The Pen Addict 82/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	82
Title:	Challenge Accepted
Release Date:	November 26th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 82
Audio File:	Audio Episode 82
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 82
Length:	4141 min <br />0.683 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: This is The Pen Addict podcast on 5x5, a show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and before I introduce my co-host today, I just want to point something out very quickly. So, said co-host, I cannot say his name yet because I have not introduced him, was on The Anderson Pens podcast this week. We'll talk about that in a minute. But right at the very start, Brian Anderson listed like six incredible names, like of the how I introduce The Pen Addict names for my co-host. He just did them in a line. Now, I can't be beaten. I will not allow it. So, buckle up, everyone, and can only take a pen, because he's just going to take a moment. My name is Myke Hurley, and I would like to introduce the Marker Maverick of Macon, the Pharaoh of pen theft, the Prince of Pelican, the Ombudsman of Office Depot, the Pauper of Pentel, the Sultan of Office Supplies, the Nobleman of Notebooks, and the Ranger of Rodia, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Myke Hurley: Thank you. Thank you. Now, see, that was, right? That's eight names. I just basically saved myself eight weeks of work, but I will not be beaten.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. Challenge accepted and handled well, Myke. You did an excellent job there.

Myke Hurley: Thank you very much.

Brad Dowdy: I like the Ombudsman of Office Supplies. That was my favorite, actually. I think that was my favorite one. You handled that challenge well there, and I think you took the title.

Myke Hurley: Thank you very much. Well, you know, it was my belt in the first place. I cannot let it be taken from me.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. That's right.

Anderson Pins Podcast

Myke Hurley: So, Anderson, how are you, buddy? You sound a bit clogged up today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so I've got the plague or the SARS or something. I've just got a bad head cold, and it's just – if anyone watched the Anderson Pins video from last night and you saw, I had a little cough started, and it's ramped up quite considerably since then. So, if you catch me – if I don't catch my mute button in time today, I apologize. But, yeah, feeling a little under the weather, but I was excited to get this show going today. So, we've got a lot of cool topics to talk about.

Myke Hurley: So, we're talking about – so, I mentioned here that we've got the Anderson Pins podcast, which you were on, and I've listened to about 25 minutes of the show because it's 100 minutes long, which is awesome. So, one thing for anybody that doesn't know – I mean, people know the Andersons, right? If they listen to the show. I'd say for the most part. Yeah, we spoke about them a couple of weeks ago that they're about to open their own pen store, and they're a husband and wife, right? Yes. As a husband and wife team, I found it kind of amusing because I assumed that they were in different rooms of their house to record the show, which kind of made me smile, if that's the case. Yes. And they had you on, and you were talking about the show, and you said very nice things about me in the show, which was awesome. And up to where I am at the moment, you've basically just shown off the knock cases in video form, which is kind of cool for people that haven't – well, nobody's really seen them in the way that you showed them, I think. So, that was nice.

Brad Dowdy: Actually, now that you say that, there's a couple models that we've finished that are completely manufactured that I don't think I've shown, other than the static photos. There were some of the static photos on the Kickstarter, but yeah, I showed up, showed some of the cases that were ready, some of the production cases that are ready to ship. So, yeah. Y'all check that out if y'all want a sneak preview of the cases.

Myke Hurley: Like, in use as well. What was the name of the one where it folds out in the middle?

Brad Dowdy: That rolls out? Yeah. The Brasstown.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so you even show, like, the unfurling of the Brasstown.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And that was one I had loaded up, and it looks really cool. And that was the Midnight in Foliage color, which I don't think a lot of people have seen, but I think was probably the most popular color across all of the – like, we had three primary colorways. You know, the Mandarin Orange and Mango interior, and then the Steel exterior and Blue Jay interior, then a Midnight exterior and a Foliage interior. And I think when I toted it all up, I think the Midnight, the Dark Navy with the foliage, which is kind of like the greenish-gray interior, I think that was the single most popular colorway across all the products, which I found interesting. It was pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: And then there were only two people that bought the orange ones, which was me and you. Yep. That was the Pan Addict podcast special, just to do them all. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: We got a lot of orange – a lot of orange arters. It was pretty close. It'll be interesting to break down the percentage. I'll have to do that since it's all sorted out real nicely. I can break down the percentage of color choices. That would be pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: You should just take a look at mine. You should just pull mine out and have a read of it. If you haven't already, I don't know if you've taken a second to look at my survey.

Brad Dowdy: Not yet. Not yet. We hadn't shipped anything yet. We're probably a week and a half, no more than two weeks away from starting to ship the early birds.

Myke Hurley: Wow, really?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think – it might be late next week where I can get the early birds out. If not, it'll be the following week. So I announced that on the Anderson Pens podcast last night. So in case you all didn't catch that, that we're going to get these early birds going.

Myke Hurley: Is that going to be just domestic or international as well?

Brad Dowdy: No, it'll be international. Whoever ordered an early bird, we had December ship dates on those. So those will be shipping soon. Wow. Could you? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. Get in there.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So anyway, check out the Anderson Pens podcast. It's a video. It's actually a vidcast. If you will. The link will be in the show notes. Never say that again.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I know. I'll never forgive you for that.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Yeah, I know. I've pushed a button there, folks. So I'll march that one down for future use. It's just a podcast. It's just a podcast. Yes, and they call it a podcast. Good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, check that out. It's – yeah, like Myke said, it's a good hour and 45 minutes long. So I'll set aside some time and you can see my ugly mug on the screen. And we talk about a lot, you know, about how the pen addict got started and just my pen addiction and how the blog got started and the podcast and then on to Knock. And then we just talk about general pens in general. And it was a great time. We could have talked for probably another 30 minutes easily. But at some point, we had to cut it off.

Myke Hurley: Indeed.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. But it was good. It was good fun. And I'm glad I didn't have the plague too bad when I was recording that.

Myke Hurley: Just keep it for this show.

Kickstarter Project

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So we got a few other updates that I wanted to talk about that some previous – a previous Kickstarter project we talked about called the Polar Pen. You remember this one, Myke, the one with the magnets pens that you kind of build that did like $800 and something thousand dollars, I think.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, $800,000 Canadian dollars. But my understanding is that that exchange rate is pretty similar, right? These days? Yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty close to one-to-one. Right. So it's right around even money for exchange in the U.S. dollars. So we talked about how – the first time we saw it, the first thing that came to my mind was the Buckyballs fiasco that happened in the U.S. and I guess around the world. But they were a U.S. manufacturer, which are the magnets that got pulled off the market because they were unsafe for children. So I brought that up and a few weeks later, I think – I don't know if it was before the campaign ended or not that this gentleman is based out of Canada. And the Canadian Health Department said that they're investigating this to see if they're going to allow this to be sold to Canadians. And so their investigation came through. It looks like my friend on Twitter – I'm blanking. And Greg – Greg is a Canadian, and he keeps sending me the articles that post in the different Canadian websites that I'm not checking. So on CBC News, they actually came down with a decision. And Health Canada has put a cease and desist out on this gentleman, Andrew, that is the maker of the Polar Pen. And what that means is they are not even going to allow him to manufacture these pens in the country.

Myke Hurley: So this is where – oh, yeah, in the country. Yeah, carry on. Sorry, that's not what I was going to say. Carry on.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So Andrew, you know, at the end of the project, he – reading this article, he took an advance of like $100,000 from the project to start building out, I guess, the manufacturing and operations and warehouse and shipping to make these pens. And they're basically kicking him out of Canada. He's going to have to relocate to the U.S. to fulfill and manufacture this product, which is just pretty crazy. It's a real interesting follow if you want to, you know, follow along the Kickstarter project to see what's happening with it because it's – I mean, like the Canadian backers, I don't know if they're going to be able to get their pens. Andrew's not going to be able to make them in Canada. I don't know if he'll be able to sell them to Canadians at all, like if they ship from the U.S. to Canada. I don't know if that's allowed or what. But it's basically a cluster. I mean, it's not pretty. I feel bad for the guy. But do you – I don't know. That thought was always in the back of my head that this might be coming. I would imagine it was in the back of his head too. If he's coming out with a product like this and seeing what happened with similar products on the market, you would think there would be, you know, some percentage chance in the back of your head that this might happen. But I'm not sure if that's the case or not.

Myke Hurley: My only thought is that he must not have known of Buckyballs because I feel like you would check. Yeah. I feel like at some point, at least when you started to make some serious money and get attention, that you might check. So this is where I'm a little bit confused. So we'll put both of these links in the show notes, which you can find at 5x5.tv slash penalex slash 82. The update to the Kickstarter page on November 15th talks through this a little bit. It doesn't go into the fact that there's like a fine or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mentions that he's going to –

Brad Dowdy: I don't think – let me correct you real quick. I don't think there's a fine. I think that's just money he spent already. Sorry. That's basically down the drain because he's going to have to rebuild his manufacturing facility. Right.

Myke Hurley: Hoping –

Brad Dowdy: Relocate. Relocate, I should say.

Myke Hurley: I hope that he has enough profit in there at least. Yeah. That it works out for him. I really do. Like in the end. I mean, he's going to be out of pocket for a while for sure. But yeah. So the – sorry. You know, it doesn't really mention that in the post on the update page. And what it mentions here is that Canadian backers, they're not sure if they're going to have to issue refunds or whatever. But the products will still be made. But in the article, it states that Gardner says he'll likely have to refund the about $1 million total earned through Kickstarter.

Myke Hurley: So there's two points. Now that was published four days later. So my thinking is either the CBC – is that Canadian Business News or Broadcasting Corporation? Yeah. Probably like BBC. Canadian Broadcasting. It's probably Broadcasting, yeah.

Myke Hurley: They've either got that wrong in that he's saying you just have to refund the Canadian backers, of which, of course, there'll only be a portion. Or the project's not going ahead and he hasn't updated any further. It's difficult for me to see. But I would assume that the CBC has misread the situation and that he might just have to refund the Canadian.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, I think he's trying to circumvent that by moving the facilities to the U.S. So he wouldn't have to refund the entire full Kickstarter to everybody, right? I think he's going to move it to the U.S. and then get it made there and fulfill as many orders as he can legally. It's kind of how I read between the lines on what's happening. But I did see in the comments section he chimed in and he's going to have a big update tomorrow, he said. So I'll check it out and see what he says then and see if anything's been made. Because the way he's alluded to, progress has been made, like moving to the U.S. to get the manufacturing done. So we'll see. It's interesting to watch for people who are fans of Kickstarters. And this just happened to be a pin project. So it caught my eye. And it's interesting, all the things you can get involved in with all these Kickstarter projects. There's lots of interesting things going on in Kickstarter land these days.

Myke Hurley: No doubt. Yes.

Field Notes Cold Horizon

Brad Dowdy: All right. So Cold Horizon, Myke. Field Notes Cold Horizon.

Myke Hurley: Oh, baby.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Did you get them yet? No. Okay. I haven't got mine yet.

Myke Hurley: As is standard, I will probably have them by next week.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I checked my mail before the podcast and I still haven't gotten mine yet.

Brad Dowdy: These look pretty cool. I think this is going to be a case where I think it's going to look even better in person than it does in the pictures. I don't know. The pictures look good and they show what they try to accomplish. It's like a gradient across the three notebooks that come in a three pack. It's like a blue gradient fades into like a lighter blue. Looks beautiful. It's a high gloss cover. And then the insides each have – it's a gray graph, I believe. And then each paper for each book has a slightly different shade. Like a barely a light green and a barely a light yellow, I think. And I'm not looking at the page. Yeah, light green.

Myke Hurley: Light green, light blue, and a cool gray of a light gray graph grid.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm anxious to see these papers in person and the covers in person. I haven't gotten them yet. I know some people have already started getting theirs. And they seem to be pretty happy with them. I think it's been pretty well received so far. You know, it's not a – I don't think it's a knock your socks off edition, you know, like I felt Loggers or Night Sky was. But I think this is a pretty solid edition here. And I really want to get it in my hands to get a look at these covers and see how they're going to hold up and what kind of durability they have. So what do you think about these?

Myke Hurley: I opened the email and I was blown away. Nice. I basically opened the email and I went, oh, my God. I just think they look stunning, personally. And also, I – maybe even more than how good I think they look. I have so much respect, I think is probably the word, for this decision, this art decision. Like that idea and decision to me like just blew me away to just think – because you can tell this is – this feels like a cool doll edition. Yeah. Because he's a graphic designer. Yeah, totally. So it feels like – like this is – the idea for me is taking three notebooks and putting a single gradient across them. I just think that is such a ballsy and just really cool move. I think they look fantastic. And the glossy cover I'm really excited about because I have loved the sort of soft sort of cover that's been on the drink locals. Yeah. Which I'm just about to finish another drink local, actually. Nice. So I'm about to – as we speak, I'm going to be grabbing a – one of the – what are the new ones called? The black ones.

Myke Hurley: I'm having a look now. Pitch Black. I'm going to use my first Pitch Black.

Brad Dowdy: Sorry, I was on mute there. Yeah, I knew you were, yeah. Yes, Pitch Black. I did get a three-pack in. I haven't opened them up to try them out yet. But I think that actually might be the next one I use. I don't know. Depending on when these come in, I'm almost done with a Logger's Edition, a few pages left. And I'm either going to try the Pitch Black out just to see how the dot grid is and how the paper is or give one of these a shot. Because I like – I almost like the insides more than the outsides of the Cold Horizon, and I like the outsides a lot. So I'm interested to see the different color paper because, you know, I like the different papers and different grid lines. So that's kind of a thing of mine.

Myke Hurley: Indeedy. I need to remember to scan that filter.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. There you go.

Brad Dowdy: Did you see your friend and probably your flatmate, Johnny Ive? Right?

Myke Hurley: I've wished. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And by the way, it's Sir Johnny. Sir Johnny. Sir Johnny. He's not your flatmate? I wish he was. I thought all you Brits lived together. That's not how it works. Okay. Not in this instance.

Myke Hurley: Only because he lives in California. I know. Otherwise, whenever he's here, we bunk together.

Red Charity Auction

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we mentioned this in passing when it first cropped up. There was a – I guess the charity is called Red. It's been around. It's, you know, I guess it's Bono's. I don't know. It's Bono's. Yeah, it's Bono's. It's Bono's primary charity. It's been around for at least a decade, I bet. Oh, for sure. I remember the old iPods with the circle, you know, with the circle touch that had the black ones with the red in there. So Bono's been having this red charity for a long, long time. So they did a Sotheby's auction.

Myke Hurley: Sotheby's. Sotheby's. Sotheby's.

Brad Dowdy: I'll blame the cold on that.

Myke Hurley: It was basically where Johnny Ive and Mark Newson – Mark Newson's a designer, isn't he?

Brad Dowdy: I think so, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. They got together and curated a bunch of items. Some were new items that they designed together. Some were things that they handpicked, and they basically put the red treatment on them. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: In some form. And they just made one of each. So there's just – there's not multiples of these out there. And, I mean, it's everything from old, you know, old – is it Lisa cameras? Leisha cameras? I thought it was Leica. Leica. I don't know the connection.

Myke Hurley: That's not an old Leica camera. That Leica camera –

Brad Dowdy: No, they remade a new one after the old style.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah. Well, actually, Leica still make their cameras that look like that. Okay. Like, that's how Leica cameras look. Yes, they look old-fashioned. Right. But they actually still make digital cameras that look like that.

Brad Dowdy: But they redified, if you will, one camera and put that up for auction. And they did that for all kinds of different items, including the new Mac Pro, which, you know, a lot of tech bloggers were talking about. It's this stunning red canister, for lack of a better term.

Myke Hurley: There is 43 items.

Myke Hurley: Would you like me to list them very quickly? I can do that if you want.

Brad Dowdy: No, but I saw the Range Rover.

Myke Hurley: I know, right? There's a Stormtrooper helmet. Yep. A Cosmonaut Space Suit.

Brad Dowdy: Let's tell them about the important one. What's the one that we care about?

Myke Hurley: The Red Mac Pro? No.

Brad Dowdy: That's your other shows.

Lamy Set

Myke Hurley: So they basically took a Lamy pen set, which includes a Lamy 2000 fountain pen. I assume a Lamy, and then, so a Lamy 2000 ballpoint pen, Lamy 2000 mechanical pen, rollerball, and multicolour ballpoint with a total of four colours. So they took the whole Lamy 2000 line and turned it into this absolutely stunning red version. So it's a beautiful red with... I mean, it's red and silver, basically, except the fountain pen is a 14-carat gold nib coated with platinum, but they also, on that one, have a gold sort of accent that goes around the mirror.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's actually the ink window.

Myke Hurley: That's the ink window?

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Nice. Yep, which you can't see on a lot of, like, standard black Lamy 2000 pictures because it's integrated so well, and when the ink's in there, you can't totally see it, but in the right light, you can see it. So that's actually the ink window.

Myke Hurley: Man.

Brad Dowdy: Y'all got to... I know we mentioned it before, and we linked it before, but y'all got to go check this out. We have. I don't think we have. I'm bringing it up.

Myke Hurley: I don't think we have spoken about this before.

Brad Dowdy: I mentioned it on one episode just in passing.

Myke Hurley: Oh, because this is the first time I've seen it.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, well, maybe I mentioned it on Twitter then. Yeah. I think that's what I did. I mentioned it on Twitter. So when it came out, I mentioned it on Twitter, but now that the auction's ended, I'm assuming you looked at the price that it sold for.

Myke Hurley: There was an estimate of somewhere between 10,000 to 15,000 US dollars. Mm-hmm. Do you want to tell them how much it sold for?

Brad Dowdy: $31,250.

Myke Hurley: Basically, every single item in this went extremely over the asking price. Like, for example, they made a desk, right? Mm-hmm. Out of aluminium. Just a desk. With an estimate of between $300,000 and $500,000, sold for $1.685 million.

Myke Hurley: $1.6 million.

Brad Dowdy: Blew out every estimate. Yep. On every product, which is pretty amazing.

Myke Hurley: The piano that they did, somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, $1.9 million. Yep. Like, this was basically, you could go to any item, and the Leica camera that you mentioned, $1.8 million. Wow. They just blew it away. Because probably what they did was, look, this is Johnny Ive and Mark Newsome, right? Anything that they did was going to be incredible. But they obviously know people, right? Yep. Like, so they're just like, the Mac Pro? Yeah. $977,000. Incredible.

Brad Dowdy: I think that was probably the most shocking one of all, the price that it went for in relation to the estimate. So, I wonder who, I wonder if that's, I wonder if that was an Apple insider there that ponied up, and you might see that in like a Steve Jobs museum or something.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Do you know Michael Armand put a bid in?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really? Mm. Yeah, he put a bid in. Interesting. I knew he was watching it when it started.

Myke Hurley: That was the impression that I got from Twitter, is that he did put a bid in. But he said, no way. Yeah, not at that level. Wow. Well, I mean, you know, he might be able to afford it, but he wasn't going to do it. That's true. That's true. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But anyway, I thought that was interesting that just for the Lamy 2000, you're never going to see anything like this again. And it's a one of a kind item. Such a shame. It's worth clicking the link to go see this because they pulled it off in a stunning fashion, this design. It looks great.

Myke Hurley: I would pay good money for that pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Oh, I would too. I would pay real good money for that pen. So it's sexy. Sexy.

Myke Hurley: Clearly, we need to do more sponsors so we can pay like $200,000 for a red Lamy. That's true.

Brad Dowdy: That's true. Once you get on that, I'm going to clear my brain for a second.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you do that. And I'm going to take the first step towards me and Brad buying our own red Lamy's. And that's by thanking Squarespace for their support of this episode. They are the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website or online portfolio. For a free trial and 10% off your first purchase, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code Tallyho11. One of the things that we love about Squarespace is they're always doing great stuff to make sure that their platform stays up to date and always includes new features, new designs, and even better support. They have absolutely fantastic design templates for you to start with, with all the style options you need to create a unique website for you or your business. Squarespace is really easy to use, but they have a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week Squarespace support team. They are award-winning and they have over 70 dedicated employees that are there to help you out with anything that you need. Every Squarespace site automatically includes a unique mobile experience that matches the overall style of your website. So your content is going to look great on every device, every time. They're really design-focused. They care about design so much. All of their templates are so clean. And they've also made sure that the back end is really awesome too. They've made not only is everything really easy to drag and drop around, but just things like how you post to your site and add new pages. It's all really easy to understand and it just works the way that you would want it to. They even have recently added their e-commerce platform, as we've mentioned before. So if you want to set up a shop and sell things, you can do so in just minutes. Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month and they include a free domain name if you sign up for a year. And I want you to go and sign up for a trial so you can give it a go yourself. So go start a trial with no credit card required. You don't need to enter a card at all. And you can start building your own website today. And then when you decide to sign up for a Squarespace plan, make sure that you use the offer code TALLYHO11. That's T-A-L-L-Y-H-H-O-1-1. That's going to get you 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the pen addict and all of 5x5. Thanks so much to Squarespace. They give you everything that you need to create an exceptional website.

Kickstarter Pen

Brad Dowdy: So we've got a new pen out on Kickstarter that a bunch of people have sent me. And it's not a pen in the traditional sense, but I think, Myke, you're all over this one. It's called the Circuit Scribe. Have you seen this? Did you check this out?

Myke Hurley: I went and took a look at the video.

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty crazy.

Myke Hurley: It's amazing.

Brad Dowdy: What people come up with is pretty awesome. It's basically take your standard Bic stick ballpoint shaped pen, and what they've done is they filled it with a conductive silver ink. So this ink allows the circuit or the, I guess, the electricity to run across whatever design you lay down on the paper. And, you know, if you add, you know, your additional electronic parts like, you know, different batteries or different switches or lights, you can do all these crazy things with this conductive ink. And it's pretty fascinating. You know, I never, you know, I never got into, you know, like when you're a kid, you've got those electronics kits where you can build all these things. And I never really did that. But that's what this looks like. It reminds me of. And it's blown out. It's Kickstarter funding, you know, real quick. I don't know if it was a 45 day project, but it's got 35 days left and it's already at $332,000. It's pretty amazing.

Myke Hurley: This is the sort of project that deserves that sort of money. That's exactly right. Like, this is the sort of thing. They mention it in the video and usually you like, you know, people scoff at it. But this could transform science lessons in schools.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Like, because basically, like, they show a picture of somebody drawing a circuit in a workbook. And I remember doing those, right? So you draw out a circuit and you draw a little switch and complete the circuit. But why don't you actually complete the circuit? Like, actually complete it by drawing it. Like that. So, like Brad said, and I don't know how clear it comes across, but it's a pen that has a special ink in it. So when you, you can draw on a piece of paper. And if you add a battery to, so like you would draw maybe two lines and then you would place the back, like a little battery module that they give, which has got a little conductive pad underneath, obviously. When you lay that onto the circuit, the electronic, sorry, the ink becomes conductive. So it then has power flowing through it. So they can do things like light up little lights. And they even have a, I think they've got a, yeah, you can also use an Arduino with it, which is like a little programming module. And you can have it do all sorts of awesome stuff. And they're making their own little components as well, the company. They're called Electronics. And they're making LEDs, photo sensor, sound buzzer, loads of stuff. So it, and it all works with what they've made. And it just looks fantastic. Watch the video and it will make instant sense to you what they're trying to do. But this is really, really cool. Like really cool. I mean, I would buy it if I had any use for it. I don't. Right. But yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: And if actually my kids were a little bit older, I would probably do it because that's what it's perfect for. It's perfect for teaching and learning and classroom experience. I mean, to be able to have the kids, you know, just physically do this, it, I think the understanding of what they're trying to accomplish would just come so much quicker.

Myke Hurley: That's exactly what I was about to say. Like if I was, if I was in science class learning this, I would pick it up in the afternoon as opposed to weeks. Exactly. Like I would totally understand what an electric circuit was and the conductivity of it and stuff. It would just make instant sense to me. You would just get it. And I think that is incredible.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, definitely check out this project if that's something you're interested in. The only question I had, and I just found the answer in the FAQ, and this is coming from the pen point of view, not the electronic engineering point of view, is what happens when the pen runs out of ink or out of the conductive ink and how long does it last? And so the, in the FAQ, there's a, are there refills? And the answer is not right now. We're looking into producing a CircuitScribe Pro, which would be a metal pen with refillable cartridges.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, I saw this as a, you replace the pen type thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you just buy a new pen. It's basically not refillable yet. It says it'll get about, it goes from 60 to 80 meters. So 196 to 260 feet worth of lines with one CircuitScribe. That's good. And so what's, what's one pen cost? It was 20 something dollars?

Myke Hurley: 20 dollars. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, so not refillable, but you know, for 20 dollars, you know, it's, it's worth checking out. And this is, this is, this is the kind of stuff you like to see on, on Kickstarter. It's, it's, it's really cool.

Myke Hurley: They have bundles as well. You can get five pens for 90 dollars or 10 pens for 175. There you go. Okay. So you can save some money as well. That makes sense. So you get two kits, $200, you get an activity book and 10 basic kits. And the basic kit is like, um, LED boards and pens and loads of other cool stuff. And this is great.

Brad Dowdy: It's good. It's, it's, um, it's an eye opener type of thing. This is exactly what you want to see on Kickstarter. You know, these type of, these type of projects.

Myke Hurley: You know, when you see something on Kickstarter and you're like, damn, I could have done that. I could have thought that. This is not one of those things. I couldn't have. Do you know, and that's why I think it's so amazing. I could never even imagined this. And that's why I think it's so cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like you could totally make a pen case. It's like any joker could make a pen case. I don't know how people put pen case projects out on Kickstarter.

Myke Hurley: Like 14 pen cases before breakfast this morning. I've just not yet to put them on Kickstarter. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, man up and get some engineering and, um, and, and make a real project next time. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Yes, boss.

Keras Custom Ink

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of real projects. This is a, this is a Myke Hurley. Oh mama moment.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I, I, I have known about this for a little while.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We've known about this for a while and now it's finally becoming public. Oh mama. So the Keras custom ink. If you have not heard of this or not seen it or not follow the Keras customs, it's just kind of, I won't say it's leaking out. It's out public now, but it's not totally.

Myke Hurley: Is the wrong, is the wrong.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, they're not, they're not hammering it yet.

Myke Hurley: I mean, if it's a fountain pen, you don't want to say it's leaking out. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. No, no, but they're not hammering the promotion for it yet, but they've started to put out images. Keras customs. Um, you know, the maker of the, the render K, the retract, the bolt machine pins is coming out with a fountain pen. Oh mama.

Myke Hurley: It looks so good, man. And they chose the orange, just like they knew it was, we were going to see it. I'm very, very excited for this.

Brad Dowdy: I have not tried one. I haven't put one in my hands. Um, but the shape of the pen is exactly what I would like to see. You know, as far as the design goes, this is the kind of design I like. Um, it looks, it looks beautiful. Um, Dan and the gang at Keras customs, I think have a, have a winner on their hands here. So we'll see. They haven't launched yet. Um, I don't know when they're going to launch, but when they do, we'll get Dan on the show. I actually texted him right before the show. Cause we were looking at the pictures here. Um, and we'll get Dan on the show to talk about how this came to be. And I'm really pleased with the design of the pen. And so I think more, more will be coming out soon. Um, you know, as far as specifications and pricing and, and all that stuff. But if you're a fountain pen fan at all, you need to check this out. It looks great.

Myke Hurley: Saying about how it came to be. I think that me and you should take, you know, some of the blame in the good way. I feel like we've both bothered Dan enough to make a fountain pen. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's always been, it's always been in the back of his head and we've always told him that, you know, we wanted a fountain pen if he could pull it off. And I think he pulled it off in spades. I mean, you know, this looks, this, this might be my favorite thing that they've done so far. And I don't, I haven't even used it yet. So, um, I'm looking forward to getting able to, to try one of these out. Um, getting a feel for it, see how it works. And, um, I am very, very pleased with the design aspect of it. Um, it, it looks really cool. It looks exactly, you know, what a pen like this should look like. And, um, they did a good job of putting their Karis Customs touch on it. You know, it doesn't look like any other pen out there on the market. And, uh, I think it's, I think it's going to kill. I mean, I think it's going to do extraordinarily well.

Myke Hurley: So doubt. But yeah, no doubt there.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's one of those ones where I'll, I'll definitely be, uh, be in early to get, to, uh, get the, get, if they do an early bird or early backer special, I'm going to have to like set an alarm for that and be all over it.

Brad Dowdy: So it's real good. Um, one bit of followup we had, Myke, um, one of our listeners sent me a comment the other day. I always try to post, um, you know, even though our episodes, you know, pop up on five by five feed and show up in everyone's, you know, if they subscribe to iTunes or any podcast or it comes up automatically subscribed. I always try to post it on my blog too. Just one to make people aware if they haven't seen it before and two, to allow people to leave additional comments. You know, sometimes that's a good place for people to leave comments on, on an episode. And we just got one yesterday and I thought it was a great question and I wanted to follow up with you. And it's from Flounder, um, which is, uh, his fraternity, his pledge nickname, apparently. Um, he said, I forgot to ask about this when I first listened to episode 75, but how's Myke getting on with his Parker vacuumatic? If it's not picking up much ink, even after giving the plunger a load of strokes, the breather tube might be loose or blocked. The diaphragm might be something to look at too, giving the excessive nib creep mention. So what's, uh, what's your vacuumatic status? Have you been using it? How's it working for you? Any issues?

Myke Hurley: So when I first mentioned that it wasn't, it didn't feel like there was much ink. It's total user error. I didn't know how to fill it. Okay. I thought that you just plunged it once, but then I, when I went and then like not too long after that, um, I think after it, cause the basic life, I filled it up again, like last week, but in between then and now I'd been to the Edison page where you were speaking about the fact we'd spoken about it, not like a little bit before. Um, and I'd been to that page and it has an animated gif of the, the, the filling system.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The men, the men, the men low, the men low pump filler is a similar filling system.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's it. Cause it's, it's based on that sort of idea, right? The plunge. Right. Right. And, uh, I saw that basically you have to like plunge it a few times. I didn't know that.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. It's a good, you know, three or four times. Um, and, uh, so everything's, everything's working well for you. Right.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's, it's absolutely fine now. It's absolutely fine. Cool. It was, it was just simply, I hadn't, I wasn't really familiar with that, with that, uh, system. So, um, I kind of, kind of screwed it up a little bit.

Anderson Pens Podcast

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Well, um, you know, I think, uh, we, we kept this show short purposefully today cause I'm not feeling so hot, but I think we covered a lot of good topics. It was like, uh, it was like the pen addict, uh, news of the day episode. I kind of like it sometimes, you know, to, to kind of catch up on some topics we've mentioned in passing and things like that. I did have one more, one more quick thing. And, um, not that anyone out there cares, but me, but, uh, my, uh, my nibmeister of choice, Myke Masuyama. Uh, I got the email yesterday that he is, his move is complete. He's back at work and he's taking, uh, taking orders at this time. So, uh, I'm gonna, um, I, I ordered some pen, I ordered a pen recently, a pilot. Um, I'll have to send you a link to it. I didn't prepare it for the show, but it's a, um, it's a pilot custom heritage 92, I believe is the name. And, uh, it's a translucent blue barrel piston filler. And I ordered a bold nib just so I could have Myke Masuyama transform it into like a blue, um, I mean, a blue into a small stub nib, like a micro stub nib, like a really fine stub nib. So I bought this pen. I'm not even going to ink it up and I'm going to send it over to Myke to get it to work on. So that's the, that's the extent of my, um, of my passion right now and my obsessiveness over these pens. I'm ordering pens to not even use before I send them off to get worked on.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I need to do something like that.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you know, it's funny. We talked about it on the Anderson pens podcast last night and they were talking about how I like to do that. And the question arose, like, do you, are you afraid that people are just going to do that? That they, that don't need to. And I wasn't, you know, I said, I wasn't afraid that they were going to do it, but you know, you don't want to do it. Not every pen you buy actually needs work done. It's only if you want a modification of your own done to it, right? It's something personal to you that you might want to modify. Um, you know, not because your pen's writing bad. I don't want people to think that I'm, that I get a pen and I send it off to Masuyama because it writes every pen I buy writes bad and I want to get it smoothed out. That's not the case at all. I think over all the fountain pens that I've bought, I've had one that I felt didn't write real well. And that's the Lamy 2000. And he fixed that for me. Every other pen I've bought, you know, like a Twisby, a Pelican, a Sailor, whatever, they all work great out of the box. You just, you just really want to work with a nibmeister. If there's something particular that you want in a nib, like a extra, extra, extra, extra fine nib or, or a super, or a super fine cursive italic or something special. So don't think that you have to do things like this to have a good fountain pen experience because you don't. Um, it's, it's a personal thing that, you know, if you want to do a change, that's going to suit your writing style better. That's when you want to start looking into the services of, uh, of a nibmeister like Myke. So I just wanted to throw that out there.

Myke Hurley: All right. So I think that's about it for today's show. Brad, I appreciate you being here today, even though you're clearly feeling under the weather. So thank you for that. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I appreciate it. And you, uh, you kindly offered to postpone us a couple of days, but, um, this, this worked out okay. And, uh, I, I plunged through and, uh, now we'll go, we'll see if I can go get some, uh, get some meds in me.

Myke Hurley: That'd probably be a good idea. If you want to catch up with Brad, cause he'll probably be tweeting some sort of hoose and like hallucinogenic type tweets later on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Pay attention tonight.

Myke Hurley: You want to do that. So that's going to be over at Twitter. He is at dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. I am I Myke. I am Y K E. And of course, go check out Brad elsewhere on the internet at pen, pen addict.com and knock co.com. So that is about it for today's episode of the show. Uh, thank you so much. If you want to find the links that anything discussed today, go to five by five.tv slash pen addict slash 82. And, uh, we will be back next week for another episode of the pen addict. I think we're going to record a little bit later next week. We'll be releasing the episode next Thursday, just so you know, cause I know there are a bunch of you that like to get the show as soon as you can, but we're recording on Thursday next week. So a little bit longer wait than usual, but I promise you it will be worthwhile. So thanks so much for listening till next time. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.