The Pen Addict 65/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	65
Title:	CSI Pen-Town
Release Date:	July 30th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Ed Jelley
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 65
Audio File:	Audio Episode 65
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 65
Length:	6969 min <br />1.15 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

The Pen Addict

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to The Pen Addict, episode 65 on the lovely 5x5 Network. The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by a man that, when he gets into bed every night, he has a big sheet of leather pulled over him and a huge elastic band pulled round just to make sure that he is securely held in place. Mr. Brad Dowdy. You lost your mind. You get where I'm going with that. I'm basically saying you sleep inside a mullskin.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, I do. Oh my gosh. That could go so many wrong ways. It's not even funny. But I appreciate that, I think. I'm not sure.

Brad Dowdy: I don't even know how you come up with this.

Myke Hurley: I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, folks. Basically, what I do is I just look around me at all of the pens and paper and notebooks. I used them for inspiration and I looked at one of those journalist mullskins, you know, the ones that they flip up.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Well, then somehow that managed to end up in a bedroom type scene, so I'm not sure what your thought process is there.

Myke Hurley: I just assumed that the only time you would ever need to be closed is when you go and sleep at night.

Brad Dowdy: I guess so. I guess so. I'll let you have that. But yeah, good grief, mate. Well, you guys probably heard – I think I heard another little giggle in the background. We've got a special guest on today, Myke. We have Mr. Ed Jelly with us from edjelly.com. How's it going, Ed? Hey, how's it going? Good to be here. Good, good. We're happy to have you. We're excited. I'm very excited about this show because I'm a big fan of yours and I want to talk a lot about your blog and your reviews and some of your pens and paper. And we're definitely going to get into that. And, you know, like we always do, we've got a little bit of follow-up. So Myke and I are going to go through this. We'll get you to chime in on a few things and we'll just let it roll and go from there. Sound good? Sounds good. I'll be here. All right. So, Myke. So, it caused a bit of a stir last week, which, you know, is to be expected with the Visionaire Kickstarter project. We had a little – kicked up the dust a little bit on that project. And, you know, if everyone – for some reason you're jumping in on this episode without listening to the previous episode, you definitely want to give last episode a listen. I think it actually turned out – I was a little bit nervous about it. I think it turned out better than expected. I don't know about you. I don't know if you got any feedback that I didn't get, Myke. But I got – it caught a lot of emails, tons of tweets and messages for that. And, you know, most people were interested to hear, you know, some of the comparisons I'm making. Some people – I think most of the feedback I got was positive. A little bit – I wouldn't say negative. No one was like, oh, you're completely wrong and you shouldn't be doing this or anything like that. But, you know, I had one or two, like maybe you're taking this a little bit too far thing or you're taking it personal. And I didn't think that was the case at all. I thought it was more of an education, right, for people who were not familiar with this product and kind of what my takeaways were on it. So during last week's episode, I had made contact with Morgan, the project founder of the Visionaire and the designer. I did air quotes there, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: I'm just letting you go. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And to Morgan's credit, he called me on Thursday and I was not available and the call went to voicemail. So I messaged him back and then I messaged him back again and then again and then I sent him another email and said, hey, can you respond to the questions? And since that last Thursday, it's been radio silence. He is not responding to me at all. I've got no answers to my questions. I've got no contact with him whatsoever. And, you know, I think I'm done with it. I mean, I don't care that much. You know, I don't want this to be, you know, CSI, Pentown on this Visionaire project. You know, I just wanted to be, you know, I wanted to leave some, give some people some information because I was getting asked about it so much. That I had to talk about it because it was just like a boulder rolling down the hill and there was no stopping it. So I think I've pretty much said my peace with it last week. Morgan is choosing not to communicate with me anymore and that's fine. He did make the effort to his credit. But he has a very, very short list of emails that I sent him that he could respond to at any time in about five minutes. And he's not taking the time to do so. Ever since he left me a voicemail, I have texted him several times and he has not responded to a single one of my texts. So, I mean, I don't want to spend any more time on this, to be quite honest, unless something crazy happens. It's like, I mean, you know, I think I've said my peace on it. So there you have it on that. So what do you think about that, Myke? Do you have any follow up on the Visionaire? Do you want to talk about it at all? I'll take that as a no.

Myke Hurley: Well, no, it's not that I don't want to talk about it.

Myke Hurley: I don't feel like we have a... I don't feel like we have an answer. Yeah. I mean, you can take silence as an answer, right? I mean, and I think that that's perfectly okay to do.

Myke Hurley: I don't think that, you know... Do you know what I mean? Like, I think you could take that. Easy, you could take that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I don't want to be that finite and say, you know, or make it that final and say, well, he didn't respond. So it's clearly no good at all. I don't want to do that. But it's kind of telling. And you know what? It's been that way since the beginning of the project. He's been elusive and evasive, I guess is probably more the proper word. So, Ed, did you ever take a look at this Visionaire pen on Kickstarter? What do you think about that pen?

Ed Jelley: Yeah, I did. I came across it. I don't even remember where. Like, in the first few days, and I just kind of scrolled through it, there's a lot of fluff going on in the description of it. And, like, the marketing was great. Like, I think if he were selling anything with those, you know, putting in things about his firstborn son's birth certificate and, you know, whatever. But I think, like what you guys were saying last week, he's not entirely sure about fountain pens. It looks an awful lot like a couple of Chinese pens. And the IPG, the Iridium Point Germany nib, is kind of pretty much as generic as they come, which is never a great sign when you're, you know, paying more for something that you could definitely get for cheaper. Right. But, like you guys said, I don't think it's going to be a bad pen. I don't think it's going to, you know, people aren't going to be annoyed when they get it. It's just the uneducated in the pen world are, I think that's really who's buying it. Right, right.

Brad Dowdy: And I think the money that it's at now, the, I mean, $266,766, I think this guy is going to make an absolute killing on this. I mean, he is just going to, I mean, despite his comments, I am, whew, yeah. I don't see him, this costing him very much to get manufactured. And good on him, like you said and I said. Damn, he's good at marketing. Yeah.

Online Auction

Ed Jelley: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's weird that he's not answering stuff and it seems like, you know, there's a lot of money involved. There's a lot of other people's money involved, but, you know, it'll probably happen and people will probably be happy with it. And some people won't just like anything, I think. Right. Right.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I don't know what to do.

Myke Hurley: What? I mean.

Ed Jelley: Well, if you don't buy it, we'll never know.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Take one for the team, mate.

Myke Hurley: You take one for the team.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, I already made my stand and you made yours. You went in and I didn't. If anything, I'm going to go pledge a dollar. So when this campaign ends, if he ever updates, I get the updates because I want to see what happens when this thing ends because he wants to sell them for $80 when it's over. And the way he's, the way this campaign has gone down, I don't see there's any way that that's even going to happen. I see this going away. Once the pins are shipped, I think he's out. I mean, he's going to make a mint.

Myke Hurley: When does it end?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it's got like 30 more days. 27 more days. All right. I'm going to keep it. All right. Cool. I'm going to buy it.

Myke Hurley: You got plenty of time. Well, no. Let's talk. The only reason that I asked that was just, you know. Go through to the next payday. And I don't have to think about it. Yeah. But yeah, I'm going to keep it. Just because I feel like, you know, I think at this point, because I've been thinking about it and listening to you guys talk about it again, especially hearing Ed's opinion as well. Not that I don't trust yours or anybody else's, Brad. Oh, sure. That I think to myself, you know, yeah, probably it's just this common thing, but could still be great. Maybe I just, maybe I need to continue the benefit of the doubt that I wanted to give him in the first instance and actually give and put my money where my mouth is. Sure. And actually receive the thing. Sure.

Brad Dowdy: And I actually, I told you offline last week and I should have said it while we were live, but like right when the show ended, we were talking about it. And I said, you know, if I get a clear answer on where, you know, how and where this pen's being manufactured, I will back it. And that hasn't happened. So, all right. That's enough Visionaire for me. Let's talk about a different, more, maybe a better Kickstarter project, Myke. The Ajoto pen, which was super, super popular. And you were in on this and they had some delays and some shipping delays and it took a long time to get to it, but you finally got it in hand, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it arrived like on Wednesday, which is like the worst time for anything to arrive because that means it's, you know, it's come to me just after the show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, right. And we got to wait a whole week.

Myke Hurley: So, I don't feel like I need to give a background on it too much. I think we've spoken about it a bunch of times. It's UK based. As with any Kickstarter, you know, I was waiting. They were very, very, very responsive and their customer service was awesome on Twitter and stuff like that. But I kind of just was, you know, wanted to get the thing. So, I wasn't really frustrated at them for the delays because that's just how Kickstarter things go. And I think I said this before, but the difference is you pay and then you wait. And that's not how we're used to doing business, like how we're used to making transactions. So, Kickstarter for physical products is interesting in that regard. And I haven't really backed many, many physical product Kickstarters. So, the Agiotto arrived. And one of the things that I was thinking about during the process of receiving their updates was that they were putting far too much effort into the packaging. I felt that they were potentially wasting time with the packaging. You've got, let's see, you'll hear this. That is an aluminum case or aluminum, as I should say, case that is part of the box. Inside is cork. You can see all of this on the Kickstarter page, actually.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm looking now. Is that, that's aluminum that goes around the outside? Yep. Oh, wow. Wow. I didn't realize that. Goodness.

Myke Hurley: There's a cork box, which has a cardboard sleeve on it. And the cardboard sleeve has their little, their little motto, which is also on the cardboard box, which surrounds this. You are about to embark on upon an amazing journey. Be creative. Stay curious. Make your mark. That's their whole little thing.

Brad Dowdy: That's good.

Myke Hurley: But when I opened it, I was, I kind of understood why. It just, that, that sort of care is, is really important, I think. So I opened, you know, I pushed out this cork casing and took off the card and have been met with one of the most beautiful pens I have ever owned looking at me. I have this brushed aluminum, like, it's like a torpedo. It's just long and thin. There's no clip. Don't know how I feel about the fact that there's no clip. I haven't really made my mind up on that yet. And it has like a retro 51 style mechanism in which you twist. Okay. But it pushes down a bit. And that's how it can use different refills because it doesn't lock into the refill to make the spin. Does that make sense? Right. So the mechanism isn't like clicking into the refill and then turning it. When you unscrew it, it's just like a plunger, basically. Mm-hmm. You know, which is on a thread on the inside. Right. Which is pushing it down. So I was really, really impressed by the build quality of the pen.

Myke Hurley: The packaging was incredible, but the build quality is really nice. It's weighted very well. It's maybe a little long for my tastes, but not so long that it's a problem. Because typically the length would mean that it would be heavy, but it's not a very heavy pen all in all. So the weighting is quite well. Does that make sense? Okay. So because it's long, it's not like my hand's tipping over.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And the aluminum should, you know, that's not going to be the heaviest material to make a pen out of. So, and it looks like, does it, I'm looking at one of the pictures, does it taper out slightly towards where you grip it?

Myke Hurley: Ever so slightly.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Enough? It's not, it's not a complete, it's not like a perfect cylinder.

Myke Hurley: No, which is a great decision. Because you notice it when you hold it. You really do notice it. And that's a good thing. They made a very smart decision with that. They didn't need to do that. But they made what I consider to be the right choice there. And because it's brushed aluminum, it doesn't need a grip or anything because there's a grip to the whole barrel. So I'm pleased that I went with the aluminum. They did a brass version, I think. That would have been far too heavy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think so.

Myke Hurley: So they included a refill, which they branded. Saw that. I don't know what this refill is. I tried to find out. I couldn't see. It's a pretty generic, rollable, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: But guess what it takes?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, the retro, the easy flow.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

TWSBI Refill

Brad Dowdy: 8126 or 27, one of those.

Myke Hurley: The best refill of all time, you mean?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, definitely.

Myke Hurley: Takes that, fits perfectly.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, I love that refill. I was using it last night, as a matter of fact. So with that refill. Not a .7mm guy at all.

Myke Hurley: With that refill, this body, one of the best pens I own.

Brad Dowdy: Wow, fantastic. Well, I gotta say, it looks awesome. I always thought it did.

Myke Hurley: It does. It really does. I think I would like, if I would, I haven't been using it on a daily basis. I've been using it at home a lot. I think I would like to have a clip on it. Sure. They might make, I mean, they're gonna open a store, and if they don't have clips, then I may, like, sort of contact them and suggest, you know, try and manufacture a clip of some description for this. Mm-hmm. But what I've got is a really, really well, really well-crafted, handmade pen. And it has, it basically, they provided me with the dream that I had for this pen, which was that it would come and be extremely well-made, but would allow me to put the best refill for any type of pen of this ilk for me in it, which they've been able to do. And it's like, basically, what they've done is they've made a really high-end retro 51. Mm-hmm. Which was exactly, I think I mentioned this, when I backed it, that was what I wanted. Right. That was what I wanted, and they've given me that. So I'm really, really happy with this, and they will be opening a store of their own soon. So I, it is, this definitely gets a, a recommendation from me.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Yeah, I would totally sign my kid's birth certificate with this pen.

Myke Hurley: You say, I mean, that, that is a great way to put it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this, this is a pen, it's going to last you for a lifetime. This, this is an heirloom pen. This is a pen you can pass down from generation to generation, you know. So, I'm having fun there, but I'm serious about this pen, not, not the, the other one. This is a, this is a killer pen, and, you know, I might have to look into their store when, once it gets up and running. I don't know if it is yet or not. I haven't looked, but. It isn't. It isn't. That's what I'd look at.

Myke Hurley: They are working on it, and they're going to, they, they manufactured these leather sleeves.

Brad Dowdy: I saw those.

Myke Hurley: They were an extra that you could buy.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Like, you could increase your, your pledge. I will buy one of those, probably.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's a good, good combination. That was a good, good add-on that they did there. Yeah. It, it fits the whole idea of this pen, I think, pretty well.

Myke Hurley: Because I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it, I didn't want to go and spend all that money on buying a, an addition, like a, an accessory for it. Yeah. But, yeah, I, I will probably look into buying one of those leather sleeves as well. Yeah. Um, I mean, I don't know why I didn't, it was 20 pounds more, kind of silly. Well, I can see that in hindsight, hindsight's 20, 20, right? Right. And now, you know, now I know that I like this pen.

Kickstarter Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Ed, do you get into the Kickstarter pen thing, like, like Myke and I do, or do you, you stick more to the fountain pens, which haven't been like really as well represented on, on Kickstarter yet? Have you gotten involved in any of these projects at all?

Ed Jelley: No, no, I haven't. And now after looking at this one, I kind of wish I did. Yeah. And should probably start paying attention. Uh, yeah, I did. I bought one of those, uh, was it, was it big eye design? Um, yep. They, they did a Kickstarter thing, but I bought after the fact, um, what is it?

Brad Dowdy: It's the TI big.

Ed Jelley: No, I didn't get that one.

Brad Dowdy: I got the, Oh, you got the PA, the PHX one. Yes.

Ed Jelley: The stainless steel, uh, weapon. Of a pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You bought, you bought, you bought the add on one, which was just the pen without the weapon, without the business end. Um, or you, you're, you got the one with the exacto blade end.

Ed Jelley: Oh no, I didn't get that one. Uh, I just say, cause it weighs a ton and the cap is, is, it's like a, I don't even know. Yeah. It's heavy. It's really heavy.

Brad Dowdy: It's like a bullet. It's really heavy.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. Um, that after seeing the, the TI pen and a few of those, I'm like, Oh, maybe I'll check it out. Um, and since I don't, I don't really write, I, I, I usually stick to fountain pens, but, um, I do like the high tech C. I like the uni Sino. Um, and then this takes both of those easily. So I figured why not? And now looking at the Ajoado that's, and hearing it's a nice pen, it's definitely something to keep on my radar now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. I think since pen started appearing on Kickstarter, there's really just been, uh, uh, a steady, you know, one of the straight line up of improvement in, in pen designs, even, you know, from the big eye design guys who I talked to frequently, you know, their first pen did really well, but by the time they got to their second and third pen, the first pens are almost unusable compared to the, the second batch, the TI pens, there's so much better. And, you know, I think some of these people that are doing this are, are, are learning as they go and that's good. That's, that's actually what Kickstarter is for, you know, for these people to come up with these designs and, you know, test them, sell them and prove them and things like that. So yeah, that's good.

Myke Hurley: I, I definitely don't, um, search or like, uh, browse Kickstarter for this stuff. People suggest to me anything that I back or look at backing. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Agreed.

Myke Hurley: Like the, uh, I believe that, uh, Stuart Hasley, Hazley, uh, I do that every time I say his name. Same here. Um, I'm going to say Hazley and again, he'll say, yes, you got it right. Again. Um, he, he turned me on to the Agiotto. He got one himself. He loves it. Um, we, we, we were talking about it with a DM. Well, he was telling me what I felt, what he felt, and I wouldn't tell him that you have to wait for the show. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You're so mean.

Myke Hurley: So, uh, we're not even done with the follow-up yet. I know. I know. But I want to, I want to talk about a new sponsor that we've got this week, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, awesome. I want to hear this.

Myke Hurley: That's, that's a great, I mean, that's a great thing. Everyone loves to hear that, right? New sponsors. Yeah. So, uh, cause that, what does that mean, Brad? It means we can continue to make the show. That's right. More sponsors mean we don't go away. That's right. So, uh, we have a, we have a great new sponsor this week, Brad. It's Shutterstock.com. Right. So, Shutterstock, should I, should I tell the listeners about Shutterstock?

Brad Dowdy: Please, please. And I'm going to do some typing and, and check it out myself while you're, while you're reading.

Myke Hurley: Shutterstock is where you'll find over 20 million stock photos, vectors, illustrations, and video clips. You can start searching at Shutterstock.com and you will find the perfect image for your website, ad, publication, or any other creative project. Shutterstock gives you a global image collection to find images from across the world to suit your project. You can choose between image packs and monthly subscription packages. You can choose whatever fits your need and you never have to compromise. If you, but if you just need one image for a blog or a mock-up or something, you can do that too. They have an a la carte option as well as their monthly subscription packages. Every time you visit Shutterstock, you will be bound to find something new since they add 10,000 new images every single day. 10,000 a day. And it's much more affordable than you'd think. There's no extra charges for large files. You just download any image in any size and pay one price. They don't nickel and dime you because you want to have it high res, because you want it to look great on a retina display or something like that. They just, you just pay one fee, one, one price. If you need them, take them. You can easily curate and share your pictures via light boxes. You can choose your favorite pictures or videos and add them to your light box gallery in just a few clicks or taps, because you can use their iPad app to do this as well. There's something called enhanced license access that they do. So if you need an image, if you love an image and you want to run it on print or swag for trade shows, that sort of stuff, you can get an enhanced license for any of the images that they do. They have a great huge library of vectors, icons, infographic templates and video clips as well if you need any of those. It's not just images. And if you need any help over at Shutterstock, you can get an account rep dedicated to you who can answer any questions. And they also have 24 hour support during the week. I want you to go and sign up for a free browse account now. Go to shutterstock.com. No credit card needed. When you find the images you like and you decide to purchase, you want to use the code PENS7, P-E-N-S and the number 7, and you'll get 30% off any package. 30% Brad. A third. Incredible. I like it. Thank you, Shutterstock, for supporting the Pen Addict and all of 5x5. We really appreciate it. And if you enjoy the show, go check out Shutterstock. Buy some images. Support us. You can put them on your website, and we'll talk about that a little later on.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. We can talk about that, too. Yeah, so I went and searched for pens on Shutterstock while you were talking, and these vector images are great. I could see those coming in very much in handy. I like the way they've done these. They did a good job. So, yeah, I will check that out further. Thank you, Shutterstock.

Myke Hurley: That's incredible. I'm going to put a link to a search for pens on Shutterstock so people can see. And what we've got, 2,685 pages of images. Yeah. Just a few.

Brad Dowdy: Just a few.

Brad Dowdy: That's on the Popular tab.

Myke Hurley: Oh, there's 268,491 results.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So just, you know, they have a couple of pen images. One or two. Oh, they have, oh, I just saw this cool, they have this grid, they have some ballpoint pen on grid paper vectors. Those are pretty cool. All right, sorry, I'll stop playing around because we're going to be long as it is on this episode because I've got a lot to talk about.

Myke Hurley: I think I just sold Shutterstock to someone.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, sweet.

Brad Dowdy: All right, let's rip through these next follow-ups because I want to get talking to Ed. I got a link on Twitter the other day. Someone sent me saying that someone on Facebook, there's always been, you know, Field Notes has always been well represented on Facebook just on the standard Field Notes business page. Someone went and created a Facebook group dedicated to Field Notes trading. I've gotten like three emails alone in the past week in how do I start collecting Field Notes, totally unrelated to this group on Facebook. And I just kept, literally, I think three emails in the past seven days about how do I start collecting, how do I find the old editions. Well, your place has now arrived, it seems. This group is already, it's invite only, I guess. I'm not a Facebook guru. I actually recreated my Facebook account just to join this page, if that tells you anything. But you just ask to join and they approve you and you're in.

Brad Dowdy: But it's really cool. It's got a lot of people that I've traded with already, a lot of familiar faces, familiar names. And if you're looking to get into the Field Notes obsession, this is a good place to start to try to find some of the older or rarer editions that you are looking for. So we'll have the link in the show notes to this page.

Myke Hurley: So I posted a link. Definitely check it out. I posted a link to my collection page on my website. A couple of people say, oh, you know, I just said, you know, I'm like a noob compared to some of these guys. Some people saying, you know, loving some of the editions, which you've helped me source. But then I had a couple of listeners basically chasing me away from the page because the reason that they were there is because they'd heard about Field Notes on this show. Yeah. Cool. So people get angry at me no matter where I go on the internet.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. And I just joined it last night and I just made my first post about, I don't know, 20 minutes before we started recording today. And yes, I've already got a bunch of answers. Like, where did you get this one? I mean, a bunch of questions. Where did you get this one? So I got to go back and answer it. So, you know, Ed's a big, huge Field Notes guy, I know, just from talking to him before the episode. Right, Ed? Yeah.

Carry Notebooks

Brad Dowdy: You know what? You're just not a carry notebook kind of guy. Just kind of not in your daily thing. It's just not your thing, right? I've tried.

Ed Jelley: I have three packs of Field Notes sitting on my desk. I really enjoy looking at them. I don't know. I just don't, I don't know. I prefer a bigger notebook for, I don't know. I've carried one for a year in my back pocket. I can tell you I have five pages written in it and like nothing useful. Absolutely nothing useful.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And really, if you're using, you know, a lot of fountain pens, that's also a challenge that I have found. You got to have the right pen and ink. If you're going to go fountain pen and Field Notes, it can certainly be done. But it's more of a challenge than just, you know, taking out a ballpoint or a pencil and scribbling something down. But yeah, I can totally, totally understand, understand that stance and how, you know, you just kind of need that, the bigger format or, you know, just don't want to carry it in a pocket or lose it or throw it in the wash.

Ed Jelley: Speaking of throwing it in the wash, I actually did have some fun with the Expedition Edition. Oh, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Ed Jelley: Just, you know, they said it can go underwater. So I just threw it in the sink for a while. I don't know. Pretty cool, though.

Brad Dowdy: That, you know, they did a good job on that, you know, as long as you're using the right pen, which we talked about a bunch. If that's the kind of notebook you need for, you know, the outdoors types and things like that, they did a good job on that. Now, we do have something you can get behind here, Ed, and I think I sent you these links. One of my followers on Twitter named Ron Sinclair, and we'll put the links in the show notes to Ron's Twitter page and to his Flickr set. He's in Japan. He was in Japan last week. I don't know if he's still there. The photos stopped coming. But I told him to take some pictures of pen stores, and he came through with flying colors. So he's got some links we're going to share in the notes. If anyone is not aware of what pens look like, what stationery looks like in Japan and how they sell, and, you know, what even one of the stores he sent, like on his Flickr page, all those photos on the Flickr page, those are just in, like, a general store. That's not a pen store. They just have that much quantity of pens, stationary pen cases everywhere in just like a, you know, just a general type of store. I don't know the pen store. No. The ones he put on his Flickr page, I think, are at a pen store where there's more fountain pens and things like that. But I think the ones on the, yeah, it's called Tokuyu Hands. They have a pen department, but it's not just strictly like a stationary store. It's fascinating. So these are fun pictures to go look at. You can see all kinds of crazy stuff. I really like some of the fountain. The fountain pen pictures didn't make it to his Flickr page yet, but they're on Twitter. So y'all should check out both of those places if you want to see, if you, you know, get your drool bib out because it's pretty crazy.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So we're like, we're linking to one tweet, but you want to click through to his like, his full like timeline and you can view, like he sent us loads of pictures and I was like, I just, as much as I love our listeners, I don't think I like this guy very much anymore. It's making me sad.

Brad Dowdy: He's on the list. He's on the list, Ron. Yeah, he's on the list for sure. We're coming after you. You're spending our money. We don't like it. All right. What else do I got? Oh, the last bit of follow-up and then we'll focus on Ed because that's what I want to do. Twisby came out with the, I think this is official, the official colors. They do so many like mock-ups and, you know, just throwing out some ideas like on their Facebook page, just getting feedback on them. I never know whether it's an official release or a legitimate, hey, this is coming release. I think this is the second part. I think their comment on the Facebook page is 580, new colors to come and question mark, you know, like, no like. I think they look really good. They're all like have a clear demonstrator body, like the barrel in the middle, and then have matching colored caps and ends where the piston twist mechanism is all matching. And we'll have those photos in the show notes as well.

Brad Dowdy: What do you think, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I want the orange one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think they look pretty good. Ed, are you a Twisby guy at all? I read your blog all the time. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Twisby on there.

Ed Jelley: Do I have a... Yeah, you have the VAC. Yeah. I had the VAC. I don't have it anymore. And my 540 has broken a few times, so I kind of let that sit. But in terms of what they're doing, I mean, I liked it at the time, and then I kind of grew to not like it so much. But I think these look good. I liked... I know when the mini came out, they had the classic, which was with the black tail cap and the black cap with the clear body in the middle. And I thought that was really cool looking. And just like these, these are...

Brad Dowdy: I like the colors. Yeah. And then, like you were saying, lots of people had issues with the 540, right? And, you know, just the plastics were... You know, the threading was breaking. The barrel was cracking. Just some kind of, like, pressure-type issues were there. Yeah. That's why they came out with the 580, you know, reasonably quickly in the grand scheme of things and hopefully to correct some of those issues. I have a 580 with a 1.1 stub nib. It's not like in the super heavy rotation, but I love the pin. So I don't know if, you know, the old issues are still present. But it seems like they've corrected some of those issues. And, yeah, I surprisingly, out of these colors, I kind of like the yellow one. That's really different. If it's not too gold, I'd like to see another picture of it. But, yeah, I mean, this is... I might have to have more than one of these, but they come out with so many different things. I hate to buy too many and then not be able to afford the next thing they come out with. So, yeah, those look great. I'm very impressed with those. And we just got those tweets about an hour before we came online. I didn't even see those, and I went and slapped them in the show notes real quick so we could mention that in case people... Because we keep... Myke and I, we keep saying we're waiting until the colors wouldn't come out, and now they finally are. I do wish they would do, like, with the 540, the same color demonstrator, like the full body, one color, clear, you know, like a full blue or a full amber. Or I thought those were some of the best-looking pens they've ever done. So hopefully maybe one day they'll do that. But I think this is their starting point with the TWSBI 580 colors.

Myke Hurley: So should we take the time to thank Squarespace, and then we'll get into talking to Ed?

Brad Dowdy: Let's do it.

Myke Hurley: So I want to take a moment to thank Squarespace for also supporting this show. Squarespace.com is where they give you the all-in-one platform that makes it really easy to create your own website. For a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code Tallyho. T-A-L-L-Y-H-O. Squarespace is constantly updating their platform with new features, designs, and fantastic support. They have really great designs for you to start with, and loads of fantastic style options that you can adjust so you can create your own space online. Squarespace takes care of everything. Hosting, SEO, and also makes your site look fantastic on any device. It's really easy to use, and they have 24-7 customer support if you have any issues. There's an award-winning support team over at Squarespace. I want you to go and check out squarespace.com because that's where you'll sign up for your free trial, but also you can view some really cool videos there that show you how different people use Squarespace and all the different things that you can do to create your own space online. So if you're an artist or a blogger or a photographer, they show all different people using Squarespace for that sort of stuff, which is really cool. They have really nice videos. So at squarespace.com, you'll be able to sign up for a free trial. No credit card required to do this, and you can get a Squarespace plan from just $8 a month, and they include a free domain name if you sign up for one year. Don't forget, you will get 10% off and support the show by using the offer code TallyHo, so go check out Squarespace, everything that you need to create an exceptional website. Now last week, I asked people to send in some sites, some listener sites that they've used to create on Squarespace, and we've had a bunch of suggestions, and I'll bring up two today, Brad. Okay. So we have our good friend Myke Dudek, the dude. Oh, yeah. We mentioned this before, but his site, clickypost.com, that is a Squarespace site. Really nicely done. A great pen site. Yeah, I love that site. It's a great site. And I had another one, at Ola Carlson on Twitter. Yeah, for sure. Has sent in a Squarespace site that they have. These two sites look totally different, which I love. But this site is about yarn. Oh, cool. So I think that's really cool, right? Yeah. And the reason I liked it, and I wanted to pick this one today, is because it's a niche love, like pens, but something totally different.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, the whole yarn and knitting community is really similar to the pen community. It's like a huge, huge thing that, you know, if you're not into it, you wouldn't know it exists. But once you get into it, it's just this huge, expansive, you know, community that is hugely, hugely popular, and has a lot of crossover with the pen community. So that's pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: So you can find both of these in today's show notes, which you can find at 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 65. If you want to send in some suggestions, you can go to mikehurley.net, fill out the contact page, or you can send them to me on Twitter. Maybe hashtag it with, like, the penaddict Squarespace as well, so Squarespace will see it. That might be cool to do. Or maybe just app reply both me and Squarespace and say that you're a penaddict listener and you've created a site. I'd love to see more of what you guys are creating. So thank you to Squarespace, and thank you to all of you too. So there we go.

Brad Dowdy: All right, so we are now ready to get into our main focus. Finally, after that Epic Link follow-up, we got... 40 minutes.

Myke Hurley: We've done two sponsors. 40 minutes, two sponsors, and we've just finished the follow-up. This is how we roll today.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. We are rolling deep. So we have Ed Jelly with us. Sorry. And Ed writes the blog, edjelly.com. We'll have the link in the show notes. And Ed is one of my favorite fountain pen ink bloggers out there.

Brad Dowdy: I'm pretty excited to have him on because I want to pick his brain a little bit. But the first thing I need to know, Ed, is how did you come up with the name for your blog? Ed's blog.

Ed Jelley: That's my last name.

Ed Jelley: Man. Novel. Edjelly.com is me. That's you. You know what? I couldn't, to be completely honest, I couldn't think of a good, like, pun fountain pen name. So I already owned the domain for me. So I kind of just went with it. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I think you're probably better off for it. You know, I think the pun, the pun, the pen pun market is kind of saturated at this point. So yeah.

Ed Jelley: It's slim pickings in the pen puns.

Brad Dowdy: And you've done a good job. You've got some, you know, some good branding. And you've done, you know, some of the, had some of the design work done and the cool logos and things like that. Anyway, it came out great. So I'm just, I'm just busting you there a little bit. But I got to thinking when I was, when I was having you on, it's like, how did I first find out about your blog and Edjelly and what you, what you did with pens? And I said, you know, did I stumble across this myself? Did someone link it to me? And I did a, I did a search of my Gmail and I found this email from December the 4th, 2012 from Edjelly. And the subject is ink link submission. And it says, Hey, I just started my fountain pen ink and stationary review blog. I would love to be featured in an ink links. My URL is, you know, edjelly.com. Thanks, Edjelly. So that's how, that's how I first came about. You're, you, you, you, you sent me an email to get into the ink links, which I get, I get a lot of those emails. And honestly, not a lot of them go straight in, you know? And I usually stumble across things myself or get other people sending them to me. But I clicked over your blog and I was like, okay, this is going to be good. I better follow this blog. So I'll put it right in my RSS reader. And I've, I've never been disappointed. So what, what made you get into, into, you know, what to start doing, you know, this, this whole pen blogging type of thing?

Ed Jelley: You know, it just kind of happened. I got my first fountain pen, probably, it was a Lamy Safari. It was the charcoal with the black nib. That was like, that was only like three and a half, four years ago at this point. And I'd use that for a while and nothing kind of came of it. And then like anything, you just start buying more stuff when you're in a hobby. I, and you know, and most of it was kind of being bored in class. And I'd be like, oh, here's an ink review. And then I'd be like, you know what, maybe I should do something with this. And if you look at like the very first ones, they were like, the photos were pretty bad. I took them on my phone. And then it was just kind of like, I need to improve this and make it look better because it reflects poorly on me as, I don't know, I guess an internet presence, if you will. So, yeah. So, even right now, like I'm on my site, like clicking back at the old ones. And I'm like, oh my God, the pictures are terrible. And I skipped a whole bunch of things. But it was just kind of, hey, I think this is something I want to do. And then I just kind of kept trying to make it better until I have it where it's at. You know, where it's at.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I've seen that same transformation in mine. You know, you go back and look at the old posts and you're just like, oh my goodness, what was I doing? And even, you know, like my photography to this day is still really, really hit and miss. But like when I go to your blog, I'm always blown away by, number one, your photography is fantastic. Thank you. I think the pictures come out great. You always, you, unlike me, you always take like a big group of pictures. And actually, I started to try to do a better job of that myself because of yours. I love how it looks where you can see different angles of the pen, different angles of the paper. Maybe the light hitting the ink in a different angle or the pen nib in a different angle and things like that. So I think you do a really, really brilliant job with the photography and the whole layout. It's very, very sharp and clean and wonderful looking. I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan. So I think you do a good job there. Is that, do you, do you have a, like a special setup for your photography or you do just kind of wing it?

Ed Jelley: It's, honestly, it's kind of winging it. Like that background with all the lines on it, that's a tile left over from the bathroom. Right. I try to use natural light as much as possible. This way I don't have to mess around with like white balance and weird stuff coming from different incandescent lights. And it's pretty much just a tripod and that tile on top of two old speaker stands. And the camera I use isn't even anything crazy. It's, it's an Olympus Pen EP3. So it's a micro four thirds camera with like the kit lens that just, it just works.

Ink Reviews

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's fantastic. It always comes out good. Now my, my personal favorite thing that you do is your ink reviews. I, if anyone hasn't, is not familiar with Ed's blog, I know you're going to go there after this podcast and you should check out the ink reviews that he does. I think they're fascinating really because they're very simple, but you always add like some extra flares or extra dimension into, you know, stay in doing some drawings or some sketching where there's some, you know, it's not just a writing sample. It's, you know, some, there's a lot more depth into it without going like crazy overboard. Say like on a, on a fountain pen network, you know, you don't have like a printed out sheet of like every spec and every timing and every, everything on there. You just do it like a real, a really good use case. How did you come up with like your ink review format? And, and what, I guess basically what, how did you, how did you come up with this style? Because I, I think it's really unique and I think that's the kind of ink review I want to see. Um,

Ed Jelley: thank you. First off, uh, I kind of wanted to keep it simple because like, like you said, you see those printed out papers and people dunking their paper and water and how long the ink stays on the page with water on the paper. I, you know, it gets a little crazy and I'm, I'm a kind of, I'm a big doodler. All my notebooks, like every single class I've ever taken throughout school, the doodles outweigh the notes like 10 to one. And, uh, uh, you know, I just figured this is kind of the most practical thing. Um, personally, I, you know, if an ink is waterproof, great, it'll say it when you go to buy it. But I want to see what it looks like on the paper more importantly. And, you know, I want to cover the basics, but not go crazy and make it look nice too.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Well, I, I think you accomplished that. And I'm, I'm like you, I, I want to read ink reviews about how people, people would normally use inks. Right. I mean, there's extreme, there's edge cases where, okay, you know, my notebook got stuck in the rain and this is really important data I'm collecting in my notebook and I need it to not, you know, wash out if it gets wet. But that's a very, very small percentage where, you know, probably 95% is just people writing with an ink on a piece of paper and writing some words or doing some drawings. And I think that format really shines, um, in your ink reviews. I really like that a lot. So now there, there's one specific thing that I want to cover with you that just happened recently. And I haven't had this experience yet. Um, that, that you've just gone through, um, you've gone through a breakup with one of, with one of your very expensive pens. Ah, yeah. And so Ed had a Pelican M605, which is a really, that's really, that's, that's probably the middle range Pelican, but it's still, it's a very expensive pen. It's well over $300, probably close to 400. Um, it's a beautiful, beautiful pen. It's obviously, I mean, Pelican has one of the best reputations in the fountain pen world. So at some point you decided that, Hey, I'm going to purchase an M605 because I think it's going to fit me. And then later down the line, you spend all this money and it's not working out for you. And that's a situation I haven't been in, but maybe I'm close on a couple of pens, but it's like, well, I spent all this money. Should I, do I really want to sell it? Should I just leave it here and collect dust? But take, take me through this whole Pelican M605 process. I know it's a very specific thing. It's probably something only I want to hear, but it's, it's, I think it's important because, um, you know, fountain pens can be, uh, an expensive hobby. So when you get into something like this, where you've bought, you've laid out a bunch of money, then all of a sudden, you know, that pen's not fulfilling your needs anymore. Tell me, tell me how this, this happened.

Ed Jelley: Well, I've wanted a Pelican since I pretty much saw what it was. Like since I learned about the brand, I knew this was something I had to have. Uh, I settled on the M605. I'm not a huge fan of a gold accent. So I went with the silver, rhodium, whatever it is, um, bought the pen. I was like, wow, I just spent 300 something dollars on a pen. I can't wait for it to get here. I should have bought faster shipping. And, uh, you know, I used it for, I bought it in September of last year. So I, I used it for a while. Um, but as of lately, it just wasn't what I was reaching for in terms of, ah, I'm going to bring this one with me, or I'm going to put ink in this one and use it. And with, you know, a lot of people are more straight up collectors and they have pens that have never seen ink and they sit in drawers and they're great to look at and whatever. But I'm, I personally like using everything I have. Um, and it just wasn't getting used enough to justify keeping.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Ed Jelley: I mean, I know that's like a lot of people would, would be like, why would you buy that and then get rid of it? Uh, I actually got a few emails and tweets myself. Are you selling all your pens? What happened? Um, but no, uh, you know, I recently, I've been really wanting to get in a Kaya and the only really feasible way to do that from a financial standpoint is to fund it with, you know, by, by getting rid of some stuff. Right. So go ahead. Cause that's, that's not a purchase where you could just, Oh, all right. I'm just going to, I'm going to pick this up and it'll get here. And okay. Like I'm contemplating traveling to DC next weekend just to go get one.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I, I, I, I, you're, you're the second person that has said that exact phrase to me. My friend Thomas, who loans me out all these pens and actually have a Nikaia of his sitting on my desk right now. Oh boy. He said, I think I might just go Friday, fly over Friday and fry, fly back just so I can hold some, uh, some other Nikaias. And I mean, he said that exact thing to me and that's, that's definitely something, you know, I'm looking at down the line. And then it's six, I mean, you're, you're talking about $600 just to start looking at those. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And, um, so yeah, selling off part of the, the, the collection is to, to fund a bigger purchase. I mean, I think that's, I mean, I think that's a legitimate thing, but do you think, do you think with the 605 because of the price you paid for it, you didn't use it as much? Cause I worry about that sometimes too. Like if I buy an expensive pen, am I going to use it less because I'm worried about damaging it or, you know, taking it out and, you know, something happened. And then happening to it, do you think that was the case at all?

Ed Jelley: Or I mean, the first few weeks I had it were really, I was like paranoid about it. I bought one of the Pelican leather pen sleeves. I kept it specifically in that. I tried to keep it in my pocket. Most times I wouldn't put it in my bag or anything. And then, you know, it actually, I found it scratched pretty easily. The resin on it was not like, uh, you know, it's, it's resin. So it's not bomb proof. Right. So I, I don't know if the price necessarily kept me from taking it out or it, you know, it could have, I mean, I, I like being able to throw a safari or, uh, you know, even my, my long B 2000, like I have no problem with throwing that in my pocket. Cause I know nothing's going to happen to it. Right. And with this one, I, I didn't have that same degree of freedom. Um,

Brad Dowdy: yeah, I, I, I can understand that. I mean, I think that's, that's a, uh, a challenge I go through from, from time to time. It's like, you know, finding, finding that right balance. I've always said that I'm not a collector. Like if I buy the pen, I'm going to use that pen. And I, I mean, I think we're on the same page in, in a lot of that. And I'm finding I've, I've bought a couple of pens here and then not to recent past that are more collecting dust than using. And so I'm either trying to try to change how I'm using my pens in general, or, you know, maybe I just need to thin the herd a little bit and we'll see and, and fund some other purchases because there's lots of other, you know, great pens that I want to try. Um, one of them I really want to try is one that you own. And it's one of the best looking pens ever. I think, and that's the sailor 1911 professional gear, Imperial black. Um, I just got my first sailor, my first legitimate sailor, like 14 carry gold nib. I got the support of demonstrator recently and I just, I love the nib. It's awesome. And the Imperial black has always been on my radar. Where does, where does that one sit? Um, in the, in the, I guess in your, your personal, uh, arsenal there, how to use, are you still liking that pen? You still use it a lot. What's tell me about that pen.

Ed Jelley: Um, it's my favorite looking pen. Actually, it's, it's pretty much tied with the Lamy 2000. Uh, for whatever reason, that pen just sits with me. I love everything about it. The design, the way it feels, everything. And the sailor is definitely a close second. Um, it feels nice. The it's, you know, ever, everyone says resin. It's plat. It's all plastic. I mean, it says resin. It's fancy plastic, but the way this pen feels like the mattified surface on it. It just feels great. It's balanced. Great. It's a good size for me. Uh, I mean, it just, I mean, I'm, I'm holding it right now. It just, everything about it's,

Brad Dowdy: you know, it's, it's hold, it's held up well through use, through portability, through anything you can throw out. It, it handles as well. You're, you're liking it because I think either a standard professional gear or the Imperial black is probably the next pen I buy. And, um, I I'm, I'm weighing the, which one to get. So,

Ed Jelley: you know what? Now, now that you asked about the Pelican, I feel better carrying the sailor around than I do the Pelican. I feel like the matte finish, there's probably tons of hairline scratches on it, but you can't see them. Um, I like, you know, the nib on the Pelican is great looking. I like the unique shape that the Pelican has. I like the scroll work, but like this, like the, the black nib on this pen is just awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's pretty cool. That is really cool. So what do you, tell me, what are some of your other pens? Like what, what are a handful of, or a few of the favorite pens that you're, that you carry? Like if you're, you know, the pens you always want to have, you know, inked up or, you know, available to, to take with you or, or in use, what are some, what are some of your personal favorites?

Ed Jelley: Um, I keep going back to the Safari. It's, you know, it's not fancy. I have like six of them. I like that. I can swap the nibs readily. I like that. I can keep each one loaded up with a different ink. It's, it's a great pen to just throw in a bag or in a pocket and not worry about it. Um, also I have right now to, uh, is it Alstar? Aluma, you know, the, the aluminum version. I don't know. I don't know proper pronunciation.

Brad Dowdy: I don't either. I always say Alstar, but I don't even know.

Ed Jelley: Yeah, that one. Um, I, I have three of those. I love them. It's like the Safari. It's a little heavier. Um, I just got the matte black version that came out this summer. Those are all, those are always inked up. Um, I have two vanishing points, which I keep, uh, keep handy. Uh, I have the matte black version and the gun metal with the matte black accents on it. And, uh, those are great because they're retractable. It's, it's so easy to just pull the pen out, take a few quick notes and then click it back in and put it away. Um, I would like to have one of those with me. And, uh, usually I have like at least one or two vintage pens around. Um, I have an ever sharp symphony, which is a 1950s flex nib, uh, pen, which those are just fun to play with. Um, so that kind of fills the flex category, I guess. And what I usually carry, uh, I have a noodle or they have flex, but those are so finicky. And yeah, this one, this is, I just like this better. Yeah. And, um, another one that's pretty much always around is the Schaefer snorkel.

Brad Dowdy: Mm hmm.

Filling Systems

Ed Jelley: Um, those I just find really cool because of the way they fill. The mechanism is one of the most complex filling systems to date in a fountain pen. Um, and from the second, I'm like, Oh, I, that looks like something I want. And, uh, I had a chance to see a bunch of them at the Lion pen show back in March. And, uh, I picked one up there and I actually recently traded my TWSBI VAC 700 for another one. So, Oh, cool. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's one of the snorkel is one I've shied away from just cause I'm scared of it. But after seeing your pictures and, and, you know, that's something I need to check out. I think that's something, you know, I probably just have to own, you know, that's one of those, I need to own one, right. You just, it's kind of what you do in just to have that unique filling system. Um, it, it's pretty crazy, but, um, they're so, they're so well, well respected and well liked pens. I mean, they're, they're pretty cool. It's kind of like the Parker 51. I mean, you just, you know, people just, you know, if they have a fountain do buy fountain pens at all, they usually have, you know, at some point end up with one of each of these really classic all timers, um, like the snorkel. So that's, that's, that's pretty cool. Well, there's no, no wonder why I like you so much because you're going through the list of the pens that you use. I'm like, yep, that's, that's, yeah, sounds like me. Sounds like me.

Brad Dowdy: It's like, I, I don't know. There's something about the, the Lamy's where you just know they're going to work. They can take, you know, a beating if, you know, they have to, not that you're going to be rough with the pens, but you're not afraid to, you know, take them, stick them in a pocket, toss them in a backpack, or something like that. And you just know everything's going to be fine. Even, you know, up to like the, the 2000, which I carry all the time. That's one of my all time favorite pens. And, um, it's just fantastic. And people keep getting on to me cause I've never reviewed mine yet. Then I keep talking about it. So that's actually one of my top,

Ed Jelley: uh, one of my top search terms is always, it's every day. Lamy 2000 review. Yep. In whatever, you know, 10 different ways of saying it. Um, but I get why it's a great pen. And I think everyone should at least, everyone should try one or you can't try one and then not get one. I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. It's, it's very, very impressive. And, um, it's one of those pens that's grown on me. The more I've used it and I've had some modifications done to, to the nib. So I like, I like it even better. And I think we've, you and I have talked about that at some point in our, in our history, we discussed that. So yeah, I'm huge, huge fan. And, uh, I promise everyone I will get that review done soon. I need to get it done. It's just one of those that I know it's going to be really long. So I'm like scared to like start it. So I need, I need to get it done. And I promise soon, promise soon. So you have something very cool that I am very impressed with. And I'm a huge fan of, and Myke, I don't know if you saw, I almost forgot to put this in the show notes. Um, but I just added in a show note in the bottom and, um, you should, you should check it out. Um, Ed has maybe the coolest tattoo I've ever seen. It is, let me let you explain it. I'm not, I'm not going to do it justice. So tell me about your tattoo, Ed.

Ed Jelley: Okay. Um, you know what? I feel like I almost have to bring up a picture of it. If that's bad. Um, it's actually, uh, none of, I have several tattoos. None of them are really like meaningful per se. You know, Oh, what does that mean? Uh, what is the, you know, everybody asks, what's that? And I'll say, you know, I just, I wanted to get it, but this, this one, that's not the case with, um, actually my uncle, uh, and he was a big fountain pen user. He had a big collection and, uh, was a year and a half ago. He suddenly passed away. And, um, I was fortunate enough to inherit his collection. So along with that collection, uh, there was a Mont Blanc 149 and, uh, a vintage bottle of Schaefer Peacock blue ink. So I went to my tattoo artist. I told him I wanted a fountain pen tattoo. I said, I want a Mont Blanc 149. I gave him a piece of paper with some of the Schaefer blue ink on it and said, I want an ink bottle with this color in it. And, uh, when he sent me up the drawing, I was like blown away by it, made the appointment and, uh, had, had to do it. I mean, I,

Brad Dowdy: I don't have any tattoos, but I'm a huge tattoo fan. I love the artwork and I love the design. I love the detail. I'm a real detail, you know, small details guy. And I'm fascinated by tattoos. And when I saw this, I was like, that is the, I'm, I was like jealous. I mean, I'm like, that's like the perfect tattoo. I just love it. I mean, I thought, and especially to have that meaning behind it for you, where it really means something, you know, the colors mean something and the pen design means something. I mean, that's just really, really cool and exceptionally well done. Um, and, uh, it's definitely,

Ed Jelley: it's definitely one of my favorites, uh, out of anything I have.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sure you get a lot of comments on it too. I mean, it's pretty fascinating.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. I, it's, it's, it's definitely there. It takes up a pretty big, pretty big section of the back of my leg.

Brad Dowdy: Mm.

Ed Jelley: And, uh, you know, I, that's one I constantly enjoy. I like that. It's, uh, I like that. It's the hair.

Tattoos

Ed Jelley: Not that I have a choice, but it's, it's, it's, it's one of my favorites. So Myke, what, what fountain pen tattoo are you getting?

Brad Dowdy: Um,

Myke Hurley: I don't know if I would. Hello, hello, kitty. Hi, tech C. Of course. I mean, what was, what was, what was the lady high tech C one? I'll get one of those. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, cool. I, I love it. So I wanted to make sure I mentioned that. Um, um, a couple more things and then we'll let you go. Cause I know we're going, we're going super long here, but you do, you have a couple of things on your blog and you, you've hit me up when you, when you started them out and not, I've been slack in, in getting, uh, back to you on a couple of these things, but I want to do them. One of them is called, um, you do a weekly loadout post where you've taken what use, what readers of your blog, um, what pins, you know, they're carrying that week, what pen and ink combination do they have loaded out? And what's, you know, it's kind of like their favorites, right? What their current carrying is, how did that come about? Is that just something, you know, like we're all, we're all have that voyeuristic nature in us. Like, I love reading those posts, you know, cause I want to see what other people have and what am I missing out on? So tell me about how that came out.

Ed Jelley: Um, I actually started doing it. Uh, I was just doing mine initially, like what I was carrying. Cause I thought that'd be interesting. Cause instead of just like, here's one pen and here's a review, I think it's interesting to see what anybody has to round out what they carry. Um, I got the idea kind of from like the everyday carry community, uh, where they'll post what's in their pockets every day. There's a couple of websites, a couple of blogs where, you know, it'll be like a watch, a pen, a pocket knife or whatever else these people happen to carry. And I kind of thought that bringing that feature over to see what pens people carry is not only is it topical, but it's interesting. It just, it's just like you said, it's being nosy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And you want to see, you know, have I seen this pen or have I used this pen or am I considering this pen? And, you know, I can see how someone else uses it, things like that. I think it's fascinating and I like it and I need to submit mine. I keep saying I'm going to do it. And, um, if I, if I would stop, um, if I would stop changing in and around so much, you know, like every second day, maybe I could stop and take a picture of the, the pens that I'm carrying. Cause I've got, I've got a pretty solid base now that, um, it's kind of like the main pens that I carry. So I need to, to photograph and get that out to you. And, uh, another thing you do, it's, uh, it's called the trading post and I didn't think much of it at first, but now that I've gotten more into fountain pen inks and, um, you know, actually I've, I've developed quite an ink problem. Um, Ed keeps a list on his blog where people have ink samples to trade, um, where you can just, you know, look at whatever, what everyone has available. And if there's an ink you wanted to try and you have a list of your inks that, you know, you have available and you kind of make a match with someone and y'all, you trade ink samples. And I think that that's really cool. Has that been working out well?

Ed Jelley: Um, I haven't gotten a ton of feedback from it, but I do get, uh, I get emails asking people personally, like I have no way of telling if other people are getting requests. I can only hope that they are and nobody's getting, you know, ripped off, but I've had, I've had a few good trades with people. Um, I've heard a few trades back from people, but I thought it was just a good way to not only have something interactive, but if you don't want to go through all the, the trade posts on fountain pen network and, uh, pretty much just, it's, it's pretty straightforward. Yeah. And I just thought it was cool to, you know, personally, I, there's a few things that I wanted to try. And I have tons of bottles of ink here that I'm, don't think I could go through personally in a lifetime. So why not try to try some new things without, you know, spending a whole bunch of money. It's nicer to pay for just postage as opposed to buying the actual samples themselves. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I think that's a real good service you provide. And I need to, now that my ink collection is gotten completely out of hand, it's, it's more of a, a hoarding than a collection at this, at this point, you know, there's no way, like you said, I couldn't use this amount of inks in a lifetime. Um, but I can't stop buying them either. And I have more on my wishlist. So, you know, I need to use something like your trading post to get in touch with some other, some other people, see if we can swap some inks and, and, and things like that. So that's, that's cool. I'm, I'm glad that you do that and have that available. So, you know, anyone who's, you know, interested in doing that needs to check out Ed's site and it's, it's on the sidebar. It's real obvious, um, how you can go get that and, um, and get, get a, get to be a part of that. So, um, well, Ed, I think, uh, I think I've about covered it on the, the things I wanted to talk to you about. Is there any, anything else, anything else you need to add? I'm, I'm, I'm a huge fan. I'm going to, I'm going to keep reading and keep posting about your blog. Cause I, I love it. I think you do a fantastic job. It's one of my favorites, uh, favorites online and everyone should definitely, you know, check out ed jelly.com when they get, when they get a chance.

Ed Jelley: I think that pretty much covers it. I mean, thanks for having me and, uh, it was a pleasure and thanks for all the kind words. You got it.

Brad Dowdy: And hopefully, uh, hopefully we'll, we will have you again. Um, hopefully we'll have you again soon. And, um, we can definitely, definitely talk about this all day, obviously as, uh, we're proving, proving quite well today. So we will, we will do it again for sure. Um, Hey Myke, do you have, uh, Ed's, uh, contact info? Do you need, do you want to add to say where he can be reached? Do you have all that stuff ready?

Myke Hurley: It's always good to, to read it, like to say it as well as put it in the notes. So then people, cause not everybody wants to check the notes.

Brad Dowdy: So where's, uh, where's your, where's the best place to get in touch with you, Ed?

Ed Jelley: Uh, through the site, it's www.edjelly.com. It's J E L L E Y.com. And the big old contact button in the top bar. Uh, I try to answer emails as, you know, quick as possible. Uh, always welcome to hear questions, comments, concerns. Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's great to have you. And, uh, Myke, I think that's a wrap. Uh, you got anything else?

Myke Hurley: Just where they can find us. Um, I'm on Twitter. I am. I Myke, I M Y K E. Um, same on app.net. Brad is dowdyism, D O W D Y on Twitter, dowdy on app.net and the pen. Uh, sorry. And pen addict.com. Um, thanks so much for listening. Thank you, Ed, for joining us. Thanks for having me. We'll be back next week. Won't we, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: We sure will.

Myke Hurley: Brilliant. Until next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.