Editing The Pen Addict 102/transcript (section)

== Pen Blog of the Week ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' of course. Our pen blog of the week is going to sound familiar to listeners of the beginning of this episode. It's Mr. Ray Newberry, the winner of giveaway package number one, writes a blog called Fountain Pen Quest. That's how I knew Ray. When his name came up, I was like, I know that guy. He writes Fountain Pen Quest. So, Ray does a great job. If you go over to his site right now, I think it kind of, I think his header rotates, but he's got the Edison Menlo, which is an awesome pen in his header image. But Ray does a really good job doing, it's pretty much all Fountain Pen, Fountain Pen's an ink reviews, and he has a lot of, he's got a wide-ranging collection. Some new pens, some old pens. He like reviews a lot of Esterbrooks and a lot of the different nibs that come with Esterbrooks that we've talked about before. He reviews some of the brand new pens that we talk about. And he's just got a really wide-ranging collection. He's got a lot of ink, so he does a lot of ink reviews. And he does it in a really, really nice format. His photos are always great. His reviews are very informative. And I've kind of, I've been following his blog, I don't know, for maybe a year or so. And I'm always excited when Ray puts up a new post because I know I'm going to enjoy it. So, thank you, Ray, for writing Fountain Pen Quest so you guys can check it out at fpquest.com. And we'll have that in the show notes too, but it's just fpquest.com. You can get there real easy and make sure you go check out all of Ray's reviews.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So, pretty much my biggest pen weekend of the year was last weekend, the 2014 Atlanta Pen Show, which, starting in January is when I start getting anxious for the show and I start talking about it. Oh, it's coming soon. Oh, saving my money. It's coming soon. So, by the time it gets here, I'm like, you know, can't sleep at night. I'm all anxious to go. You know, I pack like two days before, make sure I have everything I want to take and, you know, which really isn't that much. But, you know, I'm, I ain't a retentive that way. But, I had the best time this year, Myke. It was, you know, the more you do anything, just like this podcast or pen reviews or anything, this is now my third show and the more you do something like that, the more comfortable you get. So, I remember the first year I was kind of like a deer in the headlights and I was a little shy and naive and, you know, probably didn't get the experience that, you know, I could have if I was a little more experienced. It just comes with time. And then, by the second year I built up the confidence in what I was looking for in pens and the ability to talk to other people and have discussions about pens and likes, dislikes, wants, needs, things like that. So, by this year, you know, I was ready to just kind of open it up a little bit and, you know, just kind of have the freedom to go in, talk to anyone, do anything and just kind of, you know, just kind of play it real loose and casual and, you know, get some things done that I wanted to do like meeting specific people and just have more of a fun, free time and it was everything I hoped for and more.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I wrote in my review for The Pen Addict, for me, the biggest, my biggest takeaway of the whole experience was it wasn't about the pens at all. It was really about the people I met and the conversations I had and the friendships I made at the show. I mean, I just, I walked around just talking to people and I just feel like I never wiped a smile off my face. It was so much fun and I encourage anyone who's in range of a pen show to go and take it in. The people you meet and deal with at shows like these are genuinely awesome. They're really great. They're so willing to help and then for me to have this added thing of the Pen Addict blog and podcast where I can, you know, mention if readers are coming there and, you know, I'd love to say hi and meet you to have that extra benefit of meeting all these new people that are just visiting the show and that have read the blog or listened to the podcast in the past and just say hi and have a conversation with them is just, it was so, so cool. I mean, I'm going to be redundant but I just had the best time. It's hard to even explain, talking about it, it's hard to explain in words but let me just kind of go through what the day was like for me if that's okay, Myke and we'll just kind of talk about it from there and let me know if you got any questions that sound good? Yeah,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I loved your post by the way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, thanks, thanks. It was, I tried to do it a little bit different. I tried to do it more of like a play-by-play of how my day went as opposed to, you know, talking about pens and inks and technically, you know, what I bought. It was more about the experience which is what I call the post and that's what it felt like. It was just, it was super fun. So, when I got to the show, I got to the show a little bit early. Doors opened at 10 and I pulled in the parking lot about 9.30 and I just happened to, I was just killing time in my car for a second. I pulled up Twitter and I saw a tweet from a guy I'd never met, a guy named Pierce and he said, hey, I'm in, got my ticket, we're ready to go. I'm like, man, I don't even, I don't know this guy but let's get out the car and go meet him real quick. So, I did. I walked straight out the car and walked in the thing and paid my admission and you get a little name, you know, just like a, hello, my name is sticker, you know, on there and I saw the one that said Pierce and I said, hey, Pierce, I just saw your tweet and a guy I'd never met in my life before but it was like, we're friends just because of being in the same place, you know, having the same like, you know, we can have a conversation just about anything. It's like, we're long lost friends and even though we'd never met before and that's kind of how it was all day long and it turns out Pierce lives down closer to me than he does the pin show so we're hopefully going to get together later and maybe talk about pins and, you know, some other things like that so he's actually close, pretty close by to me so that was cool and then, you know, another friend that I'd seen at the pin shows before, a guy named Gray Williams, I'd seen him and he's, you know, I've talked to him on and off through Twitter and saw him at the pin show last year but didn't really talk to him and he came up and we started talking and we started talking about field notes and things like that and, you know, just had a great conversation about that and then Heath Cates comes in from the pen, paper, ink, letter blog who lives about two hours away so he drove in and I got to meet Heath for the first time which he was a really nice guy and we had some good conversations about, you know, what he's looking for because this was his first pin show so, you know, what he's looking for today and the things he's going to try to do and things like that so I got to meet him and then, by that time it was about 10 o'clock and, you know, the doors opened and we kind of all went our separate ways and went in through the show and, you know, I, of course, had to make sure I got on Myke Masayama's list to get a nib grind done and I actually had a friend, another friend of mine, Mark Backus, he helps, he does the website for the Atlanta Pin Show so he was in early and he put me on Myke Masayama's list so I was number two on the list for the day so I got in to see him pretty early. He fixed up my Lamy 2000 which was, which was bugging me again so he's, he's got it all smooth and working properly now and then I went over and talked to Brian and Lisa Anderson who were just awesome. I swear I talked to them for about 20 or 30 minutes right out the gate in the morning. This is before even looking at any pins or anything, just talking with them. I dropped them off some NotCo products because they had expressed some interest in them and then we just, we just chit chatted. They gave me America the Beautiful Edition because they, they were laughing. They said, well we got a present for you. We listened to the podcast on the way down the last episode where I talking, I was talking about, you know, maybe I need to, to get another pack of that so they gave me a pack of that so that was nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I got some, got some field notes from them and, and then after I talked to them I had set up a hold from Van Ness pins from Lisa Van Ness. They were carrying Ackerman inks and they were bringing a bunch to the show and they had said over Twitter if anyone was looking for any particular colors to let us know, we'll hold them for you. So I went over there, talked to them. They had my inks on hold. They were super nice. This was their first time at the Atlanta pin show was Lisa and Wendy from Van Ness pins. I think they had a pretty good time. They were super nice. It was great to meet them in person.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then I had a gentleman from Alabama bring me more of the Cigar Box pin holders that I have ordered in the past.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' His name's John and he, instead of shipping them to me, he knew he was coming in the show so we met up on Saturday and he dropped those off to me. So that was good. So it was, I kind of had a real busy first two or three hours just meeting people that I had planned on meeting. You know, during that time in the morning, the one and only Jeff Abbott came to the show who writes some for the Pin Addict and you know Jeff, right Myke? I know Jeff, yeah. Yeah, he does some work with Sean Blanc and several other guys. He was great. Me and him hung out a lot throughout the day. We kind of wandered the show together most of the day. He was a super nice guy and he made some cool purchases that will hopefully be reviewed on the Pin Addict in the future and he got some nib work done by Myke Masayama and things like that. So I don't know, it was like 12 or 1 o'clock before I even started looking at a pin. I mean, I'd already made a trip to the car to drop off the ink and the cigar box pin cases and I haven't shopped for a pin at all yet. So I got back from that drop off and I said, okay, I think I've got all the tasks down that I wanted to get done. You know, the people I needed to meet. I had some more people I needed to meet but it was just more to say hi. Did you have some babies to kiss and some stores to open and stuff like that? But no, there was a guy from Macon that always goes to the pin shows and has a table there so I wanted to make sure to talk to him and there was a guy from the Southeast Pin Collectors Club that wanted you to come over so I made sure I didn't go talk to him and things like that. Then I met several, several readers. I mean, a handful of readers or more. It's funny, I've had a couple of people email me afterwards like, I saw you but I was too shy to come say hi so hey, maybe I'll come see you next year. I'm like,

'''Myke Hurley:''' okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we decided for next year, Myke, that we're going to get you over here and we'll get a table and we'll just live broadcast the pin show. That'd be thrilling, wouldn't it? Oh God, that'd be so good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We could do a live episode of the show live from the Atlanta pin show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, bring in guests.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and when you guys have your booth, I could be like your booth babe or something. That's right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You could totally be our booth babe.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was funny to see business Brad seeping his way into the post where you're like, you know, I went and spoke to such and such person and dropped them off some samples of Nock products and I was like, oh, business Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, business Brad was taking care of business the first couple hours of the show. we got things to do, man. We got worlds to conquer and so we're trying to get that done. So yeah, I got some good feedback on the Nock stuff and some good business Brad notes for that. So that was good. That was good for sure. But then business Brad went into shopping Brad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' well, shopping Brad is enabled by business Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah, we need business Brad to be successful so we can have shopping Brad, right?