Editing The Pen Addict 610/transcript (section)

== Upcoming pen shows and travel plans ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nothing outside of San Francisco and the Yoseka Pen Fest, both of which are in August. So I'm not going to Chicago, which is one I went to last year. That's coming up in May. I'm not hitting some of the summer shows just because that's kind of in the lead up to July's London event. Shout out Relay 10th.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let's go, baby.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm trying to chill between now and then because after the show, like I have a busy schedule from London, New York and San Francisco in the span of about five or six weeks. So that'll be a busy time. So I know myself well enough. Like I need to chill heading into that and then we can have a blast doing all those things. So, yeah, I really won't be at a proper show until San Francisco. But then Yoseka Pen Fest is pretty much a pen show, but it's just something a little bit different.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, because Yoseka is in New York, right? So it's like the Brooklyn thing, right? Brooklyn's in the house. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything. Your products, services, even the content that you create. Squarespace has got everything you need, all in one place, all on your terms. Their blueprint AI and SEO tools make it so easy to get started. You can start a completely personalized website with their new guided design system, Squarespace Blueprint. Choose professionally curated layout and styling options to build a unique online presence from the ground up, tailored to your brand or business and optimized for every device. And then easily launch your website and get discovered fast with integrated, optimized SEO tools so you show up more often to more people and grow the way you want. You can also integrate flexible payments to make checkout seamless for your customers with simple but powerful payment tools. You can accept credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay. And in eligible countries, offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with AfterPay and ClearPay. You can really make the most of AI with Squarespace's new stuff. You can kickstart or update written content on any website, product description or email with Squarespace AI, generating instant personalized results that know and show your brand identity. You can explain what your site is about, choose your tone and enter what you need to get short or long form text. No matter the placement, Squarespace AI makes it easier than ever to go live, stand out and succeed online. This really lets you make the most of these tools in Squarespace rather than needing to go out elsewhere. But it's also with all of the information that you've given the Squarespace system itself, like what it knows about your website, so it can make it really shine just for you. I've been using Squarespace for 15 years and it is the way that they add features like this is one of the reasons that I continue to keep using them. They're always making sure that they have whatever the new technology is, they're going to make sure that they integrate it, build it into their platform and make everything better for you. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict when you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the penaddict. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We got a shout out of the week, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Shout out of the week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I thought you were going to forget there for one second.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Never.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I get emails if you don't say it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, you know. Look, the one time that people said I didn't say it, I did say it. I was just quiet. You know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We have an accidental Squarespace website this week. I didn't plan on that. But the Erasable Podcast is celebrating their 10th anniversary. I know I've given them a shout out before, but I will always give them a shout out because I love what Andy, Tim, and Johnny do over at the Erasable Podcast. Your favorite podcast about pencils and all things stationery and really fun stuff. And I just so happen to be a guest on their 10th anniversary show, along with some of my great friends who have been on the show in the past. So they kind of did a recap. I spent about, I don't know, gosh, probably, I don't know how much made it in the episode. It just came in the feeds last night, so I haven't listened to it yet. But I spent probably 30 or 40 minutes talking with Tim and just kind of like reminiscing about stuff. So I am very anxious to give this one a listen. Some awesome people that were guests and they make an awesome show. So it was really cool to be a part of that. It's good to, it's awesome to see them celebrate 10 years of a podcast about pencils, Myke. So fantastic shout out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Congratulations. Congratulations.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No small feat whatsoever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will say 209 episodes in 10 years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Slackers.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, Tim, Tim asked me, he's like, what episode number are y'all on? And I told him and, you know, that was like 12 years. He's like, huh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Interesting. Interesting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but they were mostly in every other week. And then there's definitely been gaps and things. I know. But they're still kicking. I know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let's say probably more healthy, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You think? Yeah. I don't know. I feel pretty good about us. I got a lot left in me, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Me too. All right. I've got some follow-up. All right. This is mostly from questions over the last couple of weeks. So Matt wrote in to say, thank you for answering my question about modular notebook systems for work on this past week's episode. I wanted to update you and let you know what I decided. I got a Galen leather A5 zip folio and some Nakabayashi and Midori A5 dot grid notebook inserts. I put a small piece of washi tape on the front of each insert and then stamped it with the first letter on a different project at work. That way I know which insert belongs to which project and they all fit in a beautiful folio. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So heck yes. I think kind of the way we ended that or I ended that discussion was to meet your needs. You're going to have to roll your own somehow. Like I don't know clearly what the answer is, but there's going to have to be some building of a system that's going to work perfect for your needs. And I think you found it right. Like you have a folio, you can put it, some of the thinner A5 notebooks like that Midori sells and Nakabayashi sells and have an awesome folio, awesome paper quality and awesome kind of segmentation between the projects, which was kind of the key here. And just like literally have fun building this thing. Right. So I think this, this comes up a lot as people get more experience trying to figure out what they're wanting to use that. We do have a lot of opportunities in the stationery space to roll your own using a few different products to build the perfect thing for you. So that's fantastic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Gotta love it. All right. Next up comes from Scott, who says a suggestion for Matt. So the previous you mentioned that, although Matt seems good, but this is maybe how other people wanted to do it. They're the same. We're looking for a modular A5 dot grid refill that can take a lot of ink. Definitely check out Levenger's free, free leaf pad. They may, they take all of the ink that you can sling at them with no issues. Do you know this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't. So I have not tried these yet, but I am tempted because they're top bound pads, which I always like. Do they come in different sizes here? Yeah. So we have some different sizes so we can, again, use those to manipulate how we need.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, just to letter and junior. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So made up sizes, you know. Okay. Hey, look. I'm going to have to be okay with that. Wasn't this the year of accepting that? I am. I fully accept letter size and junior size. Don't ask me what that means in, you know, real numbers, you know, in America units, but it's letter and junior. So we're just going to have to go with that. And yes, I would, you know, take these, use them in the pad or tear them out and punch them into something else. Like I'm in. So this is something I could think about trying. If someone's saying that these papers absorb a lot of ink, I would like to give them a try. That's always going to be like a characteristic that's going to get my attention. So yeah, something to look at. And I'll bookmark that for later.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's nice looking. They're good looking, actually. Good looking pads. It's like a nice dot grid and just the Levenger thing looks good. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Not to distract the podcast the entire time, but that's what I do. Levenger was one of those products pre-Penatic blog. So we're talking like early, late 90s, early 2000s, where they did some really cool notepads, pads like these, and they would have like the meeting layout, right? Or they would, they, Levenger was always, you know, kind of business oriented, you know, in general. And they would do like weird layout notepads. And I was always into like those type of things. Like before I was, you know, writing about stuff on the Penatic, like I would see these notebooks. I was like, what is that? And I have to have it. So yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm on their website right now. They have a product called Free Leaf Waves. And the bottom of the page is cut in a wave shape and dyed blue.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now that's a unique size I can't get behind.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have my, even I have my limits, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm not sure exactly what this is for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Looks, that's one of those. Oh yeah. Looks good on you. Right. Looks good on the gram, I bet. You know? Yeah. Like I'm down with like the wave cut, but on a different product. Like this doesn't, this seems like a product design mismatch. I'm a hundred percent into the wave cut, but I think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Did Levenger create and or popularize the disc bound system?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' To my knowledge, yes. Like that was the first one that I always knew. One or both? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They may, whether they created it, I can't say with a fact, but I only knew the Levenger disc bound system as, as kind of like a standalone product. I didn't even know, like this is, you know, two decades ago that I didn't know if that existed elsewhere. Anyone else was doing it. I'm sure there was, but I have no idea, but it's what I knew.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And Scott says another suggestion for Jason who wanted a pocket notebook that stands up well to ink is the story supply co pocket staple.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Concur. I completely agree with those. So I've had good experience with those story supply notebooks and fountain pens. Absolutely concur.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good, good suggestions all around there by writer Scott. Nathan says, Jack asked about new pen options because some of their pens like a 3776 were drying out while taking notes. Jack said a Lamy Safari didn't dry out, but its line was too wide. And instead of trying to find a new pen, why not send the Safari to a nibmeister and get the nib ground for a finer line? It'll cost much less, though the pen will be gone for a while for the work to be done.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nathan, do you think you're the host of this show? I know. You know what I'm saying? Like, why would you come in with a great answer like that that I did not think of at the time, Nathan?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I would, I mean, if we're going down this route, I would also say that like, there could be the scenario of getting another nib, like another Safari nib. But my worry about this suggestion from Nathan is I think something that we didn't, we weren't confident enough to say definitively one way or another is if there was just something going on with the nib sizes, for example, that were causing this. My worry would be if you took this and made and took it like from say like a medium to a fine or whatever it was, I don't remember that, that might make it dry up quicker. I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I don't think so. And I would be totally down with, hey, if the Safari is working, but I want something finer, I would consider exactly what Nathan's saying and get the nib size taken down significantly, right? Like even like a stock Safari extra fine, like I use one of my desk pretty regularly. It's so wide. It's really wide nib. I think what I got stuck on on that original question, like you were talking about, is how the 3776s and the properties were drying out because that should not be a technical feature of those pens. Like they should be working better for you. So I got a little stuck on that for sure. But this is a great answer. So I'm all aboard that Nathan is the new co-host, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're fired. We'll see about that. And Kate writes in to say, I don't think you spoke about this when talking about the recent AL star. Is it? Do we go with all star? I can never remember. I feel like I've said it three different ways this episode.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the problem is there's two products, what Kaweco does and what Lamy does. And they both use AL and I interchange them. And there is a right way to describe them. And I just can't ever remember which is which. So I mix them that, mix and match them. So AL stands for aluminum in both cases. One has a capital L. I think one uses a lowercase L. Like it's a mess. Like I just, I just say it and just keep moving.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Anyway. So we are talking about Lamy, AL star special editions. Okay. It says, I saw in my Colt pens newsletter, the AL star has gone digital and it is a product which is a stylus, like a Wacom stylus tip version of the AL star.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's, it's cool. Like, like I don't have a situation where I could use one of these. I think they came out with this like a year or two ago. I think they had a big Wacom like post. Like I, I seem to remember like a launch of this product. And I really liked that for people who are into like drawing on the tablets and are using the Wacoms to like really get the detail in. Like it's a very, very popular digital design aspect. I think having something like the, the Lamy all-star in with this tip, I think is just a rad idea. Right. Like it's super, super cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like if you go to, so on the Colt pens website, they have a, like a link to Lamy and it takes you to a page where they have all of the different types of products that this can be used with. And one of them that really makes me laugh is like the Samsung phones, because it can work like a note stylus. And there's just something hilarious to me about the size of this pen writing on the screen of a phone.