The Pen Addict 98/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	98
Title:	Space Credits
Release Date:	March 19th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Ed Jelley
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 98
Audio File:	Audio Episode 98
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 98
Length:	6464 min <br />1.067 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 99 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by a man who is probably considered to be the foremost sleuth when it comes to pen blogging. He is seeking out deals and new inks, and he's with a magnifying glass looking for the next big thing in woodcase pencils. He is Pen Addict Cumberbatch. That was submitted. Actually, this doesn't happen very often, but a listener of the show, Johnny Woodbury, sent me that by email as the subject line. It said Pen Addict Cumberbatch, and I just burst out laughing. So, Johnny, thank you for making my job easier this week and giving a fantastic name, Pen Addict Cumberbatch.

Brad Dowdy: I think you were so excited to do that, you screwed up the episode number.

Myke Hurley: Oh, man.

Brad Dowdy: This is episode 98. I just didn't want anyone to get too excited because episode 100 is kind of important. I didn't want them to think that was happening next week.

Myke Hurley: Why did I think it was 99 today?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to blame something somewhere. To give me that impression.

Brad Dowdy: Staring right at the document that says 98.

Myke Hurley: No, you are correct. But I will blame you anyway.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Let's blame someone else. Let's blame Ed Jelly. Hey, Ed.

Ed Jelley: Hey, you can blame me. It's all Ed's fault.

Brad Dowdy: It's all Ed's fault. Yes, we got a special guest appearance, Mr. Ed Jelly. Everything going all right today, Ed?

Ed Jelley: Now they are.

Brad Dowdy: We had some technical difficulties getting started, but it's all good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we're good. We sure are. We got a bunch of follow-up.

Long Island Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Let's get after it because we got Ed on to talk about a specific topic. The Long Island Pen Show was this weekend, and I have a bunch of questions for Ed about that. So let's talk about our follow-up stuff real quick. Cool. Where do you want to start? Let's start with you, mate. You had a big mail week within the past week or so. So what all you got?

Myke Hurley: So there's this company, this fly-by-night organization.

Myke Hurley: I don't know how trustworthy they are in general, really. I think they go by the name of Notch or something. I'm not 100% sure how you pronounce it.

Brad Dowdy: It's like a chop shop kind of place.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, Nook. Nook-ku? Mm-hmm. Something like that, right? Is that how you pronounce that?

Brad Dowdy: I think you got it. I'm not familiar with them.

Myke Hurley: So I received a rather large envelope on Wednesday, naturally the day after we recorded the show of last week with all of this stuff in it. Hang on a minute, everyone. Listen to this.

Myke Hurley: That was a lot of pen cases right there.

Myke Hurley: I didn't quite appreciate how many pen cases I bought from you until they arrived. Like, I don't know if I could ever use all of these, but I'm really pleased that I have them. Good. You are like a real business. Like, this is some real stuff going on here. This isn't like, you know, Brad and his shed making some, sewing some stuff together. Like, you've got a whole thing happening here. I have one question for you before I go into any details. So on the labels, on the back, you've got like some symbols. Yeah. What are they?

Brad Dowdy: That's Nook in, I guess the proper term is, is it Katakana? You know, we've had, we've had some discussion. So Jeff has a Japanese friend who wrote Nook for us in essentially Japanese, but there's different Japanese alphabets. And I believe this is the Katakana use of Nook.

Myke Hurley: I assumed it was an Asian language. I didn't know what one to say. So I decided to go with what are those symbols? Yep. I figured that might be the least offensive option.

Brad Dowdy: But yeah, I think it came out pretty good. A lot of people are surprised when they, when they see that and flip over the label and see what's going on on the backside there. It's a little, uh, little, little added touch we did.

Myke Hurley: So I'm really happy with my color choices. So I have a bunch of orange ones. I have a few dark blue ones. I had the Peacock, um, is it Hightower? Hightower, yes. I had the Peacock Hightower because, you know, I wanted the Kickstarter exclusive. Now, would you, I mean, we haven't planned this in advance. Would you be like, I don't know, adverse to me, like sort of talking, well, think about each one of these? No, not at all. So can we start with the Hightower? Yes. Because you don't need to help me with the names, you see, of them all. Yeah. So I'm really, I'm really, so let me start, I'll talk about this. This will be for all of them. The materials are great. And do you know what they remind me of? School. Like how so? Like this sort of material, like the, the, like the, what is, what is this called? Like the woven material?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's a cordura.

Myke Hurley: It feels like school pencil cases and school bags. Like the stuff that I had growing up was made out of material that was kind of like this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's essentially like a backpack cloth. It's a heavy duty.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. So it reminds me of like my school backpack and the inside, like the, is it nylon inside? Yeah. That also reminds me of similar. Because it's kind of like, I don't know, it's just those two things together remind me very much of my school backpacks, which is nice actually. I don't say that in a, in a way that is meant to infer that this is bad. Yeah. In any way. Like I like it. I like the, the, you probably have a technical term for it, the pen protecting flap in the high tower. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: No, we just, we just call it the flap. I mean, there is no, no super secret word.

Myke Hurley: So that's that. I mean, the high tower, I mean, it's, it's perfect. It's, it's the one that I kind of figured that I would want the most. I can put, I put three field notes, notebooks in one and was able to close it. Yep. So it fits up to free notebooks and free pens. Yeah. I think you'd have to be kind of Myke level of crazy to need three of each. But if you are, then, then great. Go for it. The next one I want to, I'm going to talk about. Now you're going to have to help me. This is the one that it unzips like this. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The brass town.

Myke Hurley: And it's got the unfoldy bit.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. It's the, it's like the roll, kind of like the roll zip roll pen case.

Myke Hurley: So my question for you on this, I have two questions. I have, I have one question on one potential addition that I think could be kind of cool. Uh, question is when it's all rolled up, are you able to still, because you put like six pens, you slide them into the, into the little pockets here and then you're able to roll it up and put it back in the case. Have you found from your use, if you're able, once it's filled up, if you're able to get anything else in the case?

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. And it's actually, it's actually designed to fit a few extras in there if you need to.

Myke Hurley: That's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: And that's how people, a lot of people use them that way.

Myke Hurley: I figured that you would have made it like that. My suggestion would be, you've got this big back panel on the other side. You could make like, you could put like a pocket on there maybe for some stuff.

Brad Dowdy: On the exterior.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Now, like, you know, on the other side, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, on the, on the inside, on the backside of the roll part.

Myke Hurley: That could be, you could maybe, I don't know. I don't know what you would do, but. I think you might limit the roll ability of it. See, I was just about to say that. I'm thinking, oh, why don't you put a notebook pocket on there? And as the words were coming out of my mouth, realized, oh no, you roll it up. So just therefore proving everyone why I shouldn't have my own pen case Kickstarter, because I clearly do not understand simple, just simple physics, really, as to how these things are meant to roll and fold up. So then if we go on to, I've got, these are like, I have three here. So the ones that kind of squash together and they're just like little, little pens.

Brad Dowdy: Just the little zipper ones? Yeah. Those are called the chimney tops.

Myke Hurley: The chimney tops. I don't have a lot to say about these in particular, really, because I think of all of the ones, these would be the ones that, like, they're the least exciting, you know? Because they're kind of just, they're just pencil cases. And plus, you know, our issue, and I'm sure you have the same issue, my pens touch in these ones. So, you know, we've, we've established that I don't like my pens to touch. Right.

Brad Dowdy: So what I, what I use these for, um, is nib storage. Good idea.

Myke Hurley: So I'm thinking about putting ink in one of them, like cartridges and stuff, you know? Exactly. I mean, pretty, pretty, pretty good for pencils as well. I, I have a, because of a friend of the show, obviously I have a massive amount of pencils. Thanks Andy for filling up my life of pencils. I have those now. So I put some of those in here. Um, so that, that would be pretty good for that. And then we have the one which is like the, it's basically like a field notes holder for me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, um, it's called the Mary Apple. It's just basically, uh, uh, a two slot notebook bi-fold.

Myke Hurley: But you could clip a pen in there. I like that a lot.

Brad Dowdy: A bunch of people have. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I think that, that seems like the sensible thing to do for me. I really liked that one actually as like, just like a field note storage per se. I think that's pretty cool. Like to throw them in there when I'm going on a trip or something to just keep, just, I don't know. It just keeps them at hand. I feel like you could probably put a passport in there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And make it like, I don't know the height, but a nice passport holder, something like

Myke Hurley: that. Travel documents. Like, I feel like that one is, this one is like just kind of more of a like general useful case to have. You can just throw some stuff in there, travel tickets, all sorts of little bits and bobs, you know, I think it'd be quite cool for that.

Myke Hurley: And then we come to the one with basically is like the sister of the one that I just spoke about. So it's the one where you'd basically put all double-sided pens.

Sassafras Pen Case

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's got the, the two flaps. It's the sassafras. It's got five pen slots, three of which are one size and, and two of which are a larger size. So you can carry different things. Like if you wanted to carry a flashlight or, you know, small flashlight, pocket knives, some other things in that case.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So that's really cool. But then we come onto my favorite, the one that I knew I didn't know was going to be my favorite, but actually is my favorite. And I think it's probably the same for everybody. What, what one are we left with, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: This is the lookout and this is Ed. This is the one that Ed had the prototype of actually. Right. Ed, didn't I send you this one?

Ed Jelley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: The three, three pin holster.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. Uh, it's great. It's right in front of me actually.

Myke Hurley: So the thing about this one is I feel of all of them for whatever reason, I don't know what the reason is. I feel that the material shine the most here. Mm-hmm. The materials that it's made out of, because you've got, it's small and there's quite a lot of the, um, Cordura here. It feels really nice and thick. And just, I don't know. There's just something about this case that really speaks to me. And it's, it fits in my hand, all in one hand, like my three favorite pens in there and something, you know, I'm able to slide a field notes on the ins on, you know, into it too, which is kind of cool. Have we spoken about how people done this? I feel like they have.

Case Design

Brad Dowdy: Uh, Ed was the one that opened my eyes to that actually.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Which I don't think you know that. When he, uh, did his prototype review, he slid it in the front. I was like, dang, that's a pretty good idea. And we've actually had a bunch of comments on this one where, you know, people are wanting a slot actually in the backside of this case. Yes. Or something like that.

Myke Hurley: That would be amazing. I think you'd have to make it a little bit bigger.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we'll look at a, there's definitely a, might be a version two, uh, design of this case because it's, it has turned out to be, I think maybe the most popular and I didn't, I wasn't sure. I knew it was going to be a good case, but I thought maybe the high tower, the brass town might be the, the main ones, but this one has turned out to be, uh, super popular.

Myke Hurley: Funnily enough, this is my favorite. And I was expecting the brass towns, brass towns, the right one I'm thinking of Robert the pocket on the inside. Yep. I was expecting that to be my favorite. And that was the one that I said you needed to make, you know, when we were talking about this a long time ago, I was like, this, you need to give me this. And that was like what the one that was most excited about, but that I really do think there's just something about the way that the materials come out with the lookout.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One of, one of the visual differences is that case has no binding, right? There's no, there's no black strip around it, you know, like a high tower.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That might be the way it feels like that. Like, cause it's, it's sewed into itself or seemed into itself, which gives it the chunkier sort of feeling around the edges.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: Can I say that I am super impressed with what you and Jeffrey have done here? Like I thought, you know, I was supporting my friends in something that they were looking to do. And it was important to me that I do that. Hence why I have more pen cases than I need as a human being. I bought them all. So it's like, I was, whatever the maximum is other than getting on a plane to Atlanta and having dinner with you guys, which I'd hope I could do for free anyway. I wouldn't have to pay you to have dinner with you. No. Um, I wanted to give you guys the maximum amount of money because, you know, I just want you to be successful and anything that I can do to do that. Of course, I'm always going to do that. But what I have actually received in return is just excellent quality stuff. Just like genuine good quality things that I would buy from a shop. Like I've not just received a cool Kickstarter gift or something from a friend, which they made in the shed, as I mentioned earlier. You've actually made some really good stuff here. And people need to appreciate that. Like if they haven't already from the excellent reviews that you've had so far, but you seriously hats off to both of you for design on your side. And then, you know, and then the actual manufacturing on Jeff's side, you've done just an incredible job. Just absolutely incredible.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I really appreciate that because I mean, that's our, that's our goal, you know, and we weren't sure, I mean, even we weren't sure how it was going to turn out from the beginning. And I know like the case we sent you, Ed, you know, that's not even like a totally finished sample. And we've made like great strides in the quality and the consistency of it. Jeff, I mean, is just, he's straight up killing it on the manufacturing side of things. He's, he's got it down to a science. Everything is, you know, real tight, real consistent. When I look at all the cases stacked up, I mean, they're just really consistent across the board and they look, they look good. It's everything's kind of coming to fruition. What, you know, our goals were in the beginning, as far as the quality of the designs and the usefulness of the designs and the reviews have been actually kind of mind blowing. Everyone doesn't seem to like the cases. They seem to love the cases, which I didn't necessarily expect. You know, you expect, I mean, and I'm sure there'll be some negative feedback and that's totally okay. You know, you want to know how to make your products better and things like that. But the overwhelming positiveness of the reviews has been a surprise, honestly. I mean, you don't expect that level of, you know, people, you know, liking your product. I mean, it's, it's very humbling. And it, I think it shows to us that we're, we're doing the right thing, even though it's maybe taking us a little longer than we initially planned. But I think it's worth it in the end. And this is, these are the types of things that we're putting into these cases to make it a long-term viable business. And hopefully you will see them in stores because that's what we're, you know, we're manufacturing these for. You know, we want these to be a high quality pen case that you'll be able to find in stores and retailers and things like that. And just because we think there's a need for this in the market. So I'm really, really glad you like them.

Myke Hurley: Seriously, just excellent stuff. And I need to find uses for them all. I think I'm going to give some to, to my girlfriend. Good. Um, because she, I basically filled up her life with pens.

Brad Dowdy: A few days ago, I just gave her a handful. Sorry, Ben.

Ed Jelley: I did get a package from Atlanta, Georgia though.

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah. What'd you get? Uh, from your buddy, Jeff. Oh, that's right. He sent you a, um, I think it's called the mod 01.

Ed Jelley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: This is, uh, this is a, this is an original altar manufacturing, which, uh, predates, uh, not co right.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. I entered the giveaway on his blog selfishly and, uh, I won. And it's awesome. Um, once again, like you guys were saying, like Myke was saying, rather super great quality materials are awesome. And, uh, I can't wait to fill it full of notebooks and not co cases.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So something like, uh, uh, something like Ed's got in week. I can probably find a link to put in the show notes of it. Um, these are the types of things, not necessarily that exact model, but, you know, down the line, I mean, the, I mean, it's wide open what we're going to be able to make. Jeff's really talented at what he does at the design aspect and knowing how to put things together, um, and, and make them high quality. So you're going to see different bags, backpacks and all kinds of stuff probably down the line.

Myke Hurley: So, and you've done a great job on the, on the site. You've changed the site design, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. We're changing it around, just trying to, trying to slowly get ready for the shop, uh, to launch when we, when we do get to that point, you know, when we have some downtime from not manufacturing or shipping, we're playing around, tweaking it a little bit and, uh, getting it ready to roll. It's exciting. It is exciting. We're, we're ready to get the, get everyone's Kickstarter, um, reward shipped. How far away are you now?

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I don't know how much longer we have. It's, it can't, we're down to weeks. I mean, it can't be that much longer. There's not that many orders left to fill. Um, you know, I'll probably have a hundred orders going out this week, ship some out yesterday. Um, I'll have more shipped out the rest of this week and, and Jeff's cranking out brass towns as much as he can. I think we have everyone's cases made except for their brass towns. So as we make the, if you haven't had your order yet, we're making the brass towns. And as soon as I get them in hand, I ship them out. So shouldn't be too much longer. Hopefully just a few weeks.

Myke Hurley: Perfect.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Then we'll get that store launched and, uh, we got all kinds of neat things in store for when we do that.

New Pen

Myke Hurley: So I have a new pen.

Brad Dowdy: You kind of alluded to this, uh, last week a little bit, huh?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: What do you, you, you, you, you were awfully sneaky about it too.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Um, so I need, I need to find, I need to find a tweet that I favorited, which enabled me to buy this. And I think I know the name of the guy. So I'm just going to check this super quickly. So, yeah. John Hume at Hume Deeney. Oh yeah. He sent me a link to an eBay auction for the yikes fountain pen of all knowledge.

Yikes Pens

Brad Dowdy: Oh my God. So I have it. I have, I've got one. Ed, are you familiar with this yikes pen stuff?

Ed Jelley: No, not at all. I'm Googling.

Myke Hurley: So we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. Uh, somebody put on eBay an unopened yikes pencil, pen, and eraser set. And, uh, I snapped it up for 14 pounds 50. Wow. The first fountain pen I ever owned. I now own again.

Brad Dowdy: And it really, go on. No, I was just gonna say that's legitimately cool.

Myke Hurley: It is terrible. As a fountain pen, it is so bad. So bad. But I'm so happy that I own it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. That's what it's about. I mean, it's, it's about the memory and thing and, you know, knowing that that was the first fountain pen you owned and something that related back to your school days and things like that.

Myke Hurley: But I opened it, showed it to my mom and she was like, I remember those. So therefore I knew I got it right.

Brad Dowdy: But it's straight up terrible, huh?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's so bad. Do you know, I, I, I got it for 15 pounds. I put a maximum bit of 50 pounds on that. Oh my God. I was not losing this. These things will not come up often. I have no idea how it was there. Do you think this pen is like 20 years old?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: It's not a good pen by any stretch of the imagination. And somebody has an unopened one on sale on eBay.

Brad Dowdy: That's crazy.

Myke Hurley: To come across that is kind of insane. It's fate. Yeah. Like it was the day after we recorded the show. And John sent that to me. And he is a hero. So thank you, John, for, for enabling this. I'm trying to, I've got the packaging here. Hang on. I want to take a look to see if it's got a date on it. Like, you know, they have like the register dates. I don't think it does. Which is a shame.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't think it does.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sure it's in the 90s at some time, huh?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, these were, yeah, this was in the 90s. Because I was like a small child when I owned this. It was in the early 90s. So it's, you know, you were looking at 20 years old. So for it to be in an unopened box is just insane. That's pretty cool. So, yeah, I got that. I'm really happy. I'm super happy that I have it. But it's such a bad pen. It's, it's... Sorry about my creaky chair. It's, it's, it's just terrible. Like, it's a fine point. And it's just scratching everything up. And... Yeah. But it's got this really cool, like, the grip, right? It's clear. The rest of the pen is white plastic. It's got all this funky writing on it. I included a link in the show notes, which is 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 98. That's the correct episode number.

Myke Hurley: You'll see it has all this, like, cool writing all over it. Like, it's kind of like silly little jokes and funny little illustrations. But the, the grip is clear. So as you put the ink in, it fills up in the grip. Cool. Because the mechanism for the filling is in the grip. That's pretty much all found in pen. And so you, as you put the ink in, like, it just, the colour just seeps out. It's kind of, it's kind of nice. But it's super cheap, like, feeling. It's just, like, thin plastic. But it's a pen that I now have been my collection again. And it was the, it was the, it was literally the pen that started all of this. I bought this pen because it looked cool. And it's my first ever fountain pen. And I was only allowed to use it when there was newspaper on the floor. And then I could put paper on top of it. Because I'd get ink on the carpet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, for sure. There you go.

Brad Dowdy: That is awesome. I'm glad you bought that. Me too. It's a, it's a meaningful, it's a meaningful thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's, it is now one of the most important pens in my collection. Even though I would never use it.

Retro 51 Gift

Myke Hurley: Exactly. One last thing. Yes. We received, I believe you got a gift from our friends at Retro 51. I did. So, I feel like I'm going to get the name wrong. What are they called? Is it Tornado Touch? Tornado? Yeah. Tornado Touch. It's a Tornado Touch. So, I have a Retro 51 Tornado Touch, same as Brad does too. It's a nice mini pen.

Myke Hurley: And it has the little top hat. The sort of bowler hat. Which is a stylus. It's a conductive touch. How would you say it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, it's a conductive stylus. I mean, I don't.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't really know. Yeah, it's a stylus. So, it will work on your laptop trackpad if you want. It does. I checked it. But mainly on your iPhone, your iPad, that sort of thing.

Myke Hurley: It's got a nice little design. I mean, we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago when it came out. I personally quite like the little mustache that goes along with the bowler hat or the derby hat, depending on how you say it.

Myke Hurley: What do you think about this?

Brad Dowdy: I was very impressed with it. I liked it better than I thought I would, actually. Yeah, tell me why. The refill is excellent. I haven't felt a ballpoint refill like that. And, of course, it's Schmidt. And I wrote it down in the other room because I actually did a written review of it. And I had to go look up the – it was hard to get the refill out. I had to take a Phillips head screwdriver to get it out because it's actually a screw-in refill and it doesn't come out easily. The quality of it was really good. You don't notice the mustache or derby when you're writing with it or even looking at the pen. Like, it's much more visible in Retro 51's, like, advertising for it. It really shows up there. But when you're using it, you don't really notice those things.

Myke Hurley: They're just the features of the pen. And I think it gives it, like, this charming little quality, personally, that I really like.

Brad Dowdy: It makes me smile. It's good. And the feel of it in the hand is really good. You know, it's a mini pen, so it's narrower and smaller. I could use, like, a quarter of an inch maybe more length. But I think it's a pretty good length for what they're trying to do with it. Overall, I would give it a thumbs up. I am glad I got it in hand instead of just looking at it online. That made a difference for me, especially in the way it wrote. It made a difference in just looking at it and saying, you know, oh, look at this silly mustache thing. It's actually a pretty solid pen.

Myke Hurley: I was so surprised.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I was super surprised at this. I 100% agree with you. And I wanted you to go first because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't too endeared by these guys. Because, you know, everybody knows how much I love Retro 51 so much to make me mix my words around.

Myke Hurley: It's an incredibly good refill that is being used in here. It is visibly, noticeably different to the one that they were using in the Tornado Mini. If you remember my anger. And this is a pen that I would 100% recommend to people now if they're looking for a pocket pen. Agreed. This is an everyday carry pen. Like, it's perfect. It's small. It's light. It has another function if you need it. I mean, I personally wouldn't use the stylus functionality. Right. But it's cool because it looks good. I actually like it. I like the style of this a lot more in this size. It's just got this fun little style. I got the black one. It looks like a dude wearing a tuxedo with a little bowler hat on. I don't know. It's just kind of nice. I actually really like it. And I highly recommend it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm with you. And I started the review process on that. I haven't taken the pictures yet. So I'll have a full review up on the Pen Addict in, I don't know, a week or two. But I'm definitely going to recommend it and have already made the comment to a couple people who are asking about it.

Myke Hurley: And, you know, please do not mistake the fact that we were sent these to, you know, anyway. Oh, yeah. Or change the way that we feel about them. It's genuinely a very good pen.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. I mean, we'll tell you if it's terrible. Exactly. I have no problem telling you how bad things are.

Myke Hurley: I put enough money to those people there. It doesn't bother me if I had to say that something wasn't good. Nope. But it is very. So I highly recommend it. Right. Shall we take a quick break to thank our friends at Squarespace? And then we'll bring Ed back. Hi, Ed. Are you still with us?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Ed Jelley: I'm here.

Myke Hurley: Good stuff. Right. So this episode is brought to you by the fine folks over at Squarespace.com. Squarespace make it. They give you everything you need to make. A website on the internet. They are the all-in-one platform. I think it's super fast. Super easy to create your own website. I was talking about Brad's website at KnockCo earlier. And you may have mentioned how nice I thought it looked. I've just remembered now. KnockCo is a Squarespace site. And he was able to make those changes really quickly. Because you can quickly change around your templates. And make your site look new and fresh and awesome. In just a few clicks. And we'll talk about the templates in a moment. You can get a free trial at Squarespace and 10% off by going to squarespace.com and using the offer code Tallyho3. Squarespace are always making sure that their platform is up to date with brand spanking new features. Fantastic and beautiful designs. And rock solid support. Those beautiful templates that I mentioned. You can get started with them with any Squarespace site. And you select one that you want. They have different ones that fit different businesses. But you can use any of them. And you can adapt them to your own style. They have loads of different options that you can adjust to create your own space online. Everything is drag and drop in a Squarespace platform. So you can easily add content from your own desktop. You can rearrange elements of content within a page. And you can very simply change the themes that you want to use. See how it's going to look on your site. Make any tweaks before implementing. You do all of this in your web browser. It's really, really powerful and amazing stuff. Squarespace makes sure that your site is also going to look fantastic on any device. Because every Squarespace website has its own unique mobile design. You can easily connect to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Google. And many more web and social services. So you're able to pull content in from them. For example, you can have all of your Instagram pictures in a nice little cube gallery there if you want that. Or you can throw content out. So you can put a new blog post. You want to tweet about it automatically. Well, you can do that. So just a couple of examples of the way you can have Squarespace integrate for you. Squarespace also has their own e-commerce platform. If you want to set up a shop and sell things, you can do this in minutes. And this is available on any Squarespace plan. Squarespace is super easy to use. But if you need any help, they have over 70 dedicated employees and a customer care team based in New York City. They're available for live chat during the week and have super fast email support throughout the day and night. As I said earlier, you can try out Squarespace for free. There's no credit card required. And if you decide to purchase, it starts at just $8 a month and includes a free domain name if you sign up for a year. Make sure that you get 10% off and support this show and all of 5x5 by using the offer code Tallyho3. Thank you so much to Squarespace for the continued support of what we do. We love you, Squarespace. Thank you.

Brad Dowdy: Best Squarespace read on the planet besides ICT apparently.

Myke Hurley: Apparently so. That read right there, that was my challenge to ICT. Trying to get me to top that.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I still have to go listen to that, but I heard you talking about that. That's pretty funny. All right. So real quick, pen blog of the week. Then we're going to get into the Long Island pen show because I'm excited about it. The blog of the week is a blog I've only picked up on in the last three weeks, maybe a month or so. It's called The Newsprint by a guy named Josh Ginter. And it's a little bit different than our normal pen blog of the week in that it's not a fully pen, paper, pencil review type blog. It's got some different tech articles mixed in there, but he does actually a pretty frequent job. And I've linked to him a couple times on Ink Links is how I found some of his older posts just about pens. He's done a few field notes posts. But I really wanted to feature it because I really like Josh's writing style. And the design of his blog is super simple, super neat. He does a really good job. And I've actually learned some other things from some of the other articles, the non-pen and paper related articles, that I just really enjoy reading his blog as a whole. So I thought this would be one that anyone would really enjoy reading. So thank you, Josh, for writing The Newsprint.

Myke Hurley: I love how this website looks. Really nice logo, too. He's done a fantastic job. Really nice logo. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot.

Brad Dowdy: So check it out. I know he's done a couple of field notes posts recently. And I forget some of the older posts. He's definitely done some pen posts, too, that I've linked in Ink Links before.

Myke Hurley: Oh, Brad, this is hilarious. This is a Squarespace site. I honestly didn't know that. I just love the way it looked. It's a Squarespace site.

Brad Dowdy: How did you even tell?

Myke Hurley: I went into his colophon and it says the newsprint is managed on the Squarespace platform.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's pretty nice looking.

Myke Hurley: I like it a lot. So it shows. It just shows if you look how different your blog is to this blog. Not that your blog is lovely as well, Brad. It's terrible. New field notes are coming. I just want to say that.

Brad Dowdy: I was hoping they might actually show up today, but it looks like it'll probably show up tomorrow.

Myke Hurley: Did you get your shipping notification yet?

Brad Dowdy: I got mine today. I think I did. I can't remember. I got mine today. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: So we'll know by next week. We're going to know by next week.

Brad Dowdy: Let's bring Ed in because he's been sitting patiently. I'm sorry, Ed.

Ed Jelley: Hi, Ed. I deserve it after what I put you guys through to get me heard.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, we had some technical difficulties, but it all worked out. Everything. Ed's a trooper and he worked diligently to get this set.

Ed Jelley: I'm here, though. You are. Good.

Long Island Pen Show

Brad Dowdy: We're glad. We're glad. And we brought you on for a specific reason. And that reason is the Long Island Pen Show, which was this weekend.

Brad Dowdy: And so Ed's got a post up on EdJelly.com. With his Long Island Pen Show recap. We'll have that in the show notes if you haven't seen it already. It just came out this afternoon. And give us a little just a little background in general about the show, because last year was your first year. That was your first Pen Show ever last year.

Ed Jelley: First one ever. Yeah, last year. I forgot how I found out about it. I don't know. I think it was one of the forums or through the Long Island Pen Club, which I'm not a participant in, but I signed up for their email list. So I'm kind of in the know because I get the emails. And I just figured I'd check it out. It's like 20 minutes away from me, which is great because I only have to drive 20 minutes. And last year it was in a large dark room, which was not good. And this year they changed it to a large, very bright room, which was very good.

Ed Jelley: Basically, they just have a bunch of vendors, some people that do nib work, repairs, and there's like thousands and thousands of pens in one room. And like, I'll be here for an hour. And then you realize that a pen takes up zero room and that there's literally thousands of things to walk around and go through. I don't know what else.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but I think it's like some of the vendors that are there, some of the ones that travel the pen show circuit like Anderson Pens and Richard Bender. So you see a bunch of these people that we're always talking about and always making the pen show circuit. So it's always cool to put a face with the names and things like that and get to talk to some of these people that we're always talking about online.

Ed Jelley: Yeah, that's definitely one of the cooler parts. Like, it's nuts that you can order a pen from Richard Bender and it's going to write great and you can get a crazy custom grind. But there's something so much different about putting your name on the list and then waiting, you know, a few hours and then you see him grind whatever you want or fix up whatever you want or make something right. Great. And you can try the pen out and then hand it back to him and then he'll tweak it some more or it's perfect the first time. But that's like one of the coolest parts for me is being able to watch that because otherwise, you know, it's not like a common everyday occurrence.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that's one of the things I want to talk about. We're going to get to the specific grind that you had him do because I'm my jaw is still dropping over this thing that you got done because I had never even heard of such a thing. But one of the things you posted about in your article, which I think a lot of people don't know about pen shows and it's kind of the I kind of had the same experience last year at the Atlanta pen show when I got some nib work done. You showed up there early in the morning. I mean, maybe not right when the doors open, but early. You went straight to Richard's table. Put your name on the list. And how long was your wait?

Ed Jelley: I was like four hours. And the show is only from. All right. There's like a pre show, which I don't know. Really, I don't know why they do because I got there at like 15 minutes before, quote unquote, doors to the public. And people were setting up and nobody was like ready to go, which is fine because it's Saturday morning at, you know, nine thirty. And they a lot of people just drove very far to get there. But, you know, when I got in there, like I remember from last year, my first order of business is to get my name on that list. And then I'm like, I should be polite and say hello to Brian and Lisa Anderson because I'm looking at them and they're right in front of me. But I go away and go from the list. But no, you know, I made my way over there first to kind of guarantee a spot. And I was there at nine forty five, you know, 15 minutes before they were technically open and I was number 13 on the list.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So for people who are going to their first pin show and may or even considering doing nib work, you need to do a little bit of research and plan on, you know, being there a little bit early or at least, you know, at the beginning of the day, because if you're waiting till two or three o'clock to start queuing up for some of these guys, you're going to have a bad time. Yeah.

Ed Jelley: Um, there were people when I was getting like when I was getting my pen worked on, they were still people signing up. And, uh, you know, Barbara Binder was like, you might not get to you like your number 40. And we're at, you know, 13 right now and it's three o'clock.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Ed Jelley: Wow. That's definitely like if you plan on getting something done, go there first and get your name on the list.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's, uh, the exact same experience that, that I had with this. So that is, that is definitely good, good, uh, insight there. Now, another thing I talk about and, um, that I think we've actually talked about before, or at least communicated on Twitter about is, you know, getting, uh, prepared for the show, you know, making a list, seeing what you, uh, you know, what you need to look out for and, um, you know, kind of have a idea of what you're shopping for. But you took a little different tack this time, huh?

Ed Jelley: Yeah. I went there with no list, no plans and a ton of money in my pocket, like an idiot. Um, don't do that unless you want something you didn't plan on buying at all, but it ends up working out. So I can't talk bad on the tactic, but, uh, really it makes sense to like have some sort of something in mind. Like I am already well past my dedicated pen budget, which I never really made up, but it was like this invisible number in my head. Uh, so remember last time I was on, we were talking about me possibly buying an Akaya and that lasted like a week and I bought it and then, you know, it's just other stuff like, Oh, let me grab this.

Myke Hurley: And then it's like, Oh, did you go to the show with a budget in mind or was he just like, I'm just going to take this amount of money with me and how much I spend to spend?

Ed Jelley: See what I do? Like I have my like mess around money and PayPal. Cause that's like, that's not even real money to me. Like not cause I'm insanely rich. Cause it's like a weird electronic transaction. And like, I don't put anything like from normal life in there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Ed Jelley: I know what you mean. Like I, it's like space credits. Like I don't, you know, it's fills up and then it's gone.

Myke Hurley: And that's such a perfect way to describe it. Like the money you make from your pen stuff, you just put into more pen stuff because you know, it's, it's like the pen transaction, like pen coin or something.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. When it crashes, you don't like want to jump off a bridge. You're like, Oh, it doesn't crash. Cause it's PayPal and I'm safe.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's like, you know, whatever.

Ed Jelley: But, uh, yeah, no, you know what? I transferred, uh, like $400 from space credits into real money, took it out of an ATM. And then I'm like, you're not using your credit card for anything here or your debit card, whatever. Use the cash you have in your pocket. And that's what I told myself. And I managed to spend all of it.

Ed Jelley: It's easy to do. It's very easy to do. Especially when you walk out with three things. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Pilot Custom Eight 23

Brad Dowdy: So, so let's talk about those things. Um, okay. And I'm, I'm just going to cut to the chase. The pilot custom eight 23, which is a beautiful pen. I mean, I was familiar with this pen. It's a, uh, it's a, it's a vac filler pilot, right?

Ed Jelley: It's like the CISB vac 700, except, uh, it feels much nicer designed, much better design. Yeah. Um, it's the same general filling mechanism though. You unscrew the back, you pull it out. There's like a metal rod. You put it in ink and then you build up the pressure by pushing down on the end cap. It breaks the seal vacuum action happens and it sucks a whole lot of ink up into the body of the pen. And, uh, the eight 23, the U S market ones only available in this like amber with gold furnishing. And it looks awesome. I don't even, I don't like that. That's like my, that's like one of my oranges. Like I don't, I don't do orange and I've kind of been coming around, but like another thing I'm like, ah, you're never going to buy a brown pen. And like, here I am.

Brad Dowdy: Um, I know I'm, I'm coming around with you on that too. You know, at some point it just, you know, you, you realize that the design is like really good and, um, it, it looks sharp and you just end up having to have it. So, um, it's a gold nib pen.

Ed Jelley: Yes. Actually, one quick thing about the nib. That's the only reason, not the only reason, but that was like what stopped me from buying, uh, was it the custom 74, the demonstrate with a, not the, not the piston one, the, uh, converter one was the nib side nib on the eight 73 is huge. Um, it's much bigger than the other ones. I was like, wow, that's pretty impressive. And cost wise, like, you know what? I think I'd be happier with this bigger, more impressive looking nib. And that's why I went for it really.

Brad Dowdy: So what nib did you buy it with? And then tell us what happened with that nib afterwards.

Ed Jelley: Okay. It came with, I think it was a medium. And after speaking with Barbara and Richard, I was like, can you do this with this nib? And like, yeah, the medium is fine. It might even be a broad. I don't know. Uh, it did. It had a very short life as a stock nib.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, so let's go ahead and let's explain what, what actually happened from this point.

Ed Jelley: Okay. Um, another fun fact about pen show stuff is that if you buy a pen from the binders, you, you cut the line.

Brad Dowdy: That is true.

Ed Jelley: Seems very unfair, but you know, they have to pay out of pocket to get to the show and take the time of their day. And they're trying to, you know, they're a pen business. They sell pens, you know, not actually,

Brad Dowdy: they actually keep two lists going.

Ed Jelley: Oh, they only had one with me, but it's a small.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But I saw with Atlanta, you had a, they had a list for general work being done. And then when you bought a pen, you went on the second list.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. I don't think they ever got to the second buy a pen list, but, uh, you know, it was, they manage it well. They know what they're doing. Yeah, for sure. But, um, the nib I opted to get is what's referred to as a Hebrew slash Arabic italic nib in approximately 0.7 millimeter. And that sounds crazy because you don't know what that means really, unless you're in the know, which is, I don't know who knows that, but, um, basically what it does, it's like a reverse stub nib. The down strokes are really narrow. And then the cross strokes are much broader. So like a normal stub, like, you know, Lamy 1.1 or 1.5, your down strokes are going to be the wide stroke and your cross strokes are going to be really narrow. And this is essentially the opposite of that. And why I got that, I honestly, I don't know. I was looking for, uh, uh, you know, the food a brush style nib to have that and it just, it wasn't working. Like, uh, I bought a hero 90 18 and food a nib and it, it was great. It's fun. It's like a, it's like a brush, but it's not great for writing the way I thought it would be. And this one is like insanely awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so I have never heard of this until I saw you post on Instagram after the show. And it's still kind of boggling my mind how this works. So my, my biggest question about it that I'm trying to, to get in my head is just looking at your writing sample. It, it has to be smooth, right? It doesn't seem like it would be, it seems like the back end of the nib, depending on your writing style would be digging into the page.

Ed Jelley: It has a little bit of feedback, but like compared to even like, you know, and or like a misaligned steel nib, it's like, it's so smooth.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it looks really consistent from your writing sample. Have you ever seen anything like this, Myke?

Ed Jelley: You know what? Uh, if you, I actually posted a full set of pictures with, um, really good closeups of the nib on Flickr.

Brad Dowdy: Flickr. Yeah. I'll find them. I'll get show notes. All right, cool. It's in the show notes. Great. They'll be in there.

Ed Jelley: I think those are public too. I don't think it was a big secret. So, um, if you're wondering what the heck we're talking about, which I would be too, um, check that. And then you'd be like, Oh, okay. But basically he takes the pen and you know how a nib is kind of circular in nature, almost like a sphere and lines off the sides. So it comes to a weird point. It's really hard to describe and it's very unique in its writing style. Um, I think this is going to be one of those like visual aid, like go check out that link in the show notes because.

Brad Dowdy: Definitely. You have some good closeup shots of the nib too.

Ed Jelley: Yeah.

Pen Nibs

Myke Hurley: It's so strange looking. It's just so weird.

Ed Jelley: If you look at, um, that writing sample I put up there, it's like the bright blue and the bright green. You can see the difference between what a regular stub does and what this wacky grind does. And I found I've been writing with it like nonstop since I got it. Cause it's one of those like super fun, never really had anything like this before pens for me. And my problem when writing with a stub, like a lot of people like that it gives you that different line character and it puts a lot of ink on the page. This is more condensed. Um, like I can write closer to my normal size and it has this really cool kind of, uh, just a really cool different line weight look to it than a normal stub does. And it flies through ink.

Ed Jelley: This with a cartridge converter, you'd be refilling it like every page. And, uh, 823, it's got almost a two milliliter ink capacity. Yeah. So it's, it's huge. And, uh, I'm already like halfway through and that's not, you know, it's, I'm going to refill this in like a day or two, which is kind of crazy for me with the amount of writing that I do.

Ed Jelley: That's pretty cool.

Brad Dowdy: I, I, I, I'm, I'm fascinated by this because number one, I'd never heard of it. And then number two, just the, the idea of do you, do you, is your writing style different with this pen or do you feel like you write like you would with any other pen? Are you holding it differently? Um, same angle, all that good stuff. Or do you find you have to do it a little bit different?

Ed Jelley: There's a definitive sweet spot. I write with a pretty traditional like tripod grip, uh, with the pen, like 45 degree, 45 degrees to the page. And that's really what, uh, the nib is meant to be written with. So like I had a really easy time, uh, writing with that. Like, I don't know how you'd manage lefty. Or if you write with a high writing angle, all you get is really fine strokes. It's almost like a, a food aid nib where the lower the angle you go, the broader the stroke is going to be. That's really why I got it is that I wanted something that could provide a more consistent experience than, uh, that hero pen that I have. And it nailed it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And the, the, the line weights give a really interesting look to your text. Like when you, when you write it's, you don't want to say it's backwards or reverse, but it, it, it kind of is. It really, and you don't even realize it at first. And then you take a step back and you're going, wait, this is a little bit different. And why is this happening? And then you kind of realize, oh, I see what's going on here. And that's crazy.

Ed Jelley: Really nail it down with pictures and examples in the review. Cause like, I already feel like I'm not doing a good job explaining it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you totally are. I mean, I can wrap my head around it. It's just, I'm confused. Yeah.

Ed Jelley: It's crazy. It is. You got to write. It's one of those kind of like, I didn't get the pen until I tried out. He had one at his table. He has a set of, uh, I think they're like pelicans or something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Ed Jelley: All kinds of grinds. And he had the 0.9 millimeter, uh, Hebrew, Arabic, italic. And I was like, all right, I need this like now. And I'm like, all right, what pen can we, uh, put this in? And then I'm like, oh, let's pick the really, you know, the expensive one. Cause it looks awesome. And that's how I ended up with this. This was total on impulse. I didn't even think I was going to buy anything to be honest. And, uh, well, there you have it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's awesome. I'm, I'm, I'm glad you branched out. Cause I've learned something from this, you know, I, I never knew such a thing existed and, you know, I wouldn't know these things unless, you know, my cool internet friends go out and, uh, do crazy things like this, um, that we can all be enabled from.

Ed Jelley: They, uh, he offers them in, uh, the vanishing point nibs for, I think they're like $110 for just the nib unit, which isn't too bad. I paid an additional 65 for the grind on top of the price of the pen.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Ed Jelley: So if you're feeling crazy with like 110 space credits to spare and your pen fund, you could, you could do it. Wait, wait for the review, uh, check it out. And then if it looks like something you might be interested in, I can promise you it writes awesome. And it's definitely unique in like every way.

Brad Dowdy: Well, cool. I will have to check that out. Hopefully they're at the Atlanta pen show here in a couple of weeks. They were there last year, but the year before they weren't. So I don't know what their travel schedule is like this year, but I think they had a pretty good show last year. So hopefully they'll be there again and I'll get to check out something like this. I don't know if I'll come home with it, but, um, it, it will certainly, uh, get a looking at, um, so yeah, this is pretty cool. I'm, I'm glad you, you did this and shared all the pictures of it because, uh, I think I've looked at this every day since you've, you've posted it, just trying to, uh, get a grasp of, of everything about it. Cause it's, it's really neat and interesting. So that, that was the, that was the big purchase. Like I said, I, I jumped right into it head first. So what else, what else did you get, uh, did you get done at the pen show?

Ed Jelley: Well, since I bought this pen new, um, that I got to cut the line for, but you also keep your spot on nib work line. So I also got, um, my sailor Imperial gear, uh, Imperial pro gear professional. What do you know what I'm talking about?

Brad Dowdy: The all black, the black one. Yeah. The Imperial black, uh, Imperial black. There you go.

Ed Jelley: Writing kind of scratchy and it wasn't putting enough ink on the page. And like within five minutes it was like, Oh wow, this is how the pen's supposed to be. So I got that done from him. Uh, Richard Binder again. And, uh, I was done with him cause I was not allowed to have more things.

Ed Jelley: If I was, if they were, you know, if they do a really great job of making sure everybody gets a fair shot. So like I would have sat there with my whole collection, like, Oh, could you do this to this? And, but you know, one per customer, unless you buy something and it's, you know, you're a double customer.

Brad Dowdy: Um, and that's kind of the max.

Myke Hurley: I think that makes sense. I, I agree with that. You know, like buy a pen, get the wood nib work done quicker. Like totally. Yeah. I think that that's the way that they got to be.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And then if you go like, uh, my experience with, you know, uh, the vendors did one pen for me last year cause I had bought a Pelican from them. And then I had a Myke Masuyama who only does grinds there. He's not there selling pens and he limits people to a three pens at a time. So else you, like your Ed said, you could sit there all day with your whole collection, you know, as long as, uh, as long as you had enough space credits, you could just go to town.

Ed Jelley: Um, there's a lot of stuff there though. Um, I'm not a huge vintage collector, but if I was, I think I would have like lost it cause there's so much stuff. Um, there's like a million Parker vacuumatics, which looks so cool. I have one of them that I don't really use too much. So I wasn't like ready to go with, um, you know, buying 10 of them. But, uh, I did want to see one of the golden web models. You ever hear of those?

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah. They're fast. They're, yeah, they're, they're pretty.

Vintage Pens

Ed Jelley: It's, uh, it looks like a, like a spider web kind of small checked finish with just gold shiny everywhere. And I got to see one. It was, it was too, it was out of my price range and the nib was not good. So like for an okay condition, golden web with a bum nib, like it was, I think it was two 75 and I did not. Yeah. Um, what else was there? I mean, the Anderson pens table is awesome cause they have a mix of new and old stuff and they're super nice. So it's easy to spend a lot of time hanging out there. Um, one thing they had that I almost was like, wow, this is really cool. Is that new, uh, wall ever sharp, uh, the new skyline, I think it is. Mm-hmm. But I have one called the Technic, which is brand new. It's a metal body and it's ceramic coated. Ah. So it has a really cool feel to it and it has a super smooth, uh, flexible nib on it, which I was really close to, to biting on.

Brad Dowdy: But no, one, one thing you did talk about and I don't know where, if it was just me and you or, or somewhere I saw you mention it and it's one of the things on my list that I'm going to look at. I don't know that I'm going to buy in Atlanta is a vintage super flexy pen, like an old waterman. Like Aziza has such good penmanship and she uses this old waterman with this like ridiculous range of flex in the nib. Uh, did you happen to look at any of that type of stuff?

Ed Jelley: Um, last year I did. And then like, once again, like those, like a wet noodle is what it's referred to. If you can go from like fine to triple broad, but it looks awesome. But like those also have a pretty hefty price tag from the last year. Um, and you know, a year ago I wasn't as far gone as I am now with pens, I guess you could say. So like, I didn't really know like what I was looking for, but I was like, wow, that's expensive, but it's awesome. But I, you know, I did look around, like I did have hours to kill before I got my nib work done. So you just, it's just even cool to go around and pick up different pens from different decades and see how they're made differently. And kind of, it's cool to see how they go through the years. And then you could just walk up to like the Anderson's table or, uh, some of the other vendors whose names are slipping me by. Um, toys in the attic was another one. They had like a ton of Deltas and Viscontis. So that was fun hanging out over there, but it's cool to see like, you know, much smaller, older pens. And then you get these like huge Auroras and, uh, the Delta Dolce Vita pens are gigantic. Um, it's just cool to see, you can literally see everything.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's awesome. And I actually, I think my list is actually going to be shorter this year and just to have more openness of, Hey, you know, let's see what I find. Kind of like, uh, kind of like you did this year. You know, I feel like this will be my third show and I feel like I'm kind of getting the hang of it and that I can, I'm able to go and just look and see, you know, I know a little bit better what I like, or I'm able to, you know, talk to the vendors a little bit better with about what I'm looking for, as opposed to the first show where I was just like a deer in the headlights and just going, ah.

Ed Jelley: Yeah. See, last year I went with my girlfriend. So I was like, Oh, look at this. This is cool. It's cool. And like, I didn't want to drag her this year. I felt bad. And it was kind of cool going by myself. Cause then you really focus on, uh, Hey, this is, do I need this? You kind of think about it more. You don't have somebody else egging you on or being like, nah, I don't do that. But, um, I don't know where I was going with that really. Well, it's just, it made me time to think instead of just talk about stuff to somebody. You know what I mean? I think that helped in really impulse buying something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Ed Jelley: Nope. No point.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, it looks like it was a highly successful show for you. Um, that, that, uh, that eight 23 is, is, is quite an impressive, uh, event. I will say.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm glad, I'm glad we got you on to, uh, to talk about it and we will definitely, uh, definitely want to get you back again and, and talk about more of these crazy things you're getting into because, uh, you know, I, I need to be enabled just like, uh, everyone blames me for enabling them. I need to be enabled by others. And I thank you for doing that for me.

Ed Jelley: Oh, no problem. I also, I have one more, one quick cool thing that I actually have to thank you guys for. Um, a listener of podcasts on the five by five network. Uh, this gentleman saw stumbled upon the pen addict podcast. Not even really that into pens. Listen to a bunch of episodes, heard the one with me on it. I started reading my site, went to the pen show because I posted it on my site and then I met him and talked to him for like 20 minutes and it was awesome.

Myke Hurley: That's so amazing.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. And I know exactly who you're talking about. I've talked to Saul several times on Twitter. Seems like a super nice guy.

Ed Jelley: Super nice guy. And, uh, he was like, yeah, you know, I've backed some of the Kickstarter pens since hearing about it. He's like, it's awesome. I'm really getting into it. I just picked up a vanishing point in the Twisby five 80. I was like, oh, did you back the Karis customs Inc? And he's like, yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm like, I have the prototype with me if you want to check it out. So that was cool that I got to show him something that like, he knows kind of what to expect now. But, uh, that was like my cool little story of the day. Cause like they give out name tags when you walk in. So like mine's Ed J. So some people put two and two together and, you know, luckily, you know, Saul was one of them and it was cool to, uh, meet somebody who kind of fell into the whole thing and is now like embracing it.

Brad Dowdy: That's so cool. One of the best things about this is, is the community around it. The, the people are legitimately cool and friendly and nice, like salt of the earth type people. It's awesome. I, I love meeting, you know, people in person or, or talking to them online. You can, you can tell that, um, that connection that we have, you know, through these pens and paper and things of that nature are just, um, it's really cool to be able to share that with other people.

Ed Jelley: Definitely. Oh, also I'd be a jerk if I didn't mention, uh, another pen blogger was there. Uh, Todd of that one pen.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. You did mention that. It's there.

Ed Jelley: And we got to talk for a few minutes and that was cool. Cause somebody else that's doing something that I do. That was fun. Put a, put a face to the name. And, uh, I think that's pretty much it. You know, it was, it was cool. It was cool talking to people that were like, Oh, I read the site or, you know, I found out because of, you know, pen addict and now this crazy chain of events. And here I am.

Ed Jelley: Awesome. That's another, I talk, talk to people cause they're, you pick up knowledge that you wouldn't otherwise get from the internet. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: And that make new friendships and, uh, learn about new stuff. So that's great.

Brad Dowdy: Well, good deal. I think we're, uh, I think it's a wrap today, mate. And, um, we really, I really appreciate you coming on ed. Why don't you tell, uh, tell everyone where they can find you. Where's the best place to find ed jelly online?

Ed Jelley: Um, the best place to find ed jelly online is ed jelly.com, which is E D J E L L E Y.com. And then from there, uh, you can find links to everything else, Twitter, Instagram, that I'm very active on. And, uh, yeah, Twitter and Instagram is fine at ed jelly.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yes, sir.

Brad Dowdy: You there.

Myke Hurley: I sure am. Thank you, Ed. It's been really cool to hear about that. I love hearing stories from people in the field, especially at the pen shows.

Ed Jelley: Thanks for having me. It's always, always fun. And hopefully next time I'll figure out my microphone situation before, uh,

Myke Hurley: you know, that doesn't happen again. Technical difficulties. They get us all from time to time. If you want to catch up with us, uh, me or Brad, there's a couple of ways you can do that. We're both on Twitter. I am I Myke. I M Y K E. Um, Brad is at Dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. And Brad also writes at pen addict.com. Next week will be the real episode 99. So look forward to that. Um, our show notes are at five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash 98 until next week. Thanks so much for listening. Bye bye.

Myke Hurley: Say goodbye. Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: You're a dork.