Editing The Pen Addict 519/transcript (section)

== Vacation Kit Review ==


'''Brad:''' I'm on vacation, Myke. Did you know that?

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

'''Brad:''' I'm on vacation right now. Yes. And I brought a kit with me, which it's been a while since I've actually gotten to build my little vacation kit of stationery that I want to bring on a trip. Yeah. Wow, vacationary.

'''Myke:''' I've definitely made that joke before. There's no way that that's the first time I've done that. I don't remember doing it, but I know me.

'''Brad:''' I think that's a first. I think, mm, interesting, interesting. But in my vacationary kit, now I have to use it.

'''Brad:''' I'm going to have some time to write on this trip. I'm going on a trip where I'm doing nothing for a lot of days, right? Like going to the beach, chilling and relaxing. Well, I still like to write and have my things. So I put together a little kit here. As I was getting ready for vacation, I realized I had too many fountain pens inked up. And when I go on a trip, I kind of just don't want to take what I've had inked up for, you know, weeks or months at a time. In some cases, I want kind of a reboot. I want some fresh, fresh pens, some fresh ink, and some fun stuff to try out. So I picked out three fountain pens to take, which for a short trip, that's a lot for me. I really only need one. But I picked out three kind of different pens with some different inks in each. First one, Nakaya Portable, which is one of my favorite writing pens. It's the basic Kuro Tamanuri finish, which is the black with the red undertones. It has a stock fine nib, which is just, this is like the most glorious writing pen. This pen makes me smile so much. It's one of my favorites. And I have it inked with Platinum's Mount Fuji blue-black ink cartridge. I tend to use that ink in this pen pretty consistently. I have bottles of this ink, but the cartridges are so easy to use. I do appreciate a good fountain pen cartridge ink. Speaking of which, related side note here, people have been asking me about the Pilot Orochizuku cartridges. When are they coming? We don't know. I heard there was a delay, but hopefully we'll get them this year sometime. So, all right, back to the kit. Second pen. That one was already inked. So, I cleaned 12 pens. I had 13 inked up. The Nakaya stayed because it was my most recently inked, and it's such a joy. It's a great kind of trip pen. Second pen, freshly inked, is the Sailor 1911. L, Wicked Witch. That's the purple one with the black ion-plated hardware, Myke. Yeah, I have that one. It has, yep, it has a medium-fine nib. It's a really, really, really great color. It's like a deep, deep purple.

'''Myke:''' I don't have the large one, but I have this one.

'''Brad:''' So, yeah. Okay. So, I have the large size, which I really like. I like both the sizes of the 1911. Yeah. Which we've talked about. And then I have this inked up with a new ink from the Czech Republic. It is, the brand is called Inkibara, and it's, the color is crimson, which is a pinkish red, right? It's not a red-red or burgundy red. It's kind of got a little hint of pink in it, which I really like. So, that's a good match for the Wicked Witch. Third pen is a pen I have not inked up in a long time, but it is a personal favorite of mine. It's the Faginato PKS. It's a pen I bought at the Atlanta Pen Show years and years ago from Papier Plume. Faginato is no longer made because the maker actually, unfortunately, passed several years ago. So, this is just kind of a pen you can no longer get, and it's got this really cool orange celluloid, and it has a really strange nib, one which I rarely see elsewhere. It is a Bach titanium nib, which Bach is known for, that titanium nib that they produce. It's the popular titanium nib, but it's rhodium-plated, right? So, it looks like a silvery steel nib, but it's actually the bouncy titanium Bach nib underneath this plating. So, it looks really, really cool. And I've inked it up with a very rare ink sample that was sent to me. It is the Bangukan Kobayashi Shizuoka Orange. Great name. So, yeah. My friend Kelly, who is the co-host of the Stationery Cafe podcast with April, who was on the show recently, and also Kelly also works at Oblation Papers, sent me this ink from a trip. This is the ink I call the Bullet Train ink because she wrote me in this letter about how difficult it is to get to the store where this ink is located. She said it was two hours by Bullet Train from Tokyo. So, I call this my Bullet Train ink. And it feels very unique and valuable because it was so hard to get. And it doesn't completely match the brightness of the orange, but it's got this... I need to put an ink sample up. And I'll put a link into the show notes so y'all can see what it looks like. It's kind of this burnt orange. You know what it looks like, Myke? And you will appreciate this as a purveyor of a good old-fashioned. You know when the bartenders use the orange peel and then they might flame the orange peel, then they throw it in the drink? It looks like the orange peel inside the drink.

'''Myke:''' Because it's a little burnt. It's a little burnt. I like that. It's like a burnt orange. So, yeah.

'''Brad:''' When I started writing with this, I was like, that's the color of this ink. So, it's not orangey orange and it's not brown or caramelly. It's like this kind of burnt orange and that's what it reminded me of. So, those are the pens, the fountain pens. I'm bringing one notebook, Myke. I'm leaving my planner.

'''Myke:''' Before we move away from the pens, I just want a larger complaint. I think you're using the wrong color ink in your 1911 Wicked Witch. Okay. I think green is the only option for that pen. Okay.

'''Brad:''' That is historically, that ink, that color ink has been the only ink in that pen. I purposely chose something different. Okay. Historically, I use Ackerman number 28. Me too. That's what I use. It is the perfect ink.

'''Myke:''' It's perfect. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that you are on my side, even though you've changed it this time.

'''Brad:''' I am. Because I wanted to test out this brand. So, this brand is new to me. So, this is a good chance for me to test out that ink. It was purposely done to be complimentary, even though I know that number 28 is the ink for that pen. It's the go ink for this pen. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' It just fits so well. By the way, that sailor, underrated, I think. Excellent sailor edition. Like, truly excellent edition. The fact that I was able, like I was putting it in the show notes, and I could see that pen chalet still have some. That's wild to me. I can't believe that hasn't sold out.

'''Brad:''' Yep. And it's at the old price. It was pre-price increase. Huh. So, yeah. It's really, really good. And I actually, I didn't buy it when it came out. I bought mine secondhand. So, like, that's a good thing to do when you're looking at expensive pens. If you buy a good one, you can feel free to shop use. Shop secondhand. It's really, save a few bucks and still get a really awesome pen that you're going to use and love. All right. So, fountain pens, it's going to be most of, that's going to be most of my writing. But I have to pack a few other things. Like, I'm packing a spoke roadie, right? You just do. That's a great travel pen. Black wing 530. I'm using this pencil right now, trying to see how long it's going to take me to write a pencil all the way down to the nub. It's not going well. It's not going well. I've, you know, sharpened it maybe five times, five, six times. So, I'm getting there. But I have a lot of writing to do if I'm going to work this pencil all the way down to the end. I'm taking my Misubi Indigo Denim Journal, which I am desperate to finish before the San Francisco Pen Show. So, I'll be focusing on that. That's just kind of my goal to start a new journal after the San Francisco Pen Show because I'll probably end up buying something there that I'll want to use. I'm using the Foglietto note cards. That's something I've been testing. I haven't done a review on them yet. That's a note card that I'm really enjoying. They're fountain pen friendly and they have some unique, fun design. So, I'm going to take those as well. I'm not taking my planner, which I mentioned before, the Hobonichi planner. I'm going to probably, before vacation, since this is a podcast out of time, going to mark off those days with vacation, Myke, so we don't run into a situation like I ran into earlier this year.

'''Myke:''' Oh, my God.

'''Myke:''' Oh, no. Not again.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. We don't need to do that. We don't need to do that. So, consider these pages marked. And I'm putting all of this in a singular pen case, the Notco Lanier Wax Canvas, the 2019 Kickstarter campaign case, which is just a sweet case. And it will carry everything that I just mentioned all in one. And we'll all just like slide in a backpack and I'll be good to go. I'll be super, super happy with this kit.

'''Brad:''' On this little short vacation, I got planned. So, yeah.

'''Myke:''' You pack well.

'''Brad:''' I'm excited. I'm excited to do a packing post again. Recently on the blog, Kimberly did a huge packing post.

'''Myke:''' Oh, these memo cards are really cute.

'''Brad:''' They're different. Yeah. Right? They are specifically sized, right? It's not a traditional size in the note card, index card sense. But they are an international standard size being that they're A7. There are many different colors of them and there's many different layouts of them. Like they have gone all in. They didn't make a note card and then later on kind of expand on it. They just said, we're going to make all of the note cards right now. And that's what they've done. I've been very happy with them so far. They are fountain pen friendly from my testing. And I'll have a review up of them sometime this summer. Or Kimberly, I think I sent Kimberly some. She might review them as well. So, yeah. But I will tell people in advance, thumbs up on the Fogli Eto cards.

'''Myke:''' Very cool.

'''Brad:''' And that's it. That's it. That's it. I will bring in the note cards because I'll be reading a bunch and that's going to be like my note taking kind of thing. You know, I'll use the journal just for writing and exploration. But I don't write like book notes in my journal, which is a whole other conversation.

'''Myke:''' All right. I think we're done for today. Whew.

'''Brad:''' Good vacation, Myke. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Well, we'll be back next week.

'''Brad:''' Allegedly.

'''Myke:''' Yes. We'll be back next week. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. Thank you to Pen Chalet and Squarespace for their support. I guess thank you for giving us a week off. We didn't really mention that. But, of course, we were off. Right? Really. We haven't benefited from that yet.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. That's a good point. That I really do want to thank y'all for, you know, we get to take a week off sometimes and y'all are cool with that. We need to see.

'''Myke:''' We don't know they've been cool with it yet, Brad.

'''Brad:''' They are so – our listeners are the best. But we don't know.

'''Myke:''' They might have revolted. We haven't gotten to that week yet.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. True. I'll have to send you those emails.

'''Myke:''' Uh-huh. I look forward to receiving them. All right. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, at penaddict on Instagram, Dowdy is on Twitter. I'm iMike. I am YKE.

'''Myke:''' Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]