Editing The Pen Addict 137/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 137
| title           = Notebook Emergency
| date            = January 12th, 2015
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/137 Episode 137]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/TPA_137.mp3 Audio Episode 137]
| length          = 56
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 137. Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts for a 10-day free trial. Visit lynda.com slash penaddict and Squarespace. Start here, go anywhere. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by the man, the man with a plan, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have very little plans, actually, Myke. You should know that from our conversations last night or this morning, as I was freaking out about planning for this show. But, as always, it comes together with your awesome help, and we always get it together. That plan always comes together at the end.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sure does. It's how we roll.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is how we roll on the Pen Addict podcast. And we're going to do something that is, like, I don't know, not what you should do on a podcast, or not what you should do when you write, or, you know, not what you should do when you're sharing information with everyone. We're going to start with the very best thing you're going to hear this episode right out the gate. What do you think about that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sounds great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We're not even going to lead up to, like, you know, we're not going to have a big peek and bring it home. We're just going to go with the best thing in the episode right out the gate. And it's an email we got from a reader, Justin. And I forwarded you this email, Myke, so you've seen it, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.



== Email Reading ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm going to read this because it was very important to me. So everyone grab a drink, sit back, listen to me, read this email for about a minute, and then we'll chat about it. So this is from Justin. He says, Listening to another podcast on 5x5, one of the hosts mentioned this great show he'd been listening to called The Pen Addict. As a lifelong pen enthusiast, I was intrigued, so I downloaded a random episode. Over the next seven months of demoralizing unemployment, listening to your podcast was one of the few things that made me happy. I went back to episode one and listened to every single one. I'd never been unemployed before. I'm 36, and it was embarrassing for me. The hours I spent listening to the show made walking to and from the local job center bearable. In the few hours I spent not applying for jobs each week, I dusted off my old Lamy Safari and played with that. I asked my family to buy me inks and a converter for my birthday, as I couldn't afford to buy them myself, and ended up with a few bottles of diamond. I had so much fun with just that, and I felt like I was part of a community. I was afraid that when I did get a job, I wouldn't have time to listen anymore, but as it turns out, I'm now a sales rep, and I spend hours every day driving to appointments. Now that I'm back on my feet, I've just bought an orange Twisby Diamond 580 AL, and I can't tell you how much I love this pen. It's not something I would have known about without your show, so thanks again. I really wanted to do something to more support to you and to say thanks, so I just made my first NotCo order, and I'm awaiting its arrival any day now. I've wanted to look out in the fodder stack since you launched those months ago, but I just couldn't afford them, and I'm so glad to finally have them on the way. I also tell anyone that will listen to use your sponsors and hand out your codes when I can. A friend just set up a Squarespace site using your ink code. I'll keep listening, and I'll keep supporting as best as I can for as long as you guys keep the show going. So I guess that I just wanted to let you know that your crazy show with two guys talking about pens and paper made a big difference to me. For an hour or so every week, I left my troubles at the door, put on some headphones, and listened to you natter on about all the stuff that I was into. The kind of stuff that nobody else in my life is really interested in. I didn't feel like a weirdo for liking fountain pens and for caring about what paper I used because there were other people out there that cared too. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the show and all the hours of fun you've provided. I wish you both every success in the future. Kind regards, Justin. P.S. I promise I did write this out with pen and paper first. How good is that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The first time I read it, I literally got a little teary. I'm not going to lie. You know I'm an emotional guy. And I just stared at that, and I was like, wow. That's for someone to pour it all out there to us like that was really amazing. And we appreciate you as a listener, Justin. And I'm glad you're on your feet. And I'm glad we can give you and everyone else that little respite for an hour a week because it's a respite for us too. You know, we all have all kinds of crazy things going on in our life. So I know Myke and I are glad to be able to get on here and have a little fun for a little while. And I'm glad, you know, guys like Justin really enjoy the show. And that means a lot to us to see things like that. So I really appreciate it, Justin. Thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to get choked up again, Myke. All right. So we're going to go right from the very best part of this show to the very worst part of the show. So that's podcasting 101, right? Get all the good stuff and the bad stuff out right out the gate. You're a pro at this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 137 episodes in, you got it nailed down.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, we're going to do exactly what we're not supposed to do. But this is a quickie. And everyone just wanted an update on the Estabrook situation, as Myke calls it. You know, last week we were talking about how one of our listeners got kicked off their Facebook page and blocked. And, you know, all we wanted to do was find out where the pins were being made. So now that they're finally in retailers, retailers have to be responsible for asking those questions, right? So I figured it was very easy to email one of the retailers, which I did. It's Farney's pins. And they confirm that the pins are made in China. Now, we all assume that if you listen to this show. And I just want to be very clear for new listeners of the show. That's okay. Pins made in China are perfectly fine. It's the way Estabrook is going about hiding that fact and charging an exorbitant price for this pin is the problem. It's nothing to have to do with where they're made. It's how Estabrook's handling themselves in hiding that information and making a point to, I guess, cover that up, for lack of a better term. So I just wanted to point that out that I did get confirmation from one of the vendors that's carrying the pin. So that changed anything for you, Myke? You pretty much knew that, right? I mean, that's just what it's going to be.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, it was obvious. But, like, okay, so tell me then. What's the issue with it being made in China? Like, you're not mentioning it like it's a positive in any way?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure. It's twofold. One is what I mentioned last week. Every word out of Estabrook's mouth on the internet is Estabrook pens, comma, America's original fountain pen, comma. Okay? So they're slamming that down everyone's throat. And it's a misdirect, right? It's not.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're trying to misdirect you from the facts. By using America in every sentence. The second part is the price.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's extraordinarily expensive. For probably what it's really... I don't see anything special about that pen. That should cost more. This should be like a $20 to $30 pen. I'm guessing. I'm sure Estabrook would disagree with me and give me all kinds of points to where this is why it costs this much and this is why it costs that much. But these are... The acrylics that they're using already exist. They're not new for them. The nibs. Everything is just like stock Chinese fountain pen like we've all seen before. And stock Chinese fountain pens range from like $10 to $25. And they're charging $70. So, the math doesn't add up to me. So, those are the two primary issues.



== Architecture Writing ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, who knows? Who knows? So, we'll see. It's a fluid situation, as they say. So, one quick point on our architecture writing talk we had a couple weeks ago.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Susan wrote in, and I kind of knew this. And I didn't explain myself clearly when I was talking about why architects write the way they do. So, Susan cleared it up very succinctly. So, let me throw this out there. She says, Hi guys, I'm an architect. And I worked back when we all hand wrote our drawings. And the point of the lettering perfection is so that all the drawings all look like they were done by the same person. So, when many draftsmen are working on a set of drawings, that no one can tell who worked on one sheet that the drawings looked uniform. So, when I started, I spent the first two weeks just lettering over and over again until it matched the head draftsman's lettering. So, that makes a lot of sense, right Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you don't want any... Number one, you want to be able to not confuse any letters with other letters or other numbers. And number two, when you're working on a giant set of blueprints, and, you know, back in the day, before CAD and all these automated systems, you didn't want any different looking lettering causing confusion on your paperwork.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know if you have the answer to this. Does that mean that everyone's looked the same or everyone in a certain practice looked the same?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think everyone in a certain practice looked the same. That's what Susan was saying. She spent two weeks learning the head draftsman's style.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That would super suck if you changed job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But I think the concept is that the base style for everyone is ballpark the same. So, maybe she didn't have to learn too much, right? It's not like I have to learn your handwriting or you had to learn my handwriting. We're both learning from the same set of handwriting, but our individual lines or lettering would be slightly different. Does that make sense?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, if you and I are learning from a textbook to write the same way, our lettering is going to be close, but there might be some slight differences that would show up on paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that. I mean, I don't even understand how it could be possible. Like, seriously, like, I couldn't draw, like, write like somebody else. Like, in two weeks? Yeah. It feels like it would take me years. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, she's probably already had all the training in school. And that's what I'm saying. She's already had, like, by the time she's getting to that point, she's already had a huge amount of training in general, right? So, now she just has to fine-tune what she already has to match her office, her office style, I guess, if you will. So, all right, this next question is interesting, Myke. And this one's for you. Why don't you read this one?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, yeah, this question came in to me via email from listener Anne. And Anne wanted to know, because, you know, we were talking about having, like, additional notebooks lying around, and people would say, why don't you make them to journals? And me and you have both said we don't journal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And we're going to elaborate on this later.



== Bullet Journal Method ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Anne suggested, why don't we try the bullet journal method? I don't know if Anne had heard previous episodes of the show, because we've spoken about it a few times. We've had Ryder Carroll, the creator of the bullet journal, on a couple of times. And it is a good question, though, because it is apparently a good method. And it's probably an interesting follow-up piece, because we have both said that we were going to try it out. Now, I am a backer of the Kickstarter, and Ryder has been updating. And I'm personally, sorry, waiting until I receive my Leuch, I can't say it as well as he did. That's pretty good, though. My bullet journal journal, basically. And I'm going to give it a go there. Have you looked at any of the online tools he's created? I haven't yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have not yet. I've just looked at the PDFs and documents that he sent out so far. If there's any system that would work for me, it's the bullet journal. It's very simple. When we first had Ryder on, way before the Kickstarter, when the bullet journal system just came out, I tried it for a little bit, and it went pretty well. I mean, I think this is a system I could get behind. And as I'm finding myself, I don't know about you, Myke, but I'm finding myself getting so much busier in these past six months that I'm getting close to have to... It would never be like a date book journal, but it would be something like the bullet journal system. So just to keep... I find myself circling back on a lot of things because I forget to do it because I don't have it written down in a good system. And so I think the bullet journal is about as close to my type of system as there is. So when this book gets in, I think I'll give it a shot again. And I think I'm about to the point where I need something like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I don't know. And you know, if your life... You said you were actually using pen and paper slightly less just working at home, but are you using like a digital tool like a calendaring or task app for most of your daily tasks?

'''Myke Hurley:''' 100%. OmniFocus and Fantasticale. Relay would cease to exist if I didn't use those apps. I rely on them so heavily. Right. You know, that's it basically without those things. I'm kind of screwed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, I think Sean Blanc's method is the way that I would do it and I haven't done it yet. But he basically does the same thing you do. Real heavy OmniFocus, real heavy calendar. But then sits down in the morning and transfers all that information into a paper plan for the day. Goes into... He's using the Baron Fig Confidant. So he'll open up OmniFocus and then just break down the day in the notebook. So between that and something like the bullet journal, I think I could get behind something like that. I'm close to my breaking point as far as planning goes and I'm going to start forgetting things if I don't start organizing a little bit better. So yeah, this is going to be something I'm going to look into.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'm not 100% sure about that method because I don't know. I just feel like use one or the other rather than everything. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But then you get to use pens and paper too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I know. I know. But as we always say on this show, if it works for you, then go for it. Yes. Do it. But I rely quite heavily on the notifications of do this task throughout the day. Or at least I believe I do. Mm-hmm. To prompt me to do things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, good. That's right. Use the system that works for you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Indeed. Right. Let me just take a quick break and thank our first sponsor for this week's episode. And that is Linza.com. It's time to kickstart your new year and challenge yourself to learn something new. A free 10-day trial to Linza.com. Linza is used by millions of people around the world and has over 3,000 courses on topics like web development, photography, visual design, and business. All of their courses are taught by experts and they have new courses being added to the site every single week. You'll get unlimited access to every course on Linza.com when you sign up, as well as all of these new courses that are being added every week. You have this huge, huge back catalogue to look through and you can watch these videos on your laptop or on your iPhone, your iPad, your Android phone, your Android tablet because they have great apps for those devices too. Whether you want to set new financial goals, invest in a new hobby, or improve on your current job skills in 2015, Linza.com has something for everyone. Remember that fantastic logo design video we spoke about a couple of weeks ago featuring Aaron Draplin? That was a Linza.com video. It's actually just seen over a million times now. I saw Mr. Draplin tweet the other day. But there's so much, yeah, I know, there's so much other great Linza.com stuff. Like maybe, maybe, you know, as many of the listeners to this show, Brad, maybe you're starting your own business. There are so many people that we hear from that are doing this sort of stuff. And this is something that Linza.com can help you with. Or maybe you just want to improve your skills in your current workplace. Maybe you need general management tips to help you when leading teams. They have a great course on going paperless as well, which is quite interesting. So you can get rid of a lot of the pesky paper that you don't want in your life, you know, bills and such. You can use Linza.com's paperless course to help you learn how to manage all that stuff a lot better. Or maybe you want to learn a little bit more about getting things done. You know, we were just talking about productivity systems a moment ago. A very popular one is the GTD method. And you can learn about this from the man who created it, David Allen. Do something good for yourself in 2015 and sign up for a free 10-day trial to Linza.com by visiting Linza.com slash penaddict. Go ahead, I challenge you to learn something new in 2015. Thank you so much to Linza.com for supporting this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's a good point about the GTD system and that's something I need to go watch because even if you, the traditional GTD system is very hardcore and very rigid. But just listening and watching the videos about setting that up, you pick up a couple things, right, that you can use for your system. You don't have to be, you know, a hardcore GTD believer, but you can pick up one or two things that fit into how you work. And I think, you know, watching something like that if you're not familiar with it is a great idea. So that's very cool.



== Field Notes ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So our, you spoke about Aaron Draplin just a second ago and we had an interesting field notes that you added to the show notes, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, indeedy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this field notes stuff is starting to become a little funny to me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's getting a bit ridiculous, I think, in certain points.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think that's the word, ridiculous. I mean, believe me, I love field notes and praise them, but it's the, it's the chase of these rare editions that I'm starting to get, find the ridiculousness in. And so one of the links that came up this week was one of the field notes DDC factory floor editions. And these are really cool editions. These are something that Aaron, from time to time, will make them for personal use and then make a small run that he will eventually sell. Usually through the DDC shop, not through field notes. So this is one of the standard issue memo books that he made and it's numbered blank of a thousand. Well, the problem is it's literally numbered blank of a thousand. There's no number on it. So, oh my God, the field notes went, field notes went crazy. What does this mean? There's no number on the field notes, Myke. What are we going to do?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't find that ridiculous because that is kind of interesting because if you're able to get your hands on one of these ones, it's like super rare. I think the price that it's at is ridiculous. Yes. So currently, the current bid, this isn't like the starting price. This is the current bid of the 16 bids. It's $117.50. That's too much money, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So I have one of these. I have one of these.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't look and see what number it was. But it's a little crazy. I admit, I mean, I still would be in the market just for a sealed three pack of Butcher Orange. I don't know what I'd pay for that. I'd certainly have a limit just because then that would just, I would be done with it. But the non-colors editions, editions, I almost have zero interest in. I'll pick them up in my can. Like, believe me, I love the Starbucks Roastery Edition or, you know, like we got the capsule edition a few years ago or the XOXO editions. If we can get them for like a normal, reasonable price, yeah. But when it starts really hitting this aftermarket hard, I'm like, it's almost laughable to this point. It's such a big thing now. It's crazy. Who would have, who would have thunk it, Myke? I remember back in the day, I was offered $50 for my grass staying green and I was like, no, I'm going to use them. And I still am. And I haven't sold any yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know what's perpetuating this aftermarket. I don't know if it's getting worse or if it's always been this bad. But it's pretty, yeah, it's pretty, it's getting pretty out of hand at the moment.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting. I woke up to this link in my Twitter feed today, Myke, and I went to go put it in the show notes and saw you already had it in there. But there's this really cool field notes in CSS site. I guess our friend, Josh Ginter, had this up on the newsprint and it's from, well, we'll have the link in the show notes to get to this, but it's, show notes are at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 137. That's it. I thought this, I thought this was really neat. This is my kind of thing and I almost wish whoever did this, I think his name's Ben, would take the CSS field notes that he created and move them to individual notebooks instead of the fanned out look and that way I could use them for iOS wallpaper. Like the American Tradesman would be super sweet as an iOS wallpaper. I would like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, have you pressed down on them?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no. Press down on them. Oh, get out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They don't come all the way apart. They just fan out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How cool is that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's pretty neat.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I love that. So he did a really good, did a really good job setting all these up and it's all the way down to Ambition Edition so it's very cool. So yeah, like he says, a silly thing built by BMJT made with lots of help from other smarter people. But yeah, I would love to have because these are just very, very simple, plain colors and it would look good as smartphone backgrounds. That would be cool. That would be cool. So we'll have that in the link to the show notes for you to go check out.



== Kaweco Nib Unit ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now, I did a review today that a lot of people wanted me to talk about before I posted. It's for the 14-karat gold Kaweco nib unit. So did you know, we talked about these, how they were coming out, right, Myke? You were aware of these nibs?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It doesn't ring a bell.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No? Okay. Yeah, I wasn't sure. But I've had it. Kaweco sent it to me and a few other bloggers to test drive and it's a new part of their lineup. It's a nib. It's the small size number five gold nib that fits the vast majority of their pens. Not every pen, but it fits all the popular ones that we like, like Little Put, AL Sport, AC Sport, Dia, and a few other ones. So it's kind of like, you know, consider it like your Pelican, your M205, right? You bought it with a steel nib, then you upgraded it to a gold nib. Same type of thing. You just screw it out and pop the new nib in. So people wanted to know what I thought about it, so I posted it on the blog today, finally. And it's really good, as you would expect from a German gold nib. I mean, it's not the most special nib I have ever used in my life. You know, it's not some, you know, angel singing type thing, but it's really, really good. Part of it made me why I didn't like totally love it. It's a medium nib and that's the one nib size that I almost never use. I'll use Extra Fine, or Fine, or Broad and Up, but it's like right there smack in the middle, the medium I almost never use, it seems like. It's just not my, the line width that I like. The only real hang up with this is it's pretty expensive, I think, relatively speaking to other nibs. The good thing is that you only need one of these, in my opinion, because you just switch it out to the Kaweco pen you're using and that's how I use my other, my steel nibs. How much is it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' $100?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 120 euros, so it's about $140. Right. And they're not totally available yet, they're just starting, like Fanta Plumo has them and they're four weeks out from being ordered. I didn't see any other online shops that were actually selling this yet. So, you know, it's pretty expensive. I'd like to pay about $100, which is what I wrote in the, in the review. You know, I think $100 would be a good price, but, you know, it's $140. That's pretty high. You know, I can get a Lamy 2000 for that price, but it's also a very useful nib in the fact that you can use it in so many different pens and for such a fan of Kaweco as I am, that actually becomes pretty useful to me. I probably have six or eight Kaweco pens that this would fit and right now I only use two nibs between all those anyway. I use an extra fine nib or I use a stub nib that I had ground by Sean Newton and whenever I decide to use one of my little puts or AL Sports or whatever pen, I just decide which nib I want and, and screw it into the pen that I want to use. So, having one of these I think would be useful, but it's not going to be like a immediate purchase just because it's really expensive. looks pretty

'''Myke Hurley:''' with the brass that I put.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, so I played around decided which one I wanted to take the photographs with so that one worked out pretty well. So this is the two-tone nib. Right now it's only available in medium then they have the solid gold nib and it's available in the range from extra fine to double broad I believe.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Anyway, some people wanted to hear about that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know how we're making the worst podcast ever today, you know, like breaking all the rules and stuff. Yes. I have another rule to break. Okay. So I found a spelling error in your post.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, good. I like, oh, I just found it. I can't believe you said that. Approximately. Approximately.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I just happen to be scrolled right to that spot. Usually, usually these posts launch at eight o'clock and usually by eight oh five, I've got the spelling corrections in from the Twitterati. But that one's, that one's hung out there. Are you people not reading my post? What's going on out there?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I hadn't seen that one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So I, no matter how many times you reread these posts, something always sneaks through. You can only, only blind yourself so much with the text. So I will fix that after the show. Thank you, Michael. I always appreciate the spelling and grammar corrections. I'm not one of those people that, that tells people to go jump in a lake. I want you to tell me so I can fix it because I would be happy to have a normal looking post without spelling errors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I like this main topic, Myke. Yeah. So basically, you came up with this all by yourself. I'm so proud of you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My little boys

'''Brad Dowdy:''' all grown up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So today, Brad sent me a message and he was like, I, I know, I'm swamped. I need you to do this, to do the show notes, like to plan out the episode. And I was like, oh, I was terrified because I've never done that before, I didn't think. And I was like, I have no idea what to talk about. And then I kind of came up with a few, a few interesting things here, I think. A bunch of follow-up items I pulled in and a couple of topics, you know. I think I did a good job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Shoot, yeah. I was, I was raving about you, at least to you. I think that's a career

'''Myke Hurley:''' for me in this podcasting game.



== Show Notes Topic ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I, I think you've got it and yeah, you, you've got it good. So this topic, so out of the two topics you chose, one I had written down to add into the show notes, but this first one that we're going to cover, I think is a perfect topic and it's rediscovering an old pen. So tell the, I know where the, the story originates from and probably a lot of the listeners do, but why don't you give us the quick background on, on why this came up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So in case you didn't know, I lost the pen recently.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So you still have it, you still haven't found it, right? No,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know where it is. Okay. I don't really want to talk about it, but I lost the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I needed to replace the pen. Like this is the pen that I keep next to me all the time to keep, to write down little show notes stuff with, you know, as in like, oh, need to pull out this part here or we had an audio issue here. So I keep little notes about it with pen and paper because it's the easiest way for me to grab it and sometimes I can be writing the notes whilst I'm talking and reading, right? Because it's just like a different part of my brain doing that bit. So I just was thinking what should I go with and I looked in my lovely do-deck arrangements I have here around me, decided that I didn't want to use a Retro 51 because it brought back too many memories about the lost pen for the time being so I figured I would try something else. So I picked up my Twisby 540 ROC because it's one of the most beautiful pens that I own. Love, just love, love the look of this pen. I love that all the different colours and it's just a real, a real beauty and it's fantastic that you can buy this again I think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I've fallen back in love with it again which is, which is really interesting. So I had forgotten how nice it was to write with. I think I have a fine nib in this one so that's different for me, you know, for like, for fountain pens. I have mediums and fines and broads but I don't have a lot of fines and I really like it. I like that by now they actually have changed it. It's no longer the 540 ROC it's the 580 USA which I still want to get because that USA cap, man, that is super cool and I want one of those. Yep. See now I'm like I want two Twisbees now so it's like hmm, interesting. And what isn't helping is the fact that I've fallen back in love with this Twisbee again. I mean, I'd had a brief time there where I didn't want to, where I was kind of annoyed at Twisbee Sure. because I had some problems and the piston filling mechanism is really not ideal because these pens, they get really jammed up and I know they give you the grease for it but sometimes it's too late you know? Yeah. And I've had them like I had you know, I was doing some work on my girlfriend's Twisbee the other day and like basically the piece is like popped off on the inside so you have to try and be really careful when you're using it and you don't you know, that happens when it happens and sometimes you don't know it's going to happen until it happens but so I need to use the grease that it comes with to do that with but it's it's not ideal but I've fallen back in love with this pen I love the build quality I love the way it looks like the build quality I am the way it's finished you know, the way it feels in the hand I love the weight of it it's just interesting enough the nib is fantastic so it's a pen that I haven't used for a while and it's come back into solid rotation so do you do this? Do you kind of like you use a pen for a while you fall out of love of it or you move on and then you come back to it like you'd forgotten how incredible it was?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is absolutely a thing absolutely for sure I was trying I can think of a few that I that I go back and forth with like the pilot vanishing point for me falls into this category it's an all or nothing use for me when I use it I absolutely love every second with it it's great and every time I ink it up and if I haven't been using it in a while I'll remember how much I love this pen and why I love this pen so much and then you know just sometimes going through the rotation of pens you know cleaning them out and you know and getting in some new pens into the rotation and then I may not use it for a few months and then just all of a sudden it'll hit me like oh I haven't used my vanishing point and then I'll ink it up and start writing with it and it's almost like a relief you know it's like oh yeah this is exactly what I remember this being like and it's this is why this pen's so great and yeah this happens so I'd say the vanishing point for me is kind of that pen because I don't have it inked up all the time but when I do re-ink one up I realize that how much I've missed it so that's a really good one besides that one trying to think there's that's probably the primary one but to me this happens with inks for me too because I have so many inks and I know you're not you don't have the the ink collection that I do what'd you put in your Twisby by the way

'''Myke Hurley:''' I put Irojizuku Konpeki in here which is the blue because it's it matches the color of the pen so nicely

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yeah that's great so I have my Nakaya portable which is the first one I bought and probably my favorite and I keep I have all these fancy inks right I've got all these those Roshizukus and all these Ackermans and all these Sailor Limited Editions and just you know just stock full of all kinds of rare unique beautiful inks I went back to Pilot Blue Black in my Nakaya and I'm so happy you know it's such a good ink that I forget about you know it's one of the cheapest well cheap's the wrong word inexpensive inks that I own but it performs so well it behaves so well it's really pretty and you know I I had Sailor Yamadori which is a nice green it kind of matched my Nakaya you know I like I sometimes like to match my ink colors to my pens you know it's just kind of a overall feel type of thing and I got tired of that ink so I flushed it out and I was like what am I going to put in this and it just you know dawned on me Pilot Blue Black and I hadn't used that for months and months and months in any pen around at all and it's almost it's like the perfect ink for that pen and it's one of the most inexpensive you know non-fancy inks I own but it is so good and that's the kind of realization I had like this rediscovering thing so apparently I like Pilot a lot when I rediscover things I go back to the Pilots one of the pens I miss but it's not really a rediscovering is my Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with the PO nib that one I always miss but I'm always aware that that one's there that one never goes out of the mindset like maybe your TWSBI goes out of the mindset like do I even own this pen is it in my thought process or like the vanishing point with me sometimes it just doesn't exist you know because I'm using six or eight other pens and that doesn't exist the PO nib actually always exists but I don't use it all the time but when I ink it back up I always love it so those are mine and I think this is a really good thing so I'd be interested to see if the listeners had any other pens that they haven't used for like a year or two maybe not even that long maybe six months that they go back to and TWSBI is one of those pens too it's just always a good writing experience when I use it so so yeah I thought that was super good Michael way to go by you

'''Myke Hurley:''' so I was just I've just been saved money yeah because because I can't find the 580 orange AL in stock in any UK stockists yeah



== TWSBI Nibs ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' otherwise there'd be one on the way already I think I'm gonna have to jump on that bandwagon too so many of our listeners keep sending us those yep and raving about them yep I I haven't bitten the bullet yet but I keep telling myself the past few weeks that that's the that's the next pen I need to order so I'm gonna be on the lookout for that too and maybe pull the trigger on that in the next week or so

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I'm gonna put a little notify me when in stock at cold pens and cool I think I get in fine as well

'''Brad Dowdy:''' there there you go TWSBI's nibs are really good they're really straightforward on sizing like Lamy extra fine and fine nibs write very very wide I believe I think TWSBI if you get a fine nib it's gonna write what you mentally think a fine nib would write like so that's why that's one of the reasons why I I talk about TWSBI so much just because of how just how good they are I mean I know there's definitely some maintenance issues with them but you know it's just one of those things but awfully good pen

'''Myke Hurley:''' yeah I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one of those wanted it for ages and keep kind of putting it off putting it off but I haven't bought myself a pen in a long time

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yep

'''Myke Hurley:''' this might be a nice nice little addition

'''Brad Dowdy:''' all right so we got one more kind of very interesting topic that we alluded to earlier so I want to get to that but let's talk about our good friends at Squarespace

'''Myke Hurley:''' Squarespace are the all-in-one platform that make it fast and easy to create your own professional website portfolio and online store and they are back again to support the pen addict podcast for a free trial and 10% off visit squarespace.com and enter the offer code INC at checkout Squarespace start here go anywhere when it comes to giving yourself a place on the internet to put your wares to put your sight to put your thoughts there's nowhere better than Squarespace they put all the power that you need into your hands and take away all the stuff that you don't want to have to worry about like hosting scaling or what to do if you get stuck with something this is because they have their great support so if you get stuck with anything at Squarespace you can get in touch with their great support team they're available 24-7 for you with live chat and email they have teams located in New York City Dublin Ireland and in London who are there to help you when you need it I mentioned about putting your wares somewhere what about Squarespace's commerce platform that allows anyone to add their own store to their site they have that rock-solid fast hosting that I mentioned and they're great page building systems so Squarespace is built on top of this page building system it's called a WYSIWYG page building system what you see is what you get and this basically means that you develop you build and you customize your Squarespace site with drag and drop tools with little you can select oh I want to have this font this color and as you're making all the suggestions and you're dragging the sliders and changing the colors and changing the fonts it's all happening in front of you right next to the selection you've kind of got like 75% of the screen and then 25% of the screen 25% is all your controls and the other 75% is your website updating for you in real time and you're building on top of their beautiful templates they've added a new 15 fantastic looking templates to Squarespace 7 they all feature responsive web design it means it's going to look fantastic on your iPhone your iPad or on your desktop machine too they've partnered with Getty images as well so you can cover your new website with fantastic imagery for just $10 an image you will not find prices like that elsewhere Squarespace have done a great deal with Getty and they want to do that deal for their customers if you sign up for a year with Squarespace you can allow yourself a free domain name as well which allows you to give the name that you want to your website Squarespace's plan starts at just $8 a month you can sign up for a free trial right now with no credit card required and start building your website today by going to squarespace.com and when you decide to sign up make sure that you use the code INK that's going to get you 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the Pen Addict podcast thank you so much to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Real AFM Squarespace start here

'''Brad Dowdy:''' go anywhere you know that code INK I see people using that they tweet me that they use that you know at least once a week it seems like I'm seeing something about that so we really legitimately appreciate that guys and gals for using our codes and working with our sponsors for this show it helps keeps us going and it's really awesome to see you guys using these tools and loving them as much as we do

'''Myke Hurley:''' indeed

'''Brad Dowdy:''' one quick thing before we get into this next topic the Greg 82 in the chat room mentioned that the Philly Pen Show is this weekend so I know we're gonna have a bunch of people there a bunch of listeners and readers of the blog there so I want to see all your wares so take us some pictures and let us know your haul from the Philly Pen Show this weekend and maybe we'll talk about some of that next week alright Myke if it's not well known that we have a problem with pens it's pretty clear we have a problem with notebooks too so I posted a photo on Instagram I was doing some reviews this weekend and I was going through my backpack getting a bunch of pens and notebooks out then I realized in my backpack my dome my topo mountain bag I had five notebooks that all had what I consider active notes things I'm actually using and I once I put them all out on the desk I was like what am I doing and then I realized you not too too much later I think you said you have this problem too so tell me what you're what you're using your notebooks how many you have going right now or what what do you have going on do you have a do you have the problem that I'm having

'''Myke Hurley:''' of course I do currently I have on the go I have right next to me I have an arts and field notes these are all field notes by the way for me I have an arts and sciences edition which is sitting right next to me here which I use to keep the show notes so it's where I take my show notes and all the information that I'm writing down as I mentioned earlier that I'm doing with my Twizby is going in there then we have another field notes we have one of the factory floor editions that is where I'm keeping notes of this new project that I'm working on I'm keeping some notes for that in there programming notes and interviewing notes and that kind of thing so everything's going in there for that one I have a pale lager drink local which is my general meeting on the phone you know like type notebook so I'm like I'm having a call with someone we're talking about sponsorship or we're talking about a show or talking about an idea or something like that that's where that notebook that's where all that stuff goes into and then in my bag I have a one of the luminous green exposed editions that is my kind of like on the road notebook where I write some stuff down and I also have one of the new notco notebooks in there as well although I've yet to work out a use for it so that's kind of me at the moment that's how many notebooks I currently have on the go I have a couple of notebooks in my bag in my topo bag but then I haven't got any notes in them

'''Brad Dowdy:''' okay so why are you carrying those just in case back up just

'''Myke Hurley:''' notebooks you know break in case of emergency you never know emergency you know new ideas new projects can't dare write in the same notebook more than once so you know

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yep so I have that I do the same thing I'm giving you a hard time when I do the exact same thing so let me go through my notebook carry right now so I have my notco dot dash notebook that's my inbox notebook if you will so that's the kind of one of the like the omni focus or GTD theories like there's a place where you just capture stuff and then that stuff usually gets audited and moved elsewhere into things as you need so I use the notco notebook for just general capture whatever like I had a night just like just some random idea the other night and I just wrote down this random idea in there or I'll put the show notes in there or like the show planning stuff in there I'll put down other project planning I'll put down sketches it's just kind of the catch all inbox book so from there if I need to elaborate on something so say something out of there becomes a project that's moved into the field notes day game white red edition I use that for projects that are kind of active in short term if you will so that's like I did all the planning for the field notes ranking edition podcast episode I'm sorry that we did in that book so that took a few pages of planning to put that episode together and get all my notes down for that and then longer term project stuff has been going into the Midori Travelers and this is a whole episode in the making because I can't figure this book out the Midori Travelers notebook I have just the black leather cover and I have two inserts ever since I got it people have been hitting me up tell us about it review it do something with it I I can't yet because I don't know what I'm doing with it I it's one of those products that I cannot explain I love it so much I want it with me all the time but I don't use it in a hardcore fashion that it deserves it's super hard to explain but I actively use it for like long term projects like the three questions post that I do on the pen addict I keep a list of you know who I've gotten to do it who I would like to do it you know that's kind of the running list of the people I want to do that project and I don't I have that in there instead of



== Email Reminders ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' having the people that have had the email in their inbox for 11 days and haven't done anything about it

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do I do you have a special you have a special little special little mark next me

'''Myke Hurley:''' what are you talking about

'''Brad Dowdy:''' so but I do that for the longer term stuff because I don't want it in necessarily a memo book like the knock book or the field notes book because those I feel is more temporary books right those if I put something in there and I fill up that notebook that notebook is going to get shelved and unless I digitally scan it or remember exactly where I wrote down these notes they're going to be harder to find for me so I put that in a more I don't know if the the larger size of the Midori makes me think that's a more permanent home for my notes I don't know so the Midori is something I've got to figure out because I I'm enamored with it but I can't figure out my usage of it it could be like kind of like the one and only notebook although I'll obviously never have that because the problem is and you have this problem too is I like so many of these products I want to use them right you know it's not you know that we're just doing this randomly you know it's like oh this is cool I want to use it so we use it the dome paper the large utility book that's kind of like a scratch pad I keep that on my desk a lot that goes that sometimes sometimes for a couple days stays on the desk I'll do a lot of ink samples I'll do a lot of like pre-review pen testing it's kind of my pen testing notebook kind of things like that and then the field notes roastery edition is the book I want to use but I haven't figured out how to use it yet so it's got blank pages right now except for the back page where I did some ink testing on which I do and a lot of new notebooks the very last page of the notebook I'll just scribble some stuff because I don't want to I want to test it out first see how I like it and then but I don't want to deface the first page of the notebook with just junk so that's my notebook that I'm carrying that I'm not using yet but I gotta find a way to use that book because it's really cool so that's uh that's my problem so the issues with this are the overlap you know my field notes day game and my midori what I use both of those for could be consolidated into one notebook I believe um kind of short-term projects and long-term projects like the midori you can carry multiple notebooks in right so I can have a short-term project notebook and I can have a long-term project notebook and even the midori you could add in a third notebook and that could be my inbox so that's kind of a almost a system where I feel that the field notes and the memo books the other memo books don't and not memo books that I'm using they're more temporary right they're fleeting the ideas and they're fleeting and then then when they get elaborated on into a bigger idea they go into a more permanent home so that that's kind of my thought process on all this do you have um do you find yourself searching through different books for different things are you pretty locked down to those usage like you had defined usages for your notebooks right do you ever find yourself searching for something I thought was here but it's somewhere else

'''Myke Hurley:''' those usages are good enough like they're locked down enough and I don't I don't burn through the notebooks either so like pretty much if I'm looking for it and it's in recent memory it's going to be in the current one you know because obviously the problem that you can find is you either never know where to look because it's like I now have this stack of notebooks who knows which one was for this purpose and which one was for this purpose but because I have the because the usages are split in such a way that it means that no notebooks going to get very quickly used it it works quite nicely you know

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yep yep so Mikey react in the chat room says how do you decide which field notes to use when you finish another off I need to start another field notes tomorrow so the first answer is the first option is always the newest one the newest colors edition so if I've have another notebook and another field notes in progress when the new colors edition comes out that's obviously going to be my next choice now in the case of this last colors edition I started using the ambition edition and didn't love it so I wanted to use something else then I try to pick something rare is not the right word but unique you know I don't want to just pick a craft notebook or I don't want to just fall back to the last edition I want to pick something that's really going to interest me and be kind of cool that I think is kind of cool for myself to use it makes me want to use it more makes me feel better about myself carrying it and you know I like carrying around this white and red day game edition just because you don't see it a lot and it's one of my favorite single editions so that's why I went with that one so but you know I have plenty of unused notebooks I could choose from a lot of them but I tend to go back if I'm not using the current edition I'll go back several editions and that ends up being kind of a rolling thing right you know you know a few months from now you know maybe I'll use you know an unexposed you know late this year because I haven't used it one in a while so it kind of goes through that do you have any rhyme or reason on why you choose any any of the books like field notes to use

'''Myke Hurley:''' again if it isn't new maybe I already have one in my mind that I want to use you thought for whatever reason I'm like oh I want to use to drink local because I haven't used one of those in a while or I'll just start digging through and find out what sort of what like what takes my eye like what what takes my fancy next time and I'll just pick one of those up you know

'''Brad Dowdy:''' and I will say what's funny is I tend to go for the colors edition ones I almost never pick one of the like the off editions you know the sponsored branded editions I guess is what I'm trying to say I don't know why I I've got no rhyme or reason for that that just hit me it's like almost never pick one of those I almost pick some older colors edition so yeah so interesting but we're not alone in this problem our friend Jeremiah on on Twitter Jim can't I think he had when he saw my post about causing myself problems with all these other notebooks he has 11 currently in use that's a little extreme like I like to say a lot no problem detected but you might have a problem there Jeremiah you might need a you might need a pen intervention so but I'd be interested to see I I can see a lot of people using like three notebooks when you start getting up into like five and six and more I'm wondering what you're really using those for so I would be curious to hear that so you know let let Myke and I know and maybe we'll we'll cover that more too and see what other uses people are having for for these notebooks as we go through go through the future episodes so we'd like to hear it and I think I think that's it I think let's let's tell them how to get in touch with us and give us all this information and we'll call this a

'''Myke Hurley:''' show if you go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash one three seven you'll find the show notes for this episode along with some other links and you can get in touch with us if you want to send us an email there's a great link there you can just tap the button and it will do that or you can find us on Twitter I am at I Myke I M Y K E and Brad is at Dowdyism D O W D Y I S M Brad is pen addict on Instagram and I'm I Myke on Instagram as well I figured it was an interesting crossover there I think that's a you know people yeah I think people would like to know that

'''Brad Dowdy:''' absolutely and of

'''Myke Hurley:''' course Brad writes the fantastic pen addict dot com we'll be back next time with another episode of the pen addict podcast thanks to Linda and Squarespace for helping us out with this week's episode until then say goodbye Brad goodbye

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Brad

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