The Pen Addict 375/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	375
Title:	Nobody Tell Platinum
Release Date:	September 4th, 2019
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 375
Audio File:	Audio Episode 375
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 375
Length:	6666 min <br />1.1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Episode Introduction

Brad Dowdy: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 375, and today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, ExpressVPN, and Eero. My name is Myke Hurley, I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Myke Hurley: That's a big number, Myke, 375.

Brad Dowdy: 375. All the great shows.

Myke Hurley: That's a lot of episodes about pens, which, you know, that's kind of our jam. I think that's what we do. And we have an inordinate amount of things to talk about today, which I think caught both of us off guard. Like, you never know, sometimes as we're going through the document build, and we've talked about this through the years, and they just kind of come together. And this one continued to come together more, and a little bit more.

Brad Dowdy: Throughout my morning, as I was getting ready for the show, I was like, oh, I want to talk, oh, and this, oh, I want to talk about this, oh, and what about this thing? So, this is a what about this thing type of episode.

Myke Hurley: Right, right. And behind the scenes, I'm like, oh my gosh, we're super behind on Ask TPA, so let's just do the whole episode of Ask TPA, and it just kept getting pushed down, and pushed down further.

Brad Dowdy: So I've got things I need to talk about, time limits.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and now we may not get to them, so we're going to get to your Ask TPA questions, don't worry about that. But we need to hear the progress of your platinum situation. You know, that's more important right now. Like, you stressed a lot of people out with your platinum problem, so I want you to give us a little recap and tell us where we're at.

Brad Dowdy: We'll have seen my Platinum 3776 Galaxy. I had it at the San Francisco Pen Show, and I actually, while at the show, found out the fate of my kind of situation, as it is to be decided by the company, like the Platinum Dealer or whatever they were called. Distributor. Distributor, that's what I was looking for. So, effectively, the situation is, I need to send them the whole pen, which annoys me greatly, because it's unnecessary.

Myke Hurley: Them being platinum, not the distributor, correct?

Brad Dowdy: I have to send it to the distributor, who will then send it to platinum. Gotcha. Is my understanding.

Brad Dowdy: I'm very unhappy with this, for a number of reasons. One, because I know it's not necessary. Like, the nib isn't even in the pen right now, right? Right. But that's not the thing I'm going to tell them. Right. I don't want to tell them that. I don't want to tell them I've taken it out, right? Yes, yes. They don't know I've taken it out. Nobody tell them. Nobody tell Platinum. Everyone's got to agree to keep their mouth shut on this one. So, I need to now put it back in, and then we'll mail them the pen. But, like, I now lose the pen, right? This expensive pen is now just, like, out on its own in the world, being mailed between company to company. Like, am I going to get any kind of tracking of this? Am I going to get any kind of idea of how long this is going to take? My answer to all of these questions, I'm sure, will be no. No, you will not. And then maybe one day, if you're lucky, your incredibly expensive Urushi Raden Galaxy Starlight will arrive back at home for you. That's how I know this is going to go. I don't really know how to feel about this situation. Like, there is a part of me that just doesn't want to do it because I don't want to risk losing it. This pen with the nib that I have in it from my 3776 Lavand, the 14-carat nib, is wonderful, right? And I love this pen just as it is right now. I'm sure I would love it the same or even more with its correct nib in it, but I'm very hesitant to send it.

Myke Hurley: So here's my thoughts. I think your reasoning is valid. And I think your reasoning is accurate. I think what you said is going to happen. This pen will be off into the ether, and then one day it's going to show back up with not a lot of chatter in between. And that's a difficult position to be in.

Brad Dowdy: But I'm also really worried about the idea of it never showing up again, too. Mm-hmm.

Pen Return Concerns

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Well, I think you'll have the distributor on your side. Like, it's going to be a valid return to them. So that'll be tracked. It's after that where you kind of lose touch, right? When you're three levels away from it, you know, where the pen is at the time. I am taking a positive tact that this will be turned around in a reasonable time frame. By that, my guess would be three months. That is unreasonable to me, though. I agree. But just the path that this pen, the journey that it's about to embark on, it's going to take that amount of time. So that's why I'm putting that in your head. And I think that would be on the short end, Myke, to be honest. I think, you know, this might be a six-month process, which is unfortunate. And it's not right. I'm not saying that it is. I'm just trying to set the expectations. Maybe we'll all be surprised on the path that it takes to get back to you. But I still feel like it's going to work out well at this point. I don't see any reason why it's not. But worst case scenario, they're going to send you, like, a new pen immediately, right? Because they're still available somewhere. They can corral one from somewhere. Like, we saw one at the pen show, right? So that's a possibility as well. Once they get it in hand, they might just go, oh, let's replace it, and then we can work on this. I don't know that that's going to happen. But yeah, it stinks for you. Like, I mean, I'm not trying to sugarcoat it. It's an annoying situation to be in, especially with the price you paid. So I'm trying to stay a little bit positive. But if I was in your shoes, I'd feel the same way. No doubt.

Brad Dowdy: It's like I feel like I noticed. You know what? I was about to say this is going to sound silly. It's not going to sound silly here. I feel like I haven't even got to know this pen yet. No, that's a fair thing to say. I'm having to let it go already. And it makes me upset. I'm not happy about it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, if I was in the same boat with, say, I bought a Nakaya that was brand new. Like, I didn't buy it even secondhand. I bought it brand new and had some major flaw that I had to send it. I would feel the same way you're feeling. Like, I put a lot of thought and care into choosing this pen, and I got to know it for a few days, and now it's gone again. Like, is the feeling going to be the same when it returns?

Brad Dowdy: I also don't like your stupid big long Nakaya.

Myke Hurley: I actually forgot about this. I was wondering if it was going to come up in the podcast last week, and then I didn't think about it anymore. I mean, I knew that, right? Like, I did that on purpose. Like, this is not the Nakaya you're looking for, right? So, tell me what you think about this pen. This is the long cigar hairline finish Nakaya. So, it's not a lacquered finish, which is what Nakaya is really known for. So, this is an extremely different Nakaya in the realm of Nakaya. So, what are your thoughts?

Brad Dowdy: It's just too long. Everything about it is too long for me. Like, the pen is huge. It doesn't even fit properly in any of your cases, which is why when I picked up one of your cases, it slipped out and fell on the floor, which was just like a... I thought it might murder me at that point, but it was okay. And to hold it, like, it just feels wrong to me. Like, it's just far too big. And it feels like it's far too big in a way that it's not... Like, I don't know what the... I can't see what the benefit of it is.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's a glorious writer. With a pen that size, you get a big, wet, juicy nib on the end of that thing, and you just go to town. And that's what I'm enjoying. You know, you... As soon as you started writing with it, you're like, ooh, I like this ink. Because... Not because of the ink, but because of the entirety of your writing experience with that. Even though that's not a pen for you. I mean, I just like the color.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, this is interesting. Like, honestly. Like, I like that you had this, like, a dark black pen with, like, a crazy blue... Green ink, I should say. Green.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it was the Ackerman, the bright Ackerman ink, 28, half-quartered, grown. I don't know if I have that right, if it's 28 or not. But yeah, it's a lovely ink. So yeah, that's the idea of that pen. Like, I'm not sitting down and journaling with that pen. Like, I'll write notes and, you know, do all kinds of things with it. But it's just, you know, it's not like I'm going to sit down and, you know, make a to-do list with that pen. But I thoroughly enjoy writing with that pen, like, a lot. But I knew from the moment I got it. Yeah, I knew from the minute I got it, I said, Myke will not like this pen. But I wanted to get it in your hands to be sure. And, like, it was instant. Like, yeah, you do not like it. And I mean, that's, yeah, normal. That's kind of what I expected.

Brad Dowdy: I am doing something now that I've never done before. And I'm getting a bit lost on the Sailor page on nibs.com.

Brad Dowdy: This is a bad news environment. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: What were you looking for in the Kaya's and you just clicked the wrong link or something?

Brad Dowdy: I didn't click the wrong link. I clicked the link that I was thinking to myself, huh, I wonder. And, yeah, it turns out that they have a bunch of different things that I'd never really paid much attention to. Like all of the Arushi King of Pen.

Pen Discussion

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's some crazy ones out there. There's some mega expensive ones. They're beautiful. Beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: And have you ever seen the Pro Gear Fire?

Myke Hurley: No, that's brand new.

Brad Dowdy: Like brand, brand new?

Myke Hurley: Brand, brand new.

Brad Dowdy: This is an exciting looking pen, Brad.

Myke Hurley: Do they even have it like for sale or is it like pre-order? It says back order. Yeah. I think that means it's not in stock yet. It's like about to happen right now. Right. Have you seen it? Not in person, just pictures. I mean, I don't love it because of the gold trim.

Brad Dowdy: I love red with gold.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's not my thing.

Brad Dowdy: No, I know it's not for you. They also have a regular Pro Gear in it.

Myke Hurley: They have the full lineup of that pen, just like they did with the sky and the ocean. They'll do from bottom to top. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because it's part of the Elements series. Right. Right. Which is cool.

Myke Hurley: I like that they do that. I like that they do that. Which, the King of Pen size one or a normal size one? Regular size, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't need another King of Pen. I am one King of Pen down, but we're not going to talk about that just yet.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: True. I am missing, not lost. I know where it is. It's in good hands. But I am currently missing a King of Pen.

Brad Dowdy: Might not really be able to talk about this of any great detail until sometime next year. Quite a while. Yeah. But something's happening. But oh boy, look at this.

Myke Hurley: I think people can guess. I think our listeners can guess.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'll let them. I love this. I love this pro gear. Yeah, yeah. It's a very good looking pen.

Topic Shift

Myke Hurley: Well, get off this page and tell me what you found here on this next link. Because I'm very confused at what you've even linked in here in the word that you've used.

Brad Dowdy: So I went to, I was in San Francisco for a few days and I was, we, on our last day, we've been to the Museum of Ice Cream, which is a real place. Nice. Which was a lot of fun. It's Instagram Central over there. So we went and did that. And then we were kind of walking around for a little bit before we departed. And I saw a Lamy store in San Francisco. So I was like, okay, I'm going.

Myke Hurley: One of their new boutiques.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I went in and there were a couple of members of staff there who were two things. Incredibly knowledgeable and incredibly pushy. Very pushy. They were trying to get us to literally buy the place out, it felt like. But they knew what they were talking about. One thing I didn't know. Did you know Lamy was making notebooks right now? Yes.

Myke Hurley: Did not know this. Some of our Australian and Far Eastern friends got a hold of them through Lamy Australia and have been putting reviews out. Like Diana from, oh gosh, I'm blanking on the podcast. Yeah, the nib section. Yeah, the nib section. Sorry, I was blanking. And then Yagen from Machiato Man all got a bunch of the new Lamy notebooks. And they were pretty displeased with the paper. Like I think technically like the notebook was good. But for fountain pens that they didn't care for the paper quality. So I'll be interested in trying them out.

Brad Dowdy: I'm also on Lamy's website right now. Did you know that they have a limited edition Arushi dialogue? I did not.

Brad Dowdy: It's available until the end of 2019.

Brad Dowdy: They have Arushi. So this is a. What are they doing?

Myke Hurley: This is a Lamy problem, right? We should know about this, right? This is why I need to run Lamy.

Brad Dowdy: This is like. It's like they've exactly done the thing that we want to know. Tony's saying it's a set of four pens. Oh, and there are only 33 sets in the world. All right. So let's ignore that. I don't even want to bother looking into it anymore. But why don't we know that? Why didn't we know that before now? But anyway, so they're making notebooks right now. And I was like in the store. And the staff were knowledgeable. Like I feel like we were testing each other. Right. They were testing me and I was testing them. And we were talking about some stuff. And we were like, oh, okay. Like we were talking about. Like Idina mentioned something about the vanishing point. And the guy was like, oh, do you know we make a vanishing point? Like they were the words that he used. Because he knew what it was. Like he had a vanishing point clicked in his pocket. So like they were knowledgeable about pens in general. As well as just Lamy products. But I really like the way it was like, oh, do you know that we make a vanishing point? And got the Dialogue 3 out. And I was playing around with that. It's a beautiful pen. I love it. It's just too chunky for me. Totally. Like it is easier for me to use from a clip perspective than the vanishing point is. But I enjoyed it. They had the piano black one too. Yes. It's really good looking.

Myke Hurley: Oh, they're stunning. Mm-hmm.

New Lamy Pen Introduced

Brad Dowdy: But as I was like looking around, I was looking in their cabinets and stuff. And I saw a pen I've never seen before called the Lamy Balloon. Right. And I was like, what is that? And they showed it to me. They took it out of the case. And the lady was like, oh, you know, like it's not available in the US. But we have it here because we're the Lamy store. Like you can get it in Europe pretty easily. And she was showing me that one of the things that's cool about the refill, like the type of it's a rollerball refill. Like if you write on it like straight up, it's a thinner line and you write on it in the side and it's a thicker line and it's a nice smooth refill. I tried it out and I had it in like a green and a blue and an orange or red or something. And I picked the green one. And I really like it. It's just like a fun little pen that does some weird stuff. And it's like a really nice, very great, great, great refill. So, yeah, I bought a Lamy Balloon.

Myke Hurley: Nice. So I reviewed that almost 10 years ago now.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, my God.

Myke Hurley: 2010, I pulled up the review. So I guess it's nine years ago, October 18th, the Lamy Balloon rollerball. And I raved and raved and raved about everything but the refill. It is one of my favorite designs Lamy's ever made from a functional and feel perspective. I adore the pen. I adore the bright colors. This is what I want the Lamy Vista to be in the fountain pen lineup. Great pen. But the refill at the time was trash and it's highly proprietary. Like there's no ways around what this refill is.

Brad Dowdy: It's this tiny little thing. Like from looking at your picture, the refill looks exactly the same. But it definitely does not perform the way that you are saying in the review that it performs.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So maybe it's time for me to try that again. You should. Because it's been nine years since that time. And maybe the refill has been upgraded to work well. Because I think the pen itself is fantastic. What I'm mostly concerned with is the following statement in our document. It says left-handed nib 2. Is this in relation to the balloon or is this something else? That's where you threw me off here. I was like, this could be interesting. What is going on here?

Brad Dowdy: I bought one of their left-handed nibs.

Myke Hurley: Oh, nice. So like just the nib by itself that you can slot into your... Good. Yeah. So I...

Brad Dowdy: I'll be interested to see what you think. I'm keeping this for... I don't have a Lamy pen that I specifically want to put this onto right now. But I've never been able to track one of these down very easily. Like I've tried and, you know, I've kind of like added whatever. But I tried it out in the store and it was like, oh, this is really... This is really good. Yeah, cool. So I now own one. It's sitting here on my desk. And at some point I will pick a Safari or something to put it onto. But right now I haven't really got one that I necessarily am like that excited to put it onto. Maybe I could put it onto my Pikachu one or something. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's a good idea. Do you know how to remove those nibs? Nah, man. It's very easy. That's why I'm asking you because it's either very obvious or... It looks like it just... You don't know what to do. You just snap it off. You slide it off. Slide it off. You just slide it off. And what you can do is get like a piece of like scotch tape, you know, like lightly adhesive tape, put it around there and then just pull. And it just slides right off and you slide the other one right on. It's very simple.

Brad Dowdy: I never take a nib off of a pen, like line that's new to me without checking out YouTube first.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This one is different in that it's really easy compared to a lot of nibs.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like taking the nib out of my 3776, Adina was like wincing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's a different deal altogether.

Brad Dowdy: Because it's making just bad noises, right? Like it's like squeaking and clicking, right? Because it's like, well, I know these things. Sometimes you just gotta... You just gotta get them out and you're moving it and you're twisting it and it's pulled... And you're gonna get it, but it's gonna make you feel like you're ruining everything. So...

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Should we take a break?

Break and Reflection

Myke Hurley: Yeah, let's. This has been... This has been an interesting conversation so far. I love where this is going.

Brad Dowdy: I like surprising you sometimes. Yeah. When I do things that you don't expect. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And I like surprising you with an answer that I answered nine years ago. So that's always cool.

Brad Dowdy: I have no memory of that pen. You know what? It is very possible that we discussed it on an episode of the show.

Myke Hurley: We did because... I remember that one because I really love that pen and I wanted it to be better. That's all.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, wow. So when I say... It's funny because I say like, oh, I've never heard of this before. But we may have... It may have come up. It may have come up. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. All right. Today's episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. You might think that nobody wants your online data or to snoop on you and try and do something nasty. But when you browse the web without anything to protect your privacy, you are risking ad companies and more collecting your data and information. And it happens to people like us. It happens to all of us, which is why I recommend and use ExpressVPN when I'm using Wi-Fi that I'm not familiar with. ExpressVPN runs in the background of your computer or phone, encrypting your data, hiding your public IP address. All you need to do is just download the app. It's just available on all platforms. Click to connect and you are protected. They are rated the number one VPN service by TechRadar. ExpressVPN uses new cutting-edge technology called Trusted Server to make sure there are no logs of what you're doing online. And it costs less than $7 a month and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The most time that I use ExpressVPN is when I travel because I'm always connecting to Wi-Fi networks that either have no password or, you know, it's a network that I'm unfamiliar with. And there are lots and lots of people connected to it. And it just gives me the peace of mind to be able to just surf. And I never notice it either. I usually will come home and it will still be on for a bit. I'll be like, oh, I didn't notice that because the speed's really good. So I like that a lot. You can protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months free at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That's expressvpn.com slash penaddict for three months free of a one-year package. Take back your online privacy by going to that web address. Once more, it is expressvpn.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So I want to talk about something important to me right now, which is St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Did you know that between 180,000 and 240,000 children are diagnosed every single year of cancer? And treatments invented at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital will help push the overall child cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since they opened more than 50 years ago. And St. Jude will not stop until no child dies from cancer. You can support St. Jude's life-saving mission of finding cures and saving children during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which is September, by going to stjude.org slash penaddict. Once again, that is stjude.org slash penaddict to donate now. You will have heard us talking about this a couple of weeks ago on the live show. RelayFM is St. Jude's first official podcasting partner. We are trying to raise at least, in my mind, at least $75,000. That's our goal. I am honored and humbled and so thrilled to say that as of the 4th of September, we have raised $32,560. We're nearly halfway there. So if you have donated to this campaign, thank you so much. Hey, why don't you do it again? If you haven't, please give us some money. This is something that's so important to all of us. And ultimately, what we're trying to do is raise money for children that have cancer. And what more good stuff do you need?

Myke Hurley: Right. I told Myke in person when I first learned of this news how excited I was because part of my goal in doing the things that I do is to give back. And anyone who's subscribed to my Panhandic membership newsletter knows that there's a charity part of my work. And St. Jude has always been one of the biggest platforms that I like to support in the scheme of all the charities. Like every year I donate to St. Jude at least once, if not twice. And I'm just grateful to be able to do that. And I want to continue to do that. And then to find out that the network was essentially, the Relay FM network was essentially selected by St. Jude to be their first podcast partner in the charity realm. It's a big deal. Like I can't relay that enough in words, no pun intended.

Myke Hurley: That how big of a deal that is because I follow a lot of like St. Jude's charity work and they work with like some really big corporations. And just to see Relay be involved with that and me be involved with Relay makes me so proud to be part of this team and family really is what it is. And I just think it's really cool. And I'm going to work on, I have some things cooking for giveaways and ways we can, you know, do like raffles and things like that for, to raise money more for the, for Pen Addict and Relay FM and St. Jude and this whole entire month. So stay tuned for more on that. But I am just, I'm, I'm flipping thrilled. I don't know what to say more than that other than I'm so happy that we're part of this, like officially part of this, regardless of everything we've done before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And one little thing that I think is cool to know as well, like you may have noticed Relay FM turning gold this month. So there's the, the artwork has a little gold cut out now instead of the regular one, which is blue for us. The network's logo is gold. That is the color of September, right? So childhood cancer awareness month, like other, like, so like breast cancer has pink, for example, right? And gold is the color for, for, for, for September. And I just, they want to mention that, right? Like this is something that's important to the fundraising company, like the fundraising arm of St. Jude, because that's, that's kind of one of the things that helps people raise awareness, right? That when you see that color during the month of September, you know what it's about. So that's why we're doing that too. Awesome.

Myke Hurley: Well, I am just, I'm thrilled and I'm, I'm ready to get cranking up even more than you already have. Like it's already off to a huge, huge start. So yeah, very cool. All right. We had some interesting news.

Capital Pen Show Discussion

Brad Dowdy: You just sent me, I'm intrigued about it. You sent me a link to an Instagram account called at Capital Pen Show. Uh-huh. It is, as the description says, an exciting new London pen show for 2020 in association with Izod's pens. Um, Izod's are a company in the UK who are one of the dealers of some high-end brands. Like, uh, they, they work, they're like Mont Blanc and stuff like that. So they do a lot of interest in stuff. They have a lot of interest in pens available. Um, they, they work with Robert Oster as well in the UK. They're the authorized dealer, retailer, one of the authorized retailers of Robert Oster in the UK. So like they understand that, I guess that that's the kind of important thing, but they, they seem to be mostly a dealer of some, some brands. Right. So I, I honestly, I'll tell you, I don't know a lot about Izod's.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And like you, I got a link and just a link. And I clicked the link and I saw it was the capital pen show. I'm like, Oh boy, we're going to have to talk about this DC sub show thing again. And it's got like a name. That's totally where my head went when I saw the capital pen show. I was like, Oh man. Right. Because you know, we're the only ones that matter. But, um, this is interesting because it seems to be separate than the, what is it? The London writing equipment show that is now twice a year, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Cause the London writing equipment society, this is a completely different thing.

Myke Hurley: Right. And they're like, you know, they have the location, they have the dates, they have everything. So I don't know. This is just something to pay attention to. I'm our, Myke and I's interest is certainly peaked because we've talked about this before. Right. Would it be worth it for me to come like over to the, the LWES, which you felt and me seeing, you know, what it was like, didn't seem like it was necessarily like worth a trip. But if this becomes a thing, I don't know. We might have to reconsider that. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. They've got a robot. It was the show Inc London bus red, which looks great.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's already built, already made or already in the queue. Yep. But, um, to have a retailer who seems to be, you know, pretty connected behind the show. I'm interested. Let's see what happens here next year. It could be interesting. And we definitely have some friends over there we can talk to and see how it's going and see if we can get some more information, but that would just kind of dropped out of the blue.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm, so it says the show will bring together many leading retailers along with some special guests, exclusive products and workshops that will showcase the amazing talent and skills in our industry. The shows for the pain community. Are we the special guests? I don't know. No one's reached out to me. I mean, frankly, I find it almost insulting at this point. Right. You're off the list. But it's going to be June 13th, 2020. I mean, June is always a danger for me anyway, because who knows when I'm going to be in San Jose. It's in central London. It's near Hyde Park. They've got a great location. They've got a great name. The Capital Pen Show is a great name.

Brad Dowdy: I'm intrigued, to say the least. Right. Because I'm hoping that this will be at least getting to what I think we should have here in London.

Myke Hurley: Deservedly so. Like, it needs to be a much larger scale. And I think if Tokyo is any indication, I mean, I know the community is much more built in in Japan, but that was their first year last year. And they exceeded, like, every expectation under the sun in how a city like London doesn't really have that destination pen show. Like, there's a few cities in the world that can pull off a destination pen show. London's one of them, and they haven't had that for a long time. It's more just been a local show, essentially. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: So, interesting. We'll be watching.

New Hobonichi Product

Brad Dowdy: There's a new Techo in town. Yes. A new Hobonichi called The Day Free. It is a monthly calendar with a blank notebook. And the idea being that they said from their customers that some people wanted more or less than one page per day in the Techo. So, they have created a notebook that has the month part in it. It has the yearly index part in it. But the inside is plain. Now, I'm just going to say they've been paying attention to what I've been talking about, about the way that you make a journal by not pre-printing the page numbers so you can let people create their own frequency of how much they're filling in the notebook. But that's what it is. It's thinner than the Kazun or the Techo, which is an interesting choice. What do you think about this?

Myke Hurley: It's interesting. It's not for me. It's essentially a notebook. A Hobonichi Techo notebook in a thick notebook. They've always made like a thin pocket size, you know, like A6, B6 type of pocket notebooks with this paper in it and the grid. But now, this is more of the bound style that you're used to in the Techo. With just the two page per month calendar in the front section. So, you know, 24 pages of that and then the rest of it being a notebook, which I think is cool. Like, it's totally fine, but it's a notebook, right? Like, it's pretty much like a notebook. If someone really buys into, like, the Hobonichi system, I think the date ones are going to be, you know, more popular. But I'll be interested to see how people will use these going forward and if it becomes a thing. But it's really, you just kind of got to look at it going into a notebook. This is like a good setup for bullet journalers, right? You have your base calendar in the front and then they can use the rest of the notebook interior to create their own bullet journal system. I think you're going to see a lot of that, which I think is great. Like, it's fantastic. It's a cool new product.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think it looks nice. I think it's a nice idea, at least, anyway, to give people more flexibility with the system that they want to make inside of a notebook that they want. So, I think that's really great.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and I, you know, I'm interested to see. So, all the Hobonichi stuff is now open and available for order. So, I'll be anxious to see what everyone's getting. I always enjoy the pictures of that. I didn't order any. I haven't ordered anything, like, on Hobonichi Day for, you know, a couple years now because I've just, I don't use their covers necessarily. And that's the most important thing to get, I think. If you're going to do this, you can get the interior. You can get the paper, but the exteriors, those always sell out. And those are always really, really cool. They have some cool patterns and things. But I passed. I didn't pass on this next item, Myke. Like, our good friend, Myke Rohde, his sketchnote ideobook did finally launch on Kickstarter. I know he was thinking about launching it last month, and they ran into a couple of things with the platform. And they've got it going yesterday. I'm a backer. I'm a happy backer. I love what Myke does with the whole sketchnote world. He is one of the leaders of that group. You know, one of the, he's at the forefront of all the sketchnoting and, you know, the education behind it and how useful it is. So, it's a great product. It's a great person to support. And I definitely wanted to give him a shout out on this show. I think I have a couple of those coming from Airship, who was his notebook partner. So, I'll definitely give one away as well. But I'm happy to back it. The price is ridiculous. Like, if you're into this type of thing for, you know, just like notebooks and sketchbooks, the price is crazy good. Like, I was surprised when I went it. Because I didn't know the price before I went and backed it. I was going to back it regardless. I was like, oh, really?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know why they're doing it for that price.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's really good.

Brad Dowdy: It's $20, basically. It's $20.

Myke Hurley: It's $19. The future price is $25. And that's still probably, like, a really good deal. So, yeah. Go check it out if you're into not just sketchnoting. This is, like, a really legitimately good sketchbook. They had a bunch of avid artists and journalers put this through the ringer. And you can see all the pictures. And, yeah, it looks impressive.

Brad Dowdy: All right. What else have we got here? Should we take a break, actually? Because then we've got some things you're up to.

Myke Hurley: The next two things are a little bit talky, even though they're shortlisted in the notes section. So, yeah. Let's hit a sponsor. And then we'll dig into something new.

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Myke Hurley: Penaddict. All the codes. Love it.

Brad Dowdy: All the great codes.

Myke Hurley: All right. So, a couple of months ago, we talked about what my perfect journaling setup would be, right? We were trying to... We knew this time of the year is coming. September is, you know, new journal and planner season for 2020. That's when all the products launched. So, we had been talking about how successful I had been this year with my Sumkin A5 journal that I enjoyed the layout and I enjoyed the size and everything about the product. And it was a surprise to me. Like, I'd never heard of the brand before and it was just one of those things I tried and it stuck. So, we talked about what other possibilities I had for the type of layout that I'm looking for and several things came up. And one of them being like a very recurring theme in my email inbox after that episode was, have you ever tried a disk-bound system? So, if you're not familiar with what a disk-bound system is, Levenger made them popular in the U.S. where, you know, you essentially have rings in a notebook, like almost like a folio cover. And then the paper just slot notches into these rings and the paper's made to be removable and not just to be taken out of, but to be shifted within the notebook. You can take it out, put it back in based on, you know, the way you set up your notebook. And the reason people recommended it, because it is highly customizable and configurable, right? So, it's not just a straightforward notebook and you're not fixed into whatever format you buy. Like we were talking about, you know, if I bought like the bigger Hobonichi Cousin, I wouldn't use like the first two or three sections, you know, the meat of the notebook I would use, but I'm losing like a third of the notebook just didn't work for me. With a disk-bound system, you're not tied into that. So, we talked about this on Twitter as well with a bunch of us bringing up William Hanna. And I know that Susan, who writes for The Pen Addict, is a big William Hanna fan. She has a couple of their products. She's reviewed them. And I've always been fascinated by the style and look of their product. And some of my friends at pen shows also carry these around, these disk-bound systems from William Hanna. So, I've got to handle them and I've always really enjoyed them. And William Hanna got a hold of essentially our Twitter conversation and reached out to me. So, Dave, the owner, he is a super nice guy. He's like, I don't really do Twitter. You know, I'm not really, I'm still trying to figure out this social media thing. But like, I saw you talking about this and I think we can maybe make something that you're talking about. And I was like, well, now my interest is peaked. And so, Dave hooked me up. So, a big shout out to Dave. I was able to order my own at no charge to William Hanna. Hashtag disclosure. Hashtag not an ad.

Brad Dowdy: Hashtag influence a lifestyle.

Myke Hurley: But Dave hooked me up. And I got to build. So, one of the, there's obviously a bunch of features we could talk about. And I'm not going to go into everything today. Well, because I just got it last night. But basically, you can customize every step of the way of your cover and of the paper formats you get on the inside. So, like I got to build a cover. So, I have like a purple leather with a lime green stitching and this, you know, bright blue turquoisey interior suede thing. So, like it's, you know, I got to pick something that's really, really for me. And then I got to pick all the interior papers. And one of the things he wanted to do for me to test out was he sent me each of their little paper formats. They're essentially pre-built and you buy a pack of them, say 30 pages. I don't know what the count is. So, he built a pack of the layout that I wanted with seven days horizontally on the left and then the right page, a note page, right? So, he built the layout that I like from the Sumkin and sent that to me like as a prototype. So, I'm going to be testing that out. You'll be hearing me talk a lot about this. A lot of people want to know how does the paper work for this, you know, brand. That's like their first consideration. Listeners of this podcast, they're like, cool, we're fine with like expensive notebooks and whatever you want to do. But only if the paper is good, right? Nothing else matters to a lot of us except the paper because I don't care how nice your notebook is if you don't enjoy writing in it. Well, then it's going to be an issue. So, my first test, it passed with flying colors. I have it out on Instagram. I just did it this morning. But all of this is to say I'm going to give this a shot and test this out. I really like my wheels are spinning how I can set this up and I'm feeling pretty good about the layout and we'll talk more as I get like I don't even have it set up and organized how I want yet. A lot of the paper inserts are still loose, but I have like all my dividers and all my pages and I'm going to build it out how I want and I'm pretty thrilled about it so far. So, thanks Dave for taking care of me and as a side note to that, while we were having that conversation, Zoom can reach out as well. I guess like it's like planter hype train. So, we're about to have a throwdown apparently. So, I've got some stuff coming from Zoom can too. Hashtag influencer life.

Brad Dowdy: Look at you.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, William Hanna is a UK company, Myke. So, you just need to go knock on their door. Like they're next door, right? That's what it means. I think so.

Brad Dowdy: They're just around the corner.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me know. Let me tell Dave hi. Go out to lunch.

Brad Dowdy: I'll try. I'll do my best.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah. So, I have lots of planners to go through, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: You got one from me too.

New Planner Topic

Myke Hurley: I have yours. Like I showed that off on Twitch yesterday, which actually we're going to talk about in a minute. And we talked about like, okay, how I, you know, wasn't really understanding like what I need to do. Then I went through it and, you know, we'll talk about that more too.

Brad Dowdy: I've got something for you, my friend. Yeah. Good. I've got like, there's like a whole, I've got like a whole website. So, that's, it's basically ready now. Good, good, good. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I knew this was coming. And like, this is something that I'll need because I'm not someone who has followed it from inception. Right? Like, I don't know like the full backstory. I just know the general idea. And then taking that system and implementing it to me is where like, I need that starting point of the website. Right? To see like examples and ideas and things like that. So, yes, that will be perfect. Please send that to me. Because something like that lives in conjunction with something like this William Hanna notebook. Right? This is more of a planner notebook where I think the theme system is more of a journal. And we've talked about this before, how I separate those two things. Yeah. Those are two different ideas.

Brad Dowdy: And it is focused and structured for something around what you want your yearly theme to be. Right. So, there is a website that I've been working on. That was the one I was talking about in the Squarespace ad. Uh, yeah. Cool.

Myke Hurley: Good. I can't wait for that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You can send me a sneak preview.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I will.

Inkvent Calendar

Myke Hurley: So, that wasn't the only new thing I had to talk about this week. I have to talk about the Diamine Inkvent calendar. Mm-hmm. Did you get a chance to look at this link before the show today?

Brad Dowdy: No. I don't know why I missed this one. I feel like I looked at everything else except this.

Myke Hurley: And I'm very intrigued. Right. That's how I was. So, you know, a lot of people are familiar with an Advent calendar around Christmas where you basically have a 25-door envelope portal into one a day, you know, as, you know, throughout the month of December from the 1st to the 25th. And it's supposed to be, you know, I don't, I don't, won't profess to know the whole story why these exist. But, you know, every day, you know, like the kids would always enjoy, like, opening up the door and getting a piece of candy or whatever it is on the lead up to Christmas. And Diamine this year made an Inkvent calendar where you get an ink sample for every day leading up to Christmas for 25 days. So, behind every door on this Inkvent calendar, and we'll have the link in the show notes. I got this one from Cult Pens. They wanted to send this over to me to take a look at it because I was talking to them. They are so excited about this thing. They're like, we have to send you one of these. Do you want one? I'm like, yeah, but I don't know what it is. And they're like, oh, just wait. And it is really, really cool because, Myke, as big of an ink portfolio Diamine has, they've made 25 new inks that are behind each door of this Inkvent calendar, right? So, and they all have, like, Christmas-themed names like Nutcracker and, you know. Jack Frost. Ho, ho, ho. Yeah, Jack Frost is one. Fire Ember. And just on and on and on. So, each one of them has a specific name. So, the small vials, every day is a 7-milliliter vial. So, they're, like, you know, small, like, basically like a double your sample size, you know, whatever, you know, sample vials you get. So, there's definitely enough to play around with. And 25 of those. And the last day is a special 30-milliliter, you know, in the calendar with a bang type of thing. So, yeah, I went through this on Twitch yesterday. We went through all the inks. I didn't sample the colors, but we looked at all the names and everything. And that brings me to my new Twitch stream schedule. I was anxious to get back in September. I had to get through the summer, get through all the travels. And I'm back on Twitch now. And I'll break out this video. Like, I'll be able to go clip just the Diamine Inkvent calendar discussion. I'll throw that over on YouTube. And it's mostly unedited form soon. But every Tuesday, Thursday, I'm going to try. I'm planning on it. It's on my schedule. So, 10 a.m. Eastern till, you know, maybe as late as 2. So, maybe a four-hour stream twice a week. And then maybe a little extra fun time on Sundays. And what I do on Twitch, if you haven't seen one of the streams, is we... I'll generally talk about, like, a stationary topic for the first hour, hour and a half of the stream. And after that, like, the stationary talk just kind of ends. Like, you can't go on and on and on forever about stationary. And then I'll pop in a game. Recently, like, yesterday, I played No Man's Sky, which I love. So, it's usually something like that or Destiny. I'll be playing. But it's really... I'm not playing those games to, like, necessarily talk about the games. We do just to chat. But it's really just an open platform for us to talk about pens, stationary, life, whatever we want to talk about. And it's just kind of my idea of office hours while having a little bit of entertainment going on in the background. So, I'll be working on that going forward. So, that's my ink vent and Twitch discussion that I wanted to have. But this ink vent thing, it's going to go on sale October 1st, I believe. So, check your favorite pen retailer. And thanks to Colt Pens for sending me this to check out. And I bet this vanishes off the sites really quickly. It's not cheap. I think it's around 90 bucks US.

Myke Hurley: But I was impressed with the thought that went into it. Like, I didn't think I was going to totally get it. You know, like, oh, okay. Like, it's this real kitschy niche, not a big deal thing. But they did a good job with this whole setup. Especially, you know, building new ink colors and names just for this. So, it's great.

Brad Dowdy: This is a good idea. I think it's fun.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And we're going to review all the ink colors on the Pen Addict. So, that's one thing I'm working on. So, I'm going to work with Susan and do, like, an entire... So, her schedule day is Fridays. So, we're trying to figure out how we're going to do it. And when we're going to do it, right? Like, do we do it, wait and do it in December? But then everyone's already bought them and knows what they all are? Or do we do it, like, in October to kind of preview, like, what's coming? Or is that, like, spoiling it? So, we're having those discussions.

Brad Dowdy: Basically, see what happens about the... Like, about how popular they are. Like, if it sells out, then there's no point doing it beforehand because nobody can buy it. So, emails are there and just do it every day.

Myke Hurley: True. True, true, true. So, we're working on that. But I'm going to send this off to Susan. She does a real good job with the ink reviews. So, and she'll enjoy it. And I'm anxious to see what she does.

Brad Dowdy: Sounds good. Yep. All right, cool. Should we take our final break and then do some hashtag Ask TPA?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think we can get to some of them. I have one, two, three, four pages of Ask TPA. Yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: We're going to do a small handful today. And then we've got more for later on. Yep. All right. Our final sponsor of this episode is Eero. Eero is a game changer because it means actually being able to access internet from anywhere in the house. There's always that one room that has the unreliable Wi-Fi connection. And nothing is more irritating than watching your favorite show and just seeing it buffer and buffer and buffer. Eero will blanket your home with fast, reliable Wi-Fi. So, you'll constantly have strong signal wherever you need it. It takes minutes to set up. You just plug it straight into your modem or router box. And you can manage everything from a super simple app which lets you do cool stuff like pausing the Wi-Fi while everybody's eating dinner. And you'll even get alerts if any device tries to join your network during that time which is really useful and kind of funny to me. Eero has fixed all of the Wi-Fi problems that you're going to experience at home. No more dead spots and no more buffering. Mr. Brad Dowdy, tell me something about your Eero setup at home.

Myke Hurley: Well, I was giggling like the shutting off the Wi-Fi at dinner time. We don't do that. But you can make these rules where at a certain amount, at a certain time of the day, like in a time window, these certain devices don't get access to the internet. I'm like, yeah, I have two kids. This is going to be fantastic. So you can build like these whole rule systems inside Eero and these little buckets to like sort out the devices and restrict the 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. time frame from your teenage daughter from accessing the Wi-Fi. So yeah, not only that, it just blasts the internet through my house which I really need. My normal modem doesn't cover my entire house, but with the Eero plugged in, it's from wall to wall, corner to corner. So yeah, it's perfect.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you really do need that. I do. All right, cool. If you want to go and get your own Wi-Fi fixed just like Brad did, go to Eero.com slash pen. That's E-E-R-O dot com slash pen and enter the code pen at checkout to get free overnight shipping with your order. That's E-E-R-O dot com slash pen and the code pen at checkout to get your Eero delivered with free overnight shipping. You need to use that URL, Eero.com slash pen and the code pen for free overnight shipping. Our thanks to Eero for their support of this show and all of RelayFM.

Myke Hurley: I've been holding this first question, Myke, for about a month now. So I want to apologize to Sydney right out the gate. But it was such a cool, short, direct email that I had to read it. So the title of this email I receive in the pen addict email box is just the beginning. And I'm like, okay, where is this going? And what we're going to read is literally the entirety of the email. And it begins, I'm sorry, this isn't formal. I'll improve in the future for now, starting my list of questions. And then Sydney proceeds to machine gun five questions, unrelated, related, whatever. And I find it kind of amazing that this was the thought process behind this. So I love this email. Thank you, Sydney. First one, what do you think about back to school season? I, of course, love it. Um, it's much better as an observer and then a participator. Um, what I mean is I have two kids in eighth grade and sixth grade and shopping for their back to school supplies is paramount to torture. Um, because you're very fixed on what you can and cannot buy. And it's usually a bunch of junk. And it's like, I would be, they would be better served if I just got to pick, like I had a general category of pens and I could buy them pens, but no, we can't have fun on that. So the general idea of back to school season was much more romantic when I was a kid. Like my kids still love picking out all this stuff, but I look at it and going, Hmm, we can do a lot better. So the idea of back to school season, lovely. The process of participating in it, participating in it, not as lovely. What do you think about that, Myke?

Brad Dowdy: Well, I mean, I used to enjoy it very much as a kid. Back to school was awesome because I got to go and buy all of my new, uh, things, right? I have not had to see it from the other side yet.

Myke Hurley: Right, right. So just, I'll, I'll throw this out there for the collective listenership. Were there any new pens you found at back to school season this year? Because I didn't really see anything interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I don't pay attention to it now in that way.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, I'm just talking about like the listeners who were out there. Like I was in the aisles for back to school season and there was no compelling pens. Like, or have we lost like pen release time being back to school season for like the store brands, um, you know, the things that end up on the store shelves. So that's just a general question. I'd like to explore a little more with the listeners. So give me some feedback on that. Next question. Could you consider doing an episode on binders and accessories? No.

Myke Hurley: I, I, I say that I'm, I'm being unfair, but there's just not enough to talk about. Like I have this disc bound system. Like that's the bindery and accessories we're playing with these days. From a back to school perspective, I don't think it would be really worthwhile for what this podcast is. Like, I, I think that would just not, there wouldn't be a lot to talk about because you know what the binders that you're getting for back to school time are generally poor in quality. Like it wouldn't be a fun type of thing unless we get into some of the Japanese stuff, which then of course those binders and accessories are rad. So maybe one day, but most likely not. Next question. Why haven't you turned the pen addict logo into a notebook yet? You see, do you like these questions, Myke? This is a really enjoyable list of questions.

Brad Dowdy: I like the, the, uh, attitude.

Myke Hurley: I love every minute about it. Um, I'm thinking about it. We did one for a Kickstarter campaign that turned out nice. I have an idea for like a really out there notebook of something that I, I don't, uh, wouldn't normally do. And I just haven't pursued it yet. So yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll do something probably sometime with that. Next question. With your opinion on big box stores, what do you think the American stationary market to do to stand out or even get back to its former glory? I think that's kind of what I was talking about, uh, just a second ago without reading this question in advance is that there, there's just, there's no innovation in this market, right? It's just, you know, a race to the bottom for pricing and scale. Like how much, how many cheap products can we sell at once, right? There's no initiative for any retailer or any manufacturer to make specialty goods for the U.S. market based on how the U.S. consumer buys these goods, right? We don't have, we are more spread out in a wider geographic area to where we don't have like the specialty stores in general, like you would find like in big cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, you know, those areas can sustain smaller niche stores that other countries have at a greater frequency than the U.S. does. And I don't think we're ever going to get that back. So finally, Sydney, could you do a few posts on the classes available at pen shows?

Myke Hurley: I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Well, can you?

Myke Hurley: I don't do posts. So the question is for you. Technically, I could, but it wouldn't be more than like, I don't get to go to the classes, so I can't review them. But like, I could look at the, like something like the San Francisco pen show class list, which is amazing, but like, I'm not going to be able to say anything that's not like listed on the pen show websites. Like they did a great job detailing every class. Like look at the San Francisco pen show website and see how they describe and go into detail for each class. It's not just like a header, you know, of, you know, whatever the class is going to be. It's like a full detailed description. So until I go to classes myself, I can't review the specific classes. I don't know that I would. I don't know. That would be, I guess it would be beneficial. I could see that, but I don't know how that would work. In the big picture. So I just think that that's, that's actually a great question, but I just don't have that experience. So maybe I need someone who goes to a lot of classes to write like a series of guest posts about attending classes at pen shows. I think that's a pretty good idea.

Myke Hurley: Woo. Sydney, I hope you listened to this episode. I held your email for way too long. It's at least a month old, but I really wanted to get to it because I love how they put it together. So it's wonderful. Next up, Michael just picked up a sailor pro gear extra fine from Pen Saatchi and it's beautiful. And I was surprised that the EF doesn't seem that much different than my sailor pro gear medium. Do you find this to be the case too? In any case, it's freaking gorgeous. Have you seen what Michael is talking about or have you had any experience with this? Because I can speak on it a little bit, but I want to hear what you say first.

Sailor Nib Discussion

Brad Dowdy: My experience with sailor nibs and one of the reasons that I will continue to buy all sailor pens that I want and most of the time don't even bother really feeling anything about the nib is because I know that every experience will be good. And so I feel like I noticed the difference between fine, medium and broad in sailor nibs, for example, to be way less of a surprise to me because even a fine works well for my needs where other pens are not. That's not that case.

Myke Hurley: Do you see a wide difference in line variation from... Do you have any EF sailor nibs? I don't have any EFs, but I have a fine. Okay. So I can speak about this a little bit. And the reason I keep questioning you is because I think, Michael, that this is a little bit of a thing only with sailor's extra fine nibs. They, in my experience as someone who uses sailor extra fine nibs, they tend to have more tipping than their fine and medium counterparts. Like I feel that sailor fine and sailor medium nibs, I get a very clean, sharp edge line with with the sailor extra fine. It's almost to me, and this is just purely anecdotal, non-scientific, me just riffing off the top of my head that the nib is rounder and the line is not as sharp edged. And therefore there's not as much line variation. And therefore I don't adore the extra fine nib as much as I do the fine and medium from sailor, which is why, you know, I got my sailor Rialo ground to a needle point. Then I can tell the difference, which, you know, that's even more extreme. So yes, I kind of agree with what you're saying, Michael. Like there's not a, I see more, I see difference from the medium for sure, but the fine sailor nibs are almost equivalent to their extra fines in my experience.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting. Yeah. I don't have any extra fines.

Myke Hurley: Alexander wants to know, I'm looking to spend 300 to $500 on my first more expensive pen. And I've got my eye on that sailor 1911 large stormy sea. That's a beautiful pen by the way, but there are other pen. Are there other pens you would recommend in that range? At the moment I'm rocking the pilot Falcon and the Lamy studio, all of which are great pens. So like the entire listenership of this podcast is yelling, Brad's going to say pilot custom 823, which is right in that $300 range. And I think that's a great, a great pen. I would probably lean towards something like a Pelican M600 or probably 800. You can get at the upper end of that price range in one of their limited materials, which they're limited editions. Aren't extraordinarily limited. They're very accessible. I think the Pelican experience is amazing. If you like a wider nib, like depending on how you, how you like to write, if you like the pilot Falcon, um, like a sailor medium nib, you're probably not going to enjoy as much. So it depends on your writing experience. It's a very wide, wet nib, um, from Pelican, even their extra fines, um, which I enjoy, but that's all like, for example, with sailor, I can use their entire range of nib sizes with Pelican. I only use their extra fine nibs just because they're, they get too wide for me. So think about that. Um, after that, you know, I guess you're looking at something like Aurora who makes some nice piston fillers in that price range. Um, and that's, that's kind of my list there. You know, I think, um, you know, pilot eight 23, um, Aurora Optima Pelican M six or M 800, depending on the style and color you're in nib you're looking for. So that's, um, that's kind of that range where you can get some really good stuff and, and definitely shopping around. There's plenty of other things I haven't mentioned. See if something catches your eye, feel free to email me to elaborate. All right, let's do two more quick ones, Myke. Um, and then we'll call it a day. So from coma Dell, any, is there anywhere one can purchase or view Franklin Christophe pens in the UK or Europe? It's a great question. And I don't think there is, you know, unless you go to a pen show and you happen to luck into someone, they don't have any retail presence anywhere for one. And then they do special editions on and off for different companies and brands. Um, you know, in different parts of the world, but I don't know that they've ever done one and for a European brand, I'm sure I'm probably missing something, but as a general rule, they're a manufacturer, but not a retailer, right? They don't sell, they don't wholesale their pens to retail markets. So you're, unless you go to a pen show and they're there, you're going to have a hard time, um, seeing like what their lineup looks like.

Brad Dowdy: I do often wonder if like, I know these companies are not, they're not vendors, you know, they don't, they don't sell wholesale. And I understand why they wouldn't do it in their home country. But like, I do wonder if there could be a benefit for a company like Franklin, the size of Franklin Christophe to, to make a UK vendor hold a small part of their range. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I could totally see that. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brad Dowdy: I know it's, I know there were like a million logistical challenges, like logistical challenges that I literally have myself with the products that I sell, but it's just, it's just a thought.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep. Yep. No, that, the way that market is growing, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some type of partnership, uh, at least a small partnership, uh, you know, in the, in the coming years, like I could see the possibility of that. Last one for today. And I apologize if we hadn't gotten to your questions. We have a bunch of great ones and this one I wanted to get to, it has come up before and I answered them directly the moment they sent it to me because I was concerned. And Harry asks, if you still have ink in your pen, when you go to clean it, do you squirt it back into the bottle or down the drain? I worry about contaminating the bottle with tainted ink. And that's the exact reason why you don't do that. So Harry was on it already worrying about contaminating the bottle. Um, you know, if you only ever use one ink and you want to dump it back in the bottle for whatever reason, I guess maybe, but even then with it being more exposed to the elements and temperatures, and even though you might not see things immediately, I never put ink back into the bottle from a pen that has been filled. Like that just seems like just in general, a bad idea, but like, that's the kind of question we need to answer frequently just because people don't know like who are getting into fountain pens. They're like, well, I don't want to waste all this ink. I have all this ink, but I really want a new color in this pen. What should I do? Um, the answer is dump it. Honestly. Um, even though that doesn't seem like the right thing to do, like you should, I want to save it somehow. That's generally going to not work out well in the long run more times than not. So, um, you don't do that. Do you, Myke?

Ink Disposal

Brad Dowdy: No, I dump it in the drain. Okay. My feeling on this typically is like when I'm filling a pen, like the amount that I actually have is not that much. Like I don't have that much ink, you know? Right. So like that, that I'd be getting rid of. So like, I'm not really saving that much. So I may as well just do it because mostly it's like the pen. It's like, I was like, ah, sometimes like for me, I have so many orange inks. I don't even know what ink it is. Yeah. Right. Like I have, that's happened to me. Is this, uh, Hiroshizuku? Is this fire on fire? Is this lucky orange? Like who even knows? Like, I bet I just am going to fill it up with one of the, one of them, I guess.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And it's probably like less than one milliliter of ink. Like it's such a fractional amount. Just dump it for sanity and safety reasons. Like you just got to get rid of it and start fresh. Like that's my belief with fountain pen inks and filling and cleaning.

Brad Dowdy: Get rid of it. Start fresh. The Brad Dowdy way.

Myke Hurley: That's right.

Brad Dowdy: If you want to find links to this episode, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 375. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com. You can go to twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can go to at dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. And I am iMike. I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks again to ExpressVPN, Squarespace, and Eero for their support of this show. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad Dowdy. Goodbye, Brad Dowdy.