in a while. I talked about this on the show. So if you listened to last week's show, like I think I 100%ed my shopping list. So I think I got all the things I had planned on. So that's a great one. I haven't opened it up yet to use it. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it. It'll probably be a giveaway item because I tend to do the rescue pins as a giveaway item to also kind of promote the charities that they support, like I've done the Owl Rescue and other things like that. So it's a good way to put that out there and get some more eyeballs on it. So that's the way I think about a purchase like that. Like I've reviewed a lot of Retro 51s. I just reviewed a big shot recently. But I'll tend to like it'll be something new and different for me to want to review the Turtle Rescue. I would rather give it away and shine a light on what they're doing for that. And while I was grabbing that for my friends Marty and Kimberly, I picked up a Rickshaw Sinclair. You may have heard of this case, Myke. But this was the Ink Journal model. So my friend Tom Otto runs Ink Journal and he has an Ink Squid logo that he uses. And then this one was just in like this rainbowy color. I was like, oh, it's just on the table, just like calling my name. The last thing I need is another Sinclair. Like I get them all the time. Like Mark just like I'll go to the mailbox like on Thursday and there'll be like a Sinclair in there. But this kind of the one I bought is called Sorbet Squid.

Brad Dowdy: And it's just or Sorbet. Yeah, the color is called Sorbet Squid. That is a weird, weird name. I just like saying it and I like looking at it and like I like I got to figure out something to do with that. Like, again, that's probably something I would give away down the line or whatever. But it was that was one of those up got him type of situations where it wasn't on my list. But like, OK, I did have some room to to pick up a fun case like that. The Divine Pens Plus pen stands I had seen online and I knew they were going to be at at the show. And they're these really unique pen stands made from like different acrylics. They have different materials in them. And then they have like a little little bottle stand on there to rest your pens in. Or you could even put ink in there if you wanted. It'd be kind of a tight opening if you wanted to use it like an inkwell. But they're just really neat. And like the kinds I got, if you look up, we'll put a link into their site and you can go see. There's all kinds of different ones. They have things from like beach scenes and stuff like that until the ones that I bought were more like what you would see from an acrylic fountain pen pour as a base. Right. So like the swirls and colors and things like that. So I went more that route as opposed to like the scenes type of route. So those are really cool. I was excited to get that. And then I always tried to support some of the local, more local, like small makers there. So there was a book binder there, Plimpsest Design. They were from North Carolina. This was their first show. And they bound their own notebooks and brought them. So like that's one of those things is like I'm not going to be like a paper snob. I don't know what the paper is like. But I like the artwork and I like the style of binding that they used and things like that. So I bought some notebooks from that. And like, again, like all of this stuff, like I'm going to be giving away, you know, in various platforms as we go forward. You know, maybe I'll use one of those. Maybe I won't. But like I just like trying to leave a little bit of budget to pick up these random things like that that you see to show that you're not always expecting. When you when you walk in, like that's not something you're going to have on like a shopping list. Right. You're going to find you're going to find those things as you walk in and walk around and kind of see who's doing what and, you know, what makers are new to the show and things like that. So I always like to give them support and a shout out and things like that. It was super fun. So that was that was kind of the shopping list, I think. Like, honestly, like it's a lot, but not too much. Like I said, I just got one thing for me, which I'm super thrilled about. Like, I think that's how my personal shopping has gone recently. Like if I'm like dedicated to having like one specific thing at a show, that would be great. So we'll see. You know, who knows? Who knows how things will hold up in the future?

Myke Hurley: Was there anything you was tempted to buy but didn't pull the trigger on?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. My my friend John Tello at Hello Tello. He makes some really neat pins. I have a couple of his pins already. He made a shorter version of a pin that I actually put on Instagram. Someone asked me that like a similar question. Is there anything you saw that you wanted but didn't didn't buy for whatever reason? And it was that pin. So it's a it's a really neat shape that I wouldn't think would be comfortable or feel like great. And then I picked it up and I was like, oh, this is really nice. Like, I really like it. And the one he had like on his table is like purple and like a like a bright yellow chartreuse green ink window. And, you know, the cap threads on the back. But you like can't see the threads. Like I didn't even see the threads in the beginning. So it was really, really neat. So I did like that at the show. So that was kind of my that's on my mental list. Like one of these years mental list, like which is another great thing to go to pin shows. Right. Like you can't buy everything at a show. So you kind of look around and see what's up.

Myke Hurley: You'd say overall very successful year at the pen show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Easily for me. Right. Like this is the one of the easiest decisions I make all years to go to the Atlanta pen show. It's very consistent. I wrote it up for for members this weekend after I got home. And I just I just noted how consistent the show is every year. You know, some people, you know, may not like the same things that I like. And of a pen show. So it may not be for them, but for me and my needs and the way I like to do things and, you know, have it be like a pretty chill, calm, great experience, you know, where it's like just the right amount of crowds and just the right amount of vendors and just the right amount of busy. Yeah, it's it's, you know, for me, it's kind of in that Goldilocks range because it's easy travel. Like I'm not exhausted getting there to begin with things like that. So, yeah, like very successful for me. I didn't hang around Sunday, so I don't know how the vendors were feeling, but I know between Friday and Saturday, like I only heard positive comments about the crowds and sales so far. So in general, like I could follow up afterwards and see like after overall how it went. But I had a pretty good vibe from the vendors as well.

Myke Hurley: What other pen shows do you have coming up this year?

Upcoming pen shows and travel plans

Brad Dowdy: Nothing outside of San Francisco and the Yoseka Pen Fest, both of which are in August. So I'm not going to Chicago, which is one I went to last year. That's coming up in May. I'm not hitting some of the summer shows just because that's kind of in the lead up to July's London event. Shout out Relay 10th.

Myke Hurley: Let's go, baby.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm trying to chill between now and then because after the show, like I have a busy schedule from London, New York and San Francisco in the span of about five or six weeks. So that'll be a busy time. So I know myself well enough. Like I need to chill heading into that and then we can have a blast doing all those things. So, yeah, I really won't be at a proper show until San Francisco. But then Yoseka Pen Fest is pretty much a pen show, but it's just something a little bit different.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, because Yoseka is in New York, right? So it's like the Brooklyn thing, right? Brooklyn's in the house. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything. Your products, services, even the content that you create. Squarespace has got everything you need, all in one place, all on your terms. Their blueprint AI and SEO tools make it so easy to get started. You can start a completely personalized website with their new guided design system, Squarespace Blueprint. Choose professionally curated layout and styling options to build a unique online presence from the ground up, tailored to your brand or business and optimized for every device. And then easily launch your website and get discovered fast with integrated, optimized SEO tools so you show up more often to more people and grow the way you want. You can also integrate flexible payments to make checkout seamless for your customers with simple but powerful payment tools. You can accept credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay. And in eligible countries, offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with AfterPay and ClearPay. You can really make the most of AI with Squarespace's new stuff. You can kickstart or update written content on any website, product description or email with Squarespace AI, generating instant personalized results that know and show your brand identity. You can explain what your site is about, choose your tone and enter what you need to get short or long form text. No matter the placement, Squarespace AI makes it easier than ever to go live, stand out and succeed online. This really lets you make the most of these tools in Squarespace rather than needing to go out elsewhere. But it's also with all of the information that you've given the Squarespace system itself, like what it knows about your website, so it can make it really shine just for you. I've been using Squarespace for 15 years and it is the way that they add features like this is one of the reasons that I continue to keep using them. They're always making sure that they have whatever the new technology is, they're going to make sure that they integrate it, build it into their platform and make everything better for you. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict when you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the penaddict. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: We got a shout out of the week, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Shout out of the week.

Brad Dowdy: I thought you were going to forget there for one second.

Myke Hurley: Never.

Brad Dowdy: I get emails if you don't say it.

Myke Hurley: Well, you know. Look, the one time that people said I didn't say it, I did say it. I was just quiet. You know?

Brad Dowdy: We have an accidental Squarespace website this week. I didn't plan on that. But the Erasable Podcast is celebrating their 10th anniversary. I know I've given them a shout out before, but I will always give them a shout out because I love what Andy, Tim, and Johnny do over at the Erasable Podcast. Your favorite podcast about pencils and all things stationary and really fun stuff. And I just so happen to be a guest on their 10th anniversary show, along with some of my great friends who have been on the show in the past. So they kind of did a recap. I spent about, I don't know, gosh, probably, I don't know how much made it in the episode. It just came in the feeds last night, so I haven't listened to it yet. But I spent probably 30 or 40 minutes talking with Tim and just kind of like reminiscing about stuff. So I am very anxious to give this one a listen. Some awesome people that were guests and they make an awesome show. So it was really cool to be a part of that. It's good to, it's awesome to see them celebrate 10 years of a podcast about pencils, Myke. So fantastic shout out.

Myke Hurley: Congratulations. Congratulations.

Brad Dowdy: No small feat whatsoever.

Myke Hurley: I will say 209 episodes in 10 years.

Myke Hurley: Slackers.

Brad Dowdy: You know, Tim, Tim asked me, he's like, what episode number are y'all on? And I told him and, you know, that was like 12 years. He's like, huh.

Myke Hurley: Interesting. Interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but they were mostly in every other week. And then there's definitely been gaps and things. I know. But they're still kicking. I know.

Myke Hurley: Let's say probably more healthy, you know?

Brad Dowdy: You think? Yeah. I don't know. I feel pretty good about us. I got a lot left in me, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Me too. All right. I've got some follow-up. All right. This is mostly from questions over the last couple of weeks. So Matt wrote in to say, thank you for answering my question about modular notebook systems for work on this past week's episode. I wanted to update you and let you know what I decided. I got a Galen leather A5 zip folio and some Nakabayashi and Midori A5 dot grid notebook inserts. I put a small piece of washi tape on the front of each insert and then stamped it with the first letter on a different project at work. That way I know which insert belongs to which project and they all fit in a beautiful folio. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So heck yes. I think kind of the way we ended that or I ended that discussion was to meet your needs. You're going to have to roll your own somehow. Like I don't know clearly what the answer is, but there's going to have to be some building of a system that's going to work perfect for your needs. And I think you found it right. Like you have a folio, you can put it, some of the thinner A5 notebooks like that Midori sells and Nakabayashi sells and have an awesome folio, awesome paper quality and awesome kind of segmentation between the projects, which was kind of the key here. And just like literally have fun building this thing. Right. So I think this, this comes up a lot as people get more experience trying to figure out what they're wanting to use that. We do have a lot of opportunities in the stationary space to roll your own using a few different products to build the perfect thing for you. So that's fantastic.

Myke Hurley: Gotta love it. All right. Next up comes from Scott, who says a suggestion for Matt. So the previous you mentioned that, although Matt seems good, but this is maybe how other people wanted to do it. They're the same. We're looking for a modular A5 dot grid refill that can take a lot of ink. Definitely check out Levenger's free, free leaf pad. They may, they take all of the ink that you can sling at them with no issues. Do you know this?

Brad Dowdy: I don't. So I have not tried these yet, but I am tempted because they're top bound pads, which I always like. Do they come in different sizes here? Yeah. So we have some different sizes so we can, again, use those to manipulate how we need.

Myke Hurley: Well, just to letter and junior. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So made up sizes, you know. Okay. Hey, look. I'm going to have to be okay with that. Wasn't this the year of accepting that? I am. I fully accept letter size and junior size. Don't ask me what that means in, you know, real numbers, you know, in America units, but it's letter and junior. So we're just going to have to go with that. And yes, I would, you know, take these, use them in the pad or tear them out and punch them into something else. Like I'm in. So this is something I could think about trying. If someone's saying that these papers absorb a lot of ink, I would like to give them a try. That's always going to be like a characteristic that's going to get my attention. So yeah, something to look at. And I'll bookmark that for later.

Myke Hurley: It's nice looking. They're good looking, actually. Good looking pads. It's like a nice dot grid and just the Levenger thing looks good. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Not to distract the podcast the entire time, but that's what I do. Levenger was one of those products pre-Penatic blog. So we're talking like early, late 90s, early 2000s, where they did some really cool notepads, pads like these, and they would have like the meeting layout, right? Or they would, they, Levenger was always, you know, kind of business oriented, you know, in general. And they would do like weird layout notepads. And I was always into like those type of things. Like before I was, you know, writing about stuff on the Penatic, like I would see these notebooks. I was like, what is that? And I have to have it. So yeah.

Myke Hurley: I'm on their website right now. They have a product called Free Leaf Waves. And the bottom of the page is cut in a wave shape and dyed blue.

Brad Dowdy: Now that's a unique size I can't get behind.

Brad Dowdy: I have my, even I have my limits, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I'm not sure exactly what this is for.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Looks, that's one of those. Oh yeah. Looks good on you. Right. Looks good on the gram, I bet. You know? Yeah. Like I'm down with like the wave cut, but on a different product. Like this doesn't, this seems like a product design mismatch. I'm a hundred percent into the wave cut, but I think.

Myke Hurley: Did Levenger create and or popularize the disc bound system?

Brad Dowdy: To my knowledge, yes. Like that was the first one that I always knew. One or both? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They may, whether they created it, I can't say with a fact, but I only knew the Levenger disc bound system as, as kind of like a standalone product. I didn't even know, like this is, you know, two decades ago that I didn't know if that existed elsewhere. Anyone else was doing it. I'm sure there was, but I have no idea, but it's what I knew.

Myke Hurley: And Scott says another suggestion for Jason who wanted a pocket notebook that stands up well to ink is the story supply co pocket staple.

Brad Dowdy: Concur. I completely agree with those. So I've had good experience with those story supply notebooks and fountain pens. Absolutely concur.

Myke Hurley: Good, good suggestions all around there by writer Scott. Nathan says, Jack asked about new pen options because some of their pens like a 3776 were drying out while taking notes. Jack said a Lamy Safari didn't dry out, but its line was too wide. And instead of trying to find a new pen, why not send the Safari to a nibmeister and get the nib ground for a finer line? It'll cost much less, though the pen will be gone for a while for the work to be done.

Brad Dowdy: Nathan, do you think you're the host of this show? I know. You know what I'm saying? Like, why would you come in with a great answer like that that I did not think of at the time, Nathan?

Myke Hurley: Well, I would, I mean, if we're going down this route, I would also say that like, there could be the scenario of getting another nib, like another Safari nib. But my worry about this suggestion from Nathan is I think something that we didn't, we weren't confident enough to say definitively one way or another is if there was just something going on with the nib sizes, for example, that were causing this. My worry would be if you took this and made and took it like from say like a medium to a fine or whatever it was, I don't remember that, that might make it dry up quicker. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: No, I don't think so. And I would be totally down with, hey, if the Safari is working, but I want something finer, I would consider exactly what Nathan's saying and get the nib size taken down significantly, right? Like even like a stock Safari extra fine, like I use one of my desk pretty regularly. It's so wide. It's really wide nib. I think what I got stuck on on that original question, like you were talking about, is how the 3776s and the properties were drying out because that should not be a technical feature of those pens. Like they should be working better for you. So I got a little stuck on that for sure. But this is a great answer. So I'm all aboard that Nathan is the new co-host, Myke.

Myke Hurley: You're fired. We'll see about that. And Kate writes in to say, I don't think you spoke about this when talking about the recent AL star. Is it? Do we go with all star? I can never remember. I feel like I've said it three different ways this episode.

Brad Dowdy: So the problem is there's two products, what Kaweco does and what Lamy does. And they both use AL and I interchange them. And there is a right way to describe them. And I just can't ever remember which is which. So I mix them that, mix and match them. So AL stands for aluminum in both cases. One has a capital L. I think one uses a lowercase L. Like it's a mess. Like I just, I just say it and just keep moving.

Myke Hurley: Anyway. So we are talking about Lamy, AL star special editions. Okay. It says, I saw in my Colt pens newsletter, the AL star has gone digital and it is a product which is a stylus, like a Wacom stylus tip version of the AL star.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, it's cool. Like, like I don't have a situation where I could use one of these. I think they came out with this like a year or two ago. I think they had a big Wacom like post. Like I, I seem to remember like a launch of this product. And I really liked that for people who are into like drawing on the tablets and are using the Wacoms to like really get the detail in. Like it's a very, very popular digital design aspect. I think having something like the, the Lamy all-star in with this tip, I think is just a rad idea. Right. Like it's super, super cool.

Myke Hurley: Like if you go to, so on the Colt pens website, they have a, like a link to Lamy and it takes you to a page where they have all of the different types of products that this can be used with. And one of them that really makes me laugh is like the Samsung phones, because it can work like a note stylus. And there's just something hilarious to me about the size of this pen writing on the screen of a phone.

Experience with foldable phones

Brad Dowdy: Well, you know, Myke, at one thing I did see at the Atlanta pen show, I got to use two different foldable phones, which was an interesting experience for me. So maybe, maybe if you had the foldable screen, it would, uh, it would work better.

Myke Hurley: Which foldable phones did you use? Do you know? Yes, absolutely.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. Yes. What did they look like? No clue. Uh, they folded in half. Was one little? No, neither of them were little. They were both like a full size phone and like had a screen on the outside and that would open and open and open. And it was a full size, the full size open screen on the inside, the two panel screen. Look at you living in the future. I think it was the same phone. I think they were both the same phone. Probably. From two different people.

Myke Hurley: They were probably both, they were probably both Samsung Z folds.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So what I didn't understand was that the outside screen was like, oh, then there's two more screens on the inside.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So that is the optimal way to do it because when foldable phones were just starting, there was this question of like, do you have like a wraparound screen or like what are you going to do? The problem is the folding part needs to be softer. And so if you put that on the outside, the phone gets destroyed because you're putting it down, you're putting it in your pocket and all that kind of stuff. And so this, the, the scenario that has ended up being, it's, uh, I actually learned like origami valley fold and mountain fold. Okay. And so the, the products that have worked out are valley folds because like if you fold it, it goes down rather than a mountain fold. Or if you fold it, the fold goes on the outside. So.

Brad Dowdy: That makes sense. Both of these were valley folds. Like I said, I think they were the same phone. It was useful because it was like, oh, what product do you, we were like trying to describe some products and like, just have a discussion and like we could find them on the small screen. Then we got the video and they're like, okay, here, pop it open, play the video place of it.

Myke Hurley: I was like, oh, sweet. That's a cool idea. I like it. They're fun. Yep. All right. That's going to do it for this week's episode. If you would like to send in follow-up or questions for next week, just go to penaddictfeedback.com. Thank you to everybody that does. And thank you to everyone that's sent in new RSTPA questions. We're filling up the banks again. So please continue to send those in. Or if you have follow-up like Kate, Nathan, Scott, and Matt did, you can send it in there too. If you want to find Brad online, go to Instagram. He's at penaddict where you can see Brad's posts that he was, like his pictures and his Q&A that he was doing over Atlanta Pen Show weekend. But you can also go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, and twitch.tv slash penaddict. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can find my products at cortexbrand.com. Thank you to our sponsors of this week's episode, Squarespace, Uni, and Pen Chalet. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.