The Pen Addict 628/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	628
Title:	Stuffed Out
Release Date:	August 21st, 2024
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 628
Audio File:	Audio Episode 628
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 628
Length:	4747 min <br />0.783 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 628. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens and Enigma Stationery. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the birthday boy, Brad Dowdy. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Brad. Thank you, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. It's early morning on my actual birthday, so I'm getting the birthday wishes are flowing in. So I appreciate that and I appreciate everyone saying hey and happy birthday. 25 years old. Could you imagine? God, can you imagine? Can't believe you did it. I actually don't even want to imagine what I was doing at 25. I'm so old. It's like, that's a really, really long time ago. How old are you today, Brad? I will be the big 53, Myke. I can't believe you're in your 50s. I just can't. We just spent time together, which actually, people can go to the show notes and watch. Just a truly incredible movie that my friend Ian put together of The Relay 10. You made me cry so hard. So hard. You said such wonderful things about Relay and things that I understand where you're coming from, but I just think you're wrong. You've always been a star and you've always been destined to do everything you wanted to do. We didn't help you do anything. It was just a new website to put the pen addict on. But you said beautiful things. And people will see you in full living color there and they will also marvel at the fact that you look like you're in your early 40s. So I don't know how you do it. But if you bottle what you have and sell it, Brad, then you'd be doing better than just pens. Let me tell you that. You want a funny old person anecdote that I just had in the past couple of weeks? So this will make me sound old, but it's really not playing pickleball. It was known as this old people's sport when I started it, but it's really the whole vibe of it's gotten way, way younger and tons of young people play now. So I played in the tournament the day after I got back from Stationery Fest that whole weekend. And I was playing. My wife couldn't play. She had to work. So I played with a younger female partner. So we have to play in the under 50 category. So like the 35 to 49 people like you have to play. Your average. Your younger partner. Yeah. Yeah. So I had to play with the youths. And so anyway, we were in the finals. We made the finals and we won. Spoiler alert. One gold medal. Shout out Marnie, my partner. Anyway, we're playing this final. We'd already been playing for hours and hours and hours to make the final. So everyone's tired. And the people we're playing against are just whipped. Like we can tell they're tired. The female partner, we're playing mixed doubles, came up to me. She's like, how are y'all not exhausted? She goes, Brad, how old are you? You know, thinking I was going to say like I was like super young, like because I wasn't I wasn't looking tired. Right. She goes, Brad, how old are you? And I was like, I'm 52. And she went, oh, F off. Just walked away. She was probably like 45, you know, 42. That is the way that people react. Because like you have stayed so young physically and mentally. And it's always incredible for me to say you. You are a role model for me. Yeah. Somehow, somehow that keeps happening to me. But that was a funny one. We just got a big huge kick out of that is she was not expecting that answer. She wanted me to like commiserate with her exhaustion. And I was like 10 years older than her. Well, congratulations on the gold medal. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It was another one in the trophy cabinet. Another one in the case. So yeah, it was good. But yeah, congratulations on the 10th anniversary video. I too cried. Ian did such a great job. It was really fun to be a part of. And I was I have, I think I've watched it twice now, just because I like hearing what everyone says. I enjoyed Casey's bits about, you know, starting the network, like what was it, four or five shows and just like reading about listen, listen to him talk about that. Like that was pretty cool. So yeah, enjoyed it and enjoyed it thoroughly. So I'll have a link in the show notes for y'all to check out. So he recorded with me and Stephen, like an hour each, like an interview. And he's putting that together. And he's going to put that on his channel later in the week too. So nice kind of us, the two of us reflecting on a couple of things, which was like reflecting on the kind of the company's history. But then also, we were reflecting on the 10th anniversary show, which hadn't happened at that point. So gotcha. Yeah, that's right. It's interesting time capsule. I think it's why I was so incredibly emotional in the part that you saw. Because I was at my end. We recorded the day before the live show in the morning here at Mega Studio. And I was like, I was hanging on there. Yes, I was around you a lot for the two days leading up. And yes, it was on for sure. It was on.
• Anyway, enough of that. Speaking of exhaustion, there was a Stationery Fest video put up, a recap video done by Yoseka Stationery, Daisy and Neil, and that just came out like last night or something. So I just wanted to point everyone to that who was at Stationery Fest, curious about Stationery Fest, reading the typo of Stationery in the Google document, which is so annoying. So that was my aside there as I was correcting it while we were talking. But I think the big question, everyone wants to know, one, how did it go from their perspective? So they talk a little bit about that. But number two, is there going to be another one next year? And they don't know yet. And I think that's a great answer. It's like there is a lot to take in from that event. You can listen to our show last week and my recap of it. It was pretty intense.
• Aside from being like mostly positive, right? It was a great event. I loved every second of it. But there were some, you know, obviously some pros and cons that we talked about. So I think it's good that they're just not going ahead and diving in headfirst and saying, hey, here's the dates for 2025. Like it's a lot to manage this. This is like why I don't necessarily want to run my own pin show or anything like that. It's like I don't know that I could handle it as well as they have handled it. So anyway, there's a link in the show notes. They just posted that video. I watched it this morning and it was good. So TBD on Stationery Fest 2025. I mean, if you read between the lines, it sounds like they're leaning towards it. They might need a bit of distance from the pain. Yeah. Yeah. Because as we talked about last time, it was not flawless, right? And like maybe if it had gone flawlessly, it would be easier to just be like, yep, we're doing it again. But now they might maybe maybe there's things that they want to consider, maybe location and stuff like that to make things easier. So, yep. Yep. So if you read between the lines, I think there will be another Stationery Fest. I just wouldn't, you know, hold their feet to the fire that it's going to be next year. So we'll see. We'll see. I will certainly be paying attention because I had such a, I had one of the more, I'm still thinking about it, right? Which we're going to talk about San Francisco, a pen show. I'm leaving tomorrow to go to San Francisco for a few days for the pen show out there. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But I haven't relived in a Stationery event like in the ever, except maybe some of our early Atlanta pen shows where we did the podcast as much as I'm reliving Stationery Fest and still thinking about my experience there. So there'll be a lot more talk on that. Let's hit one of our newer favorite topics here before we get into it because I'm also going to not stop talking about this product that you would like to discuss. Yeah. The Leuchtturm Drogafell.
• Is that how we say it? Yeah. I mean, I have a tough time with this one and I haven't gone back and just listened to the replay of the pronunciations over and over. So, yeah, I'm a little, it's definitely, we're definitely not saying it correctly. Sure. But I think everyone knows what we, we need a nickname for this pen. I mean, that's a little bit unfair to like just go ahead and call something. No, we can do it. Leuchtturm Drogafell. Drogafell. Drogafell. It's kind of a little bit of, I think it's a bit of a buzzy pen right now because of its design. It's very, very cool, very retro design. And I think the best thing that they do is they offer it in like just a ton of great colors. And I picked a few of the pencils up because I'm becoming a bit of a mechanical pencil guy in my old age. I love this so much. I know. And so they add like a bunch of fun colors and I'm working on a project and these would fit quite nicely with, I think. So I bought a handful of these, like three or four of them.
• And I kind of want to think of my thoughts on it. I've been using it for about a week or so. I think the design, the visual design, just five stars. Couldn't be any better. Like visually, this pen is, it's S rank. Like the colors are incredible. The way that they, you know, the furniture, like the kind of the mechanism and the grip are always this gray. But the gray works so perfectly with all the colors that they offer. And the colors are so good looking. Like it's not just orange or it's not just like green. There are good shades of those. Like they've not even gone for the primary color kind of representation for a lot of the colors, which I like. The mechanism is really nice. It's a twist. So you twist it once and it, like it releases the lead. What do you call that?
• That's always a hard word. I just say extends for a pencil. It extends the lead. It's like you twist it once and it springs back. So you keep doing that and the more you do it. So instead of like clicking, you like twist, twist, twist, twist. So it's like a twist in then a snap back. Yeah. Yeah. There's no eraser, which is not the end of the world, but I do like it when there's an eraser, but there isn't one. The place where this pen drops down for me is the grip section. It doesn't feel right for me. I think this is quite light. The pencil is quite light. Even though like the body is, I am expecting it's aluminum.
• It is. Yeah. But it's very light overall, the pencil. And I think the lightness of the pencil combined with the very, very narrow, slick grip section, it's not as comfortable to use initially as I would want it to be. And like every time I pick it up, I have to kind of adjust a little bit.
• When I do, like after a little bit of use, it's fine. But like if I compare it to my first love, the Mark III, it's so different. Like the Mark III is very natural. And I think what I have realized, and this also is the same from my Rotary 600, which I love, I think especially with a mechanical pencil, I do not want a tapered grip. I don't know why. But I think for me, it's much more comfortable if there is more kind of body to grab onto than the way that this pencil tapers towards the end. Okay. But it is, it's great. It's, you know, I would say it's maybe like B tier for usage and S tier for design. So I would give it an A overall. I think this is a really nice pencil. Like if you look at it and you're like, oh, that's really good looking. Like maybe you want to pick it up in lilac, which is just like stunning. You should do that. You're going to have a good time. But I do think that it takes a little bit of kind of getting used to when you first use it. Because it, you know, it's a relatively small pencil too. Like it's not, it's full size, you could say, but it's slight. Well, it's shorter because it doesn't have a knock in a racer extension. Right. And I would also say the body of it. Like it's, you know, it is quite small. And so the, you know, that grip section really gets very delicate. So maybe you would like that, you know, like maybe that you hear that and you're like, oh, perfect. That's what I'm looking for. You know, like I could imagine this being excellent for a bag, right? Because it's also so lightweight. But yeah, I really, really like it. But I, all I wish to set that grip section was a bit chunkier. So where do you, do you grip it on the facets or do you grip it on the smooth, on the cone section? It has to be on the smooth section. Half and half. So you're that low. Maybe half and half. But like my, the majority of my grip is going on the cone area. I could not grip it on the facet area. It's way too far away from the, like from the lead itself. I would feel like I was, I don't know, waving a magic wand around or something. Sure. Sure. So a few things just on the design. So the front end, so basically the nose cone and the tip, like the brass tip, are like straight out the 1950s and 60s, right? This was the common taper design of that front end when mechanical pencils were starting to gain popularity. And that shape is generally the difference between a mechanical pencil and an engineering pencil, which like you're rotating with the straight barrel and the clearance and the other pins that you like with a straight barrel. So even not, I'm not counting the Mark III, that's a different, that's its own, its own design. But I'm talking about there's the front end taper pencils and then there's the straight cylinder pencils with more of a needle tip. And those are fall into like an engineering classification. I tend to prefer those two with the straight cylindrical round barrel because you can get pretty low. So you can, where you're gripping this pencil is where you would grip like the bottom of your Rotring 600, right? Yeah, which I never do, you know? Right. It gives you that spacing that you're looking for. Just something you mentioned, which is interesting.
• The, on the pencil, the, I don't know, the very end of the grip is aluminum. It's not brass.
• Yes. So. Yeah. Yeah. So on the, I was actually looking at it. I was actually looking at my, my pen, which I had my hand with and it's the yellow brass, but it's probably steel. Yeah. I've, I've, it's on their webpage. So the pen is brass and the, the pencil is steel. Yeah. So the second, second comment was on the weight. That's also where the engineering pencil comes into play. The engineering pencils are designed for tip control, right? The engineering pencils are designed for a good visual on the page and tip control for detailed drawing. So that's why a lot of those will have a metal grip section and a plastic or a lighter aluminum barrel above it. So where this pencil is just one, just like flat weight, if you will, there's no balance anywhere. It's just airy and light, which one of the most famous mechanical pencils ever is the Pentel Sharp series. It's kind of the same way as this one. It's a little bit more front weighted, but it has a better taper. So your fingers can go lower without hitting a ridge. It's like a subtle taper all the way through the barrel, at least up until the middle of the barrel. Well, this has like a screw on front end to a flat barrel. So I think there's a couple of like things that you're describing, um, like fall into the engineering pencil category. And I think we'll do, we'll do a whole episode on this. Maybe in the fall, someone has actually asked me to do, to revisit the mechanical pencil. Uh, conversation because I love them. You're becoming a big fan of them and clearly I have a lot to say about them. So, um, on the Dregerfell itself, I agree with every assessment that you've made from design and functionality. And that kind of rolls it over to the pen itself. Like I'll eventually review mine here pretty soon. I think it's an S tier design. That's why I wanted this pen so much. And I bought, I have the gel refill one and I have a ballpoint refill one. And I prefer the ballpoint one. Um, just from the refill perspective, I think the refill, the gel refill they chose kind of drags it down a little bit. But as someone who listens to this show would know, you can change out the refill. These are Parker style refills. You can get a better gel ink refill in there if that's really what you want, which would elevate this pencil to like pretty solid, maybe like a upper A tier or lower S tier. Um, the designs are great. I got the chance to build a bear, um, Dregerfell from a friend sent me a picture, um, a retailer. I, I, I have to say unnamed because I don't know if this is going to be like a thing in public, but they have the opportunity. Lloyd's term does to set up in store, build your own Lloyd's term Dregerfells. And I got that opportunity virtually and I built one, we'll put in the show link to the show notes. I built a vintage Bic looking one, which I love. I love so much, but you can, this pen is designed where you can have the barrel, the front nose cone and the back, uh, twist mechanism, uh, as three separate parts. And you just put them together. So like this pen is tailor made. You can see by everything that Lloyd's term is made for this pen already is like, Oh, we can just make all these wonderful colors. Well, hopefully they will let people do some of the stuff in store. Like Kaweco is doing the DIY thing at brick and mortar retailers. Hopefully Lloyd's term does the same thing too. So I think, I think that would go over really, really well.
• Do you have anything more to say on this?
• I don't think so. I'm just going to hold it to my review. I love this pen. I've used the ballpoint almost religiously for the last week. I don't love the gel ink refill. Like all my initial assessments have been staying the same. Like I'm pretty, like I could tell immediately everything about this pen and I don't think that's changed so far. So, um, what I want to do before I review it is swap out the refill and, and just see what options I have for that and make sure that goes well. But otherwise I would choose one of the ballpoint models quite, quite personally, but I'm, I'm a ballpoint fan. And I know a lot of people do not like ballpoints and that's totally fair as well. So this episode is brought to you by our friends at Ooni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company, letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your own home. Ooni Pizza Ovens can reach up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit and cook pizza in as little as 60 seconds. This high temperature is what will separate the pizzas you'll make in an Uni from what you can make in a conventional home oven. Ooni Pizza Ovens are incredibly quick to heat up. You'll be ready to go in just 20 minutes. That's enough time to just get your toppings ready and start getting your dough ready. Whether you love an authentic wood-fired flavor or the convenience of cooking with gas, whether you want to cook with wood, charcoal, gas, or even electricity, there is an Uni oven that will fit your needs and lifestyle. If you're looking for maximum portability, Uni have designed ovens like the wood pellet-fired Fyro 12 or multi-fueled Karu 12G. If you want the convenience of having fueling options, you know, whether that be gas or wood fire, that's where the Karu line has got you covered, you can cook with wood or charcoal right out of the box. And there's an optional gas burner as well if you want that flexibility. Or you could go for electric. That's what I have, the Uni Electric Volt 12 Pizza Oven. You can make pizzas indoors and outdoors. It just means it's even more, in my opinion, like absolutely completely versatile. I can cook it whenever I want. I can make wonderful pizza. Uni ovens are for more than just pizza though. They're excellent ovens. You can cook fantastic burgers, wonderful sizzling fajitas, buffalo wings, and so much more. If you go to the Uni app, which I really recommend, you can check out the Uni app. They have tons of recipes in the app and like information on how to best make the best pizza you can. But they also have recipes for all kinds of things like desserts and stuff that you can make in your Uni oven. And they also sell at Uni cast iron cookware, pizza peels, thermometers, all the accessories that you'd want to level up the cooking you're going to get with your Uni pizza oven. As well as groceries too. So when we want to have a pizza party at home, we'll make sure that we have all of our stuff from Uni. We even buy dough from them. It's incredible. Uni pizza ovens start from just $299 and they have free shipping to the US, the UK, and the EU. And you can get 10% off your purchase by using the code PENADDICT2024 at checkout at uni.com. Uni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your own home. So go to OONIUNI.com and use the code PENADDICT2024 and you'll get yourself 10% off. Thanks to Uni pizza ovens for their support of this show. Quick OONI notes. So when I was in Brooklyn, I didn't get the opportunity to hit the top tier places. All the recommendations, right? I was just tired. I was tired and looking for convenience. So I found this pizza joint right around the corner from where I was staying. And, you know, they have like the traditional like brick oven pizzeria type of thing. And pizza was great and fantastic. But I'm sitting there eating and they have a big OONI sign like in the pizza shop. And I was like, what is going on here? They have pizza making class and they use OONIs for that. So it was pretty cool. The restaurant's called Macoletta. Like I can find a link here for you. But it was just really random and a really interesting thing from Uni. But I think that they're probably involved in like some of these pizza making classes. So, yeah, if you see those out in the wild, like check them out. Let us know. Very, very cool.
• All right. We got our shout out of the week, Myke. Shout out of the week. White Bear Pens. So, Michaela, who I first met at the Atlanta Pen Show three years ago, something like that, has started making their own pens. She's getting out to pen shows, makes wonderfully vibrant designs and fun shapes and fun materials. So she's learning. She learned pen making. She learned resin casting. And she was interviewed by Caroline at the Pen Addict for our Meet Your Maker series. And y'all should all go see what Michaela's up to because I think y'all are going to really, really enjoy her pens. I've enjoyed the ones that I've had so far. We have a review of another one coming soon that I've recently sent to Sarah. And then I will see Michaela at the San Francisco Pen Show, which is this weekend. So, which we're going to talk about here in a little bit. So, go check that out. Shout out Michaela. Shout out White Bear Pens and really, really fun stuff over there that y'all should check out. I have a surprise topic. I saw that. I am very interested in what you're about to say. I have some first impressions on the IA Writer notebook. Yeah, let's go. So, I was very surprised about the packaging of this product.
• So, it arrives in a box. I open the box and I see like a paper sleeve with another box inside. So, I open, like I take the sleeve off and I am treated to a wooden box.
• I open the wooden box and there is the notebook wrapped in tissue paper. I open the tissue paper and there is the notebook with like a dust jacket, kind of half dust jacket on it. Sure. Wait, like I looked at it. It's like, look, I have enough understanding now. I think half of the cost of this thing is the packaging. And I'm not complaining. Incredible packaging is amazing. But like, I can see the amount of money that has gone into the packaging. Because they have, also like the box is plain on the outside. But on the inside, they have like the IA Writer logo like branded in it. So, it's like it's heating. You know, like when you kind of like you can brand it in the box and you burn it a bit. But it's like looking at it, I'm like, this is an incredible experience. But boy, there's a lot of money that's gone into the packaging for this product. And like, I'm not, I'm not sure that much of this needed. But yeah. You're going to get me on that. My packaging kick. It's awesome when you see it. But like when you're actually a maker and understand like how much more you're now charging your customer for this experience. That is one time. Yeah. When they're going to be using the product, in this case a notebook, hundreds of times. Yeah. I feel like if you've gone over 10% of the cost of the product, you've really got to have a conversation with yourself. And you can still do it. But you've got to really think about what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They seem to just go overboard. They were completely overboard on the packaging. I genuinely don't understand a scenario where they didn't. First of all, I would say the book is thicker than I expected. In all the imagery, and especially with the way that they have it, I thought I was getting a three pack of like thin notebooks. But it's actually one thick notebook. This was a me thing. But like the imagery that I've seen of it, it just doesn't look like it's a thick notebook.
• And here's my feeling about this.
• Adequate.
• That's my overall feeling. At best. Adequate at best. The paper's just not good for me. I don't like it. It doesn't feel particularly nice with any pen I used. It was fine. Interesting.
• Like good for pencil, good for rollerball. I didn't like it for fountain pens. The paper has quite a lot of texture.
• I'm finding this so interesting. I do not think that this product is worth the money for what you think you're getting. It's beautiful. And as a piece of art, it's one of the most beautiful notebooks I've ever received. And I'll say like their line thing, it works. Like it's actually quite a cool idea. Like it works. Yeah, I'm in on that. When you see the lines, they're very faint and you can use the lines like lines, but they're not in your face. As somebody who doesn't like lines on paper, really, I actually think this is the nicest implementation of a lined notebook that I've ever used. But I just don't find the paper to be very – I don't feel like the paper is good enough for the money I spent on this notebook.
• Right. And I got sent – someone who reads the site sent me their review of this product.
• We'll put a link in the show notes. I shared it in refill this weekend. It looks like their site might be down for a second. I'm trying to pull it up.
• Essentially lines up with what you're saying. The paper performance is – I think it – I don't want to put words in their mouth, but basically peaks at average, kind of like what you're saying. Right. This is very average. I'm going to have a tough time using fountain pens on this, which that's okay. Like it's okay. Like not every notebook has to be for fountain pens. But it's just not quite there in the expectations of people who use a lot of different notebooks and tested a lot of different things. The paper doesn't seem to be quite up to par to that. And especially – I had higher hopes for the paper because they're a Japanese company. They market this as using the small traditional Japanese characters, which that's how a lot of the good stationery got built in the first place, right? It was because they needed certain types of products to manage the type of writing that the Japanese were doing.
• And I think it – I obviously don't have one. You do. I can't totally speak to it. But it does seem like it falls a little bit short for the price. Would we have a different opinion if it was $35?
• I am honestly not sure that we would.
• No, because the thing for me is like I don't – I'm never going to find the paper to be what I'm looking for. And it's just a shame that it's so expensive because of that. Like that's kind of how I feel. I was just – The idea is so good and the presentation is absolutely top tier like in every possible way you could imagine. But it just didn't really feel good with any pen that I used on it. Like it wasn't for me good enough. And like maybe it is built around a specific type of implement that is fantastic for writing in kanji or something, right? Right, right. But I mean I – it was like it worked fine. I used like my Mark III, my Mark I on it. It was like this is fine, right? But that was kind of how it was just fine. It was – it's quite textured, the paper, which I don't like. That's not what I'm looking for. But there was more texture in it. Like honestly at first I'm like am I writing on the correct page? That was my – that was what I first thought of. Like am I writing on an end sheet or something? Sure. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if maybe what they did to it changed the chemical composition of the paper, which you'd be surprised how easy it is to do that. Yeah. I don't know if maybe they've treated it in such a way to get what they're looking for from it. I don't know. But it's just – it's not a winner for me really. I wouldn't recommend this. It's very beautiful and really, really interesting. But I just – I don't think I could recommend it for the cost. Yeah.
• So this actually makes me want to try it more because we're 0 for 2 on reviews. I would love you to try it.
• I'll send you mine if you don't want to buy it. When you come to the U.S., send me yours. Yeah. All right.
• That way – like I don't mind the price. I don't mind paying prices for good products, right? Like I talk about Misubi and I reference this all the time that I've paid like $150 for a Misubi notebook and could not have been more thrilled. But what I'm buying there is different from what I'm buying here. What I'm buying there is an artisan cover, like an exterior cover for this notebook that's, you know, really special materials done by hand. And I'm paying for that. And like the paper in that is my – is the Misubi bank paper that I love so much. Well, I can get that like relatively inexpensively. Like if I just wanted a bank paper notebook, I can get that for $25. But I paid $150 happily because of what went into it and, you know, the story behind Misubi. So I'd be fine paying $77 for this before shipping from Japan if it was like a really enjoyable experience. And it sounds like it is right up until you have to use it for the thing that it's built for.
• Which – That kind of defeats the purpose. Last thing, I put – if you're not familiar with this style of printing that I already is using it, a lot of companies call it letterpress printing. We have a letterpress refill from Plotter. They do a letterpress small refill. The Plotter, different paper than what is used in IA. I'm certain because it actually works well for fountain pens. And I just put that link in the show notes if you want a different kind of visual on how – You really can't see these lines, but they're there and it's kind of cool. So anyway, just thought y'all might want to check that out.
• Plotter will be in San Francisco, Myke. And a lot of people are going to be in San Francisco for the San Francisco pen show. It is that time. Almost literally for me, I leave about 24 hours from now as we talk. And I'm really looking forward to it.
• And I'm pretty anxious to see how it goes from a personal perspective.
• Because I'm a little stuffed out, right? Like things out between Stationery Fest and London. And I've had lots of opportunities to get a lot of Stationery. I mean, I will say when I opened the document today, I was like, oh, my God, he's doing that too. Like I'd forgotten that you were going to San Francisco. Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, boy. It's a lot, man. Yeah, oh, boy. So I'm trying to think of it – So here's the short version. The short version is I'm super excited to go and see my friends and talk to people and talk to vendors and see what's going on. And I love that environment, right? I just love that whole Stationery Show feel. I get like all wrapped up in that and what's going on and seeing what the new makers are making. I don't know that I'm going to buy very much. And like that's famous last words, right? Like I'm already – the first thing we're going to talk about is something I want really badly and it's very expensive. But like I just came back with so much from London, so much from Stationery Fest. It's like I really want to pace myself this time. So that's what I'm looking forward to. Like it's going to be amazing, right? I didn't go to last year's show. There were a ton of new vendors from the Asian market that attended and it looked really interesting. And I think it's going to be – I'm going to try to take it a little bit more for myself this time. Like I'm mixing in a few classes, right, which I don't normally do. So that's kind of my just general plan. I get in Thursday night late, so I'll just wake up and go to the show Friday morning. I'll have all day Friday, all day Saturday. I have one class on Friday. I'm taking my friend Corolla's Abstract Floral Art class, which I'm really looking forward to. I'm taking that class on Friday. Then I'm taking a Pilot Parallel Pen Playdate class. So a couple of creative classes there for me, which are out of my norm for sure. But that's what I'm focusing on right now is this creativity part that I feel like I'm missing within myself. So I'm taking that from my friend Mimo on Saturday. And then Saturday afternoon, I am going to Bruce Iman and Taizo from Yamamoto Paper. Taizo will be telling the story of the Cosmo Air Light, the story of paper extinction. Like I like that they just – it's basically – that one's more of a talk. And I think we'll get to play with the paper at the end. They've done the paper tastings in the past, which were a huge hit at the San Francisco Pen Show. So, yeah, like I'm booking my time at least once a day for a couple of hours each day sitting in a class, learning something, exploring with pens and ink and paper, and really kind of focusing on a little bit on myself on this trip. Not that I don't do that other times, but I'm just making this a priority for myself. And then otherwise, like I'm going to be checking out – there's going to be all kinds of new-to-me vendors out there. So I'll be doing a lot of listening and learning and exploring on this trip.
• Yeah, so I do want to talk a little bit about some of the vendors that are going to be there, some that are on my short list, even though like literally the entire show is on my short list, right? I'm going to go to everybody and see everything there as much as I can over two days, including, Myke, the sponsor, another sponsor of this week's episode, our good friends over at Enigma Stationery. Yes, so let me tell you about Enigma Stationery. They offer unique items made from in-house designs, along with having top brands and hard-to-find imported products. And if you're going to be at the San Francisco Pen Show, excellent, because Enigma Stationery will be there. From August 23rd to August 25th, you can grab tons of their newest items, including a new special edition collaboration with Brute Force Design, which is debuting on the Friday of the show. Great new items from local Bay Area artists, including art prints, postcards, and stickers. Brand new lucky bags with phenomenal deals for adventurous listeners. Plus, it'll be your last chance to grab a Pens Desk Select number one box. They'll also have fresh imports from overseas, including three new Troublemaker inks, new items featuring Miffy, Snoopy, Mofusand, and dozens of other cute stationery items. And who doesn't want cute stationery items? And of course, Enigma will have their other fountain pen collaborations available, including Brad's 2023 pen of the year, the Enigma, made by Heinz Pen Company. And remember, Enigma Stationery's website will be offline during the pen show, but will return on Wednesday, August 28th with tons of new items for those who couldn't attend the show and want a pen show at home. If you want free U.S. shipping or discounted international shipping on orders of $50 or more, plus a free gift, go to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict and use the code penaddict24 at checkout now. That's enigmastationery.com slash penaddict to get your hands on a wide range of new prints, plus a free gift and free U.S. shipping on orders of $50 or more with the code penaddict24. Our thanks to Enigma Stationery for the support of this show and Relay. So before I saw the sponsors for this week's episode, I had made a list of vendors I want to be sure that were on my list to visit. And of course, Enigma was on there. We'll talk about them in just a second. So I'll put a list in the show notes to all the vendors that were going to be in attendance at San Francisco. And that's the most important thing about this show that I think differentiates it from a lot of shows. Now, D.C. gets a lot of new vendors and a lot of people travel from all over the world to come to the D.C. show.
• I think San Francisco is probably like a little bit ahead in the variety, even though it's maybe it's definitely a smaller show, but it's still a big, busy, full packed show. It looks massive. Yeah, this is a big show. Don't let me undersell it. I'm just saying like the D.C. show, I think, might technically be like volume wise, like maybe more tables or maybe more headcount. I don't know for sure, but they're close. But San Francisco gets a really fitting variety for me. Right. That's why I prefer this show. Like some people might prefer D.C. for, you know, maybe more of the European vendors that come to that side of the U.S., you know, versus the ease of use for some of the Asian vendors to get to the western side of the U.S., things like that. So what I'm looking forward to personally is seeing a boy after not after I didn't attend last year and seeing all the cool stuff that a boy brought. So a boy is an ebonite maker and then they also make pens. And I bought one of their pens at maybe either the first or second San Francisco pen show I went to. And that's the only a boy I have. Still one of my favorite pens, just a traditional cigar shape, a boy, a fountain pen that I love. And then last year I was noticing they were doing all kinds of like different colors and different shapes. And they really expanded their lineup from the last time I saw them. So if I spend some money on a fountain pen, the high likelihood is it's going to be at a boy. So I'll kind of get the lay of the land with them first thing Friday and see like if there's something in in my range of style and price and kind of just, you know, make sure it fits me and in the things that I like in a pen. But I'm really looking forward to seeing them. I'm also looking forward to seeing Bocomundo, who I have never seen in person before. They do essentially they take your existing pen and do the artwork on top of the pen, right? A lot of the Rodden, Macchie, all kinds of special finishes.
• So they will have just I like I probably won't buy anything from them because they're very expensive. Like I'd probably want to do I've always wanted to get on their list to like send one of my pens over to have them work on. But they're going to have stuff there and it's going to be a problem like for a lot of people, myself included, seeing all the beautiful pens that they make.
• I'm excited to see D rocket design. So I went through the list. I went through the list the other day when I was making these notes and I was like D rocket design. And I said, like, I'm pretty sure that's Daryl. So I think I met Daryl one time at a pre-COVID show because he's in he's in the air. He's in the California area and he's made some really great pens in the past and is makes machine pens and things like that. And he's pivoted into knives. So I'm like not necessarily going. I don't need another knifer. I'm not really into that scene. But Daryl is a really great maker and he's been like super supportive of spoke pen and things like that. So I just want to go talk to him and see what he's up to because he's always he's always making like really interesting things.
• Enigma stationery is, of course, on the list. I think everyone there should go by Enigma stationery just because their table is so fun. That's the kind of table where I get in a lot of trouble and just, OK, I need this and I need that. And I'll take one of these and no, yes, I'll have that, please. That's what you get at Enigma stationery. And plus, I haven't seen Dan and family in a while. I know they actually made it over to Relay 10, Myke. Yeah, they sent me a lovely care package with some wonderful stickers. Yeah. So they rule and I'll be spending a lot of time over there. I was asked on stream yesterday, Brad, will you be buying a glass pen, a glass dip nib pen at the San Francisco pen show? And I didn't say no, Myke. And that's going to be a problem for me.
• I will say I'm probably not. Right. I could have bought one at Stationery Fest from I think it was Habuno Gallery.
• There'll be probably several opportunities here at the San Francisco pen show. But I wanted to call out one out glass studio on.
• You go look through their Instagram and it's just stunning stuff. Like I'm not really in the market for this. Right. I don't think I would use that use this type of glass dip nib pen enough to justify the price. You know, spending two or three hundred dollars on a glass dip nib pen doesn't fit how I use my things right now. But that doesn't keep me from buying them and just seeing how stunning they are and then using them for like giveaways and stuff like that. And so I'm not going to say no, I'm going to say it's not likely.
• But it's like really hard when you look at these these tables with the glass dip pens, glass dip nib pens displayed and just look at the craftsmanship that goes into this and how much I appreciate that. It's pretty cool. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm finally going to get to stop by the Inca Pet table, which is a really fun 3D printed, basically like storage and like pen holders, ink holders. So it's by a young guy named Calvin. And I like I've known his dad in the in the stationery world for a while. It's been a longtime friend of mine. And Calvin has gotten into 3D printing and makes a bunch of animal type holders. I will end up with like 10 of these probably because I've never had the opportunity. They usually, you know, they've been to a few pen shows in the past. But like I am I'm all in on supporting the youth in this hobby. And let's be clear. I want this stuff. I want the little penguin vial holders. And I want the pirate costumes for my my little ink to puss and all of these things like I want all of it. So this is where I get in trouble with these shows.
• Musubi is going to be there. I always love talking with Daryl from Musubi. About once a year, he appears in my inbox, email inbox. And that just happened to be last week. He always writes these wonderful missives on what Musubi has been up to, what they're creating. They're very, very creative, very committed to working with the artisans that they work with. I love Daryl and I love the story of Musubi. So I will be sure to pick up multiple things. Daryl always costs me a lot of money at these shows because I don't get to see him very often. And I usually just want to load up when I do. So I'll be checking out the new Peruvian covers. This is what this is kind of like what I was talking about before. Like the new Peruvian woven fabric covers on these notebooks are just stunning. And I get a lot of joy out of using a notebook with a cover with a story. And it's handcrafted and just beautiful and just really fits my style. So I'm sure I left a lot of people out. And I'm going to see a lot of my friends there that I haven't seen because I didn't make it to the DC pen show. Actually, I haven't been to a proper pen show since Atlanta. So there's going to be a ton of people I need to catch up with, you know, like our friends at Canalea. And, you know, some of the different distributors like luxury brands and just really getting to get back into like this pen show vibe, which I've actually I've really missed it. But I just I'm worried like I'm going to like want to buy all the things and I'm going to try to behave. And I will report back next week if I actually behaved. I think the bets bets would be against me behaving if we were to like put out a poll. I think does Brad behave with his wallet at the San Francisco pen show? I think it would be a lot of doubt on that.
• Well, I look forward to hearing about it. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll we'll recap that next week.
• That probably is going to wrap my travels for the year. You know, something might pop up in October, November time frame. I'm definitely going to take September off. There's a bunch of shows in September. I'm just going to I'm just going to stay home in September. Then we'll see what October and November are looking like as we head into the end of the year. But I'm I'm literally already planning notes for like the next two podcasts when I when we get back to normal. Well, next week will kind of be a recap show. But after that, I already have topics I want to hit because we've just been talking like a lot about travel and a lot about different stationery shops that I've been to and some really cool stuff. And and I'm starting to think about some other things as we head into the remainder of the year. So it's good times. Good times to be a stationery fan. Well, I look forward to it. And I wish you a happy birthday again. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. If you want to also wish Brad a happy birthday, go and check out all your stuff. Go to penaddict.com. Go to twitch.tv slash penaddict. It's penaddict on socials and spoke design dot com as well. You can find this show on relay of relay dot FM. Relay dot FM slash penaddict is where you can go to find the show. You got our show notes there for this episode, but they should be in your podcast app too. If you anything you want to check out or see or anything you've missed. Want to find me online? I'm at I Myke. I M Y K E. You can also find my work at cortex brand dot com. Thank you to Enigma Stationery and Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of the show. But most of all, thank you for listening to next time. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.