Editing The Pen Addict 576/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 576
| title           = We Had Ourselves a Trip
| date            = August 9th, 2023
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/576 Episode 576]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_576.mp3 Audio Episode 576]
| length          = 50
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 576. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the bunged up Brad Dowdy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Woo, Myke. Hello. We had ourselves a trip. How are you? Oh, I'm very good, thank you. I'm excited about today's episode.



== Post-Pen Show Experiences ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' But you got the conference crud, huh? I did, I did. So, I came home Sunday from The Pen Show, feeling good. You know, throat's a little tired as, you know, someone talking constantly for like two days straight is expected. It's like, oh, this is normal, feel good. Sunday felt good. Monday morning felt good. Got up, got a bunch of work done. Had plenty of stuff to catch up on, got some work done. Then about 12 o'clock, the truck hit me, right about noon. I was like, oh, this is not just my throat being tired anymore. You know, started getting fever, chills, all that stuff. I was like, oh no, here we go. Here we go. So, felt really bad Monday. Took a COVID test, negative. Thankfully, still didn't feel good at all. Tuesday, tried to stream. Failed that miserably after about 10 minutes. Decided that was a terrible idea. Went straight back to bed. On Tuesday, took another COVID test on Tuesday afternoon. Also negative. And I feel like I'm finally coming out of it as of Wednesday morning. Don't feel great, but I'm feeling mobile. So, I think that's a start. So, feeling a little bit better. So, hopefully, we're on the road to recovery. But this could be a, you need to have your editing pen ready on this episode to mark down, mark it down. Mark down all the coughs, cough breaks.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm using a Bungu, the Bungu Box 4B as my editing pen today, which feels like a very elevated editing pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is, oh, that's such a good pen. It's a fantastic pen. That is such a good pen. Well, luckily enough, I was able to run across lots of good pens myself. I'm sure you did. This weekend at the Washington DC Pen Show, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I, big, big, big jealousy, you know? Like, this was one where I was like, you know, I thought a little bit like, oh, that would have been fun. Like, San Francisco, like, oh, that would have been fun. Seeing pictures from the DC Pen Show and reading your kind of review in refill, I was like, yeah, I actually should have been in this one. Like, I feel like I made a mistake in not planning to be there because this seemed like it was an excellent time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will say, not to inflate your ego much, a lot of people asked about you. So, there you go. That's enough ego inflation for the day. That's all you're going to get. I'll live on that one for a week. Yeah. Lots of friends and fans were there asking, when's Myke coming back? Where's Myke? So, that was very good. So, you want me to get into it? You want me to do a bit of a recap here? Um, just to paint the overarching picture of how this conversation is going to go, this is, it has to be, by any measure, the biggest pen show I've ever been to. Okay. Just in a number of vendors, number of vendor tables, and attendees. And this is me without having, like, any attendance numbers, right? Like, I don't know how many people went through the gates. But, um, tables-wise, it was 446 tables there, physical tables. Um, and I'd say, you know, probably, I don't know, there were a handful of empty tables. You know, there were some last-minute cancellations, things like that. But, you know, this was, this was full. Three separate rooms full of vendors. Um, attendees-wise, it just looked, it was, Friday looked like a Saturday, right? At any pen show, uh, even if you've been to, like, some of the smaller pen shows, even Atlanta. Like, on Saturday, it gets busy for a while, right? And the aisles get crowded. Well, that was, that was Friday at the show. So, I knew Saturday was going to be crazy, too. So, um, just a quick, um, this is not an airport podcast, but just a quick shout-out to ATL and DCA, Washington National. Super smooth travel, uh, getting in and out of both airports. I actually, uh, DCA, Washington National, is, is a very nice airport. I'm really, uh, that's a, that's a top-tier airport. Easy access, easy to get in and out, good food options, uh, good layout, good places to sit, so. This episode is brought to you by Brad's favorite airport. How about, how about, can we get, can we get flighty? Is that the, is that the big app?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the best app.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. We can get flighty sponsorship incoming, all right? Okay. I'll do some, do some travel, travel bits. Um, so I got there, got to the hotel. Again, very easy. I was, I was on the show floor before one o'clock, um, on Friday, which is great. And seeing how busy and packed it already was, like, literally walking in the hotel with my suitcase, I was like, oh man, am I even going to have enough time to do everything? I was already panicking Friday. It's like, wow, this is big. This is a lot of people. So, um, I went and registered at the hotel, uh, for the show, got my badge and stuff. And then I went, um, immediately to work, right? Like I wanted to kind of check a few of the things off the box that I mentioned on last week's episode. So the layout of the show, it's such a big show, right? Well, I said that many tables, they're not all contained into one physical room. It would just be impossible. Um, so there's three main areas of the show. So the main ballroom and the two hallways that are on the exterior of that ballroom, right? So it's like a big open rectangular ballroom. And then like an L shape, um, for your hallways areas around the outside of that ballroom. So that's one giant space. Um, definitely 200 to well over half of the tables are in that area, right? Probably, probably two thirds of the tables are in that area. And then the second room is a very oddly shaped room with a weird table layout that kind of worked. Um, we'll, we'll talk about in some of the, like the negatives, like the pros and cons. There weren't many cons, but like the layout of the second room, um, needs some work just because it's an, it's not like it's, it's an amoebic type shape room, right? It does. It's not square, rectangular, triangular, just kind of like, blah. And so they just kind of blood all the tables in there. And it was just a little bit weird. Um, and then the third room. So those rooms are in close enough proximity to each other to be like kind of, uh, not quite linked, but pretty, pretty close to it. And then the third room is down the hall to, I guess we'll just say to the right, but it doesn't matter which direction. So down the hall away from the first two rooms and it's the smallest of the three rooms, but it's a traditional, you know, rectangular shape. I liken it. It's about the size of Atlanta's big room in the back of the hotel, um, space for the Atlanta pen show. It's like a big rectangular room and they kind of positioned registration that direction. So you would make sure to see that that room exists.



== Venue Layout and Changes ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So I'm looking at the, the, the map that's on the website and like this room wasn't there when I went, they had the like main room with the hallway, then that like the little offshoot room, but this is like a whole different room. What's kind of funny to me, like on the map, on the website, it's not, this one isn't even on it. You have to like select a specific thing to see it, which is really strange. But I have.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is kind of funny. So what this room, what this room is, I don't know if you remember this. It actually took me a minute. This is where the old restaurant was. Oh, that restaurant. So that restaurant is not there. So like, you remember waiting in the line to get into that? Like that's this room now. It is now like a ballroom. Okay. Right. So, um, but it was cool. Like it was, it was a good room as a good space. So, but it was off to the side and they did a couple of things to try to drive traffic that way. Again, like they put registration down that hallway towards that room. So that room, you know, after registration, I made sure to go there first. Right. That's also where Galen leather was. And a few other people that I wanted to see there. Um, so we'll come, that's just the general layout. And y'all should go click on the links. If you're just interested in hearing me talk about the size of the show, because I'm probably be referring it to it back and forth because I spent a lot of time traversing the hallways of the hotel, going back and forth, bouncing back and forth to these rooms. And you'll see why in a minute. So I knew Friday, like I kind of had to get things done. Right. So the topics we talked about on last week's show, right. I want to get a monoconib. Right. So I made sure to go see Ian. He was in the second room to go see Ian first. After I kind of walked around the room three for a minute, kind of, I was looking for a Eunice at Galen Leather. It didn't seem. So I figured I'd come back later. So I traversed the hallways back over to the second room, ran into Ian over there and picked out my monoconib that I finally wanted to get. Um, since it was Friday afternoon and he was already hopping, like this was literally where I like, I still on Friday afternoon, I was already having to wait to get like, to, to be able to like, get up to the front of the table. Right. Like I was waiting for people to finish their shopping or they're, they're talking with Ian and learning about the products. And then I could, uh, get up into the front of the table to where I could pick out my monoc nib because there's so many different finishes on these nibs. Right. So you kind of look through the trays and things like that to pick one out. So I did that. We'll talk about the exact products later. So I got my nib, picked out a pen to go with it. And then I, in the same room was Tom from sugar turtle studio, who was also at the top of my list because he had some show inks that he co-produced with diamine. I wanted to make sure to get that. And then he had mentioned to me separately that he was dropping a new Rickshaw collaboration. And it was a Sinclair with this, with this great pattern. Again, I'll elaborate on a lot of these products later. We're going to do a whole pen show hall section. So the point of me doing this is saying I started going down my list of things that I wanted to do really quickly because I knew it was going to be busy. So I did those two things. Those were the one and two on my shopping list and one and two were checked off. So I started to meander over to the main ballroom. And that's when I ran across my friend, Jacqueline from pilot who heads up their, their fine writing. Division, I believe. And she asked me, he's like, Hey, are you going to do our, our fountain pen writing analysis that we had, that we brought to this show? I was like, well, I'd heard of it, but I didn't sign up for it. So what they were doing is they brought some of the R and D department from Japan from pilot Japan. And they had this whole setup with a laptop and a pen that was wired and like a pressure sensitive plate. You would do this writing on and what it would do was would measure all these different. Um, it would analyze all like your, your handwriting flight based on your writing angle, your pressure of writing, the angle you hold the pen. It was kind of wild. And I really, I'm glad that I did this and I'll have some pictures of all this. Like I said, I've been sick since I've got back. So most of the things we talk about, I will have links to, but I don't always have pictures to things yet, but they will be coming. So my writing pressure was actually lighter than average, which I did not expect. So I've always had kind of a heavy hand when writing, but with a fountain pen, you know, that does help with writing pressure a little bit. Um, my writing angle, Myke is at 53 degrees. Congrats. So slightly, maybe slightly, maybe upright. I don't know, something like that. And I actually have an inward angle. Like I actually twist the pen a little bit, uh, 11 degrees. So like all of this is on this printout, right? And it was just kind of cool. So I got to do that, which was neat. And that was, uh, that was fun to see everyone's measurements throughout the show. We were talking about them at night and things like that. So that was nice. Um, and then I decided, well, I haven't made it into the main ballroom yet. Pilot was still, uh, outside the main room and I still wanted to see Eunice. From Galen Leather. So I trucked it back over there to room three and he was in there, but the room was so packed. I just like kind of turned around and went back. So that's kind of how it was going, right? This was Friday afternoon and the show was absolutely slammed. I was like, well, he's super busy. Like the aisles are packed. Like I'm not even going to talk to him. So now let me roll back and check out another thing that I mentioned last week. I wanted to meet, uh, Salvatore from Leonardo, the CEO of Leonardo, who we've talked very sparingly over several years since Leonardo came into existence. And that table, and this is a recurring theme was absolutely packed, right? They had like two tables. So it wasn't like a big spread and everything they brought was kind of unique. And they brought like a bunch of one-off stuff and people bought some really neat, neat Leonardo's there. So he was very busy, but I did finally, uh, get to spend about five minutes with him, talking to him, super nice, really enjoyed, uh, hanging out with him and, uh, and then let him get back to work because they, I didn't even see him on Saturday. Like it was so busy, right? Like again, recurring themes that we'll talk about a lot during the show. So at that point I had really kind of knocked out my list. Like I have to do these things. And I did that on Friday, which I don't always go into a show with like a, as direct of a list as this. Um, but I did, and I'm glad that I did because these are the things I did not want to miss. And, you know, I felt like, all right, like I'm good. Like I've got everything I need for the show, got everything done that I needed to do and spent the rest of Friday. Again, like I had four hours on Friday from one to five and, you know, that just took a bunch of the time just doing these things. So I didn't even really browse around the main room. I completely miss the external hallways. Um, you know, my friend April from plotter, I saw her in the elevator going up after the show Saturday night and our Friday. And she was like, where were you? I was like, I couldn't even make it over there. Like it was so busy and everything was going on. Like I didn't even get to parts of the show on Friday.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's good though. I think, I think so too. Like if, if you're going for a weekend, this was always like my thing with pen shows. Like this is a problem if you're going for a day, right? I understand that. But I think a lot of people that listen to this show, they're traveling in for a show, especially the one like this size, right? I feel like there's probably most people are traveling in for it. But I don't know, maybe we'll just send like a random thing. But it's this one maybe feels a bit different, but if you are going, you're traveling and you're going to stay over. If you see everything in the first day, it's like, it's less exciting for the following days. I feel like if you get, if you don't get to see everything, like every place you want to go to, like, I actually think there's a benefit in that because it like, it reinforces why you came for the weekend.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's exactly right. And now, like when I call this like the biggest and busiest show, like some people will take that as a negative, right? Or like, I'm not even necessarily saying it's a positive. It's just, it's kind of like a statement of fact, right? Like it was large and it was packed. And that is not for everyone. That is not the experience that a lot of people want to have. But I was thinking about it from not even an attendees perspective, but like I was happy for the vendors because there were so many people there and hopefully the, and hopefully they had good shows. Like I hadn't even had time to like check in with everyone, but everyone seemed like really positive, right? Having that many attendees there. But like, I could understand where, you know, that might be a huge turnoff for people too, right?



== Personal Highlights and Purchases ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So Friday was kind of my personal, you know, checklist day, get all the things done that I need to do, buy the thing that I wanted to buy, see the people I wanted to see and didn't want to miss. Saturday was kind of my, my work checklist day, right? Like this was the time where I took to learn about the show. Hey, how is, how is the, having all these big crowds, you know, for all the vendors, do they like it? Do they not like it? Is it a challenge? What are the pros? What are the cons? It was also a time for me to spend with new vendors, right? That I haven't seen before. Maybe only seen their work online. Like there were a ton of makers at the show, pen makers that I haven't seen in person before. So I wanted to check out their pens. There were a lot of people that traveled from Europe or Japan that I haven't seen at pen shows before. So I wanted to see them. So that's mostly what Saturday was for me. And it was also, you know, I bought a ton of stuff on Saturday, but I was thinking of it more as, Hey, this is my exploration. These are things I want to review for, um, the blog. You know, this is a lot of that type of thing that I was working on Saturday. Like what, what do I need to pick up to review? Um, what do I need to learn more about? And things like that. So it was a really good Saturday. I felt despite the crowds, like I had time to do everything I needed to do. I had time to help some friends out with different things at the show that they needed, right? You know, spend time to say, Hey, I need this. Can you help me find X? And we would go look. And like, I had time to do that. I actually had time on Saturday to leave the hotel and eat lunch with some friends, which I never, ever do on like a Saturday pen show day. Right. Because especially with me leaving on Sunday and as huge as this show is, I felt like really good. And I was like, I got asked to go to lunch and almost just like out of habit, I would say no, because I feel like I'd be missing something from the show and like the limited amount of time that I have. But I said, yes. And it ended up being like the perfect refresher in the middle of the day to step out for an hour, hour and a half and spend time with some friends, eat a great lunch and come back and take in the rest of the show in the afternoon. Like it was an absolute joy. It was actually a highlight of my trip that I took a break in the middle of the day, Sunday, Saturday and left the hotel, which I would have, I like, I'm still shocked that I said yes, because that is, I'm usually more worried about, can I get everything done? I need to do right. I'm not here tomorrow. I got to get it done. And given the size and scope of this show, I just went for it and I was so happy that I did. So it really worked out. So that got me to the end of the day, Saturday. And at about three o'clock, I did like realize like, okay, the show closes at five. I'm not going to be here tomorrow. Let's finalize exactly the things, what I need to do. And that's when the people I talked to earlier, I'm starting to get the, hey, are you going to be here tomorrow? And I'll say no. And then be like, oh, okay, come see me before you leave. And then after about five of those, I'm like running back and forth from room three to room two to the main room to three to two to one, just on and on. Like the last two hours of the show, I was like the literal Tasmanian devil, just like spinning whirl whirling dervish. Brad was just all over the place. Hey, come see me before you go. I was like, okay. And I did it. I like, I got it all done, but it was, it was right up to the gun. So it was, it was a great show. It was super positive. Like the feedback, just the general feedback of the show was really good, right? The hotel, like they did a good job, right? The staff was very nice. Anytime I had a staff interaction, it was great. The hangout areas at nighttime or during the day were big enough to handle as many people as they had at the show. Like it was, you know, the rooms were good. The facilities were good. You know, you had your standard expensive hotel food and beverage pricing, but like, that's not even a knock. That's just like an expected thing, right? The bar was, would get pretty loud at night because it was like a hard tile floor and a low ceiling there, like right under the bar area. But there was plenty of room to roam and spread out to get out of the, the actual volume in there because it was always crowded at night, which was great to see, right? It was good, good hang.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, the food challenges weren't as bad as I remember them being before, right? There's no walk-up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just abysmal. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a hotel. So terrible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So that was kind of not much of an issue anymore. It wasn't great, but like at least the, the offsite access, you couldn't, it wasn't walking, but you had so many choices like within five minutes that we could just take a car or the, even the hotel had a shuttle to like one of the main like shopping districts with tons of restaurants.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The show floor, there were a couple in, in the second room, they're going to have to make some adjustments in there. I think it was too crowded. Um, not all aisles were wide enough. Like some of the aisles did not have like good wheelchair access, which is important, right? Like when you get crowds on top of like your layout, like with, if the layout before the crowds isn't good for wheelchairs and then you add people into it, you're, you're asking for trouble. So I think there needs to be some reconsideration on the room to layout. Um, the wifi was tough until I got on the conference wifi, which they gave everyone the password to. Um, some people may not have realized that though, that they had access to the conference wifi, which was shockingly good. I couldn't believe it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But if you didn't have that, it was so good because nobody was using it except you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, you were good. I was actually, I was, I happened to be walking some by someone. I can't remember who it was. And they had like their speed test going and it was like, it was like 30 to 40 down. I was like, Oh, sweet. Like, that's amazing for like hotel wifi. So, um, that went great. I, I didn't hear like any vendor feed, like very negative feedback issues from like vendors where like there was a consistent running theme of like, this was terrible. And like, I didn't get that. Like, you know, there were a couple of, uh, you know, just random, Hey, you know, table issues, location issues, but like, that's your standard fare for any shows. No matter the size. So like, I don't know. It was the, the vendor list itself, like who attended the show from a vendor perspective was like a plus level. Like there were so many people there that I'd never met before that I got to see. Like, it was just a really cool, positive overall experience. I was, I, I mean, I can't, I've never spoken this highly of a DC pen show probably since like the old hotel days. And that even had challenges of its own back in the day. Um, so it was just a real positive experience overall. And, um, I, yeah, I look forward to, uh, I know Kimberly's going to do her, her write up of the show. She was there all day Saturday and hopefully got time to talk to some more people than I did. And, and we'll put together, um, her recap on the Friday, but wow. Like I got to meet so many cool people at DC. That's the other reason I go. Um, I like the DC show given the proximity to the, the epicenter of our government, you get to meet people in very weird jobs. Um, there. So always at DC, I'm remembered at, at how weird some of the jobs people have in that area and like getting to talk to them about their jobs and getting invited to go check things out. You know, if I ever have extra time, like, like, you know, stuff you don't normally get access to. I was like, Oh, this is pretty cool. So like had some fun stories from learning about people's different jobs in the area, which, you know, uh, is always pretty cool thing. So, I mean, it was a great show. Like I have, I've never felt so positive about a DC show in my life. I've never talked so positive about a show in my life, a DC pin show in my life. So, um, I'm glad that was the case this year. You know, is it always going to be the case? Who knows? Um, there's definitely some things that need to be tweaked, but I think. They've kind of hit their stride in, um, in like just the size and the scope of the show. And, um, we'll, we'll see, we'll see if it continues. I hope it does because I think in, in general is very positive.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, look, as, as the saying goes, Brad, right? The thing about a pen show is it's not about the experience. It's about the pens that you met along the way. And we need to talk about those. But before we do, let's take a break and thank our friends over at pen chalet for the support of this episode. If like me, you're sitting here and you're like, oh man, I want to go to a pen show. We'll just go over to pen chalet.com. And you can have your own pen show in your own front room every day of the week because they have all of the products that you're looking for from your favorite brands and they have the best prices that you're going to find. Every month they're running special discounts. They're also adding new products. Every couple of weeks, in fact, they're doing this. They're adding new styles of products new from new brands and new things all the time. Whether you want a fountain pen, a rollerball, maybe you want some inks, a mechanical pencil, maybe looking for a carrying case, some accessories. It doesn't matter what you're looking for. They have the products that you want from all of the brands that you expect and maybe some that you've not come into contact with before because they have such a huge catalog over at pen chalet. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the United States and they sell internationally with really great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee along with their very fast and reliable customer service. So take yourself over to Pen Chalet right now. Go to penchalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict for this week's special offers. And to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet, Pen Chalet is running an inventory reduction sale this week. And what that means is really good deals. So you want to go over and check those out for yourself. Is there anything jumping out to you, Brad?



== New Product Releases with Pen Chalet ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I want to talk about two new releases that we don't talk about enough with Pen Chalet when they drop new releases. And given it was Pen Show time for me, it can be Pen Show time at home with the Leonardo Aficina Italiana exclusive Bohemian Twilight Memento Zero Fountain Pen. How's that for a title?

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is quite an... Oh my... It spans the entire webpage.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, it does. So this is an exclusive for Pen Chalet in collaboration with Leonardo. So I had obviously a great time with Leonardo at the Pen Show this weekend. And you can get this very beautiful exclusive Leonardo here at Pen Chalet, which is just a knockout. As well as the Navalur Decade in the Desert. This was Pen Chalet's 10th anniversary recently. So they had Navalur make a couple of pens with the beautiful, beautiful materials for you to check out. What have we got? Cactus Skies and Sedona Sands. It looks like the Sedona Sands is already sold out. So you might need to jump on those Cactus Skies there at Pen Chalet. Now, as far as discounts go, if you look out on their page for the podcast, if you scroll down a little bit, the Platinum 3776 is making an appearance. That's not one you normally see listed, but it's a really good price. It's a really good percentage off. And you definitely want to check that out. That is one of the most popular pens going and a great deal over at our good friends at Pen Chalet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. Go there right now. Hit the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password, Pen Addict. You'll get the code you need to save on 10%. You'll get some special offers. And don't forget to check out Pen Chalet's inventory reduction sale for some fantastic deals.



== Shout Out to DC Pen Show Attendees ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke. Let's do our shout out of the week related to the DC Pen Show. My friend Candice, a.k.a. Inks and Anchors on Instagram. I had put them in the show notes to give them a shout out because I got to see them at the DC Pen Show this weekend. Spent a lot of time with them. Had dinner with them and some other people on Saturday night of the show. And then, lo and behold, I'm looking, getting my links for Inks and Anchors this morning. And they dropped this wonderful selfie picture in the Inks and Anchors Instagram feed of us staring down at the phone on the floor with myself, Aziza, Drew from Goulet Pens. It was just a really silly picture that I love so very much. And I thought that was cool. And I wanted to shout them out because they are one half of the Gourmet Pens podcast, which I have shouted out on this show before. And I wanted to give Candice her flowers. And because Aziza has enough, right? So like Aziza, settle down. This one's about Candice. And I don't want to, I don't want to need DMs from you on this. So shout out Candice. Inks and Anchors. Great seeing you this weekend. Should we talk about stuff, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, baby.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't have like a stuff record, right? Like I don't keep track of what comes home with me at pen shows because I am in the enviable position of saying, hey, I can buy this for me. And then I also have this other separate bucket of, hey, I can buy this for work. So on the me list, we talked about the Monarch, right? From Shown Design. I put in a picture on my Instagram of the pen barrel that I ended up with. And I linked to Ian's website with the Monarch nib variant. Like each one is kind of a different anodization pattern. So one of the links, I don't know, I'll have to find it. So it's just like mine's kind of a gradient pattern, pink at the tip and then into like gold, blue, and then back to gold and purple. It's really, really pretty. So I got one of the gradient Monarch nibs. And then the pen barrel is not directly on the site right now. I don't know if it's a newer model. But it's a kind of a, it's a black base with just like this swirly, bright anodization. I put a link in my Instagram to the barrel and the anodization has a gradient from pink to orange to yellow. And it's just kind of like if I was going to go get the flashy nib, like the Monarch, I was going to get a flashy barrel like that. It doesn't, it doesn't take much for me to get into the flashy stuff. The one thing I did want to do with the Monarch nib is get a grind on it. So I did on Friday afternoon, Gina was really close to Ian's table. So I asked them Friday afternoon, hey, do you have anything for a nib grind on Saturday? And the earliest appointment was 430. And I said, yes, please. So that was good. I got a journaler nib grind on my Monarch nib. So I've written pages and pages of notes with this nib so far. It is fantastic. I'm really, really enjoying it. I'm glad I finally broke down and bought one. So that was my list. Now, the rest of this stuff is stuff that was either given to me or that I bought that I'm going to use for reviews, giveaways, you know, comparisons, all kinds of stuff. So our good friend, Jonathan Brooks gave me two of his Charleston model pins because he is working on a smaller diameter barrel for this pin model. So that is something he showed me in Chicago. He just had a couple of them and he's had the time to make a few more. So he gave me one of those to review because he knows that's my preference, where my preference lies. And it's still like by no means a small pin, but it's a little bit narrower diameter diameter. So I got one in Brooks materials and I got one in Fountain Telling materials, which is his daughter, Kristen, who also has their products listed under the Carolina Pin Company website. So look for those soon. I'm going to give some feedback on those and do a review and maybe even a giveaway. Hint, hint, wink, wink. I also got the Penquisition Touchstone in purple and teal, which is, this is my friend Evan's collaboration with Ben from Gravitas. I think it came out great. I really like the bright anodized colors. And yes, I did choose purple over the orange, but there are no wrong choices. There was orange and blue and red and each with a different color section. And I really, really like the feel and size of this pen. They did a great job. So look for that soon. I did pick up on my, referring back to last week's episode, Studio Agakon, Agakakon from Turkey. I wanted to check out their pens. They had two or three, they might've had three tables full of...

'''Myke Hurley:''' There are so many accents in the name. Like, you know, you're saying it wrong, right? Oh, no chance. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, it's wrong when you just see the letters, but when like there are multiple accents, there's like, well, there's 100% I've pronounced that incorrectly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Without question. So like I talked to, talked to Eunice at Galen Leather, who is from Turkey in this studio. Agakakon is also from Turkey. And I said, oh, you know, I'll tell Eunice, oh, I bought a pen from, from, from them and he'll pronounce the name. And I was like, yeah, I've got no chance of like duplicating what you just said, but yes, that's exactly right. So I think I ended up with the model called WP2, which is just a shape, right? It's just standard tapered in shape, but I got this really neat yellow and green ebonite and it's really polished exceptionally well. And they did, they had pre-ground nib options for you to choose. So I look forward to, this is, this is the part of the show where I don't have some of the images of the exact product that I bought just because I've been sick for two days and haven't even gotten out any of this stuff from, from the trip to photograph yet. So you'll see some pictures coming up later and y'all are going to really like this one that I picked up from them. It's really, really beautiful. And I got a fine stub grind on one of their nibs. So they have, they use Yovo nibs and they had some pre-ground nib options there. So that was really good. Mayfair pins. So I'd never met Ben from Mayfair before and I'd seen his pins all over Instagram and I wanted to check them out knowing that, Hey, maybe this grip section isn't for me, right? We've talked about this a lot in the past on how I choose to review products. And a lot of times I will choose a product to discover, you know, do I like what their design features are? And I picked up the Vanyar model from Mayfair pins. And I think in this image, I'll link in the show notes in the Instagram, my exact pin is the furthest on the left model. I can kind of match up the swirl on my cap. I think I'm going to end up really liking this pin. So it's a very tapered pin towards the grip section and it's a little bit wide and it's a short cap and it's just so cool looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is so funny shape, right? Like it's a very peculiar shape, like almost where, when the cap's on kind of can't tell which side's got the nib on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have tried to unscrew the wrong side.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It doesn't completely like track, which is not a criticism. It's just different. Exactly. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's exactly right. So that's why I like going to the show because I've, no matter if I've seen these online or not, like it's great to be able to feel this in person. Right. Will this work for me? So I decided there, it's like, yeah, I think I will at least, uh, I'll, this will work. So I bought one of these to review. So this will probably be like a review and giveaway type of situation later on down the line.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like hard work to make this pen. I was thinking the same thing. There's, there's two different materials, but the middle section is, is the odd one out. So you've got like three sections, right? The, the, like the cap and the back of the pen, I wouldn't even call it a finial because it's like quite a large part of the pen is one material and you've got something in the middle. And like to, if you get it to get all lined up, it feels like, like to get the seams all lined up feels like it'd be very hard.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And like, I can just tell like the finish and like the craftsmanship is really, really good. It's a good looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I really liked the look of these pens. These are really interesting. I'm fascinated. I'll be fascinated to hear what you think of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, um, this one's very cool. Oh, so apparently, so now that I'm actually reading the model about the model that I got. So this is two materials, one from turn pin co and then that's the swirly part. And then the center section is from storm winds who made the, the sparkle pin that I got at the Baltimore pin show. So very cool. Nice collaboration there. So I will have a lot to say about that pin once I get around to reviewing it, which could be a while. Um, one of the, again, another new person I met literally right next to Mayfair pin. was Alex from motor city pins. So he is a young pin maker, uh, literally and figuratively. So he's been doing this for about two years. I think he's 17 is what he told me. Um, and he just started making pins last year. So I was over there just kind of looking at what he had and he had this group of just like standard flat looking material, uh, pins, just like green and blue and purple and red. And they just like these standard torpedo shaped pins. And he's like, Hey, check this out. And he breaks out like a little hair, like a little mini hairdryer and turns up the heat on the hairdryer and puts it on the purple pin and it turns green. So he made, he made a thermal shift material that he can make pin from.



== Unique Materials and Show Highlights ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So this is his material that he came up with. That's probably the thing of the show I'm expecting that everyone was like, Hey, did you see the change color?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I shot this little video on Friday afternoon when I saw him, I was like, Oh, do that again. And let me video it. And I put it up on my Instagram. And like later on, like I saw him like the next day, he was like, what just happened? So you got down. We had a little panic effect on him. And by the end of the day, Friday, I went back and saw him. He was just like, thanking, thanking me so much. He had one, one left. And he's like, here, just take this one. So I came home with actually like the red one that kind of turns into orange, which is kind of perfect. So I'll play around with that. So he had hopefully had a really good show. I really enjoyed his exuberance and just delight at, you know, what the internet can do for people. So that was really, really fun to see. So, and just, and his standard pins look great, right? Like he just, he did a good job. He is very inquisitive and it was nice to see him surrounded by all these other pin makers that he was just going back and forth with and helping him out. And, you know, I talked to our friend, Jim Hines, who had, you know, said he's been helping him out over the last couple of years, whenever you ask questions. So it's great to see this community of pin makers all support, supportive of each other, especially when someone new and young comes into the fold and to just, you know, take them in under their, under their wings and help, help him along and making the best products possible. So it was cool to see. Um, over at sugar turtle studio, I got my inks. Which were great. So we have, uh, Diamine wet turtle and turtle belly, and there's like a green one and kind of like a pinkish one ink from Diamine. But what's really cool is Tom had some Sinclairs, um, from Rickshaw with his, his Tom's popular rainbow pin patterns all over the case. So I've, of course, got a, got a couple of those to, uh, to give away and share with, uh, with everyone. They're just, I love Tom's work and I love the, uh, I love all the bright colors and the artwork. That's all his, all his design. It's just really cool, fun stuff. So we'll have a link in the show notes to all this stuff. Um, speaking of Rickshaw, I think Mark Dwight was the first person I saw when I walked in the hotel, like I'm wheeling in my bags and Mark sitting right there and he's like, Hey, I got something for you. I was like, Oh really? And he has a new release coming out on the 14th. What day is that? Monday? Maybe something like that. So there is a Rickshaw retro 51 collaborative release coming out. Uh, Cigaya, the, the Cigaya waves pattern that's so popular that you see a lot. This is a, the cases are like a dark blue denim, but the pen is like this beautiful silver with the wave pattern on there. This is again, something I need to take pictures of that I haven't seen. I have a pre-release. He actually gave me an artist proof of the pen and it's a knockout. I think everyone's going to like, uh, like it. It's kind of like a brushed, a brushed silver with the waves pattern, uh, just engraved in there. It's a complete knockout is going to do really well. So we'll probably talk about this next week when it officially launches, but I have a pin sleeve and a Sinclair case in the matching pattern. And the pen itself is just really, really cool. One of the better retro 50 ones I've seen in a while. Really great texture. Um, uh, on the pen, I'm actually going to swap in a blue refill to that pretty quick. Seems like it will go right with the waves. So that'll be a fun one. So look for that coming on August the 14th. Um, so I packed, uh, I planned a half suitcase of my carry on to contain anything. I came home with Myke. So a roller board size suitcase with half of it completely empty on the way out with the goal to manage that accordingly on the way home. Um, except I was not counting on the two box, two pin boxes I got from NFP. So this was another one I mentioned last week that I wanted to see. And, um, I had a wonderful conversation with them and came home with the block in orange. And it's a six pin, um, lacquered box in orange. It holds six pins. It's kind of like, like a hinge hinge top. It's really, really neat, really nice and beautiful. And then I also received a tile, um, which is how many pins does the tile hold three or two? Um, but it's called the tile because, um, the, the wife of the owner creates these artwork discs that go on there, like a ceramic, uh, glazed, uh, discs that go on the top of these boxes. So I got one of these, um, coming home with me. So I'll be, uh, reviewing them, uh, coming soon. They were super nice to meet, um, had some great translation help from, uh, from, uh, one of, uh, Eunice's friends there. And we had a really, really good conversation about these products. So I really, really looking forward to get these and I had to have them ship home. So my good friend, uh, John Tello from Hello Tello studios, uh, offered to ship me these boxes cause he needed to send me something anyway. So, uh, these would not have made it home in my suitcase. What did make it home in my suitcase were three pin rests from Toyota craft. So the Hinoki blue is a really neat, um, neat color that Toyota craft started doing like last year or earlier this year. So it's this blue finish, like a blue stain on the wood. And I bought the, I bought three pin rests, uh, one that holds one, one that holds two and one that holds three. So I bought three pin rests for those. Those are going to be good giveaway items. They're just really, really beautiful. I love the blue finish on those. And I know, um, uh, Toru from Toyota craft had another really, really big show. So I got to spend some time with him on Friday, um, and talk with him and he was just, uh, yeah, he, he was feeling pretty good about how Friday was going. And then I don't think I saw him the rest of the weekend. He was very busy, very busy. Um, and last up staying on the blue theme, which, uh, apparently was my thing, uh, this year, the Galen leather, um, launched an ocean blue color to their leather, one, a new dye color. And it's a really pretty teal. They don't have any pictures online yet. And again, I have not had the time to take any pictures yet, but I know these were very popular at the show. I had a bunch of people showing me these, uh, you just wanted to make sure I saw them. He gave me a six slot case to take home with me and review. So you will see that coming soon. And, uh, yeah, like it was, it was really great. Um, there's no way I covered everything that came home with me on the show. That's what I wrote down. I have not even finished. I, I unloaded my suitcase into a shipping bin that I use when I take things to the post office and I have not even gone through that yet. I just, uh, have not been feeling well. I did this, uh, finally this morning, um, before the show, I was able to like physically go through the box. So look for my Instagram to pop off later this week with pictures of all the things that I've talked about today. And just to recap, it was great. Right. Like usually the DC pin show comes with some kind of caveat, right? Like it was big. And if it was a vendor, like I made up a lot of money, but you know, the hotel stunk and the show promoters were screwed up all kinds of things. And just, you know, there's all kinds of caveats. I've got nothing this time. And for the DC pin show, that's a real positive, right? Because it is so large in scope and so heavily attended. Like I could see like lots of challenges. There's lots of opportunities for things to go wrong. Um, and I don't have any caveats to drop this time about the DC pin show. And that's, uh, just as, as high a recommendation as I can give, right? Like it was, it was really smooth. It went, went really well. And, um, yeah, there's of course things they could do a little bit better, tweak some things here and there, but it was an overall very positive experience. Even though I came home with the crud, I'm not going to put that on the show. I'm going to put that on me. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's onwards and upwards from here. I'm, uh, more, I was a little bit nervous going to it. I was like, Oh, is this really going to be just annoying and a hassle? But it wasn't, it was just completely awesome. And, uh, I'm very thankful for everyone. I met there saying hi, all the friends I got to see again, uh, all the vendors I got to meet for the first time or, or talk to for the hundredth time. It was still just, everyone was smiling, having fun, having a great show. So, um, very much, uh, happy with how this DC pin show turned out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I look forward to hearing more about all the products that you bought and, uh, yes, thank you for getting through today's episode. Everyone appreciates it, especially me. I know it was hard for you today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So yeah, I'm actually feeling pretty good. Like by the time we got to the end, well, I thought I would be in the ditch by the time we got to the end of the show. I'm actually feeling pretty good. So hopefully we're on the rebound and I'll be good to go tomorrow.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you want to catch the links for this week's episode, there are a lot of them, uh, with all the products that we've spoken about. Uh, you can find them in your podcast app of choice, but they're also over on the web at relay.fm slash pen addict slash five, seven, six. Thanks to Pen Chile for their support of this week's episode. If you want to find Brad's work online, go to pen addict.com or spoke design.com. Brad is also pen addict on social media. He, uh, also streams three times a week usually, but except this week, except this week, uh, over at twitch.tv slash pen addict. You can find me. I'm at I Myke, I M Y K E. And you can find my work at cortex brand.com. We'll be back next time. Until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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