Editing The Pen Addict 268/transcript (section)

== Nock Paper ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we left Jeff early manning the table at Nock. And I brought all my Nock paper, but I used it for the testers at the table. So those are all my notebooks. So I was digging through my backpack before I came up here to record. Because I like to write a few notes, even if I have my laptop in front of me and have a whole show notes digitally down. I still like to write notes, scribble. I got to have my pen and paper with me. And I couldn't find anything in my hotel room because I had brought it all to the table and it's all still down there. So I came up to the room. I was like, you have any paper? And then I saw the Marriott pad, which consists all of two sheets of paper. Looks like quite nice paper though, I will say, for a ballpoint pen, which is what I'm using, which we'll talk about later too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I want to set the stage for the pen show. But before I do, I want to go back a little bit and talk about my journey to the pen show. Yeah. Because I went to New York and met with Tiffany Arment and we got the Amtrak. I'm pretty jealous of that, actually. Which was really nice. It was a really comfortable train. The seats are really big. We had a nice day, like just kind of... Zoom in our way down. And we got to Union Station in Washington, D.C. Because the pen show, it is called the D.C. pen show, but we are in Virginia right now. And it's always been that way. It's not just because of the hotel change. D.C., it was like a 25-minute lift from the station to here. It's better to call it the D.C. pen show, right? And from my understanding, from talking to you, the San Francisco pen show is the same. It's just like, what is the nearest, biggest city? Right. So we're just outside of D.C. We're in Falls Church, Virginia, in the Marriott Hotel. So we get out of Union Station and we're going to try and find out what road we're on. And we walk out the station and the Capitol building is right there. It's like right there. And I had no idea of the geography. Like, Tiff hasn't been here since she was a teenager, right? So she didn't really remember the layout of everything. And I have like a really heavy suitcase with me because I'm here. I'm in America for a month, right? And I'm full of equipment and stuff like that. But so like I'm dragging this case out onto the pavement and she's like, let's go take a walk. And I was like, no, come on, let's do it. So we spent like half an hour and I went to see the Capitol building, the Washington Monument. It's fantastic. I'm so happy that I got to see these things and just like to walk around some of D.C. And like, this is where stuff happens. And like, this is the center of this country. And I don't know, it was nice. And I'm really pleased that she convinced me to do that. Yeah. Because I don't know when I would have done it otherwise.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was excited when you told me that y'all did that. I was like, that's really cool. You know, even just seeing the buildings from afar and going, that's where the things happen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I've got some pictures of the Capitol building. And it's like, yeah. Like, and they're beautiful buildings, right? Right. So now I have these things that I've seen. So that was that. And then we drove down and we had last night and we're just hanging out. So, you know, everyone's just getting in on Thursday. And then. A lot of people in on Thursday. A lot of people. Right. Because I mean, so many people come and they're here for the whole weekend. Right. So you come on Thursday night and you stay all the way through. Right. It's like loads of people.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Bar was packed full, completely full. And it's a big bar. It's not a small bar.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a great hotel. It's a good layout. Really good. I mean, again, I can't compare it to the last DC hotel. But like the bar is huge. The restaurant's huge. Like everything's like, it's great. There's nothing around here. But the hotel is perfectly fine. I got a root beer float when I entered the hotel, which is amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was awesome. So they had like the, instead of like the wine and cheese happy hour at the hotel, they had a root beer float social. Yeah. Like the five o'clock, you know, hour, five to six o'clock hour. And Myke walked in. He's like, I'm here checking in. And I was like an hour ahead of Myke. And I start getting texts. It's like, I'm here. Okay. I've checked in. Oh my God. Root beer floats.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've never had one before. And then I had two in an hour. Yeah. So I was flying. What's the verdict?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What's the verdict? Great. Yeah. Pretty amazing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Really loved it. Yeah. So then that kind of brings us to finding out a little bit about today. So again, I have very limited pen show experience, but just the general workings of the DC pen show seem very different to Atlanta, at least, where you don't set up the night before the show. The show begins. You set up in the daytime and technically the show doesn't start on Friday at all. People can come in. Like if you buy a whole weekend pass and a lot of people buy like a exhibitors pass, even though they're not exhibiting or something weird like that. Right. So they can come in on Friday. It's like a trade. Yeah. Traders pass.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's essentially the weekend pass. Yeah. They call it. It's a, you can use the same, same terms for what it is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So technically. Technically, what that means is it's just people that are coming in to set up or people that are coming in for business reasons. Right. Because what should be happening on Friday is we're getting our tables set up and we're just doing that for Saturday and Sunday, which are the public open days where people come. Right. Where apparently it's incredibly busy. Right. But what that means is like there are people here, a lot of people here that are ready to buy stuff at the same time that me and you are waiting to go in to get our table set up. And that includes, you know, people like Van Ness, people like the Andersons, people like Franklin Kristoff, who have these incredibly elaborate areas to set up. So that's just how it is. Everyone knows that. But we, you know, I mean, but like, you know, it's like whatever. Like we found out about it last night. It's like it's frustrating. But whatever. We figure we'll get there at nine. We'll go in. And everyone just starts to get set up as soon as they can. Now, I don't want to spend too much time talking about this. Right. But like it was an absolute disaster.