Editing The Pen Addict 401/transcript (section)

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'''Brad Dowdy:''' None of this matters.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. Should we take a break and dive in?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Today's episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. They have all of the products that you want from all of your favorite brands. If you want a Monteverde fountain pen, you want a Pelican fountain pen, maybe you want a Lamy ballpoint. Maybe you want some Pilot Ink. Maybe you want an Amiki. Maybe you want a Sailor. Maybe you want some converters to put in those wonderful pens. No matter what it is you're looking for, Pen Chalet have got it and they have the best prices around. They're doing their best to get the best prices available to you and backing it up with fast and reliable customer service. They're always adding new products and they run discounts all the time. And they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US. They sell internationally as well and have great shipping rates also. No matter what it is you're looking for, they've got it. They have pen holders, they have converters, refills, ink, carrying cases, and of course, rollerballs, mechanical pencils, whatever you want. But the top reason to go to Pen Chalet whenever you're looking to buy something is at any time because you are a listener of this show, you can get 10% off. Go to PenCalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password PenAddict. This will give you the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet and also show you this week's offers, which are, Brad, what would you like to talk about?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is the Montegrappa Fortuna fountain pen. And let me tell you about this pen. This is the barrel design and shape that I like so much from Montegrappa that they've recently started to use as their mainline product. It's a really nice shape to write with, good to hold in the hand, good when it's capped. It's just an all-around great design pen. I think this is essentially like the cartridge converter version of the Montegrappa Montegrappa, which is a piston filler. So this is kind of like the same layout, same design, same design shape as the Montegrappa Mule that did so well. Now this shape is available in different barrel styles, different barrel colors, and had a crazy good price. Like, you know, it's definitely the Ron deal of the day or the deal of the week for PenAddict listeners. It's a crazy price that I cannot say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's also some items that will come free with certain purchases as well. So Pen Chalet have coupled up some add-on products that you might want with some popular products of theirs, and you can get them for free, which are cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, and I scrolled down, I scrolled down, it goes, like, I thought the list stopped, but there's way more down here. There's way more. The Pilot Ageless Ballpoint is one of my favorite, just unique pens. I hate that name. Oh, Ageless. Ageless and Timeless are the two names of those pens. Timeless is better than Ageless. Timeless is better than Ageless. Without shadow of a doubt.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, go to PenChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website, use the password PenAddict to get your hands on these goods. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for the support of this show and RelayFM. So we're going to do our 201. So one of the first things we're going to talk about is the community, the Pen community, the community that we are so lovingly a part of and indebted to, especially at times like this with the Kickstarter campaign. You know, these are, we are able to do this Kickstarter campaign that we do every year because the community is so strong and supports each other. And so we do what we can on this show to give a little back to the Pen community itself because it's full of many people who run really great blogs, podcasts, Instagram accounts, that kind of stuff. And that's one of the things that, without a shadow of a doubt, like over the history of our show, over its seven years, 400 episodes, if you would say to me, what is the main thing that has changed? It is the way in which the community is expressing itself. You know, we were the only pen podcast around in 2012, but now there are many. Some have come and gone, but there are many. Lots of options now. Lots of blogs, right? Lots more social media activity. That's, I think, it's one of the biggest things that's changed over the history of our show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, and the more, the merrier, in my opinion. And that's how I've always tried to present anything that I've built as far as, you know, the pen out it goes and the podcast goes. You know, people ask for advice to start blogs and they say, well, there's already other blogs out there doing this. I'm like, you still got to do it because it's still your voice. Same with the podcast. I want to start a podcast. You need to do, I want to hear what you have to say, right? And, you know, if you're going into those things in the pen community, you'll find it to be one of the most open and receptive communities around on the internet, bar none. And I don't think that's overselling it. So, you know, we're in a different area of time where our internet relationships are as stronger, stronger than, you know, previous generations in-person relationships have been. I mean, that's how me and you became friends, right? 100%. So to be able to find a like-minded group of people who not just share the same passions that you do, but who share the same like attitudes and thought processes and willingness to teach and to share and to give back to all of these things. Like I can't ask for a better community. So, you know, we've done things in the past on the show where we've done, you know, pen blogs of the week or different podcasts and things like that. So I've tried to collect as many links as I can to other blogs and podcasts and, you know, YouTube channels. Like I can't start listing them on the podcast because I will guarantee, well, one, we'll be here for two days and two, I will just leave someone out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We won't get them all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, we won't get them all. But I'm always open to share anyone and any content anytime, you know, as much as possible. I very much believe in the rising tide theory, raising all ships. And I just want all of this stuff to be out there and more people to read it and more people to see it. So I do have a collection on the pen addict called Pen Friends. And if you're not on there, just yell at me. I'll put you on there. I sometimes I forget. But yeah, I think it's just important to know that this community is open to the most inexperienced beginner users all the way up to like the most experienced advanced users all in the same place at the same time. Right. Yeah. Like you and I are in a different place with our pen collections right now. But if someone walked up to me today and said, hey, Brad, I'm trying to figure out which ballpoint works best on the copy paper at my office. I couldn't be more happier for that question. Right. Because everyone has that question at some point. And I just really believe in sharing that type of information. Some of the places aside from Pen Friends, if you're trying to look for, you know, new new content, new stationery content to read.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What are your favorite platforms personally to get information or to just enjoy what the overall world can provide you, you know, like with pen stuff?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I read all of the pen blogs that I know of and with an RSS reader. And then I love Twitter. Like I'm a huge Twitter fan. I'm not afraid to admit that. It's sometimes hard to find the content on there, but I've tried to manage my account to allow me to at least see different things that I'm not reading in blogs. Right. Like I can I follow a lot of the Japanese feeds. Right. So I'm into all the Japanese pens and I want to see what these stores are launching and things like that. Instagram's obviously great, but there's an algorithm issue that sometimes comes into play that is hard to fight against for the most current information. But it's a fun way to engage in the visual part.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Instagram is without a shadow of a doubt my favorite way to consume pen related stuff because it's visual. And I think that that is just that just fits. I mean, obviously it fits for good reason, but it fits well for me. I prefer the visual aspect of this hobby. Right. So I follow like my proportions on all of my social networks, which have pen content. It's way higher on Instagram than it is on, say, Twitter or something like that. Like I follow way more pen accounts and pen related people and people in the pen community on Instagram than I do on Twitter because I care more about. I don't have the desire for the most up to date information that you do because I get it here on this show like many other people do. Right. So like I don't need to consume. I don't need to feel like unlike with my tech stuff. Right. I don't feel like I need to be on the like the bleeding edge finger on the pulse of what's happening in the pen world, which I do in the tech world. So I get that information on a slower cadence, but that works for me because I just don't need to have that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We also have a pen addict Slack channel. I wanted to mention that. It's a very active chat room. Very active. It's essentially a water cooler chat. You know, none of the content lives long on there. It's ephemeral. You know, you post something and it's gone tomorrow, essentially. But it's very busy and it's very topic centric. Right. You can talk about specific topics and ask questions about specific topics. How does one join? Oh, yeah. It's Slack. Because of what it is, you need an invite, but it's not it's not, you know, a private thing. You just can't have an open access to it. You do need to email me hello at pen addict dot com. And then I'll just shoot you over an invite link and you can come on in. You know, Reddit slash our fountain pens is a very, very large Reddit group where you can find a lot of good information on there and along with other stationary subreddits. Yes. You know, there's a ton of people. We've seen a little bit of a resurgence in pen meetups around, you know, around the country and around the world. So that's a little bit harder to find those first the first time if you've like moved to a new town or you're in a town that you're not sure what's going on. That's a place where you might not stumble into. That's where your online communities like Twitter and Slack and, you know, emailing me say, hey, do you know of anything in this area? And I might not, but I might know the person asked. So there's things like that. So and I also like sharing things on Twitch where we can do a little bit of show and tell and unboxings and just have a little bit of silly fun time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, of course, there are other YouTube as well, right? Like video content is big for massive. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know, you definitely want to if you're a YouTube fan, you definitely want to be following like Fig Boot on Pens and Stephen Brown and Pinboy Roy and all these other people that, you know, I said I wasn't going to list because I know I'm going to leave them out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, all of this stuff will be listed in your pen friends list. Yeah. And it's always changing. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's always changing. So I always need to put in more. It's usually the best thing about pen friends is I'm adding way more than I'm removing, which is kind of cool. Like right now we're getting a lot of content creation around pens and stationery. I think it's pretty neat. I'll always support that wholeheartedly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean, it's just a wonderful thing to have seen. And it must be weird for you in some ways, because obviously you are responsible for a lot of it, right? Like for people having even thought they could have a blog.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've never thought of it that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you kind of are though, right? Like you do understand it because you've been around for longer than basically anybody else doing this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, technically, yes, I understand it. But like it never registers me. It just does not register with me because all I want is to be able to help someone else. Like people want, like I get the question from time to time, what do you want to be known for? Right. I want to be known for helping other people find cool stationery, like and helping them spread their wings.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I know somebody used to ask that question in a really cool way.