Editing The Pen Addict 576/transcript (section)

== Personal Highlights and Purchases ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So Friday was kind of my personal, you know, checklist day, get all the things done that I need to do, buy the thing that I wanted to buy, see the people I wanted to see and didn't want to miss. Saturday was kind of my, my work checklist day, right? Like this was the time where I took to learn about the show. Hey, how is, how is the, having all these big crowds, you know, for all the vendors, do they like it? Do they not like it? Is it a challenge? What are the pros? What are the cons? It was also a time for me to spend with new vendors, right? That I haven't seen before. Maybe only seen their work online. Like there were a ton of makers at the show, pen makers that I haven't seen in person before. So I wanted to check out their pens. There were a lot of people that traveled from Europe or Japan that I haven't seen at pen shows before. So I wanted to see them. So that's mostly what Saturday was for me. And it was also, you know, I bought a ton of stuff on Saturday, but I was thinking of it more as, Hey, this is my exploration. These are things I want to review for, um, the blog. You know, this is a lot of that type of thing that I was working on Saturday. Like what, what do I need to pick up to review? Um, what do I need to learn more about? And things like that. So it was a really good Saturday. I felt despite the crowds, like I had time to do everything I needed to do. I had time to help some friends out with different things at the show that they needed, right? You know, spend time to say, Hey, I need this. Can you help me find X? And we would go look. And like, I had time to do that. I actually had time on Saturday to leave the hotel and eat lunch with some friends, which I never, ever do on like a Saturday pen show day. Right. Because especially with me leaving on Sunday and as huge as this show is, I felt like really good. And I was like, I got asked to go to lunch and almost just like out of habit, I would say no, because I feel like I'd be missing something from the show and like the limited amount of time that I have. But I said, yes. And it ended up being like the perfect refresher in the middle of the day to step out for an hour, hour and a half and spend time with some friends, eat a great lunch and come back and take in the rest of the show in the afternoon. Like it was an absolute joy. It was actually a highlight of my trip that I took a break in the middle of the day, Sunday, Saturday and left the hotel, which I would have, I like, I'm still shocked that I said yes, because that is, I'm usually more worried about, can I get everything done? I need to do right. I'm not here tomorrow. I got to get it done. And given the size and scope of this show, I just went for it and I was so happy that I did. So it really worked out. So that got me to the end of the day, Saturday. And at about three o'clock, I did like realize like, okay, the show closes at five. I'm not going to be here tomorrow. Let's finalize exactly the things, what I need to do. And that's when the people I talked to earlier, I'm starting to get the, hey, are you going to be here tomorrow? And I'll say no. And then be like, oh, okay, come see me before you leave. And then after about five of those, I'm like running back and forth from room three to room two to the main room to three to two to one, just on and on. Like the last two hours of the show, I was like the literal Tasmanian devil, just like spinning whirl whirling dervish. Brad was just all over the place. Hey, come see me before you go. I was like, okay. And I did it. I like, I got it all done, but it was, it was right up to the gun. So it was, it was a great show. It was super positive. Like the feedback, just the general feedback of the show was really good, right? The hotel, like they did a good job, right? The staff was very nice. Anytime I had a staff interaction, it was great. The hangout areas at nighttime or during the day were big enough to handle as many people as they had at the show. Like it was, you know, the rooms were good. The facilities were good. You know, you had your standard expensive hotel food and beverage pricing, but like, that's not even a knock. That's just like an expected thing, right? The bar was, would get pretty loud at night because it was like a hard tile floor and a low ceiling there, like right under the bar area. But there was plenty of room to roam and spread out to get out of the, the actual volume in there because it was always crowded at night, which was great to see, right? It was good, good hang.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, the food challenges weren't as bad as I remember them being before, right? There's no walk-up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just abysmal. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a hotel. So terrible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So that was kind of not much of an issue anymore. It wasn't great, but like at least the, the offsite access, you couldn't, it wasn't walking, but you had so many choices like within five minutes that we could just take a car or the, even the hotel had a shuttle to like one of the main like shopping districts with tons of restaurants.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The show floor, there were a couple in, in the second room, they're going to have to make some adjustments in there. I think it was too crowded. Um, not all aisles were wide enough. Like some of the aisles did not have like good wheelchair access, which is important, right? Like when you get crowds on top of like your layout, like with, if the layout before the crowds isn't good for wheelchairs and then you add people into it, you're, you're asking for trouble. So I think there needs to be some reconsideration on the room to layout. Um, the wifi was tough until I got on the conference wifi, which they gave everyone the password to. Um, some people may not have realized that though, that they had access to the conference wifi, which was shockingly good. I couldn't believe it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But if you didn't have that, it was so good because nobody was using it except you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, you were good. I was actually, I was, I happened to be walking some by someone. I can't remember who it was. And they had like their speed test going and it was like, it was like 30 to 40 down. I was like, Oh, sweet. Like, that's amazing for like hotel wifi. So, um, that went great. I, I didn't hear like any vendor feed, like very negative feedback issues from like vendors where like there was a consistent running theme of like, this was terrible. And like, I didn't get that. Like, you know, there were a couple of, uh, you know, just random, Hey, you know, table issues, location issues, but like, that's your standard fare for any shows. No matter the size. So like, I don't know. It was the, the vendor list itself, like who attended the show from a vendor perspective was like a plus level. Like there were so many people there that I'd never met before that I got to see. Like, it was just a really cool, positive overall experience. I was, I, I mean, I can't, I've never spoken this highly of a DC pen show probably since like the old hotel days. And that even had challenges of its own back in the day. Um, so it was just a real positive experience overall. And, um, I, yeah, I look forward to, uh, I know Kimberly's going to do her, her write up of the show. She was there all day Saturday and hopefully got time to talk to some more people than I did. And, and we'll put together, um, her recap on the Friday, but wow. Like I got to meet so many cool people at DC. That's the other reason I go. Um, I like the DC show given the proximity to the, the epicenter of our government, you get to meet people in very weird jobs. Um, there. So always at DC, I'm remembered at, at how weird some of the jobs people have in that area and like getting to talk to them about their jobs and getting invited to go check things out. You know, if I ever have extra time, like, like, you know, stuff you don't normally get access to. I was like, Oh, this is pretty cool. So like had some fun stories from learning about people's different jobs in the area, which, you know, uh, is always pretty cool thing. So, I mean, it was a great show. Like I have, I've never felt so positive about a DC show in my life. I've never talked so positive about a show in my life, a DC pin show in my life. So, um, I'm glad that was the case this year. You know, is it always going to be the case? Who knows? Um, there's definitely some things that need to be tweaked, but I think. They've kind of hit their stride in, um, in like just the size and the scope of the show. And, um, we'll, we'll see, we'll see if it continues. I hope it does because I think in, in general is very positive.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, look, as, as the saying goes, Brad, right? The thing about a pen show is it's not about the experience. It's about the pens that you met along the way. And we need to talk about those. But before we do, let's take a break and thank our friends over at pen chalet for the support of this episode. If like me, you're sitting here and you're like, oh man, I want to go to a pen show. We'll just go over to pen chalet.com. And you can have your own pen show in your own front room every day of the week because they have all of the products that you're looking for from your favorite brands and they have the best prices that you're going to find. Every month they're running special discounts. They're also adding new products. Every couple of weeks, in fact, they're doing this. They're adding new styles of products new from new brands and new things all the time. Whether you want a fountain pen, a rollerball, maybe you want some inks, a mechanical pencil, maybe looking for a carrying case, some accessories. It doesn't matter what you're looking for. They have the products that you want from all of the brands that you expect and maybe some that you've not come into contact with before because they have such a huge catalog over at pen chalet. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the United States and they sell internationally with really great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee along with their very fast and reliable customer service. So take yourself over to Pen Chalet right now. Go to penchalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict for this week's special offers. And to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet, Pen Chalet is running an inventory reduction sale this week. And what that means is really good deals. So you want to go over and check those out for yourself. Is there anything jumping out to you, Brad?