Editing The Pen Addict 400/transcript (section)

== History of The Pen Addict Podcast ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I cannot. This is quite a day for us over here, as we have gone into episode 400. We've been recording this show for just over eight years now. We're going to talk about that. Over the course of this episode, now what we're actually planning on doing today, what this episode is, is with any podcast that has amassed the amount of episodes that we have, that actually has lots of information in it. Like, it's not just a news podcast, right? You can listen back to this show. You can go back three years and find something that is of interest. For people that are coming into the show that are new listeners, we get asked quite a lot, where should we start? And so we have decided that for episode 400, we're going to give a jumping off point to new people. So hello, if you are new to The Pen Addict. This is indeed, as you have guessed from the name, a podcast all about pens. Mostly fountain pens, some other stuff. We're going to talk about exactly all of that throughout this episode. We will also reintroduce ourselves. Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Myke Hurley. I am a podcaster. I've been podcasting since 2010, so actually going to be a decade coming up real soon. This podcast is a part of, currently, the Real AFM Podcast Network, which I founded in August 2014. And I've been podcasting full-time since November of 2014. And more recently, in 2019, I co-founded a company called Cortex Brand, which produces, and the reason that is of interest to the listeners of this show, is because we produce products, physical products, like the Theme System Journal. So I am now in the business of making notebooks with a purpose. So I'll include some links to those in the show notes. But the most important person here is Brad Dowdy. This show is named after Brad Dowdy. It's not called the Brad Dowdy. It's called the Pen Addict. Brad Dowdy is the Pen Addict and has been doing this stuff for a very long time. So, Brad Dowdy, please take it away.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it has been quite a while, Myke. I started, for all of our new listeners, I am the Pen Addict. I go online by the Pen Addict pretty much anywhere I can get a hold of that name. And my blog is penaddict.com, which I started all the way back in the year 2007. November 29th, I believe, is the exact date. And it has been a wonderful journey that has led into the awesomeness part of what you hear today in episode 400 of this podcast. I've had various dalliances throughout the years as the Pen Addict has become more than a blog. It has become part of my life and then eventually my job, which, you know, they always say, you know, never turn your hobby into a job. Well, Myke, for me, they're kind of one in the same. And I'm super glad that it's that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You have a jobby like me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have a jobby. So part of my history takes me through a little bit of an employment bump in 2011. I worked for a company called JetPens. If you're new to the show, they're my favorite Japanese pen retailer here in the U.S., which is where I'm based. Myke failed to mention he is in London. We do this podcast via Skype across many time zones for your listening pleasure. At one point, I worked for JetPens when I was doing the blog. And, you know, I still always had a day job, but I did some marketing work for them back in 2011. In 2012, Myke, we started this podcast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' After a guest episode. So I was doing a podcast, which is now defunct, called The Enough Podcast with our friend Patrick Rohn. And we had Brad as a guest on that show. And I got on with Brad so well and thought he was so interesting and such a great explainer. I was like, I want to record that show with that guy. I want to make a show with him about pens. Because, you know, we've both been interested in pens and paper for a long time. Brad kept that interest up longer than I did and kind of with more passion than I did. But I wanted to get back into it and thought that Brad would be the perfect person to host a show with. And so I asked him and then convinced him over time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So you asked me and I told you no.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. No one would listen to that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No one will listen to this. And then Myke saw something there and he kept pressing me and twisted my arm enough to where I said, okay, let's give this a shot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it took about a year, I think, to convince you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not sure that long. But, yeah, I think it took a while. And then once he finally convinced me, I figured we had about 10 episodes in us. Like, and then we'd be done. That would be all the pen stuff we could talk about, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Who knew? Who knew what we were actually getting into at the time? So it's been an awesome run. And there were some other highlights during this time. I started a company with my friend Jeff Brookwicky called Knock. We make pen cases. And we went through a Kickstarter project that we discussed many times throughout the pen addict's history. And then kind of the big turning point for me personally and professionally in 2016, January 1st, I quit my day job to do the pen addict and all the other work I do related to the pen addict full time. So that was a big deal. And we'll have a few links in the show notes to some of these historical landmark times of our podcasting and our existence, at least on the stationary internet. And then most recently, I've partnered with another friend, Brian Conte, to launch a product called Spoke Pen, which we did just last year. So in the 12 years since I've started the pen addict, I have done lots of things. And I'm just passionate about pens and stationary and all the things that go along with it. And I think it's shown. I think it's worked out, Myke. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You would like to think so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Because we're still here. We're still here. And we're still getting new listeners all of the time, right? So that's why we want to do this episode, to give you a little bit of history, give you a little background about who we are, what we do. And we're going to continue on with that today and giving you kind of the 101 breakdown of a few of the things that we have discussed over these 400 episodes. Like the podcast history, Myke. Yeah. Why don't you help me out with this section? Our podcast history is generally compact, but it has some good stories contained within, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So the pen addict has long surpassed any other project that I've done. I often say this, but my relationship with Brad is one of the longest relationships of my life outside of family because we've been working together for longer than I've known my wife. We have been working together for longer than any of my other working relationships. This is the only podcast that I am doing that I have been doing since basically the beginning of my career. We started on a network that I created in like 2011 called 70 Decibels. That was where the podcast began. Then we then moved the podcast to 5x5 when we started working there. And then when me and Stephen Hackett, my co-founder, decided to create our own company, RelayFM, it moved again. So it's moved three times. So if you are going back through the course of history of this show, you will hear references to companies that either don't exist anymore or that this podcast is not a part of anymore. But that kind of explains its life. One, there's a couple of interesting moments in the show's history, which are just good for posterity's sake. In August 2012, Brad decided to take a break from the show and from everything. You took a break from The Pen Addict completely because you were going through, I believe, a pretty difficult time in your working career.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And we weren't sure. Kind of at the time, we said like the show is done, but not over, you know. We weren't sure what was going to happen. And then Brad returned in November of that year, which is always funny to me that it was only like four months or something. Because it feels like when I think back that it was a very long time, but it wasn't actually that long.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Number one, just the time that it happened seems like forever ago, which I guess in the internet timing, I guess, you know, eight years ago is forever ago. But it was definitely weird. I went back and listened to that entire episode this weekend as I was preparing for this show. And, you know, I could definitely hear it in my voice. And I think at the time, I don't know if you thought I was ever coming back. I didn't know if I was coming back. I had stopped, basically stopped writing the blog. It became, you know, too much work with the mix of real work, you know, my day job and life and all these things. It just became too much at the time. So I just, I'm not a person that can do less. I'll either do it all or I'll do nothing. So I had to turn it off completely, essentially, during that time. And that's when I figured out that I really love doing it. And I miss the pen addict and I miss writing. And I miss the podcast at the time, even though we were only 28 episodes into it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which is also so wild to consider that it was so early on in the show's life.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It could have ended right there. Like, could you imagine? Like, I don't like to think about it in those terms, right? So luckily, I am built for this. Like, I'm built to love stationary and talk about it. Like, that's what I want to do. So it was an easy choice once I had a little bit of a break, came back. And we've been flying ever since, I'd say. Wouldn't you say?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would. One of the important things in this show's history is our Kickstarter campaigns. So we had a wild idea as we were approaching episode 150 of the show back in 2015. That me and Brad, you know, we were becoming increasingly saddened by the fact that we had never met in person. Because at that point, like, I was traveling to lots of conferences and stuff. But they were never things that Brad was attending. They were more technology focused. Because my other podcasts and I do are more technology focused. So all the way back then, we decided for episode 150 that we would get together at the Atlanta Pen Show, which is Brad's home pen show. And we would record an episode of the show in person. And the Kickstarter campaign was an incredible success. We funded very quickly. There are many episodes. Basically, every time it's a Kickstarter, you'll get me and Brad crying on the show. This is very possible we'll cry before the end of the episode today because that's just what we do. And then the Kickstarter campaigns have continued to be a thing that we do every single year. We're approaching our sixth campaign this year. We always visit Atlanta as part of this. But we've also been able to go to the DC Pen Show, the Toronto Pen Show, the San Francisco Pen Show. And we went to Chicago as well to record an episode with the crew over at Field Notes. And we may be going to Dallas this year for our sixth episode, for our sixth Kickstarter campaign.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you remember back in episode 150, the room we recorded the podcast in? Because that was our first time recording. We did not have a studio audience. I remember that episode vividly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like I can't remember some of the podcasts that we had in front of an audience. But during that time, we just got basically like the shell of a hotel ballroom and set up some tables and cameras and, you know, the Hackett Brothers audio AV team. And that was it, me, you, and Ana. So that was pretty crazy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I remember one of the things I remember because these are shot on video for the Kickstarter campaign. We give out video versions to the backers. Because I remember how bright the lights were the first time because I've never recorded in front of lights before. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because they were so close to us because we didn't have a crowd to deal with. A couple of other podcasts, you know, with 400 episodes, you could point out a million different things in the history of the podcast. But two things I wanted to point out. One, our very first guest. Did you know this before I put it in the show document?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I don't know if I would have guessed it either.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know that I would have guessed it either. It was Myke Rohde, our good friend from Sketchnote fame. Episode 17, very first guest of The Pen Addict. I think he's been a return guest since then. But we've had, we've just had tons and tons of guests since then, which is fantastic. And then the person who is our most recurring guest and the official third host of The Pen Addict podcast, Anna Reinhardt from The Well Appointed Desk. Her first appearance was all the way in episode 54. I was thinking it might have been sooner. But just since then, I mean, she's been on the show, I don't know, 12, 15 times. I didn't even bother to count. It's a lot. So we love Anna. She's our bestie. And she always travels with us on our Kickstarter campaigns. And she's just awesome. And that is one of those friendships that comes from this podcast, which is such a valuable thing. You know, 400 episodes in. You know, that's certainly the thing I'll remember the most is the friends we made along the way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's so beautiful. All right. This episode is not all just about The Pen Addict. Like, I hope that now we have given you kind of like a primer as to who we are and what we do. But now, after this break, what we're going to do is talk about the products themselves and give a kind of a glossary, an overall like set of terms and basics that you might want to know if you are starting to get involved in this hobby. But today's episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. Warby Parker was founded by four friends of a rebellious spirit and a lofty goal to create boutique quality eyewear at a revolutionary price point by allowing you to buy your glasses online. Their free home try-on program makes it so easy. You order five pairs and you try them on for five days with no obligation to buy. Shipping is also free and includes a prepaid return shipping label. So super simple. Just go to warbyparker.com slash penaddict and you can take their quiz right now and order your free home try-ons today. Warby Parker glasses start at $95. That includes prescription lenses and an anti-glare coating and anti-scratch coatings all included as well. I've been wearing Warby Parker glasses for about a year now and I absolutely love them. I couldn't find, I was looking for like a specific look and I could only find them with Warby Parker and I was super happy. But their whole system, the home try-on system is fantastic because you're able to try on glasses, show them to your loved ones at your own home. You're not kind of being looked at or judged by any store assistants. And you can also try those glasses on with your own clothes as well, maybe mix them up a little bit. So you get to see like how are these going to look on a daily basis. Super important. And now they have Scout by Warby Parker, which are comfortable, breathable and affordable daily contact lenses made from a super moist material that resists drying for lasting hydration and comfort. You can order a trial pack that includes six days worth of contacts for just $5 and then also receive $5 off your next Warby Parker order. And this is great for every pair of glasses that are sold. Warby Parker distributes a pair to somebody in need. You can learn more about Warby Parker at warbyparker.com slash penaddict. That's warbyparker.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Warby Parker for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We are going back to the beginning, Myke. This is the new episode one of the Pen Addict Podcast where we explain to people who are just learning about the Pen Addict Podcast, who are just learning about good pens and good stationery. What are the things that they're looking at and looking for when they're trying to make a decision on what pen or pencil or paper or fountain pen ink they like? So consider this the glossary. I think we're going to go through several basic topics. Now, I want to say we're going to cover a lot. We're not going to cover everything. But these, as many of the people who have listened to all 400 episodes will have learned already, these are the topics that come up the most. These are kind of the general buckets of pens or paper or what have you that we mention the most. And we want to take this time to explain just the very, very basic stuff once again. How does that sound?