Editing The Pen Addict 275/transcript (section)

== Penvelopes ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It ended up that Lola and I went with pipettes. And they asked because they're going to be a Pelican Hubmaster. Right. So, they needed to fill up a bunch of ink with Edelstein stuff, the eight Edelstein inks. So, yeah, that was what I think that it was the best possible result.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I'm actually rethinking that a little bit. I got a ton of feedback on that. And, you know, one of my Twitter followers, TJ, who, he said, how about just like your basic nasal aspirator because of the bulk aspect of it to where the pipettes, you can probably get three vials maybe filled. And the bulk aspect of something like an aspirator can get you a lot more ink and still have that fine tube to be able to stick into the top of those small vials. So, I thought that was a pretty good idea. And then I got some really intense, intense suggestions from our friend Tony Scolombrini at the Gear Geeks podcast. He said his wife's a chemist and sent me like one of the robot parts that they use with like, you know, five, you know, needles sticking out of these things that, you know, move and fill vials. I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's going to work for the Pelican Hub, but I appreciated the effort. So, we got a lot of answers on that one, a lot of feedback on that. But I kind of think in retrospect, the aspirator might be a better option, you know, something big. I guess I was on the right track with the turkey baster last week, but the nasal aspirator would probably work a little bit better, I think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like a tiny baster.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to leave that one alone and go right into the launch of Kickstarter Japan. I wouldn't have put this in the show notes, but you did. I think you're wondering what's my problem, I guess.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't think you have a – did you have a problem? I thought you were excited. I don't know where I saw this. It may have been in Refill, which is the newsletter that I read. So, point to point, as you can tell, because I'm always bringing up things that happen in the Refill newsletter, which you should sign up for. Go to penaddict.com slash members and you can find out more information about that. But I saw you make a passing reference to the fact that this has launched now, Kickstarter Japan, that you were very excited to see what types of projects might come from this. And I wondered why – like, what are you expecting from this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't really expect anything, but I'm hoping to see some cool textile things. Okay. Not pen and stationary things. I'm hoping to see interesting backpacks and bags and things like that because I follow that market super, super closely. You know, it's – I think a lot of companies over there do very, very innovative work. And so, to add a country into the Kickstarter realm that has such a different style and aesthetic than necessarily what we'll see in the U.S. market, but that speaks to me on a personal level, I thought it was cool. And anything we get stationary related would just be, you know, a bonus, I think. I certainly don't think it's going to be like a pen and paper revolution because of how that industry is so huge over there already with major companies being involved. You don't need, you know, someone, you know, sitting in their apartment saying, I can't find a good enough pen. Let me create one. Yeah. In the U.S. market, you get that, right? There's a frustration over here. So, they have different frustration points in Japan. So, I'm interested to see what kind of differing products we can get. Right now, I haven't pinned down any, like, specific project, but I'm super excited that it's at least an option.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I thought you meant that there might just be weird pens, which I'm sure there will be, like, weird and wonderful pens. Yeah. But, yeah, it's cool that you're looking at for maybe some more ancillary objects.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Speaking of which. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Speaking of wonderful textiles, we did a Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter campaign, thank you for everybody that participated in that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was for a wonderful penvelope, Cappello penvelope and videos. Well, we had the penvelopes made. Everybody's got their penvelopes now, or should. They've all been mailed out. I haven't got mine yet, I don't think. I'm assuming that's on the way. I assume they're on the way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It should be. Oh, yeah. It should be. I think there's only 12 Kickstarter backers that we haven't sent, because we don't have their address. And, like, I've sent extra emails to get the addresses. And that's about how many I have left. Cool. Well, I'm sure mine's on the way, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Actually, do you know what? Yeah. No, because I didn't back it. I just asked you to send me one. That's what it was. Oh, then it's definitely not on the way. Definitely not on the way, huh? Yeah. Definitely not on the way. There might not be one for me, because now the rest are for sale. And I would prefer people to be able to buy them than just have one sent to me for the sake of it. But, yeah, there is a small amount left. So we had to do a production run of a certain amount, right? Like, you have to do it for a certain amount. And we had to account for there being issues of some description. So we always go for a few extra. Well, we're actually selling off some of the extra ones as well. So it's over at knockco.com, but I'll put a link in the show notes. Do you know how many there are?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' A total overall, there's 700 cases. So we had about 100 left over to work through and see a little over 100, something like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Well, if there's 100, you can get me one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So what I just wrote a note here, which doesn't mean I'll remember to do it, is to bring you one in Chicago.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Perfect. I would love that. That would be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Thanks again to everyone that did support us. And this is kind of just a lecture for the people that missed out, maybe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And normally we wouldn't sell them online if we had more pen shows to go to. This is normally we would bring the extras like this to pen shows. Yeah. But it's six months till the next pen show at least.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We're going to be into 2018 and the case is, say, 2017. Right? Like, it's, you know, it feels like we should just do it. Now everybody gets a chance. Because the thing about bringing this stuff to pen shows is then still there's only a small amount of people that actually get an option to do this. And you may end up with a case of like, I don't know, people getting multiple ones. So, we wanted to make sure we could have it for everybody. They're available online now to buy if you're so inclined.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, there's still some available. So, if you were interested and didn't get in on the Kickstarter, you should because we have the Field Notes event coming up. Gosh. Three weeks now? It's awfully close.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Awfully close. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can't. Yeah. I can't believe it. We'll go with that. Three weeks. Oh, my gosh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, my gosh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Something else that's been awfully close for like a month now. Talking about three weeks. Three weeks ago.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Our seed notebook cases. Oh, this is going to be the end of me. This is the manufacturing is hard talk. And it's nothing new. It's just standard frustrations. So, I get a phone call. I mean, we've been supposed to be having cases for at least like the past two weeks now. And so, I get a phone call like Friday was going to be the first big shipment. Nothing happens Friday. I call them Monday. They have to call me back, find out what's going on. They go down and inspect the first batch of cases ready to ship and they reject them all because of a binding issue. So, it's like I super appreciate that, right? Like, they know what we expect from our cases. We have really high quality demands that they're not used to manufacturing. So, they have specific things, specific specifications that they have to meet specifically for us that they don't normally do. And they caught them before they left. So, I should have the first batch arriving today. But that doesn't mean they're going to be ready for sale because we have to have enough to be able to, you know, fulfill initial orders. So, we're going to wait until we have a few hundred in, which might take another week or so. But, yeah, it's been a super annoying, frustrating production week at Nock. Just trying to get the final details hemmed up, if you will, on these cases. And once they start rolling and they're perfect off the line, they roll and they don't stop. But, man, I swear getting them started sometimes is just like pulling teeth. You know, I put in this order in April, just so everyone knows. This is how it goes. So, and I would like to say this is abnormal. It's just not. I can't build in enough lead time for all these projects for everything to go perfectly, no matter how much I do. So, I'm trying. We're very much trying. We're very, very close. But I know I've been saying that for a few weeks. And, you know, it's two steps forward, one step back. And hopefully what I see today or tomorrow, whenever they arrive, is perfect and we're ready to go. And then they start arriving every day for the next several weeks. And they'll be up on the site very, very soon. And everyone will be able to get their cases ordered. So, good times, Myke Hurley, good times.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm sorry, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, nothing to be sorry about. It's just I wish, you know, I could give everyone exact dates and times. And I try to give general ideas and say, hey, maybe this week, you know, it's looking good for this week. And then when that fails, that's when I start getting ticked, you know, when it's out of my hands. So, that's what frustrates me is getting information, getting good information, passing on good information, and that good information failing. So, oh, well, it happens. Like I said, I'm used to it. It doesn't make it less frustrating.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I understand. Yeah.