Editing The Pen Addict 576/transcript (section)

== Post-Pen Show Experiences ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' But you got the conference crud, huh? I did, I did. So, I came home Sunday from The Pen Show, feeling good. You know, throat's a little tired as, you know, someone talking constantly for like two days straight is expected. It's like, oh, this is normal, feel good. Sunday felt good. Monday morning felt good. Got up, got a bunch of work done. Had plenty of stuff to catch up on, got some work done. Then about 12 o'clock, the truck hit me, right about noon. I was like, oh, this is not just my throat being tired anymore. You know, started getting fever, chills, all that stuff. I was like, oh no, here we go. Here we go. So, felt really bad Monday. Took a COVID test, negative. Thankfully, still didn't feel good at all. Tuesday, tried to stream. Failed that miserably after about 10 minutes. Decided that was a terrible idea. Went straight back to bed. On Tuesday, took another COVID test on Tuesday afternoon. Also negative. And I feel like I'm finally coming out of it as of Wednesday morning. Don't feel great, but I'm feeling mobile. So, I think that's a start. So, feeling a little bit better. So, hopefully, we're on the road to recovery. But this could be a, you need to have your editing pen ready on this episode to mark down, mark it down. Mark down all the coughs, cough breaks.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm using a Bungu, the Bungu Box 4B as my editing pen today, which feels like a very elevated editing pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is, oh, that's such a good pen. It's a fantastic pen. That is such a good pen. Well, luckily enough, I was able to run across lots of good pens myself. I'm sure you did. This weekend at the Washington DC Pen Show, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I, big, big, big jealousy, you know? Like, this was one where I was like, you know, I thought a little bit like, oh, that would have been fun. Like, San Francisco, like, oh, that would have been fun. Seeing pictures from the DC Pen Show and reading your kind of review in refill, I was like, yeah, I actually should have been in this one. Like, I feel like I made a mistake in not planning to be there because this seemed like it was an excellent time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will say, not to inflate your ego much, a lot of people asked about you. So, there you go. That's enough ego inflation for the day. That's all you're going to get. I'll live on that one for a week. Yeah. Lots of friends and fans were there asking, when's Myke coming back? Where's Myke? So, that was very good. So, you want me to get into it? You want me to do a bit of a recap here? Um, just to paint the overarching picture of how this conversation is going to go, this is, it has to be, by any measure, the biggest pen show I've ever been to. Okay. Just in a number of vendors, number of vendor tables, and attendees. And this is me without having, like, any attendance numbers, right? Like, I don't know how many people went through the gates. But, um, tables-wise, it was 446 tables there, physical tables. Um, and I'd say, you know, probably, I don't know, there were a handful of empty tables. You know, there were some last-minute cancellations, things like that. But, you know, this was, this was full. Three separate rooms full of vendors. Um, attendees-wise, it just looked, it was, Friday looked like a Saturday, right? At any pen show, uh, even if you've been to, like, some of the smaller pen shows, even Atlanta. Like, on Saturday, it gets busy for a while, right? And the aisles get crowded. Well, that was, that was Friday at the show. So, I knew Saturday was going to be crazy, too. So, um, just a quick, um, this is not an airport podcast, but just a quick shout-out to ATL and DCA, Washington National. Super smooth travel, uh, getting in and out of both airports. I actually, uh, DCA, Washington National, is, is a very nice airport. I'm really, uh, that's a, that's a top-tier airport. Easy access, easy to get in and out, good food options, uh, good layout, good places to sit, so. This episode is brought to you by Brad's favorite airport. How about, how about, can we get, can we get flighty? Is that the, is that the big app?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the best app.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. We can get flighty sponsorship incoming, all right? Okay. I'll do some, do some travel, travel bits. Um, so I got there, got to the hotel. Again, very easy. I was, I was on the show floor before one o'clock, um, on Friday, which is great. And seeing how busy and packed it already was, like, literally walking in the hotel with my suitcase, I was like, oh man, am I even going to have enough time to do everything? I was already panicking Friday. It's like, wow, this is big. This is a lot of people. So, um, I went and registered at the hotel, uh, for the show, got my badge and stuff. And then I went, um, immediately to work, right? Like I wanted to kind of check a few of the things off the box that I mentioned on last week's episode. So the layout of the show, it's such a big show, right? Well, I said that many tables, they're not all contained into one physical room. It would just be impossible. Um, so there's three main areas of the show. So the main ballroom and the two hallways that are on the exterior of that ballroom, right? So it's like a big open rectangular ballroom. And then like an L shape, um, for your hallways areas around the outside of that ballroom. So that's one giant space. Um, definitely 200 to well over half of the tables are in that area, right? Probably, probably two thirds of the tables are in that area. And then the second room is a very oddly shaped room with a weird table layout that kind of worked. Um, we'll, we'll talk about in some of the, like the negatives, like the pros and cons. There weren't many cons, but like the layout of the second room, um, needs some work just because it's an, it's not like it's, it's an amoebic type shape room, right? It does. It's not square, rectangular, triangular, just kind of like, blah. And so they just kind of blood all the tables in there. And it was just a little bit weird. Um, and then the third room. So those rooms are in close enough proximity to each other to be like kind of, uh, not quite linked, but pretty, pretty close to it. And then the third room is down the hall to, I guess we'll just say to the right, but it doesn't matter which direction. So down the hall away from the first two rooms and it's the smallest of the three rooms, but it's a traditional, you know, rectangular shape. I liken it. It's about the size of Atlanta's big room in the back of the hotel, um, space for the Atlanta pen show. It's like a big rectangular room and they kind of positioned registration that direction. So you would make sure to see that that room exists.