Editing The Pen Addict 394/transcript (section)

== Harry's Razor Offer ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I was actually for real, Myke, at the Philadelphia Pen Show this past weekend. It was a trip for me to go to a pen show and not actually have to work. So no knock booth, no pen act events, no Myke there annoying me the whole time. Oh, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Getting the nose, needing help of everything.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, no. You're more of a help to me than anything else. But yeah, it was a chill time for me or planned to be, and it turned out that it was. I think Philadelphia might be the kind of perfect pen show for first-time attendees and experienced users. It kind of has enough stuff for everybody, but not too much to be overwhelming, like walking into the DC pen show for your first time. Yeah. Would be. The hotel was great. You know, it was in the show floor was essentially in two kind of, you know, conference room ballrooms. One large, one small to medium size. I'd say it's, you haven't been to Raleigh, but I'd say it's maybe just a tick smaller than Atlanta. Okay. Seemed like, but still like pretty good, really good crowds. Very busy. The hotel setup itself was awesome. They had big, huge, sprawling bar set up with, you know, lots of chairs, lots of tables to where we could all spread our things around. The location of the hotel was smack in the middle of downtown. So we could walk everywhere, you know, to restaurants and, you know, bars and whatever we wanted to do. Albeit it was, it was freezing and it's, it's snowed. So we didn't get out too, too much, but you know, like on Friday of the show, you know, I went into the show, 9 a.m. Kind of mingled around, saw some stuff and, you know, spent a few hours talking to everybody and tried not to buy too much, which was a big challenge I'll get to in a minute. And went out for lunch, like physically left the building, the hotel and walked, you know, five blocks or so and ate lunch. And it was enjoyable. It's like, I never get this experience.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was such a thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it was wild. It was wild. And I did that multiple times and left the hotel to do things and go places. And it was super enjoyable. So that's one of the things that I've missed, you know, with working pen shows. Sometimes we'll go out at night. Sometimes I'm just too tired and just want to sit at the hotel and do nothing. It was, I was oddly not tired once this entire show. And I stayed up later than I normally do and slept terribly the entire time and was up reasonably early in the morning. And it was just such a different physical feeling than working a show. So even though I walked a lot more and, you know, was mingling around a lot more, I guess it just didn't have that stress of working a table and having to be on and like selling things the whole, the whole day. Like just even like the slowest show working behind the table just exhausts me. Like it's just tiring. And I kept expecting to get tired or something, you know, just while I was walking around the show and seeing everyone and doing everything and, you know, walking around to lunch and things like that. I was never tired. I was like, this is weird. So, um, I was shocked at how quickly the time flew by, like the days, like the show hours went by very, very quickly, even though I was like in the room the whole time. Um, you know, I was surprised at just how fast it became, you know, two o'clock, then five o'clock, you know, these, the time just jumped all the way around. That was a new experience. Um, but yeah, it was, it was just great. So I would thoroughly recommend not just the Philly show, but any show where you can just take advantage of all the cool stuff the hotels have going on. If you're, you know, not everything I'm saying translates if you're just there for the day, right? Or if you already live in the town, but for people who travel to pen shows for multiple days, which looked like a pretty good number at the Philadelphia show, you know, it's so great to take advantage of other things, not at the pen show, which makes your pen show experience even better.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I got to see, um, you know, a couple of events that they had at the show. One of the things was Ian Schoen had a shop tour, which, um, you know, he handled that much better than we handled our initial shop tour at Knock all those years ago. There was a signup sheet and it closed down, so it didn't get to be too many people. That's my man. Yeah, yeah. But that was fun. Um, I just posted some images up on Instagram this morning, just a few behind the scenes shots of Ian giving us a tour. So that was fun. Um, I got to host a table at the pen mixer on Saturday night. Usually I host the event and I'm sending all people around to different tables and doing different things. This time I got to sit at a table and just kind of, um, hold court and I shared some of my favorite pens. I brought some unique things for, uh, unique pens for people to try, like my M90, which is a pen that not everyone gets to see. So I brought those and my Nakayas and my King of Pens and, um, my Milky Way, you know, just kind of my favorites or my collection that are the most unique out of all the pens I have. So that was fun. And, um, yeah, it was just all around a good time. It was easy. Like I, it was simple. I enjoyed it. Um, the one thing that I enjoyed the most, I think was when I did buy stuff, I didn't have to carry around too much because I could just run and drop it off in the hotel room and come right back down. I was like, Oh, you know, usually the underneath side of our table, it's packed with bags and backpacks and, you know, no one takes the time to go bring it up to the room cause we're too busy working. And it ended up just, just, just being a catastrophe behind there. And, um, it just, uh, it worked out so nicely this time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What did you buy then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, I bought some things. Of course you did. Not, not too much. So the buying of things really escalated from the moment I walked in Friday morning because I usually don't have the freedom when I walk into a pen show to go shopping. You know, when I walk into a pen show, I'm setting up a table and I'm getting ready to sell things. This time I walked into a pen show and I was like, Oh, I can go do anything. So I basically just browsed around. I went over to Franklin Kristoff. Um, not because I was looking for one of the prototypes, but they had to show special ink that I wanted to grab a couple of bottles of. Um, so I did that. The problem was I was over there getting the ink that I specifically wanted. I started thinking about, well, I need some things to give away for the blog. I need, you know, probably a pen to just to test out. Let me see what new stuff they have. And this is like 10 minutes after the show's opening and I'm already like considering spending like, you know, hundreds of dollars. I'm like, okay, I see how people get in trouble doing this. I need to rethink, need to rethink some of the things I say from being on this side of the table at this event. Um, it is super easy to spend all your money in the span of 10 minutes. Um, so I didn't, I bought my two bottles of ink and then I left. Um, and then I went to go see Ian, who was Ian Schoen, just, he was across the room. Um, just to, you know, say, Hey, and see, see what's going on. And he says, Oh, I have something for you. I'm like, great. And then that's when he breaks out the Yovo nib section for the pocket six that I love so much. And I just reviewed and, you know, I reviewed, I made in the review, I made a point that it uses, um, Bach nibs and nib section fittings and that I would much prefer Yovo. And he's like, Oh, look here. And he had made a whole tray of like 50 or so to sell to people at the, at the event, which I know they got snapped up quickly. And he's going to have them online for sale in a month or two. I think he said, um, so I was like, well, he's given me this new nib section. I could just put it on the pen I already own. Um, how about I just buy another pen to put it in? Cause that's what you do, right? Like, you know, someone gives you a part, you need a new pen to put it in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, you don't want to sully the old pen or sully the new part, right? Right, right, right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So he had all of his, you know, different wild colors that I'd love so much and you love so much. And, you know, uh, I'm just looking at all this mix and match stuff on the, on the table. And I found one that I like, and I was actually trying not to buy it right then. I was like, well, how many of these pens do you have? And it's like, oh, just these two. So that's when I decided that I should buy that pen because there's only two of them and I'll be upset if that one's gone later. So that's one of those situations where, yeah, the totally FOMO. But if that's the one I really wanted and there's only two of them, I should buy it now. If there were 10 of them, I could decide later, you know, shop around and, you know, there'd probably be some left. So, um, that was my second purchase. Well, I bought the ink. That was my first pen purchase. And that ended up being the last thing I bought that day because I knew right then just those two tables, the specter of spending a lot of money at Franklin Kristoff hit me. And then actually buying a pen hit me and I was like, this could go South pretty fast. So I spent the rest of my morning just talking to everyone and looking at all the pens. Like I just went table to table looking at all the pens. You know, I got to talk to Ryan Krusak and I got to talk to Matthew Martin and I got to inspect, like they each had new stuff to bring. And I saw a bunch of people buying all their stuff and, you know, I got to check out all the great new designs that they had. And I talked to all the, the nib grinders that were there and, you know, they were mostly sold out from the get go and online, um, online signups, which was great for them. So business was good for them. Then I got to see all the retail vendors like drum ghouls, you know, who was there, Myke Fountain Pen Hospital. So I got to say hey to Steve, who, uh, was such a gracious host to us, um, a year ago, year and a half ago. Now when we visited his shop, um, so, you know, and, you know, my friends from Kenro and luxury brands and all the individual sale sellers like Paul Arano. And, um, so I just spent that rest of the day just kind of hanging out, getting a good idea of what I wanted to buy on Saturday. Like what I really wanted to come home with, what I wanted, what I needed, what I was going to use to review things like that. Kind of laying the groundwork for Saturday because that would be my last day, um, at the show. So Saturday came and I was back down there at nine o'clock. Like it was really cool to not have to get up too early and worry about making sure I eat before I go work. So I just kind of lingered and got up and was down at the show at nine again. Franklin Kristoff had, you know, I went to over to the Franklin Kristoff table again, but this time for something specific because the night before in the bar, I got to test out their steel flex nib, what they just introduced, I think in the past month or so. So it's like a $25 nib and I got to test it out in the bar the previous night, which was great. It was a really fun, fun bar scene. Got to hang and test out a bunch of stuff. And, um, I said I wanted to get one of those. So I got one over there in the morning and kind of like Ian Shone's new section, needing a pen. Well, that nib needed a pen, Myke. So I bought a Franklin Kristoff pen off the prototype table. I bought, you know, the a hundred and something dollar pen for what I really wanted was the nib, but I actually have a plan for this. I'm going to give that away, but I'm going to review the nib first. So we didn't necessarily buy it for me. But again, it was, this was part of my planning, you know, waiting out most of Friday to get the things that I knew I needed on Saturday. So it worked out. So like that was, uh, that was cool. So that was the first thing. And then I knew I wanted some of the new sailor manual ink, which, um, just launched like when the past few weeks here in the U S that really neat inks, really good colors. Um, you know, better price points, better capacities for, uh, sailor inks than some of the recent releases. So I went over to drum ghouls and I grabbed like three of those inks and I grabbed like one of the individual color verse ink bottles and I'm setting behind the table, setting them up behind the table. Cause I want to look at all the pens and stuff. And I'd already looked at all their pens yesterday and they have like, you know, they have everything that I want, right. From your basic pilots and sailors to your, you know, Dana trios and all kinds of crazy expensive stuff. And this one pen popped out to me on the table. I was like, well, that's a big orange pen. And I didn't see that yesterday. And you know what that big orange pen was, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I can guess my friend. The biggest orangest pen of all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The biggest orangest pen of all the sailor 1911 Royal Tangerine King of Pen. Now you own this pen and I chose not to buy it last year in Atlanta, right? That's when it launched and you were there and you bought it immediately. That was like insta buy. Like you walked in, walked over to Dan Smith and came back with the pen. Like done.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cause I knew I wanted it and I wanted to make sure I had it. Same reason of you, like you were just saying, right? Like I know I want this pen. I know there's not many of them. I know it's going to be popular. I want it. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I passed, you know, just having some, attempting to have some discretion in purchases. And then I kept seeing the pen. I kept trying it. I tried yours. Like when we were getting San Francisco and I was like, I really enjoy this pen. And I think I've even mentioned to you, I was like, yeah, I probably should have bought this pen and didn't really think too much of it. Didn't try to hunt one down. But when one randomly crosses your path like this and you've been eyeballing it and thinking about it for a while, well, let's just say it came home with me. So, um, I got that and I took it over to Gina from a custom nib studio who put a stub nib on this pen and it's just glorious. And apologies to, uh, Gina. I will now spell her name, her first name right from now on. It's G E N A not G I N A. Um, thank you for those who corrected me and my apologies to Gina. But one of the things she did that was pretty cool while I was sitting there, she was, um, putting the grind on this King of Pen. She had, you know, one of those little lab racks with the plastic vials in it with nibs in them. And they were all pre-ground nibs on Yovo steel nibs. She just basically had pre-ground nibs that you could buy. So I bought one, a broad architect nib to go in the shown design. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a really good idea.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know how many she brought with her, but there were only three left on Saturday morning when I was sitting with her and I bought one of them. So I'm sure she sold them all. It was a great idea. So I bought the nib, got the nib work done on the King of Pen and picked up an extra nib that I wanted, which is why I like the Yovo nibs because I have so many of them that fit in so many different pens. So, um, aside from that, you know, I picked up a couple other things to give away another shown pen to give away, uh, that Ian, uh, donated to the cause, which I appreciated. I grabbed an Esther Brook to review, uh, from Kenro Industries on loan from them. So, you know, I just picked up some few things like that, mostly for the blog and giveaway purpose purposes. So for me, I bought the new shown design pocket six and the King of Pen Royal Tangerine, and that was plenty.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sounds like a solid show for you there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was just fun. Like I, everything about that show is easy, right? I mean, I'm sure if I was working in it, I'd feel the same. Like the crowds were big, but not overwhelming. The hotel space was great. The location was fantastic. The prices weren't outrageous for hotel rooms. Um, the only real issue is it was so cold outside that the hotel heat was on full blast. So it was extraordinarily hot. Um, the ballrooms that we were in were upstairs. Like, so there's like a, a ground level and a mezzanine level. We're in the mezzanine level. So all that heat just rises and it was pretty stifling, but you know, all you have to do is run outside for about 30 seconds and have a, you know, 15 degree wind chill. And, um, that'll, that'll cool you right down. So, um, it really wasn't, it wasn't too bad, but, uh, it did just like dry me out. You just like, I could not drink enough water. It was just kind of, kind of stifling from that aspect that like the only negative, if the only negative I can say is like the heater was a little aggressive, it was a pretty good show. Yeah. That's not bad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So good crowd, good people, good attendance, just flat out. Good. Loved it. I would, it was a really great way to kick off the pin year. Like I can kind of slow roll into it, right. You know, where I didn't have to work, but I got, I got my feet wet and getting back into the show scene and you know, I'll, uh, I'll, um, get back into it with, uh, Baltimore here and another, I don't know, it's only like five, six weeks away, something like that. So where I will be working and doing other events, but, uh, now I'm ready for it instead of like sweating, sweating the details of getting to a pin show for the first time and, and being anxious. Like I get anxious about that stuff, but, uh, this was a good way to get it started.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you think that you're more likely to attend more pen shows this way?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very more likely. Okay. Like I could see, like, I couldn't, I can't do a lot cause there's only so much I could travel, but I could see either doing something like this show every year being that one or doing maybe up to two per year. You know, that's just kind of the, what I'm playing in my head or at least mixing up one every year to just go travel to, um, because it was such an enjoyable experience. Like, yeah, I, I definitely want to attend at least one show a year where I don't work and can just hang out. And it was just, it was great. It was, it was healthy, healthy for the soul.