Editing The Pen Addict 71/transcript (section)

== Planners ==


'''Ana Reinert:''' Two problems. The first one was it's getting, you know, towards fourth quarter of 2013. So I've started, I've already started thinking about planners for 2014. And I know there's a lot of people who've been asking about sort of academic planners and everything. This whole year I've been using the paper blanks planner. It's like about an A5 size. So about five by seven, seven by nine, something like that. And it's, they call it the verso format. So on one side of the page, and it's very similar, I think, to how Moleskine lays out some of theirs, where on one side of the page is slots for every day of the week. And then on the opposite side of the page, it's just lined paper. So you can use it for just general notes. So it's perfect for a work environment where you may be taking your planner in with you to a meeting. You've just got space right there to write notes or, you know, lists of phone calls you need to make or anything like that. Well, they leased their 2014 line and I didn't see the verso format because I was just going to order another one. I liked it so much. I was just going to order another one and I couldn't find it. And so I finally emailed the company and they said, we are not selling that particular model in the U.S. this year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And I'm like, am I going to have to like go to Canada? What's the deal? So now I'm going to have to either pick a different format or I'll have to branch out and try a different company. And Poppin has been very nice to me and their planners seem fairly comparable in terms of sort of the layout and what they include. And the paper stock is pretty good. I like the paper in the paper blanks. It's not, I wouldn't say that it is exactly fountain pen perfect, but it's a lot better than a lot of other stocks that I've used. So I might go with a Poppin. I don't know. But yeah, basically I've been crying and kicking my feet. So that's how I'm solving my problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Excuse me. You've been pouting.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I have been pouting. And then the other thing that came up, and this is totally left field, but there's a company called Borden and Riley that make marker paper, which we use at work for pointed pen lettering. So it's bleed proof. It's, you know, it's all this, it's perfect if you're using like a flexible nib pen and, you know, big gobbing bottles of black ink. And they discontinued their layout, their rough marker paper. Oh, wow. And I mean, like even the people, like I went, we have our own supply library. I went up and I'm like, where's the paper? And they're like, it's been discontinued. And I'm like, what are you doing about it? So they actually, I guess Borden and Riley had another paper that they recommended. And they sent a sample sheet to Hallmark to try out. And they called me. They're like, do you want to come up and try it out and let us know what you think of it? And it's okay. It's not the same. Not the same. So that's the one where it's like, I, you know, at this point, we're just going to start looking for other brands who make, but not many people, like marker paper used to be used when people used to do like sort of mock-ups for advertising with colored markers. Like, which this goes way back.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And so it's, it doesn't have as much use. It's really like weird people like us who do lettering on paper. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's like bigger and portable and more sturdy to, you know, take it around from place

'''Ana Reinert:''' to place and get people to look at it. Well, it's just a pad of paper and we, basically we use this paper. It's bright white and then we'll scan it in for, um, to then end up on greeting cards, basically. And I mean, we've got a staff of people who do this and we're all crying about this stupid paper.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, but yeah, so it's, you know, I mean, I think there are things that we, you know, as paper geeks, pen geeks, you know, you use it and it may not be the most popular one. And I know it's, have you had stuff like this happen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There, I was trying to think back when you, when you mentioned that, I was like, oh, that's such a good topic. Let me think of what I've like really missed out on. And I was like, I can't think of anything except for one that I still get emails on. Um, Pentel makes a graph gear line of pencils. That's extremely popular. Um, it's kind of like a designer engineering type of pencil. And at one point they made a comparable graph gear ballpoint, um, with a 0.5 millimeter tip for the ballpoint. And the graph gear pencil line is so popular and people swear by it. And then they just up and stopped making the ballpoint. And I got more emails on this and I ended up, I had one left. I think I, I don't ever know that I had more than one anyway. And this has been years now. This is like three years ago, maybe four years ago. And I had a guy email me and he was like, you know, I'm desperate to find this pen. You know, my, you know, my father is an engineer. He uses the pencils and I can't find the pen anymore. And, you know, can you tell me where I can get it? So I sent him my pen and I've missed it ever since. It was an awesome, awesome pen. It's just a really well-made, um, ballpoint pen that no one has been able to make something comparable to. I mean, and not, not even close. Um, I've probably got an old review on the blog I can, I can put up. But if you look at the graph gear pencil, which is still made, it's, it looks identical to that. Um, and it's with just a, a super fine ballpoint ballpointing cartridge. And I just love how those pencils look. And I really wish the ballpoint was still made. Um, the only other one is it goes way, way, way back. And this is probably the single most emailed pen I get about where can I find this pen? Do they still make it anymore? It's called the, um, the Pilot Explorer. It's this old, I guess it was popular late eighties, mid nineties. I don't even know if they made it in the two thousands, but it was way ahead of its time in barrel design and fineness of tip. And I've got, you know, people always tell me we've, they've been showing up a lot here recently, like in Finland or Denmark or somewhere. I get these emails. Hey, look what I found in the store. And I was like, Oh, you gotta be kidding me. I didn't know they still made them. And then I'll like try to track down the distributor. And I was like, yeah, we don't have any more of those. That was it. It's like, man, y'all are killing me. But I, those are the two pens that I wish were still being made that I would use, um, religiously. The, um, the graph gear ballpoint and the Pilot Explorer are both, uh, just kind of some classic design pens that there's really nothing close to be those being made right now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, back on your, on your planner topic. Um, I'm not a planner person at all. I can't tell you the last time I've used it. It just doesn't, it just doesn't really work for me. I think I would like the style that you're talking about, the Verso style, where it's got the, the calendar on one side and then just essentially, you know, line page on the other side. But I've been sucked in, I guess, to, to the planner world. And I've, I've ordered a planner for 2014 and I sent you, I sent you the link in the Skype. Okay. I don't know if you got it there, but it's the Hobonichi Teco.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think I've heard about these. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's made, I found out when I did the Tomoe River paper review that this planner uses that paper.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh yes. I have seen those.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I ordered one up. Um, they, they don't ship till like October or something. So I'll be sure to do a review when they come. But you know, it's, it's good for me one, because it's gridded. It's a graph paper design. Um, and it's a page a day, but the page is essentially blank. Um, it's just one big grid with like a 12 in the middle, kind of denoting the, the mid day, I guess, if you will. Oh, cool. Um, and that's pretty much it. Um, you know, it's got some other small little features, you know, of course, day date and, you know, it's got a little quote on it, but generally the whole middle of the page is blank just for that day. So it, it lends itself a lot more to, like you said, if you're taking your planner into a meeting, you can write down notes as a par, as opposed to, you know, pick up, you know, milk and bread and things. It's, it's a little more functional in that aspect, which is something that I like. I like, I don't like to be tied down to a system very well. Like we did the bullet journal last week and that's actually working pretty well for me because it's pretty simple and straightforward. Any larger, more defined system is going to be tough for me. So I'll be talking about that more here in a couple months once it, once it comes in, but yeah, I'm, uh, I'm getting into getting into the world of planners.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, and I actually use mine as a planner and also as a reminder. So a lot of times at the end of the week, I'll go back and put in any important things that might've happened that might not have been captured. So things like if I, if we went to a movie or if we went out for dinner with friends, that's sort of the last minute thing, I'll go back and add those in so that a year from now I could, I could theoretically pull that back out. And it, it would double as a diary to a certain extent of like, what did we do? Where did we go? You know, friends were in town that weekend, stuff that might not necessarily end up in your planner. Um, and so I keep track of things like that as well. So I kind of, I'll, at the end of the week, you know, before I start Monday of the following week, I'll go in and like add in things that I might've done over the weekend that wouldn't normally capture.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. That's great. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. And I actually need to do more stuff like that. I, I, I've started, you know, as my kids are getting older, I've started to, you know, realize that, Hey, I want to remember this, you know, later. So that's good. That's good. Well, I want to talk, we alluded to a topic that I want to cover about, um, when products aren't working that I want you to get into. But first I want to do our second sponsor and that is shutterstock.com. Um, what shutterstock is, is it's where you'll find over 20 million stock photos, vectors, illustrations, and video clips. Start your search at shutterstock.com to find that perfect image for your website, ad publication, or any other creative project. Shutterstock.com gives you a global image collection to find images from across the world to suit your project. Choose between image packs and monthly subscription packages. Choose whatever fits your need and never have to compromise. If you need just one image for your blog or mock-up, you can do that too. Every time you visit shutterstock, you'll find something new since they add 10,000 new images every day, every day, 10,000 new images. That's crazy. And it's more affordable than you think with no extra charge for large files. Just download any image in any size and pay only one price. They don't nickel and dime you for high resolution images. If you need them, take them. Easily curate and share pictures via light boxes. You can choose your favorite pictures or videos and add them to your own light box gallery as you search. You can also use their iPad app to do this. There's something called enhanced license access. If you like an image and want to run it on print or swag for your trade shows, they can get you enhanced license for any image. They also have a huge library of vectors, icons, infographic templates, and video clips should you need any of those. If you need any help at shutterstock.com, you get an account rep dedicated to you who will answer any questions. They also have 24-hour support during the week. Sign up for a free browse account or go to shutterstock.com. No credit card needed. When you find the images you like and decide to purchase, use offer code PENS9, that's P-E-N-S-9, the number nine, and get 25% off any package. So thank you, shutterstock.com. And usually when Myke is doing that read, I'm always on shutterstock.com and I'm typing in funky stuff. So let's type in rainbow pencil.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's see what we're doing.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Let's find anything good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh my goodness. Yeah. So I got for rainbow pencil, stock photos, illustrations, and vector art, I got 22,459 results. And let me tell you, every single one of them on this page that came is some type of rainbow pencil, like drawings and, you know, just really, really cool colors everywhere. So gosh, they have everything. So yeah, if you're putting together a blog or a service and need some stock images, this is the place to go. It looks like they've got everything. So thank you, shutterstock.com for sponsoring us. That's awesome. All right. So not everything in the world of pens and papers, you know, always comes out smelling roses. We have problems with pens. You know, I've talked about my Lamy 2000 that I dealt with for about a year until I got it fixed. And, you know, sometimes you get faulty items out of the package and you ran into something here recently. So why don't you tell that story real quick?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I had for several years, I think I saw on your blog at some point, you had gotten a Kaweco Lilliput and I said, I will own that pen one day. Yeah. Awesome pen. And so I finally was at a spot where I could, you know, it's not a super expensive pen. It's about $55 or something, but a little bit further out of my, you know, that's right at the top of my, what I've normally spent on fountain pens. Um, so I finally scraped the change together, bought it, was so excited. It got, it got here. I took it out of the package and I've had Kawecos before and they've always just written like a dream as soon as I take them out of the package. So, I mean, I think I was even sitting in my car, threw the cartridge in there, gave it a couple of shakes, put it on paper. Nothing happened. I'm like, oh, maybe it's a cruddy cartridge. Maybe it's, you know, maybe it's cause I'm trying to write in 90 degree heat in my car, whatever. So I get home, I get out nice paper. I'm, you know, trying to prime it, trying to get it going. Nothing.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It's scritchy, scratchy. I'm getting like tiny little bits of ink. It's just, it's not, it's just, and I'm like, this is not right. This is not right. And then, and so I asked a couple other people to try it. Cause again, I thought, well, maybe it's the left-handed thing. And all the time thinking Kawecos work great for lefties. You can write upside down. They work, they work at just about any angle. They're very forgiving in that way. And so even going through this whole thing, I'm thinking, this is stupid. I should, there's obviously something wrong with this pen. And then I thought, well, maybe I'm just, I don't know. So, so pass it around for a while, had other people use it and they're like, it's okay. It's kind of scratchy. And I'm like, okay, it's not me. There's something wrong with this pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Cause Kawecos are not scratchy pens.

'''Ana Reinert:''' They are not scratchy pens. And, but had I been a brand new fountain pen user and that was the first pen I purchased, I would have been like fountain pens stink. I don't want these. They're terrible. So, I mean, I'm glad that it wasn't my first experience. And it's certainly even at $55, it's a, it's a budget fountain pen. So my instinct is that quality control at that level is not as, you know, is not as efficient. They're not as, they don't maybe look at every single pen kind of thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, maybe not as thorough.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Not as thorough. So, but I, I bought it from jet pens and I emailed them and I said, what's my next step? What do I do? Should I contact Kaweco? Do you guys handle this? And jet pens being the awesome company that they are said, nope, don't worry about it. We will take care of everything. We'll get, make sure you get one that works. So they sent me another one and I took it out of the package and I'm like, please work. Please work.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And, um, I did exactly the same thing. I popped in the, cause I was like, I'm not going to try crazy ink. I'm not going to use anything. I'm just going to use the cartridge that comes with it. So I stuck that little blue cartridge in there, gave it a couple of shakes, put it on paper. And I'm like, works like a charm. I was right. It was not the pen. It was not the company. It was just one pen that wasn't, didn't work.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, I worry about that. The, the point you made about, you know, you and I and all the other bloggers in our realm, you know, we talked to a lot of people that are just getting started and they're always looking for information, which is why they've reached out to us and, you know, help me get started. Help me find, you know, what do I want, you know, where the burden's on us to tell them, you know, sometimes what to buy. And, you know, it's, it's hard to know that exact, exact thing to tell them. And then when you get that second phase of like, well, what if they get something that's really not working well for them? And it's just like a, something wrong, physically wrong with the pen that you and I would notice, but they don't know. And they start, you know, giving you grief about it. I mean, fortunately that hasn't happened, but that's something I worry about, right? Because you don't want to recommend something junky to someone, but I'm totally glad the Kaweco thing worked out for you. Did they send you a whole new pen or just the nib unit?

'''Ana Reinert:''' No, they sent me a whole new pen. Great. They, I think what JetPens did was actually just contacted Kaweco directly and said, you sent us a faulty pen, send us a new one. And so they got a new one in and they sell out at JetPens the, cause I got the extra fine nib and the silver. And I was, I wanted the silver one so bad cause it matches my pocket knife.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I saw that picture.

'''Ana Reinert:''' There's this, they're the same size. It was like, it has to be the brushed silver one.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But yeah, so there were several, I mean, and luckily it wasn't like I was waiting for my first fountain pen or anything because it was several weeks to sort of, I ordered the first one. It didn't work. I messed around with it for a week before I contacted JetPens and said, yes, there's definitely something wrong with this. You know, I'd filled it with a couple of different inks, making sure it wasn't that I was using a bad ink or anything. And so then of course, when I contacted JetPens, they're like, well, we're sold out, you know, or we would have just sent you one, what we had in stock. And so then there was another wait. So it was a good three or four weeks and I was so excited. I'm so glad I didn't say anything on the blog. Like I'm going to write a review next week on this pen because it didn't, you know, like I would have been so felt like I'd let people down because it was several weeks before I could finally write the review and not write the review of this pen sucks. It's terrible. It didn't write because I knew that that wasn't what it was. Right. I knew. And, and if I had a second one and I had the same problem, then I would have felt comfortable writing a review that says, this is not a good pen. It didn't work. But I knew that that wasn't what was going on here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And having used, you know, uh, Kawecos like you do and like I do those, like the nibs are on those pens are fantastic. And, you know, hopefully, you know, maybe it, it, it just was a faulty pen, like you said, and all the rest are good. And fortunately, knock on wood, I haven't had that, that much of a problem. I definitely hadn't had a problem with the Kawecos. The one, the biggest one I've had a problem with was the Lamy 2000. And I should have like you, I should have done something earlier, except I was too, I don't know if naive is the word, but I was just really getting started. It's like, I don't know what to do or how to handle this, but I know something's a little bit off here. And, um, fortunately, you know, as I got, I had asked a few questions on forums and tried to figure out some things to do. And fortunately, you know, I waited around long enough. I just took it to, um, someone, a nibmeister to take a look at the nib and it's fixed and it's working perfectly. Now it was a nib alignment issue and you do your research online and you find that, you know, the Lamy 2000 line doesn't have the greatest quality control and things like that. So, you know, it's, it's, I guess it just comes with the territory sometimes. And fortunately we're in this situation now where if we, we've got enough experience to where we know if something's wrong, we're able to, to nail it down quickly. But I do worry sometimes for those just getting started that they, uh, that they will freak out, um, a little bit and it might be unwarranted and we just might need to get a different pen in their hands and everything will be fine.