Editing The Pen Addict 247/transcript (section)

== Field Notes Notebooks ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' My field notes came in, Brad. Yeah, so tell me all about them, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, so, I mean, I don't even know how to talk about this now. Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I feel the same way. Like, I don't even want to talk about this, to be perfectly honest, but I think we should. Because... And we'll wrap it up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel damned if you do, damned if you don't. Right. With it. So, okay. The corners of my books are, like, frayed a little bit. Yes. They're not split, but they've got, like... If I run my finger down the spine, I can feel the edges, like the very corners, right? Mm-hmm. I don't know if I would have noticed this if I wouldn't have been expecting it. Because honestly, right, look, I don't care about this. Like, if my cover was split all the way down the side, as you said, that some people's are, I would be annoyed about this. Yes. But I'm, like, it's just a little bit of fraying at the edges, which would happen to me after, like, three days of using the thing. Mm-hmm. I get, like, if you want your... If you want perfection from your notebooks and you're not happy with them, then return them. But, like, for me, this is perfectly fine. Like, you know, you can take of that what you want, right? You know, you can either believe me or not believe me. But I don't care about this. Right. Like, let's say, there is a little fraying. It shows way more on the bottom because you see the yellow coming through the black. Right. But that's just how it is. Like, I don't, you know, they look fine. This edition in general is not going to be a favorite of mine. Yeah. I think it's fine. It's solid. Like, I don't have any ill feelings towards it. But I'm not going to put this in my top ten. It is a nice edition. And if you want Ledger, then you're going to be very happy, right? Because they don't do that very often. Right. I don't like Ledger. But I said to Edina yesterday, I was like, I've got these. She freaked out. She was so excited about them because she's like, oh, I can make to-do lists. Yes. I'm like, great. Go crazy with them. I don't want them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The Ledger's super handy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' She also, more than anyone I've ever known, freaking loves the pencils and pens, the field notes ones. She has access to whatever she could want, right? In this office. Like, she uses a TWSBI Eco by day. But she freaking loves the ballpoint pens. Yeah. I don't know why. But they are great because they're so simple and reliable. But, like, I never would use them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. See, I actually do use that one. It's the classic Bic Click. It's a wonderful pen. I like Bic's ballpoints. So, yeah. And they're great looking. And my kids use the pencils. I don't use the pencils.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I don't know what she uses the pencils for because I don't think I've ever seen her use one, but she always takes them. And then my ideal is that she then has to take the craft away from me. Yeah. It's like, you can have all this stuff, but you have to deal with the craft notebooks because no one in my house needs those. Like, you've seen my drawer, right? Like, I've got more than enough going on over here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. My kids get the craft, too. And then my daughter wears the bands of rubber on her wrist to school. Now, the bands of rubber, I buy packs of them. They're so cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, if I ever make an order from Field Notes for something extra, I always throw a bag of the rubber bands in. I use those things everywhere. Like, they hold together cables for me. I have them holding together other stationary items. Like, they are incredibly durable, just awesome rubber bands. Like, and I like that you get the occasional one in the package, but I always buy extras because I always need them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And they work well as jewelry.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like one of those Livestrong bands?

'''Guest:''' Yeah. That's how my daughter wears them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's amazing. She'll literally wear it for like three days in a row. Then it'll disappear, but yeah. Field Notes, strong, man. To school and everything.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Grid paper. I like the grid paper. Like, I could use this. That's totally fine. The grid is unoffensive. It's faint enough. Like, it's how I like it, right? Like, it's there if you need it, but if you don't, you can ignore it. I like the ruler on the cover just because it gives it a bit of character. You know, I'm always banging on about, I want my products like this to have a story to them, to have like a cohesive idea. If you're going to be buying into this type of thing, especially subscriptions, I want ideas, cohesive ideas. And this is like a notebook made for people that are doing work. So what do you do? You put a ruler on it in the cover. Like that. Right. That whole idea, that makes total sense to me. Like, I can get on board with that. I think it's a nice touch. So from a design and idea perspective, I'm happy with these. I have no personal issue with the quality of mine. Your mileage may vary, right? It depends on your own taste levels. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And quick comment on that. We did get some feedback saying that we shouldn't say it's impossible to QC 105,000 notebooks. I think that we may have said that in those terms, but both of us agree that, yes, you should be able to QC any product, no matter what quantity you're doing, because that's your job. So, yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, okay. So on that, it is technically possible, yes, to look and check 115,000 notebooks. Practically, I don't think so. You have to take a sample. Who could do that? Like, how big a company would you need to be able to look and check 115,000 notebooks? How many people do that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Smaller than you think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Really?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because, yeah, they don't come off the line in a big shot of 100,000. They're coming off the line constantly. Someone is physically shrink wrapping all those books.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Are they? It's not a machine?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It could be a machine, but, I mean, like, our shrink wrapper is, you know, we're not doing that quantity, but it's by hand.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My point, all right, so let me clarify my point on this then, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, so I'll clarify mine too. Apparently, I think you can QC that many, Myke doesn't.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that, well, anything's possible. I just think that practically that is a difficult thing to do. That's how it sounds to me. If anybody can actually point us to an answer for this, great. Otherwise, I think we're just going to have to stand divided on this issue.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's okay. There is an expectation, though.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Naturally.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But then again, again, it's like your mileage may vary, right? Like, that might come off the line. Someone looks at it and they're like, that's fine. True. Right? Oh, yeah. Let's talk about something that is unequivocally awesome. Yes, please. Which is your interview with Aurora. Yeah. I loved this piece. I said to you before we recorded today that I was wondering how it was going to come out. Like, I was wondering if you were going to maybe just, you know, you sat down and interviewed them, which you transcribed the interview. But instead, you wrote like a feature piece using the information that you got from the interview with, was it Linda at Aurora? Yes. Yes. And I loved it. It's one of my favorite things that you've written in a long time because it told a real cool story. So, I recommend that people go and read this article. It's on the penaddict.com, of course, and it will be in our show notes for this week. So, you can go and get it. Spoilers. We're going to talk about it now. So, like, I guess if you don't want spoilers for the article. So, one thing that jumped out at me, Brad, is this million dollar pen?