Editing The Pen Addict 563/transcript (section)

== Pen show purchases and accessories ==


'''Brad:''' So, um, I bought a lot of accessories and ink, uh, and things like that the rest of the show. I didn't buy any more pens for myself. I got some pens for review and giveaway. Uh, obviously I, I tend to do that a lot at shows. I like to pick up some maker stuff, which I will talk about in coming weeks when I do reviews. And subsequent giveaways, things like that. But it's always great to see Angela from Inky Converters. Um, they always have like the coolest like stationery accessories. You know, uh, I bought some washi tape and some stamps and, um, they make, they make, uh, stationery themed band-aids now. I was like, well, I have no use for these, but hell yeah, I'm buying those. Like who doesn't want a band-aid with an ink bottle on it? I do. So, um, you know, things like that, you know, and I've bought desk pads from them in the past and, uh, desk mats, um, you know, keychain stickers, buttons, all that pens, all that PIN pens, all that fun stuff. And it's just, she designs all this stuff. We're great artwork and it's just so much fun stuff. And I love Angela so much. She does a great job. Um, I got to see Dan Keller from Good Made Better who I haven't seen. I don't even know the last time I've seen, uh, Dan, you'll know Dan from the Inkwell mostly. I'm using it right now. Yep. Yep. So I picked up a couple of, uh, different model Inkwells that I, uh, don't have, uh, mostly for giveaway stuff. Uh, got to talk to him about the, uh, right well Kickstarter, um, all the, all the work he's doing. Um, it's really cool to see someone who you met like the first time that they were just like putting like random like wooden, like pen holders on a table at a pen show, you know, five, six years ago into now just like a really refined maker and super well-respected, uh, artisan and creator. So it's, it's really cool to see. It was great to, to hang out with him as kids. A couple of the kids were there, uh, helping out. So we talked for a while, uh, thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with him. Uh, I finally got to meet, uh, Eric Gama of Amarillo Stationery. So, uh, he had been on a friend of the show podcast with me, longtime, uh, friend, talked to him all the time. It was great to actually meet in person instead of over Zoom. So got to check out all his wares, came away with some, um, an awesome item from him, which I will share, uh, at a later date. Like literally none of this stuff is unpacked. It's all in bags on my desk. I just haven't had time. Um, I got to meet, uh, uh, Brendan, uh, from Atlas Stationers, which is like the big Chicago stationery shop nowadays. Um, they did a, uh, bang up business. It looked like at the show. Every time I went by their tables, they had, they had most of two aisles, um, probably like an aisle and a half worth of tables. It was just crazy busy. Um, the whole time they did a good job. They had a bunch of staff working. Like it was just packed. Like I'm glad I talked to them on Friday because there's no way I would have talked to them on, on Saturday. So that was cool. So, you know, maybe I'll be talking with them in the future, see if we can, uh, you know, work up some, some in-store visits or something like that down the line. That's always fun to, to think about future projects to do. Uh, I finally got to meet, uh, Jeffrey Coleman of Tentarius podcast, uh, picked up some of the awesome sailor inks that he collaborates with, um, for the podcast. And I had bought the first ones, the, uh, uh, the tortilla. Gosh, I'm, I don't have all the names in front of me. The first ones were the tortilla and the hobbit. I don't know. It wasn't a habanero. It was a, it was a different type of, um, pepper or maybe a chipotle, um, where the first set in this set was, uh, blue corn or, uh, gosh, corn. And I think agave, I don't, I'm terrible. So there was two new inks, a blue one and a purple one. I picked those up. Uh, those came out a little while ago, but I haven't had them yet. So I picked up a couple of bottles of those, uh, to give away. Of course. Um, it was fun seeing, uh, Patrick from Papier Plume, who I haven't seen since Chicago, the last time I was in Chicago. Um, they always tend to come from New Orleans to this show. And it was great getting to talk with him for a little bit. And he said, you know, the store is doing super well in new Orleans. They're having a great time. They're making all kinds of things now. Um, they've always made their own inks. And he said, they're just dabbling into making more stuff and everything's going super well. So that was great to hear. I got to check out Ian Shone's, uh, Monarch nibs that he anodized. So he brought a set of anodized, uh, Monarch nibs. I came this close to buying my Monarch nib because I was talking with Gina and they let me borrow their own personal grinded Monarch. And I was like, well, if I've been holding off one to get something finer, right? And I'm like, well, could you do that for me if I bought one? And they were like, yeah, of course. I was like, oh, great. That's, that's like the last thing I wanted to hear.

'''Myke:''' I feel like that's not the way to do it though. Because if Ian is going to do finer nibs, he is, he is. Then I'm just saying like, if he's going to do it, you should wait and do that. Yeah. In the sense of like what it would be to review this product. Because if you bought it and had it ground, it's not the same thing anymore.

'''Brad:''' That's fair. That's fair. So yeah, I am completely fine holding. I was actually tempted if, if some of the, most of the anodized nibs sold like right away. So if there was like a really cool one, I might've had a hard time waiting. But there, there was just a couple left. They had been blown out pretty well over the show.

'''Brad:''' I got given something that's already up on the website for giveaway. My good friend, Marty Henderson, retro 51 connoisseur collaborated with retro on a, a model that is sold through drama goals. It's called sprinkle ops. Have you seen this one? I don't think we ever talked about it on the show.

'''Myke:''' I've seen it and it's awesome. Yeah. But I have a question.

'''Brad:''' Sure. Sure.

'''Myke:''' So I've been seeing this pen around a lot and I've been seeing it like, uh, being posted with loads of products that look like this, like knives and stuff.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. So this is going on here. Yes. So Marty's into the, the, the very EDC type of carry thing. And when I saw him in Atlanta, this hadn't come out yet, but he had the prototype and the way he was explaining it to me is that this style was initially like in the EDC world, like as like knife handles and bags and all this other accessories before, before this. So this is like, you know, in addition to like all the other EDC type gear that came before it. So it's like, it's, he basically the best way he explained it to me is it's a whole thing. Right. Like, it's literally a whole thing.

'''Myke:''' Like how, like why? Like, I don't know, but it's like, because I found one of Marty's posts, like shows all of their sprinkle things. It's like, I'm just really confused about it. Like, why are there so many knives that look just like this?

'''Brad:''' You know? I don't know, but I'm way in on it. I want one,

'''Myke:''' which is also why I'm asking.

'''Brad:''' But I literally had no idea this existed before Marty shared the pen with me. Then he showed me like all the different things. Like he had some of the other stuff with him, like one of the little pouches that's in the image and one of the knives. In Atlanta, I was like, really, this is like a whole thing. I was like, yeah. So he gave me a pen and a single pen sleeve to give away on the blog. And I was told him I would be, he said, he said, you know, he can hear. I just, I talked to Larry, you know, drum goal. We wanted to give you one and you can do whatever you want with it. You know, keep it, use it, review it, give it away. I was like, Oh, I'm going to give it away. So like that is already up on the blog. So I promised him I would do that. Because I, I, I need, I need someone else. I need someone else to win this. So I'm not tempted to open it and use it for myself. And maybe I'll just go buy one on my own. I think there's, there's not many left. There was only 500 of these. I'm sure they're probably going to sell out without, without question. So like, it was, it was a great show just from seeing people that I haven't seen in a long time, meeting people in person for the first time that I've talked to. Like, heck, I mean, you know, Eric from Amario and I have like had like zoom calls, you know, together and, you know, chatted and stuff like that, but never met in person. So it's great to be able to do that. The hangouts at night were really good. Chicago has some good space. It doesn't necessarily look like that when you walk in, it's like, Oh, where are we going to hang out? But like you can hang out. The bar has like tons of like movable seating. So we can get into like these long tables and just spread out and, you know, throw all our stuff on the table and, you know, share pens, talk pens, play with things, talk about stationery. And then when the bar closed at 11, you know, you could just move right out into like the four year area. And there was enough seating to just kind of hang out a little bit more if you wanted to. So it was, it was very comfortable in, in that aspect on Saturday night. Well, like after dinner, went to dinner with Sarah and Kimberly from the pen addict who were writing, right for the pen act. They were both at the show. I brought my microphone and we recorded a episode, a friend of the show. That'll be coming out for pen addict members. Just the three of us. We got, this was a give full credit to Eric gamma. This was a, he's just like, Oh, you should call this the pen addict performance reviews podcast where I review Sarah and Kimberly's work.

'''Brad:''' So that, so it was the performance reviews podcast. So we talked a little bit about that, but basically we just cut up for about 30, 40 minutes and I'll, I'll have that out. I haven't listened to it yet. It was on this one mic that I record this podcast with, which is not, you know, like a, a spatial pickup type of mic. So, you know, we definitely had to play past the mic. So who knows how it sounds, but I don't even care. It should be fun.

'''Myke:''' It should be okay. But yeah, if like someone's talking and they haven't got the mic in front of them with the microphone that you use, you're just like, yeah, say goodbye. Like it's not.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. So there's, there's some of that, but yeah, we were, so hopefully, hopefully it comes out good because we had a, we had a fun time cutting up and that was pretty much it. It was a really smooth, fun show. I really enjoyed it. Uh, it was a pretty quick trip. Um, O'Hare airport is awful. I just wanted to go ahead and get that out there. It is so convoluted and just tacked on everywhere.

'''Myke:''' It's complicated, but once you understand the layout of O'Hare, I actually kind of, I kind of like it, but I know what you mean. Cause sometimes to get from one place to another place, you have to walk down like long aisles, right? When it's just like, it's just over there, but I can't get to it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's lots of outs and ins and arounds. Like it's nothing seems very, very direct. And it is very under construction, which like, I mean, all airports are like perpetually under construction cause they're so massive. Um, but it was, it was a hot mess. It was, it was fine. Like it was fine. So, uh, the, the travel, the air travel was fine. So like in the, you know, the boarding and all that, um, not a lot of good, uh, restaurants open, uh, in the, in the morning, uh, for food. But otherwise it was, uh, it was good. Uh, I, that it was not bad enough to like mar any kind of trip, but it was just like, I'm spoiled with Atlanta for being so gigantic, but so efficient and properly laid out. Uh, I'm, I'm very spoiled. So it's, it's hard to get busier and bigger than Atlanta. Um, so I have a lot to compare it to and it just does not work. I like Atlanta whatsoever, but that I won't let that mar what was really, really a great trip. Um, yeah, like lots of good memories made in two quick nights, right? Like that's, that's kind of the way you want it. Right. It was, it was very good. Uh, spent way too much money. Um, not just, not like on pens, but like, it's like a lot of just, I was buying like all the accessory stuff. So I have lots of, I'm, I'm set for giveaways, uh, for the next several months, uh, just in all the things I bought, um, to, to review or to give away and stuff like that. But it was just, it was a legit good time. I, I, I've always recommended the Chicago pen show from, you know, five and six years ago when I was going to it a couple of times. Um, and I, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who could get to it again.

'''Myke:''' I really want to go. I really want to go. I love Chicago. Uh, so Chicago is a great town. High on my list of shows to go to at some point.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. This would be one to, to tack on to, right? Yeah. Like you go to the show cause you're out in, out in the suburbs, but then you tack on a couple of days in town. Um, yeah, but it would be similar to how I did San Francisco,

'''Myke:''' right? Like be in San Francisco and then go out to the, pension. So pension is not in San Francisco.

'''Brad:''' Right. It's been a couple of days in the city. Yeah. Um, doing stuff and then went down to the show and yeah, it's great. So yeah,

'''Myke:''' good stuff. All right. If you want to catch links to this week's episode, you can find them in your podcast app of choice. So you can go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash five, six, three. You will find a link there to send in feedback for the show, but you can also go to pen addict feedback.com and you can send us your followup, your ask TPA questions, anything you like for future episodes. If you want to find Brad before next week's show, you can go to pen addict.com, spoke design.com, twitch.tv slash pen addict. And Instagram is at pen addict. Mastodon at pen addict. You want blue sky yet?

'''Brad:''' No, no. Do I need to be? I've asked for an invite. I wouldn't mind having my name on there, but I, if any, I will, I will say this, like, this is not the digression you were looking for. If anything, they're just going to keep coming fast and furious. I would rewind completely back to micro dot blog is what I would do.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' To be honest, is the way I'm thinking about this whole situation that we're in right now. I like my Mastodon. And I like my micro dot blog. I'm good, but I wouldn't mind having my name on. I really don't care. One of them. I'm really not interested.

'''Myke:''' I don't know what I'll do with it, but I kind of got to be in all the places. I feel like if I'm going to contribute or all. So I'm at, I'm Myke. I am YKE. That's where you'll find me everywhere. And you go to cortex brand.com. The Mark one is back. The cortex. I saw the pictures look great in blue and black, both in limited numbers. So if you're interested, you can go and get one. We have some in, and we're also about, this isn't important for the listener, but we're about to, to have a very, very important restock of the psychic notepad, because we are about 10 days away from selling out. So we were able to get some rushed and sent over. Did a thing I've never done before, Brad did a partial shipment. Okay. So we ordered like however many thousand and got 1000 of them put on a plane.

'''Brad:''' Yes.

'''Myke:''' While they're still making the rest. And they're going to pull the boat.

'''Brad:''' It was a time timing inventory thing. Right. Because if we would have waited, it was a management on the boat.

'''Myke:''' They would, we would have gone out stock within like 10 days.

'''Brad:''' Hey, one more business thing before we get out. When is our Lego going to post for relay FM members?

'''Myke:''' That's a great question. It's going to be on the 18th. So I was going to mention it more next week, but we have a special coming out. Well,

'''Brad:''' you're not going to mention it next week because I'm not talking to you next week.

'''Myke:''' You know what? You're so smart. And it's such a great point. So we have recorded our member special and it is going to be available on the 18th. If you are a relay FM member during this time of the year, you will get no matter what show you support, a bunch of extra content from various relay FM shows. It's only available for relay FM members. This year, Brad and I conducted the ultimate friendship test. Once again, where Brad built a Lego set. I had the instructions and I had to guide him through. We also, during this conversation also spoke about golf because we were talking about, we might do that. We actually combined the two. So during the build, we're also talking about my foray into golf. You'll be happy to know, Brad, that this is now breaking the timeline. The clubs that I ordered arrived today. I'm going to go, hopefully pick them up for the end of the week. So I have my gloves.

'''Brad:''' I enjoy seeing your pictures.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I will. You bet. That will all be available for you to listen to on the 18th, May in the relay FM crossover feed, which all members get access to. I'll put a link in the show notes to the relay FM crossover feed, but you have to be a member to get access to it. But yeah, you can go to relay.fm membership. You can find out more about all of our shows that are available for you to sign up for. You can sign up to support this show. I really appreciate it. But no matter what show you support during membership season, you will get access to this bonus content and we really hope that you enjoy it.