Editing The Pen Addict 133/transcript (section)

== Work Bag Use ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I found like, this is the perfect bag for me for work. Like this isn't an overnight or a day trip or a weekender type bag. This is a work bag.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I actually have used it to like, cause you can, I mean, you can't put a lot of stuff in it, but I've been able to have like throw like a t-shirt some fresh underpants and some small toiletries in it, you know? And I, and I have been able to use it for an overnight bag, but you kind of just have to be super sparse with what you're, what you're taking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, and that's kind of the feature, right? I mean, you can't overdo this bag and which is good. You know, you'd have to be aware of what you're looking for and what you're trying to use it for. So I, mine, I use it for work five days a week. It carries my work laptop, uh, some notebooks, some pen cases, some pens, um, small set of headphones, small set of cables. And I think that's about it. And, you know, I carry it single strap backpack style or in the briefcase handles, which they don't bother me. Um, like I don't need any extra padding for that, but I'm also not carrying it like super long distances either. Um, and if I did, I'd, I'd throw on the backpack straps. Um, so yeah, it's, you know, I, I echo everything that you said. I love the bag. It's my favorite bag I own right now, but it's also, I don't use it for bigger stuff or for overnight stuff. Um, like you're saying, I actually, there was a couple bags that I thought, um, you know, I might use like in combination work and be able to use it to take on a trip. You know, like if I go see my parents, even though I'm not flying, you know, but if I'm in a car and then going to stay at their house for a week and, you know, I want to carry some extra things that I wouldn't normally carry for work and that bag doesn't cut it for that. So I, I use, I basically have three bags in my bag rotation. If you can imagine that, um, you know, I am a bag addict, I guess too. Um, looking at these show notes. So I have another bag that I use for like air travel and it's called the A-Lite Design Shifter and a few years ago someone on Twitter pointed this bag out to me. I was like, that is a beautiful, awesome bag and I didn't buy it at the time and he kept pinging me when it'd go on sale because they put them on sale quite often and I, I just never needed it at the time. I've got plenty of other bags um, and, you know, just like another pin. The last thing I need is another pin but I still need another pin, right? So, I eventually broke down and bought this bag um, this fall to take to Portland to the XOXO. I bought it specifically knowing I don't, I don't fly very much but I knew I needed a little bit bigger bag to carry some more things like I wanted to be able to put a jacket in there you know, if I needed it, you know, I needed a bag that I could stuff some stuff in and this bag worked awesome. It's got a, uh, it's got a big zip open top where you can really pack things in. Um, it's got a great handle on the front side of the bag which I love that, um, just for quick moving around and carrying it around um, you know, moving it place to place like in the room or just picking it up from, you know, short distances. Um, it's got a great, two great front pockets on the inside. It's got the easy access to the laptop on the side of the bag and it's super durable, super comfortable um, and they're really in the grand scheme of bags they're pretty inexpensive and they put them on sale all the time. I mean, I think they're on, they're, they run out of stock a lot of color so if you ever see a color from A-Lite like I miss the color that I wanted the most um, they go out of stock like really quick and then you just have to wait for the next ones to come out. Um, so they're pretty low on stock right now but it's a bag to keep an eye on and it's something I like and it's not one you hear about very much and um, so yeah, that's, that's something that I wouldn't want to, you know, carry on the train for you Myke and going or just carrying around town. It's not like a day pack, it's a little bit bigger but it's a great travel bag and I'm super, super happy with it um, for that but it doesn't get a lot of use for me otherwise like during the week or throughout the months when I'm at home it stays in the closet so, you know, you have to decide if you want to spend money on something that's not going to be like, you know, used super frequently. Um, I actually use the, a smaller day pack for like, day excursions like, we live an hour and a half from Atlanta if we're going to go to Atlanta and walk around the city or whatever and I want to carry a bag or a backpack I kind of have a medium range backpack that I use and it's called the Patagonia Yerba backpack. Um, the model I have is several years old and I haven't really found anything better. Um, the new model looks a little bit different from the one that I carry in that some of the zippers are in a different placement and the pocket in the front doesn't look the same so I can't vouch for the new model Yerba but I love the old model Yerba and it's a smaller it's literally what I would say is a day pack. It's, you know, let me put my bottle of water my notebook maybe a lightweight jacket maybe some snacks um, you know, and, you know, a few pins and just some things you want to carry like if you're with your family too and, you know, everyone, you know, you have two or three water bottles and, and things like that so, you know, those are the kind of the three bags I roll through. I have the Topo Mountain Briefcase that's my work bag and that stays set and then I have a bigger travel backpack that's the Alight Design Shifter and then I have an Around Town Day Pack if I just want to, you know, throw some things in and go and that's the Patagonia Yerba backpack. So, am I overkilling this? I'm sure, by far, I have a lot of overkill on this and, and we're going to talk about, you know, moving things between bags and, and things like that. Do I have, you know, are each of these bags set up differently? Do I have similar items, you know, in between them? And then I also want to talk about some other bags that I've used and don't really use anymore and some of them are kind of a surprise. So, I definitely want to talk about those things, but I think we should talk about some things we can maybe put in our backpack if we're, if we're going around, Myke, what do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's perfect. This episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by Art Snacks. Art Snacks is your monthly serving of the best art supplies. These guys and gals are constantly searching the globe to find interesting and cool art materials to send you every month. It's like recurring Christmas for pen addicts. Once you subscribe to Art Snacks every month, they deliver 4 to 5 unique and high quality art supplies right to your door. These items have all undergone rigorous testing from art professionals to ensure they meet the highest standards that Art Snacks sets for themselves. And each box comes with a little card that explains each item in detail and details all of its best uses as well. I really like that card. It's a nice touch. It was able, when I, I have had many Art Snacks boxes and when I get them I can like open them up and I can take a look at the little card and read what each of the things does and what it's best for, which I really love. And they also include some candy in all the boxes, which is good for me being in the UK because I get to try all these weird little American candies out. It's a nice little way to broaden my mind to different sweets too. Art Snacks is a great way for you to broaden your horizons a little and expand your pen addiction into new and exciting areas. I now have some great tools in my arsenal. I have some great pencils, some brush pens, some like double tipped pens. I have some erasers and sharpeners as well, all because of Art Snacks. And it's also a great gift for the artistic person in your life, perfect for the holiday season. They offer month to month as well as yearly subscriptions, no contracts and you can cancel any time, plain and simple. Art Snacks send you cool stuff to draw with so go sign up right now at artsnacks.co. Whilst you're there you can also check out their previous boxes to give you an idea of what you'll be getting and I bet you're going to love it. Thank you so much to Art Snacks for supporting this show and Relay FM.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That right there is an Art Snacks box.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is an Art Snacks box and it's my first ever Art Snacks box and it's the December Art Snacks box and I've opened the box up but they do a nice job of wrapping up some of the stuff so I haven't even unwrapped everything. Yeah they put it in

'''Myke Hurley:''' a nice like crepe paper.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah yeah and this month's candy is a candy cane for Christmas so I have a candy cane for that but like you mentioned the card that comes with it that's one of the coolest things because not even I'm familiar with some of the products that they send so it's great to be able to get a description of each product and this month is a Pentallic set of six drawing pencils which what it is it's a range of lead grades in a six pencil set and it comes in a nice little tin it contains one of each of 2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B and 8B lead so you can get a wide range of graphite shades when you're drawing. It's got a Faber-Castell colored kneadable eraser which I have a neat little pink eraser and it comes in a neat little case and there is a Posca paint marker that must be what's in this little guy right here so let me open this up. This is, I'm sure this is thrilling for all the listeners but I wanted to, wanted to save it. That's probably loud and annoying isn't it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like the sound effects that are occurring right now. Ding!

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, where'd they go? Oh yeah, so these Posca, it's, I've never owned a Posca before, I've always wanted one but Poscas are some of the best like art markers around. I know a lot of big projects and installations use the Poscas just because of the quality that they are. It's a, this one's a paint marker and then it also comes with a Prismacolor Premier illustration marker which I've never used and this one is really intriguing. Let me open it up. It's like a plastic tip pen which you know, you guys know I like that style of pen, like an art drawing pen. So it's really cool and it also comes with a very cool Art Snacks Snick sticker.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, every box has a sticker in too which is cool so you can stick that right on your laptop.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this will be going on the laptop, their logo is great, it's a pencil twisted into a pretzel shape like a snack so it's absolutely spot on, wonderful. Lee at Art Snacks does a great job putting all this together and you really should check it out at ArtSnacks.co. So a huge fan and we will be talking more about these guys because they do a great job.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thanks ArtSnacks. So I want to ask you about bag switching because you mentioned you have a few different bags here. Like do you have equipment in all of them constantly or are you always moving things around bag to bag?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a tough question. A little bit of both. So I have a fourth bag that that has a permanent loadout in it but I'm going to stop doing that. So that's the only bag I keep loaded separately otherwise I will move things from bag to bag if I need them so I don't have all the bags loaded out. The other bags I just talked about are empty right now except for one but it's going on the chopping block and that's the Topo Rover Pack. That's that red and blue backpack that you'll probably you know if you follow me on Instagram you've seen me post it a few times and it's that bag actually made me buy the A-Lite shifter because the Topo Rover Pack has ended up being too small for what I need to use it for and it's become redundant with the Patagonia Yerba backpack which I prefer over it but I do keep the stuff that I carry when I go to Atlanta to go to knock and visit the shop like my keys and specific notebooks and some product stuff that's always been my knock shop bag so when I go to Atlanta I'll just grab that bag because I know like my shop keys are in it and I'm not going to lose them. So that's the only bag I kept separate things in but I think that bag is going on the chopping block and I think I'm going to sell it and I have a bunch of bags that I'm probably going to sell as I went through this I was like man I've got all these bags just sitting here some of them are brand new like the Topo Rover it's just ended up being too small of a bag it doesn't fit the need for when I it would fit the day pack need just for you know like a day trip but I prefer the Patagonia Yerba backpack it doesn't fit the longer term trip bag like if I was going out of town for a week and wanted more stuff so the A-Lite shifter has actually replaced that the Rover pack is not big enough for that so it's kind of not getting used right now and it's a beautiful bag it's just not for me so yeah that kind of sort does that kind of sort of answer your question I don't really except for this one bag I keep some stuff when I go to knock so you know I don't so I make sure I don't forget certain things I need to bring every time I go there like keys so I can get in yep so do you do that you just you switch between your other bags are empty and if you need to you swap into them whatever you need you bet

'''Myke Hurley:''' yeah yeah so I

'''Brad Dowdy:''' definitely do that to although I'm

'''Myke Hurley:''' starting to well I am considering a basic kind of set of things that I want to always have in in my in my topo bag like I'm thinking about grabbing a MacBook like a MagSafe charger to throw in there sure in there which is a couple of little bits you know that that I'm constantly having to like pick up or unplug or grab or something like that from somewhere else and I want to be able to just have them all in in one place