Editing The Pen Addict 430/transcript (section)

== Sponsorship Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Let's take our first break.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Myke keeps moving this up the dock. And we're going to find out why in a minute.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We're sponsored by Canalea Pen Company today. There are two types of sponsorships that we do with Canalea Pen. One is like what you heard, I think, a couple of episodes ago where we're just reminding you about the incredible products that the Canalea Pen Company have and produce. Then there's the other type of Canalea Pen Company sponsorship that we do where we are working with them to let you know about a new release that they have. And that's what we're doing today. So I'm going to go through the ad copy that has been provided to us by Canalea that I've adapted. So I will tell you all about the product. And then me and Brad are going to talk about our experiences of the new pen, which we both had for a short time. So the Canalea Pen Company makes stunningly beautiful pens inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and connect us with nature. While the story behind these pens is wonderful, the execution is what sets them apart from the rest. Every single Canalea pen is handmade in a process that means that no two pens will ever look alike. And every nib is tuned before it ships to their customers. What you get is something truly unique for you. And we're excited to announce a brand new pen with the Canalea lineup. It's called Kona Snow, and it's inspired by the life cycle of the Kona coffee plant. So before we get to the red berries that inspired the Kona Cherry Pen, which was their last release, the Kona coffee plant's life cycle begins with snow white flowers that are seen for just a few days in spring. So the Canalea Kona Snow is a beautiful pen featuring white acrylic with some pearlescent swirls and rose gold accents throughout the material. There will be photos in the show notes. You can take a look. Again, we'll talk about this in a moment in more detail. The process that they've gone through here is something that I cannot get my head around as to how they've produced this pen, because it really is very, very special. Now, this is something that's important, and I was really pleased that Hugh and Carol sent this information to me. So this is a white pen, right? So, you know, white can discolor, but they've done some tests on this. Canalea pens let me know that they performed some testing of their own, including submerging the material that was made, that they made these pens out of, in Waterman Mysterious Blue ink for 24 hours, seeing no discoloration. So they just put the material in a blue ink for 24 hours, and they saw nothing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's awesome. That's great to hear.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I was really pleased. I didn't think of it until I saw it. I was like, oh, yeah, that's a good thing. Just to let people know, right? Like, this is a – I've never had a white pen before, so it's not popped into my head, but it's something to be aware of. So I'm really pleased that they've done some testing on that. Canalea pens feature Yo-Oh No. 6 nibs, and you can buy steel or 18-karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They also offer rose gold, too, which is the perfect pairing for Kona Snow, in my opinion. The same as the little medallions that go on the top. The rose gold is like – that's what I got. Trust me. Like, this is the one for this pen. Canalea offers sizes from extra fine to 1.1 stub, and every pen ships in a beautifully packaged keepsake box. The Kona Snow is available to order right now, with the Classic Flush profile shipping within a week if your order is placed by November 1st. After November 1st, it will ship within their usual four-week window. All of the other profiles that Canalea make are available to order now, but will ship within four weeks. Canalea is also using the proceeds of the Kona Snow to give back to the communities of Big Island and the Kona area by donating a portion of the proceeds to the Hawaii Food Bank and the Halei Hanikahi Emergency Shelter. I apologize for butchering that. You can check out the Kona Snow today at canaleapenko.com. That's K-A-N-I-L-E-A-P-E-N-C-O. Canaleapenko.com. Go there today to choose your aloha. Thanks to Canalea Penco for their support of this show. This is a special one, huh?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to put you on the spot, Myke. So as is our normal routine, we've been doing this for a long time now, to where we'll each get a product. It could be any product. It doesn't have to be Canalea. And we will generally not communicate beforehand, right, to have the conversation about our opinions on the pen. Or let's just say pen. It could be paper or whatever. So we can have a discussion around this. So I've had mine for like two, three weeks now. My Kona Snow, I've been using it, and I'm going to give my thoughts here in a minute. And I didn't even mention to Myke that my pen had arrived or anything like that. And I just don't do that. So out of the blue, last week, Myke messaged me. He goes, did you get it? And I'm like, do you mean the Canalea pen? Yeah, I got it. And I'm going to let you pick it up from there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, man, this is so good. This is so good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You then went to break on every unwritten rule we have about telling each other what we think about the pen. Yeah, I couldn't keep this one to myself.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because I've really like, oh, my God, they've done it. Like, they've just straight up done it again. But this one, what I find so fantastic about the Kona Snow, well, I said a couple of things. One, when I opened it, it was completely unexpected. Like, looking at Canalea's lineup that they have currently, I would never have assumed them to give me an all-white pen. Like, it just didn't feel like it would be able to get across the type of images that they usually portray, right? Like, one, it just didn't necessarily, I would never would have imagined that they would have a kind of an imagery from Hawaii that would be all white, right? Like, that just didn't necessarily come into my mind, because it's usually lots of vistas and stuff like that. But I also just don't think it's a colorway that I would have expected from them, because I would have naturally assumed that if you're going for basically all white, you would not be able to produce something that will blow you away. But they did it, because this thing is, it's just stunning. Like, you know, it being mostly white, right, as the body of the pen, but then it creates, like, these swirls. Like, pearlescent is, like, the best way I can describe the kind of, the swirls that run through it. But again, it's like, not, it's this idea of me just not understanding, not being able to conceive of how these things are actually produced, that every swirl has an outline in rose gold. Like, I don't understand how this is possible to do. And they've created something this time. It's just, like, again, like, I can't recall seeing something like this before. Yeah. And the pearlescent nature of it means that, you know, I have this on mine. They have this in one of the images. You may see it. It's like, there is one spot on my pen where it's just, like, a small circle of this, like, pearlescent kind of, like, semi-transparent, I guess, part of the acrylic. And it looks like it has that real depth again that I've seen in some of their pens recently. I think the one for me is in my Aolani, I have a similar point where it's, like, this one spot where it just looks like it goes impossibly deep. So, yeah, it's, my gosh, they absolutely nailed this one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the best part, like, you're talking about, like, the fluorescence and the colors is you don't have to see it from up close, like, mine sitting on my desk and not in my hand. And I can see all the things that you're talking about. So, I agree with you. What I told you is that this is the best release of the last few releases, even though, like, the Kona Cherry is my favorite, right? The bright red translucent one, like, that's a me pen. I think this is going to be the most popular of the past several of the Kana Leia releases. It's really pretty. It's really different. It's one of those pens, when I use it, I stop to look at, right? I have a handful of pens like that where I'm writing with them, where it's just such an enjoyable pen to use and to write with and to look at that I'll be writing, and then I'll stop and look at it and go, yeah, this is a good one. I like this pen a lot. So, the material's great. I got mine with the clip this time, Myke. I wanted to try something different. Yeah. So, I tried a little bit of different shape.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What was the shape name that you went for?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a great question, because I always forget the names of it. So, let me just check it up. I want to say Classic Slim.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The Classic Slim was the one that you got. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, it's just a little bit bigger cap and a tapered end, and it has a clip. So, when you get the clip, it doesn't come with the medallion on the top. So, that's the trade-off. When you have the clip hardware up top, you lose the medallion. So, you kind of pick whichever style fits that style.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is the clip, can you choose the material?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And it's got the, well, no, I think the clip's just in sterling silver. Yeah. The clip's just in sterling silver. Okay. So, then it's got the little Canalea logo on there. Okay. But I'm very happy with this pen. Like I said, I think this is going to be the most popular pen they've released in quite some time. I think they did a really good job with this, and it fits into the colors and designs and story that they're telling with the product, and it's a good fit for the entire lineup. So, yeah, I think it's going to crush.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, if we think of like, there's kind of like two time periods for Canalea, and like we're in the second phase, I think, which has included the Kona Snow, the Eolani, and the Kona Cherry. Because they have this real different look to them, these pens. And of these three, this is easily my favorite. This is going up against number one or two for me of all time. Oh, wow. My personal favorite is the Haleakala Silhouette. That's my personal favorite of their pens. That's the yellow, gray, and black one. Right. And this is way up there. Like I'm not going to say it yet because of the recency thing, but this is very high. Like because I truly have seen, I've not seen a pen like this before. Yeah, it's very different. It really is special. And just how well it matches with the nib and the medallion.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you get rose gold?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Well, I wasn't going to get rose gold, and I was talking to Hugh. And, you know, because the way that Hugh and Carol do it for us as genius, they don't show us anything. They don't tell us anything about the pens. They just send them to us. And Hugh said to me, you should go rose gold for this one would be my recommendation. And I was like, fine. Like, let's go for it. I also got a medium nib because I always get larger nibs from them. So I ended up going with a medium nib this time, which is just for some difference, which is nice. But yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's funny to me to say that this is like an outlier for all the Kenelia designs because they're all pretty much, you know, things that we haven't seen before. That's why we like them, like the materials, you know, ever since they started. But like, if you look around like your own personal collection and your own desk and the pens you use, you just don't see any one that's like this. Like even my red one that I like so much, the Kona Cherry, like I look around, like I have, you know, all orange barrel pens and all, you know, different things like that. But you don't, I don't have anything that looks like this at all, which is why I think it's going to be pretty popular for them. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I, it was actually, I wanted to just double check. It was Carol's recommendation for the rose gold, not Hugh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I mean, there's, yeah, there's no doubt who would make the best recommendation for that. It's definitely not going to be Hugh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, yeah, this is, this is really cool. Like I'm, I'm big into this pen. I wanted to ask what ink you put in yours though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is a great question, Myke. I struggled with that. I didn't ink it up for like two or three days because I couldn't figure out. So in the end, I went with an ink called a bung box Kabayashi, which is a brown. It's an eel, I forget the name of what Kabayashi is, but it's something relating to eel. And it's this great looking brown, probably my favorite brown ink. It's not too dark. It really matches the, the darkest stripe in the pen. So it's a really, really, it's, I nailed it. And I'm not, I'm not going to lie. It was the perfect match, but I did struggle with that in the beginning. Wanting to make the correct choice. It wasn't going to be like one of my standard blue blacks or pinks or oranges, even though of course all those would be fine. It was down to like a brown or a green. And I went with this Kabayashi and it's great. What about you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I'm using Sailor Ibisu gold. Okay. Yeah. But I want to use something else because I have this gold in two pens already. And I want a different ink for it, but I don't know what that ink is yet. Gotcha. I haven't worked it out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That was a challenge for me. I'm not going to lie. That was a challenge for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I will work it out because I will let know, I will let Hugh and Carol know right now. I haven't told them yet. I'm buying this one. And I will send them the money for this pen. I cannot let it leave. So I have the time to work it out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So thanks for them for working with us on not just supporting the show, but letting us launch these pens and give us an early look and let us have some, you know, some time to spend with them and get our thoughts and opinions on them. And I just, I think this one's probably going to do as well as any we've seen in a while from them.