The Pen Addict 185/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	185
Title:	Don't Make Me Cry Again
Release Date:	December 14th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 185
Audio File:	Audio Episode 185
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 185
Length:	7878 min <br />1.3 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict episode 185. Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com, Pen Chalet, and Karis Customs. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined, as always, by the one and only Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Michael Hurley?

Myke Hurley: I'm feeling good, man. Over the course of the history of this show, we have had a few episodes. that have devolved into emotional teariness. So I'm thinking episode 100 was pretty emotional, and the episode where we hit the Kickstarter goal whilst on the air.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I have thought about this a lot today, actually, and I'm just wondering if I should just, like, go cut some onions and get the tears out ahead of time, or am I going to break down, like, at some point during this episode, or what? And the best thing is, we haven't told anybody yet.

Myke Hurley: No, so this is my thing. We have a huge, we have some huge news today. But we also have a bunch of regular topics on follow-up. Yep. So, should we leave people in suspense? We're going to make them wait. We're going to make them wait.

Brad Dowdy: Because there's actually some really cool stuff I want to talk about.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Lamy Colors

Brad Dowdy: So, is that cool by you? Oh, of course it is. Yeah. So, the first thing is the new Lamy colors. And they got, they announce them so early. Like, some of these aren't even until the summer of 2016. But they always do an AL Star Special Edition, the aluminum barrel, Safari shape. And then they do a Safari Special Edition every year. And people, the first one I saw was the AL Star, which is charged green. And just about every pin person on the planet had a conniption. Because this is, like, their fifth green Special Edition color in a row. And it's getting kind of annoying at this point.

Myke Hurley: Why? Why are they doing this? I don't get it.

Brad Dowdy: But you could take, like, a photo of, like, the last five years of Special Editions. And they just, and line them up together. And they're, like, about one shade off. One of them is, like, really, really green. And they range from, like, chartreuse to, like, bright green. And it's, like, ridiculous. So, everyone was, like, having a nut over this. And I was, too. I was, like, this is just stupid. It made me so mad. Except they never do the AL Star in green, right? That one's always been orange, blue. I don't know. They've done some, a bunch of different colors with that one. They've never done a green one that way. All those safaris are green. And then, like, the very next day, here comes the safari image. And it's this dark purple. They're calling it dark lilac. With a black clip and a black nib. And people just, like, forgot everything about the charged green AL Star. And went, like, crazy for this. And rightfully so. Because we've been asking for a purple for years. Because they don't vary the lineup. The last variance, I think, was aquamarine in the safari. I don't remember when the pink was. But it's always been some kind of apple green chartreuse. And it's just this consistent theme. And it's like, you are killing us, Lamy. Come out with a purple. Just like Pelican was. Everyone was clamoring over Pelican doing a special edition Edelstein ink of the year. They always pick another gem to do. And they would never do purple. And I don't know. Maybe it's because it's so obvious and everyone wants it so bad. And it would just frustrate people every year. And so they finally come out with this dark lilac safari. And I know you're not a big safari guy. I am. I've already decided that. I wouldn't say that.

Myke Hurley: I love the safari. I don't use it much now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You have a healthy respect for the safari. You just don't really use the safari.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But see, my difference between you and the safari is the safari is the pen that I tell people to get as their first founding pen where you tend to go metropolitan.

Brad Dowdy: That blows my mind.

Myke Hurley: I think it's a better start than the metropolitan.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I used to say that. I used to say that. But I've already someone. I forget who it was on Twitter. I don't have it pulled up right now. And they're just like, well, now I have to decide how many to buy. That's how it is with this pen. That they finally released a purple. And it looks really, really good. It's not. I can't wait to get it. It's how many am I going to buy? This is going to. This will probably be. I don't know. They don't release numbers. And they sell these by the tens of thousands. I'm sure. They're always available for months and months and months. Sometimes they take forever to sell out. But I imagine this is going to sell out pretty well unless they really ramp up production. It's not that limited. These aren't, you know, like they're making 100 or 300, 500 of them. They're making. They have to be tens of thousands of these because they sell them in literally every retailer. You know, in their network. And it's a huge worldwide network. So what do you think about this pen?

Myke Hurley: I think the black nib is the nice touch about all of it, to be honest. I mean, the purple color is nice. Like it's different. Yeah. And, you know, purple is a good color for this type of thing. I think I can't think of lots of these types of things that are in purple. But yeah, I think that the black furniture, as you would say, is the nicest part about it. It sets it off. It might be.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. They pretty much nailed this one. You know, I always look forward to the Safari special release. But this one's the first one I've been excited, like legitimately excited for, for years. And you only have to wait till the summer 2016 to check that out. Will you get more than one? Will I get more than one?

Brad Dowdy: Probably. But it would be, if I did, it'd be like, it'd be two. It wouldn't sound like I'd buy five of them. I don't buy these things to collect them and save them for later kind of thing. You know, there's no point in that. So, but I might buy two because I might actually keep one of these. And I don't normally keep one. Keep one. You know, one of the Safaris. I just use them because they're pretty cool. And, you know, it's just a good writing pen. Every time I use the Safari, I always remember how much I like the Safari. You know, it's just a good pen. So, so we had some other pen release news that I thought wasn't going to release yet, but it turns out it has. I take it you've seen the Twisby VAC news. You bet. Twisby VAC Mini, I should clarify, because the Twisby VAC 700, I am not a fan of. FYI, we're ticking people off in the chat room, which is exactly what I planned on. What are we doing? Oh, they're like, get over the pen talk. What's the news? All right. Okay. Yeah. So, working as intended.

TWSBI VAC

Brad Dowdy: So, um, I have to have this Twisby VAC. This I am more excited about than the Safari, to be quite honest. And they said they were going to lease them on the 15th, but about an hour ago, maybe two hours ago, they started selling them on the Twisby website. So, which is funny. Twisby's always had this weird manufacturer-retailer relationship in my book. So, they sent out a message on Facebook or something saying, hey, heading out to your favorite retailers and we'll be available on the 15th. Boom. They put them up for sale themselves on the 14th. I just find that strange. Well, they do all this weird stuff. From a business perspective.

Myke Hurley: Like, with the way that they release products and stuff like that. Like, it's all kind of weird. You know, like, they tease things for months and months and months. Mm-hmm. Sometimes things never happen. Like, they do a bunch of really strange stuff as a company. Yeah. And, you know, I think as well, like, the idea of, like, them releasing it in advance. I expect to, you know, in some instances, they're at the point now where it's just like, well, what are you going to do? You want our products. Like, to the retailers, right? I agree. Yeah. What are you going to do? Like, you're going to want to sell it.

Brad Dowdy: If I was a retailer, I would be hacked. It's like, just, you know, I'm your, I don't know.

Myke Hurley: But it's the same thing, though, right? You'd be annoyed. But what are you going to do? You still want them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But I'm not going to, I mean, nothing wrong with Twisby. I like the folks over at Twisby. But I'm not going to order it from Twisby's site. I'll wait and buy it from whoever. Yeah. I'm not going to get it from Twisby.

Myke Hurley: I'll get it from a UK, probably Colt Pens or something, just so I can get it quick. Yeah. But it might take them weeks before they get it, even. I don't know. They haven't got, they've got it on their website on Colt Pens. It's on Colt Pens, but it just says waiting for stock.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not going to be the first one to get this pen. So I'm excited to read, or not excited, I'm anxious to read the reviews and the functionality of it. Because if they do well on the functionality of this pen, I think it's going to be pretty sweet. It's probably going to be a very popular pen just because of the incapacity. And their mini size pens really aren't too, too small. They're very comfortable, comfortable size.

Myke Hurley: Explain to me why this is exciting. Why is the Vac Mini exciting?

Brad Dowdy: I've never seen, it's the filling system. I've never seen that filling system in a pen that's this portable. So the vacuum filling system usually is in a larger size pen, like the 700. It was bigger than the 580. And you know how big the 580 is, right? So the 700 is only bigger, it's heavier. And it's just not the most portable thing. And actually their 700 design is probably my least, well, it's not probably, it's definitely my least favorite design that they've ever created. There was lots of design elements that were just wrong and off in that. But then you go into other, you know, companies like the Pilot 823, their vacuum filling system. It's the biggest and heaviest of their mainline fountain pens. So to shrink that down into a smaller, you know, pen and still have that filling system, what's the price? Did you click on the link? I didn't even see what they go for. $65. Okay. So for that price, that's the reason why I enjoy TWSBI so much. I'm actually using my 580 Blue AL today for the show notes.

Myke Hurley: Do you need one of their bottles? No, no, no, no. Okay. Because they are making a new bottle.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: For the vac filling system.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They discontinued some of their other bottles and are redoing new bottles, I think, something like that.

Myke Hurley: But they do make bottles for the vac though, right? Like you stick it in and it's easy. Is that right?

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, you have to remove the nib to use this filling system. In the bottle. In the bottle. Okay. In the TWSBI bottle. I'm getting off track here. So these bottles that TWSBI makes have like, think of it like a little nipple on the top of the bottle. So you're actually unscrewing the section of the TWSBI. So if you ever taken this section off your 580, you see that little hole in there where the piston draws up the ink through the nib and the section and the feed and everything. You're actually just placing that right on top of that bottle, drawing in the ink and then putting the section back on your pen.

Myke Hurley: However, the bottles, they got the new ones. They are hot. I just put a link in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I thought the old ones were pretty hot too. And there's actually was quite a market for them when they went off the market when they decided not to carry them or to redo them, which is pretty much what they've done here. What do you think of those? There was a bunch of people chasing them. They're beautiful. I think I'm nice. This will actually, well, I'll get a bottle this time just because there's no point to. But they fill up in any ink bottle with the nib still attached and the vacuum system just fine.

Myke Hurley: Right. But I guess it's cooler, right, to use it in this way. I assume it's a more fun experience, but just a little bit more tricky.

Brad Dowdy: But it's like, you know, when you're using the vac filling system versus the piston filling system, the vac is basically like a one shot fill. You know, you pull it out and you pump it back in the bottle and it just it fills up probably at least three quarters, seven eighths of the barrel. So it's a cool pen. I'm I'm very excited for this pen. And I want to see the reviews come out and see, you know, what people are thinking about the functionality and the manufacture of it and the quality of it. So if they do this, if they do this right, it's like everything. It's like why I love the 580 so much, because you can't get a vacuum filling system in a pen for less than like $200.

Myke Hurley: So I have a couple of things about this. One, obviously, build quality is, you know, that has been a kind of a point in my right. What do you say? In my core? So what is that? What is that phrase? Something in my craw? Anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yes. It's stuck in my craw.

Myke Hurley: There you go. That's been an issue I've had for a while. And one of the problems has always been the grip section. And it's because it kind of doesn't detach. It's just been snapping off. But from what you've said to me about the way the system works, the grip section actually unscrews, which is potentially going to mean that that problem may be fixed in just out of the way that the system's different.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, maybe that's why my, I've never had any problems with cracking in mine, because I can fill mine with a, I unscrew the section and fill them with a syringe anyway, right into the barrel.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Maybe that is why. So, but you know, that's an issue that I've had, but maybe not here. And I have a slight disappointment in this pen that there's no colors or anything like that. Um, it seems like they're just doing a clear version and, uh, that is a shame because I have my eye on one of the black, um, with the rose gold. I think that is such a good look like in the regular mini. Uh, and that would have, uh, that would have really sealed the deal for me. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get one of these, uh, but I really wanted to get it or even to get, you know, some of the color that they have in the AL or something like that.

Brad Dowdy: So Twisby is a very good version three company. When you get to version three of whatever the one that they've introduced, uh, last, that's a lot of people's, uh, jumping in point, right? Then, you know, the kinks have been worked out, the colors are available, you know, the start with the basics and kind of slowly ramp themselves up. Right. So it's good to, you know, get into that second or even third version sometimes with, uh, with Twisby, which I understand. So, you know, a lot, a lot of people have been burned by them too many times.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think I'm going to give it a go though.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I definitely am. I definitely am. I I'm, I've been anxious for this pin. Yeah. If it's, if it's as good as I hope it is, it's going to be, uh, it's going to be a heavily recommended pin just because of the same reasons why the five 80 is just because you can't get that type of pin for that price. And it's not close. It's not like a 25%, um, you know, uh, less than it's competition. It's multiples and multiples, um, for, for people wanting to try these filling systems that, um, can't afford them in a lot of other pins. So good on them for doing this. This had to, this, this one had to be a challenge because the 700 itself was a challenge and, um, people, it's a lot of people enjoy that pin, but other people will argue that they failed on that design.

Myke Hurley: It is interesting to me that the 700 so bad looking and so like unwieldy, but yeah, they managed to turn it into a mini. It's weird. It's like they couldn't make it in a standard size, right? It's like, it's either too big or too small. Like we can't, we can't make a regular one.

Brad Dowdy: That's why I have, that's why we've talked so long about this stinking pin because I find it extremely interesting from a design and manufacturing perspective in relation to what they've done with the rest of the product line.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep. No doubt. All right. Let's take a break. Thank our first sponsor of this week's episode. It's the great people over at lynda.com, the online learning platform with over 3000 on demand video courses that can help you strengthen your business technology and creative skills for a free 10 day trial. Visit lynda.com slash pen addict as lynda.com slash pen addict with lynda.com. You'll be able to watch and learn video courses that were taught to you by absolute experts who have a real passion for the topic that they are focusing on. You will be able to find topics on, you'll be able to find courses on all different types of topic. You'll be able to find courses on typography, Photoshop. Maybe you want to learn Illustrator or Lightroom. Maybe you want to learn how to take great photography. Maybe you want to learn getting things done or how to bootstrap your business, how to learn marketing, how to learn whatever. lynda.com has everything. They have software, hardware, from practical stuff to theoretical stuff. lynda.com has stuff for people that want to solve problems, for people that are curious, for people who want to make things happen. You'll be able to stream any of these thousands of video courses on demand. You can even watch them on your Android or iOS device as well, so you can watch on the go. You'll be able to learn on your own schedule and at your own pace and create and save playlists of all the courses that you want to watch in any order in all of their great bite-sized pieces to customize your learning path in any way you like. Your lynda.com membership will give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics for one flat rate. Whether you're looking to become an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, go ahead and visit lynda.com slash penaddict and sign up for your free 10-day trial. That's lynda.com slash penaddict. Thank you so much, lynda.com, for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: So did you see those Star Wars pens that we chatted Mr. Bemis into reviewing for us a few months ago when they came out?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm happy that he took the challenge. Yeah! And I've taken a look at the review. I haven't read every word, because there's a lot of stuff in here, maybe more than I would have expected from these pens. But I love the way he broke it down.

Brad Dowdy: Well, he's such a good writer. I mean, he puts me to shame in the way he weaves a story. He's legitimately a good writer. It's funny, when he sends me, I haven't told him this yet even, when he sends me his files to post, he's using Microsoft Word, and someone's editing them for him, because I get the full edit version with all the parts broken out in the side. Change this. Why did you say this here? So he takes this really, really seriously. These go through full edits before he posts them, and it shows in the results. He really kills it.

Myke Hurley: I'm very surprised at the outcome of this post, I have to say.

Brad Dowdy: Well, he had already bought them when we discussed them on the show. It wasn't like he bought them for this. When we were talking about them and we were saying, wow, these are ridiculously expensive. And by that time, he's like, well, I've already bought all three of them. And I was like, well, then you're reviewing them for the blog.

Myke Hurley: It just surprises me that, because, you know, my feeling is you would buy these because you wanted to collect them, right? Ah. You know, you buy them because they are fancy, special editions, and maybe could be worth something one day, but it's not why you do it. You do it because you're a collector like all of us. But John seemed pretty down with them. Like, he was happy with the end result of each of them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't... I would have a hard time spending that much money and not using the pins. Like, I couldn't put these up there on the shelf and display them at all. So...

Myke Hurley: Well, yeah. I mean, you've got to use them, but it's like... Yeah. Do you think... You can use them, think that they're okay, and still be happy with them in your collection, right? Right, right, right. But the fact that you use them and be like, no, these are actually really good.

Star Wars Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, it was a great review. I'm glad he did that. And since Star Wars is coming out this week, I figured it was time to publish that bad boy. I actually had it here for a little bit, so I was waiting until it was a little bit closer to the time frame, you know? But... And I always... I don't read his stories ahead of time. What he does is stories. He doesn't do posts or reviews. He tells stories. And I always save them until they're ready to go live. So, even though if I've had it for a month, you know, I'll have to tell him, or even Susan or Jeff that write for me, I try not to read them until right before. And so, I'm, like, surprised when I do it, and I always get so excited, because they all do such great work.

Myke Hurley: I think my favorite line is this one. So, he's talking about the Darth Vader pen, and saying that there's a little red crystal in the finial? Finial. Finial. There you go. And I like this line. So, a red crystal is set in the camp's finial, and while normally I'd scoff at the addition of a Swarovski crystal as a selling point, seriously, what is the deal with Swarovski? Isn't it just, you know, crystal? It is a nice touch here as a callback to the color of Vader's lightsaber. That is so true, though. Like, I don't understand. Like, Swarovski crystal is kind of, like, pictures of this thing that is, like, diamonds. You know? It's like, oh, it's so special. It has a Swarovski in it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, would you pay $500 for a Star Wars fountain pen? No, I wouldn't. It's, like, the same thing, but I love that, too. It was like, it's just a crystal, but I guess to people who collect that stuff, it's not just a crystal, right?

Myke Hurley: I have to say, looking at these pictures here, my favorite one of these is actually the C-3PO one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. That's my least favorite, for sure.

Myke Hurley: I think it looks the fanciest.

Brad Dowdy: I think the Vader is my favorite, but, you know, I like those black matte pens. That's just a sweet-looking pen. And I already have a couple pens that look like a Stormtrooper, so I think the Vader is the coolest for me. But I think you're not alone in the C-3PO. I think that's what John said he liked the most out of the three, and I think other people...

Myke Hurley: No, he likes the Stormtrooper. Oh, he likes the Stormtrooper.

Brad Dowdy: Someone else was saying, I think most of the comments and things that we got on that were the 3PO. Everyone favored the 3PO.

Myke Hurley: Also, it looks the most expensive. It does. It does.

Brad Dowdy: That's that gold look will get you.

Myke Hurley: Because the Stormtrooper one, it looks pretty cheap. But I agree that it's the coolest looking, but I don't know if it's my favorite looking.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, speaking of your favorite looking, the Mont Blanc M, which is still an awesome looking pen, and it's completely...

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I still... I read this review when it came out. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, our friend Aziza at Gourmet Pens got her hands on one of these and reviewed it, and she has lots of concerns about it. And the hardest time I have with it, which I think is what you have with it, not with her review. Her review is great. The hardest time I have is that the design of this pen speaks to me so much. I'm like, well, it's got to be good, right? It's got to be perfect. I still want it. I still want it.

Myke Hurley: I read everything about it, saying that there's all these problems with it.

Brad Dowdy: But I still really want it. It's really good. She has lots of good pictures in her review. And, you know, I thought it was a really, really good review because she explained it, you know, all the good parts and all the flaws, obviously. And I was actually a little bit surprised its size. It's a little bit smaller than I thought it might be in relation to some other pens, but I guess not too far off. Yeah, I still want to try one. I'm not going to just go out and order one blindly. Like I tell anyone who's spending this kind of money on a pen, you know, if there's any way you can test it out before purchasing, you want to do that.

Myke Hurley: Someone needs to buy one or bring it to the pen show. That's what needs to happen.

Brad Dowdy: Well, there might be one at the pen show. There'll be one at the pen show. I'll ask. I need to. I'll ask the Andersons because now that Mont Blanc doesn't. You can't be a Mont Blanc vendor unless you have a brick and mortar, I believe. So now that the Andersons are a brick and mortar retailer, they can carry Mont Blanc. So I'm wondering if they have this. I don't even know if these are in the in the US. Does anyone have these in the US? OK, carry in the chat room saying that the Andersons do carry this pen. So that's something I still want to get my hands on this because I love. the design.

Myke Hurley: All right. We're going to have to get the Andersons to bring it out. My issue. I'll tell you what my issue is with this. If it is acceptable, I will buy one. That's my problem.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's a problem. That's a legitimate problem.

Brad Dowdy: You're going to have to live with it, right? Or, you know, what if those those things that are just not quite acceptable creep up over a month or six months or a year of using? I guess you can just sell it off, you know, but, you know, it's it's a lot of money to outlay. It's got to be, you know, they're around 500 retail. I don't have the price right in front of me. But like the Star Wars before it, you know, if you're not going to use that pen in a some with some type of frequency.

Brad Dowdy: Do you need that pen? So but I love I love the design of this pen. I really do.

Myke Hurley: Look, if people are going to buy Star Wars pens, then I'm going to buy this one.

Brad Dowdy: I'm with you on if it's acceptable because I'm reading Aziza's review and she's like I'm kind of I'm like nodding my head along with her. I'm like, yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I kind of understand that. That could be a problem. And I can't wait to try it. You know?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. There's just like little things like the magnetic cap and, you know, I just I'll just look at it. All right. I won't use it. I'll just I'll just look at it.

DDC Editions

Brad Dowdy: Right, right, right. So speaking of things to look at, you got your DDC dead print editions. Oh, yeah. You took a picture of them on Instagram and I actually saw a version I've not seen on anyone else's pictures. And I haven't completely opened mine, but I didn't see it hiding in there. It's either a Las Vegas one or a Nevada one because I see Sin City. I see the horseshoe circus circus and it's black and pink. I have never seen that color combination. Also, many people have bought these and opened these. I've never seen that combo. It's really sweet.

Myke Hurley: The paper feels different. It's got an interesting texture to it. It's it's ever so slightly velvety feeling. The cover. The cover. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Mm hmm. You mean the Vegas one compared to the rest of them?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I wonder if it's like a black velvet, like a velvet Elvis. It's not familiar. It's not.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I know what that is. It's not velvet. Right. It's not. But it's close to that. It's got like a real interesting texture to it. It's not a soft texture, but it is a rough texture.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. But I am so chuffed. Yeah. So chuffed with my ones of these. Like, again, I want to thank Daniel for helping hook me up because these things are so limited. Right. I got 1776 and 1554 of 2000. But I think my favorite, though, is the one with the white one with all the different colorful icons on it. Yeah. I'll be linking the show notes so you can find this for yourself. And one of the things that I love so much about it is it's got half of the America the Beautiful sticker.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I see it now. See that? Yeah. So there's one that has caught my eye besides the Vegas one, which I wouldn't even ask you to trade that to me.

Myke Hurley: I bet I know which one it is.

Brad Dowdy: Do you actually know?

Myke Hurley: Oh, do you mean other than mine? Or do you like?

Brad Dowdy: No, no. In your picture.

Myke Hurley: I bet it's top right.

Brad Dowdy: No.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Top left because it's got a Pavement logo on it, which I hadn't seen any of these either. And that's one of my favorite bands ever. Pavement is. Oh, really? Yeah. That would be my inquisitive record would be Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement. So they're a killer band that I've loved for decades. And I haven't seen that. I don't even know what poster that could possibly be on. I don't know if it's just some random thing.

Myke Hurley: I very randomly have another piece of that poster on the bottom right. See that?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I saw that. It's almost like they connect to each other, but not quite.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I would have thought that you'd like that top right one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I haven't seen one with that little stuff on it. That's kind of interesting. You got two pretty good packs here. So I need to open mine up and go through them. I can't believe you've not done it yet. I just had no time.

Myke Hurley: Man. It was like the first thing I did. It came through the door and I was like opening. Have you opened any of them? No. Right. Because you know the belly bands are also posters. Oh, really? Just reverse. The belly bands are the same kind of... They're also poster stock. So the belly bands have different designs on them too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Cool. On the inside. I can't wait. I will do that maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I will get to that.

Myke Hurley: You got to take some pictures of them, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Maybe tomorrow I will get to that because I'm going to be awfully busy tomorrow, Michael.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah? Yeah. Huh. Hmm. How interesting.

Brad Dowdy: I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Pen Chalet

Myke Hurley: We should talk about that, right? We should. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Actually, before we do... This week's episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. Now, Brad, I want you to go over to penchalet.com and log into the very secret pen addict area. All right. Because I want you to go and take a look at what's there because Ron's put up a bunch of different things today. So we can talk about those in a moment. Pen Chalet carry all your favorite brands like Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Sailor, Kaweco. They're an authorized dealer of all of them and many more. If you're ever looking to get yourself a new pen, you should go to Pen Chalet first because they are very fast and reliable customer service. They're always doing great discounts and great deals. They're always adding new styles of pens as well. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the continental United States. They also sell internationally with great shipping rates and you get the conversion rate on your side, many currencies. And Pen Chalet, make sure that they give a 100% satisfaction guarantee with all of their high quality pens at the low prices that they sell them at. That's why you should be going to Pen Chalet first. And also because you can always get yourself 10% off of anything at Pen Chalet by using the code penaddict at checkout. But as I mentioned to Brad, what I wanted him to do is to go over to penchalet.com as you should. And you will be able to see right at the very top of the page. They have a link that says Radio Podcast. You want to click that. Enter the penaddict password there and you'll be taken through to our special little area that Ron sets up for us. And we have a whole host of things here today.

Brad Dowdy: So this happened before and it's not going to happen today because it happened for this one very particular pen. And it's the Pilot Custom 74, which is one of my favorite pens of all time. And he has it in the blue, which I don't have. And he has it in the clear, which I don't have. And he has it in the smoke, which is just so awesome looking.

Brad Dowdy: And this was the pen that caused me to make a purchase live on the air because I know how you listeners are, rabid listeners, heading out and snatching up these things when Ron has these great deals. And the last time I did it on this 74, I was able to get the orange one. And for $126 and how much more off of that? There's like another 10% off of that.

Myke Hurley: It's $126 total. So he's taken it down to $140 and then the coupon takes it down to $126, which is just madness.

Brad Dowdy: So that's just, that's crazy. Another thing, which I've never seen him have on sale, and I don't even have one of these. And honestly, there's, there's mixed reactions about this pen. It's the Noodler's Conrad Fountain Pen. That's one of, that's a very love, hate pen. People who have them and love them have like five of them, or people will try one and say, no, this isn't for me because it has, it's a steel flex nib pen for the price of $27 is really, really cheap compared to what they're usually going for. Um, so yeah. And he also has a Lamy Vista, which never goes on sale. Um, and the, and the Monteverdi one touch stylus tool, which I don't own and I've never really wanted one, but now they make them in orange. So I actually just saw them for the first time today. I saw a picture of them and, you know, I don't know. Ron did a really good job here. You weren't kidding.

Myke Hurley: So, uh, but one of my favorites on this list is the Cafeco Artsport. There's a couple of different artsport models as well for just another, just fantastic price. You can pick up one of those for $60 and 75 cents. The, the Rosette. Yeah. It's the red one, um, for just 60 bucks. It's a fantastic price. So you want to go over to penshalet.com, use our special code penaddict at the top when you hit that podcast button. That'll take you through to see all those special deals. And don't forget, you can always use, and you should still use on those special deals, the penaddict, uh, code at checkout, and you'll get yourself 10% off of any order. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for the continued support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Thank you, Ron.

Job Quitting

Myke Hurley: All right. Okay. It's time. We've, we've teased the people for long enough. Uh, you have some big news today.

Brad Dowdy: So I do. And where to begin? Um, well, what did you do? Um, I quit my job. This one? Not this job. Not the penaddict job. Not the not-go job. I quit my jobby job. Day job. Um, I quit my day job. Uh, two weeks ago, Monday.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Two weeks ago, today. Um, I turned in my notice at my job.

Myke Hurley: I have been dying to talk about this on the show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So Friday was my last day. Um, I took the weekend out of town to spend with the wife because it was also our 18th anniversary yesterday. So that was a big deal. Um, so I actually timed the quitting, uh, for a lot of reasons. Um, that being, that was one of them. But this has been in the works in my head for a while. I've got the ball rolling probably, what, this summer is when I first let you know that this is what I'm working towards.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, like, we were talking about it. We were talking about it seriously a few times over the years. Like, seriously. Like, okay, I'm making this plan. I'm making this plan. But, yeah, in the summer, um, you were like, yeah, no, it's happening now. We've worked it out. I'm gonna make it work. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So it's a kind of a long time coming. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and a lot of nerves and scared converse, emotional conversations, you know, not in a bad way, but just in a, oh my God kind of way. And, you know, it's been a process and it's been a brain switch. You know, you definitely have to switch some things around and, and how you think about things. Um, but leaving, you know, the stability and security of a job I've had 14 of the last 15 years, you know, um, you know, I, I did work for jet pens for a year in between there, but I worked for the same company before and after that.

Myke Hurley: Do you remember when we used to put the disclaimer at the end of the show? Because if you're, because you worked at jet pens, do you remember that?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that, that was weird. We don't have to disclaim anymore because it's, uh, I'm, I'm going independent basically, you know, stationary is going to be my life and I am so excited and I'm really grateful for all the listeners and readers and everyone who's been along for the ride and everyone who's brand new, everyone who's been around forever. I mean, I, I couldn't do it without, you know, everyone giving me thanks in the chat room, giving me thanks on Twitter, Instagram, you know, texting me, calling me some people, you know, a few people knew, uh, ahead of time just cause you know, I kind of gotta, I kind of get to get some words out. Um, this is the part where I get almost crying, but, um, it's a big deal and it's not easy and it was a massive, massive decision, um, for my, you know, my whole being, right. You know, uh, a lot of times, you know, you're looked at in, you know, maybe, you know, not unfortunately, but just saying, you know, pure defined by the job that you have. And, you know, my job was great. It was very good. Um, you know, you'll hear me say stability, uh, a lot and getting, throwing yourself into something completely different where it's not stable, even remotely. And it's going to be kind of a whirlwind to kind of get going, even though I've been doing, you know, I've been writing the pen addict had its eighth anniversary in November. It's been doing it for eight years. It's unreal. And the way it's grown, um, and then it's allowed for things like this podcast, it's allowed for me to start a company, um, called not co for those who aren't familiar, um, because of all this and it's gotten to the point where I look at these things and just see the opportunities there. If I can put my, all my time and effort behind knock and behind pen addict and behind this community that has been so supportive of me and I want to support with like every fiber of my being. It's been an amazing journey.

Myke Hurley: All right. So I have a bunch of questions for you, um, but I'm going to kind of ruin it by doing the emotional part now and then I'll ask you the questions. Um, I can't even begin to explain how happy I am that you've done this. I have so many friends. I mean, you know, all of us here at Relay, we work really hard and the majority of people that are a part of Relay, um, are not independent. Um, they have a job of some kind or they had a job at a certain point and it goes for many of my friends who, you know, they have a thing that they do, an outlet that they have that they would love to be what they do for a living. Um, but it's, you know, for whatever reason isn't or can't be. And that can be just through the fact of it doesn't make them enough or they just don't feel secure enough. But I think out of everybody that I know, um, you are easily and, you know, were with the previous job the hardest working, like the pure amount of things that you somehow managed to do. I don't understand how you are still alive. Like, because the thing is not only did you have a massively successful blog, like your site is the is of everyone that I know is the most successful, right? Page views wise. I mean, it's not, it's on your website. People can go see it, but like the pen advocate gets like a million page views a month, right? That is like madness. So you manage that and everything that goes along with that. You have three people that write for you.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, two on the payroll and then, uh, you know, people like, uh, John and, uh, Nick, um, fall under the, the guest posting category.

Myke Hurley: So you have that to do. You have this show every week and you put together like 75% at least of what goes into this show every single week. Um, and you have knock, which is a real business. Like this, no joke. Like it is a real business. I've seen it in action. Like knock is a thing and you work in a night shift and you would somehow find the time to fit all this in. And I have seen you with your family and incredible dad as well. And it is so clear to me from that FaceTime call that I got to witness from your car in Atlanta that your kids absolutely adore you. I don't understand you. Like, I don't know what it is that you drink. Uh, but coffee mostly. There's some, there was something in it. And I've got to tell you, buddy, I am so happy. And this is so deserving and it is a heck of a long time coming.

Brad Dowdy: Oh man. I have to take off my glasses for a minute. I love you, Brad Dowdy. I love you too, man. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I couldn't do it without you. I mean, remember that you're the one that, you're the one that caused a lot of this. Remember you gave me the kick in the butt that I needed. You said, I think we haven't, I think we can do a podcast about pins. And I pretty much told you you were stupid and go away. And you, uh, you kept at it and stuck with me. I guess you saw something then.

Myke Hurley: Um, no, I mean, you know, look, maybe for as long as you've known each other, I've tried to force you to do something. Right. You know, like, oh, I have had over the years, I've thrown many ideas Brad's way. Most of them were silly. And the one that actually ended up really working has nothing to do with me. But the point was, I just knew I, one, I knew you could. And two, you deserve it. Like you, you deserve it. And that the whole time, like the pen addict is a, like a, as a, just a, a gold mine that you don't take advantage of. Right. And, you know, just that whole brand and everything about it. Um, it really is something that you can push more. But the great thing is like not co is a business that's making money. And the pen addict is kind of like a sleeping giant, right? Like pen addict.com is like this, the sleeping giant that I think you can also really turn into something. But we should talk about that sort of stuff. But I need to go back to the start a little bit. Why have you quit now?

Brad Dowdy: It's time from a growth perspective for both knock and the pen addict that if I want to continue to do all these things, continue to pour my heart and soul into it, something has to give. And there's never going to be a perfect time, which a lot of people have told me that you've told me you've, when I kept telling you no, and it's not the time, or I talked to Jeff and I was like, it's not the time. Or I talked to my wife or I talked to my parents, you know, because they're all involved in these decisions too. And, you know, there's never a perfect time. You know, you can't wait until the money's perfect or the time is perfect or, you know, the distance is perfect. At some point, you have to make a leap of faith. You have to believe in yourself enough and the people that you work with enough and your support system enough to where you're like, okay, I can make this jump. And I can make these additional sacrifices that are going to require my time in order to make knock the best company that it can be. And in order to make the pen addict, the best website it can be in the best podcast that it can be. And, you know, to make this stationary community as a whole, even stronger, because that's what I really want to do. That's what I really believe in. I believe in the people so much in this community.

Brad Dowdy: You know, that's like a huge focus of mine. Always has been. You know, I always want to put, you know, the people first. And, you know, the readers and listeners. And all the people I made at pen shows and people I talked to online and email. You know, that's always come first and that's always will be. And I think that's why it's been successful. But the time came to where the personal time balance that I have with everything that I do that you were mentioning before was things were starting to knock heads a little bit, if you will. So some decisions had to be made. And which direction is the rest of my life going to go? And, you know, is it going to be sitting in front of a computer at three o'clock in the morning fixing problems? Or is it going to be focusing on the things that I love? You know, knock in the pen addict in my family, you know, primarily, not necessarily in that order. Good thing my wife doesn't listen. So just to clarify. But.

Brad Dowdy: It became time because those things started bumping up against each other pretty hard here in the past, probably like past couple of years, my health deteriorating because of my shift, my time with my quality. Of life with my family is. Getting worse because of my job, my previous job. And this is nothing against my previous job. No one there listens. They would know anyway. But I had a really, really good job. That's what made it hard to leave.

Brad Dowdy: But the all these things were kind of boiling in a pot together. And, you know, at some point, you know, I just had to make a decision which direction I want to go in. And I want to go in the direction of this community. And that's how much I believe in it. And being able to be a part of it by making things at Nock and talking about things with the pen addict is just the way I wanted to go. And. It was time to do that. You know, it was it was time to make that leap of faith. It's never going to be perfect timing. But it just got to where I had to do something. If nothing else, I'm going to die early working this these hours for so long. This last run of third shift was about four years. I did it two years, you know, a few years ago. So I've had like six years total of working third shift. And it's just it's it's hell on your body. And that's not the sole reason, but that plays into so many other things, you know, with my quality of life. And could I make a success out of the pen addict and Nock and get myself out of that vicious cycle that I was in with the lifestyle I was leading that was caused by the job that's really secure and pays really well, you know. So it was not an easy decision by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel it's the right decision. I'm gone for months and months, probably since the summer of just massive amounts of nerves, right? Just on the decision. Am I making it the right? Am I making the right decision? And I felt so nervous about having to make that decision. Like, you know, I was always like hemming and hawing over it and, you know, kind of keeping one toe in, you know, if you will. And.

Brad Dowdy: And I finally made that decision, like only like.

Brad Dowdy: Definitely, definitively, probably like in October, like, you know, maybe the end of September, beginning of October. Here's the plan for me leaving my job and I'm going to do it. And, you know, once I started working towards that. And putting more time towards that, you know, the nerves start to subside and the excitement starts to kick in. So that balance starts to shift. Right. So once I finally made the made the call that, OK, here's what I'm going to do. Here's why I'm doing it. Here's how we're doing it. And here's when we're doing it. You start moving forward and I start getting pumped about what opportunities I'm going to have with Nock now. Like we have such a good thing going at Nock and it's going so well and we can do so much more. It's not even funny. And I have to be there to do that. Right. To help with that. I mean, I certainly can't do it on my own, but Jeff's been doing this on his own for like two years already. It's like I contribute very little in the grand scheme of Nock, like in the actual day to day working of Nock. And Jeff's been killing himself and he needs me there to push this thing forward. We both have a vision of what we want this to be. And it's going to take both of us to get this done and it's time. So using that, you know, as really the core of making this jump, it made it a lot easier because it's going well. And we can see, like even though we're not, you know, things aren't exactly happening right this second, we see it. Right. It's like on the horizon. We can see. We can do this. Right. But it's going to take me getting in there and kicking as much butt as Jeff has over the past two years because he's totally killed it. I mean, he's been awesome. And it's completely time for me to get in there and do this.

Myke Hurley: So your last day is past, right? Was your first day self-employed today?

Brad Dowdy: I guess you could say so. Yeah. Today is. Yeah. Yeah. So my last day at work was Friday.

Myke Hurley: All right. So how did you spend today?

Brad Dowdy: Today, I spent driving back from St. Simon's Island because I was out of town.

Myke Hurley: So it's tomorrow then, right? Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the real day.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I was alluding to earlier. I forget exactly what I said. But tomorrow, I was driving back with my wife and I said, tomorrow is going to be really strange.

Myke Hurley: What's the plan for tomorrow? You've got to have a plan. What is the plan?

Brad Dowdy: Tomorrow is to set up my workspace. Nice. So I haven't had time to do any of this, right? So I did actually on.

Brad Dowdy: I've been doing a lot of back end stuff, trying to get things ready, you know, just to make this, you know, one of the silly little decisions on why I decided to do this now was also because of tax time. Right. So I want to start fresh January 1st. So, okay, I've got to get this accounting set up. I'm working for myself now. It's a whole different ballgame, right?

Myke Hurley: I have a really good accountant, by the way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I have him too. Okay, good. He's a good guy. He's our knock accountant. So he's also my personal accountant.

Myke Hurley: Excellent.

Brad Dowdy: So, but, you know, you've got to do those things, right? So that was a consideration of the when I'm going to tell my job that I'm quitting because now I can, you know, officially flip the switch, flip the job switch on January 1st and it makes my accounting cleaner. So I was thinking of things like that. But, yeah, Tuesday is going to be weird. And I just realized that today, driving home.

Brad Dowdy: And the biggest thing I'm going to do is set up my office because I need a workspace away from the family a little bit. You know, I need an area where I can go and focus and do those types of things that I need to do on a day-to-day basis. But once I'm in, like, the full swing, which probably won't be until, like, January 1st or the first of, you know, the first full week of January, I'm going to be spending two days a week at knock in the shop and then three days a week at home. That's the working plan.

Myke Hurley: That's pretty sweet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Are you going to be making stuff at knock or are you going to be, like, business in it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, mostly business in it. And there's some making stuff that I can do and I will certainly help. But, you know, we ship a lot more now, right? So, you know, I'll get in there and help with the shipping and the inventory and the organizing and the quality control. And, you know, then, you know, the marketing side of it. Like, I need – that's going to be, like, my biggest, biggest focus is the marketing side, getting our name out there outside of our community, right? Mm-hmm. And I'm going to be working on that. There's so much that we're not doing right now that's going to be my responsibility to do because Jeff is doing everything in his power for getting manufacturing done and getting these cases made so we can get them sold. You know, he – I've said it before about Jeff that him and I are so perfect together because we have almost no overlap in skill set except for knowing what we want to make, right? So, Jeff is awesome at all kinds of things that I'm terrible at and I'm awesome at all kinds of things that Jeff's terrible at. So, it's, like, the perfect match as far as that goes. So, that's what my weeks are going to be like. Like, but the reason I actually told you, I don't know, a few weeks ago that I didn't even want to have this conversation today. I wanted to wait until, like, January. January. January.

Brad Dowdy: But I realized – it took me until last week to realize that I'm going to be around during normal people hours all week starting this week and people are going to start asking questions. Why are you awake? And I was like, well, I can't hold it in that long. You know, so I was like, well, I guess let's talk about it on Monday. What do you think? And you're like, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've been dying to talk about this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I know you have.

Myke Hurley: Because I see the hour on what we call gardening leave. I don't know. I don't know what you call it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't think there's any perfect name for it. Maybe there is. It's basically I'm between jobs. I don't know. There's really no – I mean, for me, there's no real break. I mean, tomorrow really starts. Yeah, of course. You know. But, you know, I'm already working on that stuff, right? I am working on how I can make the pen addict better, what things I can do going forward with the pen addict, you know, that the readers will enjoy and things like that. So there's so, so many things up in the air right now that, you know, I mean, tomorrow it's get to work time.

Myke Hurley: So if you look at the way that your businesses are split up, going forward, where do you think the majority of your income is going to come from?

Brad Dowdy: Nock, I would say. Yeah, I would have assumed that too. I don't have like a totally perfect math answer for that. I feel like it's Nock. And it pretty much has to be Nock, right? It just has to be.

Pen Addict Brand

Myke Hurley: It feels like to me that the pen addict and the pen addict brand has done this already but can continue to do this at a larger scale, which is to funnel people into Nock. Yeah, sure.

Brad Dowdy: That's the money making thing. Sure, sure. And I've never, you know, like totally like tied those things in, like in sync, but it's definitely going to be Nock. Like the pen addict, I can grow a lot. Nock, I can grow almost infinitely, if that makes sense.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Right? I think the pen addict, there's not a limit to growth, but it's so older, it's older and established. There's a slower pace of growth to that. With Nock, we're like still in the embryonic stage almost, right? So that's where the bulk of my time is going to be.

Brad Dowdy: Like the pen addict stuff, I'll be spending more time than I have in the past now that it's part of my job. But Nock will have a greater percentage of the new hours that I'm spending my time on, if that makes sense. I don't know if I'm saying that exactly right. So like proportionally, Nock is about to get a crap ton more of Brad in it.

Myke Hurley: Which is good for the company.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Totally. All right. I have so many more questions for you, but I need to take a final break.

Brad Dowdy: Let's do it.

Karis Customs Pens

Myke Hurley: This week's episode of the pen addict is brought to you by our great friends over at Karis Customs. Karis Customs are an awesome pen maker based in Mesa, Arizona. And all of their stuff is made in their shop, and they are proud that they are based in the US of A. You know Karis Customs. They make pens that we love. Brad, what pens do Karis Customs make that you love?

Brad Dowdy: So let's tell a story about this weekend. And we didn't clear this beforehand, but we're going to tell it anyway. You tell this story. Yeah. So my wife and I went away for a quick weekend getaway for our anniversary this weekend. And my wife has never been a huge fountain pen user. So she knows what I do. She knows what all this stuff is. She'll, you know, grab a fountain pen and doodle with it or whatever, but she's never been like really taken by it. So this weekend on our trip, she wanted to address her Christmas cards for everyone, and she wanted a fountain pen to do it with. So I gave her, I said like, what's a good pen for her to use? Just a generic pen, something basic that I can give her to see what she likes. And I gave her the TWSBI Echo or Eco, whatever we're going with this week. And she liked it fine. And she used it in the car. And when we got there, I always carry a bunch of pens with me. I had brought the Karis ink and the Karis Fountain K with me because those are pens that I enjoy and want to use. She's like, you know, I like this Eco, but what else do you have that I might like or that's different or that I can use and, you know, throw in my purse or do whatever. And I said, I gave her every pen I brought, which is about 10 pens, which I use none, by the way, on this whole trip. I didn't, I don't think I even used a pen. She used way more pens than I did. But I brought 10 because that's what you do, right? So I laid out all my pens for her. She tried every one. I mean, I had a Nakaya there. I had a TWSBI Echo there. I had a Sailor. I can't even remember everything that I brought. But I had two Karis.

Brad Dowdy: Those were the two that she picked she enjoyed the most. And then the Fountain K with the brass section is the pen she's keeping for herself. Out of any pen she could have chosen, out of any pen she enjoyed writing with, the one that she enjoyed the most was the Fountain K from Karis. And this is a tumbled aluminum one with a brass section. It looks great. It feels great. The new Bach nibs, Dan, I'm so happy you have switched over to those. Not that Schmidt, nothing wrong with the Schmidt nibs. I love these Bach nibs. They allow my wife, who is not a fountain pen user, to just pick them up and start writing. And she can feel the difference in what she was using that as opposed to the Eco. She's like, it fit her hand well. It wrote exceptionally well. And that pen is now hers. That pen is no longer mine. So thank you, Dan. You're probably going to end up costing me more money with my wife because she was such a huge fan of both the Karis Customs pens. Without knowing anything about pens, that's what she now owns. So that is her pen.

Myke Hurley: As well as the pens that Brad mentioned, Karis Customs have a fantastic range of awesome stuff. They have the Render K, the Ink, the Bolt, the Retract, and the all-new EDK and Fountain K. And as Brad mentioned, all these nibs in the fountain pen versions now are made by Peter Bach, which are just fantastic quality pens. There are so many different color and material choices that you can make. These things really are fantastic. And you should buy a few and mix and match some of the parts like I do, which is one of my favorite things to do with Karis Customs stuff, is to kind of make my own Frankenstein models, which is just so much fun.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, just so I'm being completely honest, Myke, and fair to my wife, I told her she couldn't have the ink. That one's mine because I love that pen so much, that brown anodizing that they do. But when she got down to two, those were the final two, and I said, you can't have this one. She said, that's okay. I love this other one. I like this other one more. But I wouldn't let her have the ink because I didn't want to give that one up.

Myke Hurley: If you want to buy some more pens for yourself that you just can't give up or you have a loved one in your life that you want a surprise with a fantastic, fantastic pen, you should be going over to Karis Customs. You want to head on over to their lovely website, kariscustoms.com, and they are offering a fantastic 15% discount for listeners of The Pen Addict. If you use the code PENADDICT in the shopping cart before checkout, and this offer is good all the way up until January the 1st. It's still great for last-minute gifts. It's still great for you to buy a little gift for yourself if maybe you haven't got what you wanted this holiday season. So make sure that you add the code PENADDICT in the shopping cart before checkout over at kariscustoms.com. Thank you so much to Karis Customs for their continued support of this show and of RelayFM.

Myke Hurley: All right, so I've got some more questions for you, buddy.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. Now that I've stopped crying, I should be good, so don't make me cry again.

Myke Hurley: I mean, you've kind of gone through some of this a little bit, but I kind of want to direct it a little more.

Myke Hurley: What do you think that being independent is going to allow you to do that you wouldn't have been able to do before? Because, you know, you say about, like, the marketing stuff and things like that, but what do you think that's going to look like on a daily basis? Do you think you're going to feel more connected to the company? Like, is it going to build your relationship with the people that you work with? Like, what types of things do you think you're going to be able to get to do that you just simply couldn't have done before?

Brad Dowdy: So I don't want to simplify it, but it's literally the thing that keeps popping into my head is more. I just need to do more because I haven't been able – I've been able to give everything I can give up until this point. And now I have the freedom and the time and the ability to do more. And that's part of, like, what you're saying, to be around our employees more. I didn't meet Shanika, who's worked for us I don't even know how long now, maybe not quite a year, but a while. I didn't meet her for the first six months that she was there at least. I didn't meet her until the American Field Show. Wow. And that embarrasses me as a business owner, right? Yeah. You know, I felt continually bad about that with Jeff because I couldn't get up there. I can't get up to not during the week. I can only go on the weekends. Well, our employees don't work on the weekends, so I ended up not going and things like that. And, you know, I want to be there to support them and to cheer them on because the work they do is amazing, you know? And I want to witness that firsthand. And Jeff tells me all the time, and I'm, like, so excited to have Shanika and Alice and Dino working for us.

Brad Dowdy: And when I hear Jeff raving about them, it just, in the past, I mean, it obviously excites me, but I'm sad, right? Because I'm not there being a part of that, and I want to be a part of that. So that's what it's going to allow me to do, to be part of Nock, even though I always have been and always will be. It's to be more directly involved, right? To be around, you know, everyone who works there. And, you know, maybe they don't quite understand, like, this, right? They don't understand this whole community that we have around it. They're starting to get it now. Jeff, you know, kind of brings them in. But, like, we had Mark Backus come to the shop to do a nib grind. You know, Alice and Shanika got their very first fountain pens that day when Mark came, right? So I want to show them the love that I have for this community and the love that I have for this company, Nock, that, you know, and that I just want to, I don't know, make that come through, I guess, in my availability and my presence there and my assistance and my support. And I want them to know they have that undying support for me, not just Jeff, you know. And it's been awesome. They're nothing short of fantastic and amazing. And I want to be part of that every day, you know, and now I'm going to get that chance.

Myke Hurley: And what is the first new thing, thing you've never done before, that you're going to try and tackle first?

Brad Dowdy: With Nock?

Myke Hurley: With anything?

Nock Outreach

Brad Dowdy: Well, with Nock, it's going to be outreach and retail. It's two things. I've never sat down and focused on building Nock. Nock has been, we plan very well to have as much inventory as we can, but we're always running out, which is awesome. I want to solve that problem, right? Which, I'm going to make it worse. And that's how we're going to solve it, because I'm going to get out there to people who have never heard of this company or this brand and say, hey, we make this really cool thing. And I think it's something you might be interested in. And here's why. And we're going to put the pressure on manufacturing. You know, I want to, we already have so much pressure on us because all of our wonderful customers, that's our customer base is growing, growing exponentially every day. And they love our products, and I'm super glad that they do. But there's so much untapped out there that we want to manufacture more. And that's a huge problem to solve. And we're working on that now. And I want to be able to focus on that.

Brad Dowdy: You know, with the pen addict, I want to grow that in the fountain pen community as a whole, really in the stationary community as a whole. I want to get out more. I want to travel more, get out to more shows, just increase awareness and keep bringing people into this community. You know, the people that listen to this show are not your traditional stationary users that, you know, people who are not aware of this would think of, right? People who don't know us, you know, air quote us, don't understand any of this. They think, you know, pens are for old people or fountain pens. Who uses that anymore? And I want to continue to spread the word of stationary. I want to build, like, a massive community around this. You know, I think it can be done. And I want to continue to get the word out. And, you know, if that's traveling to more pen shows this year, you know, maybe that's it. You know, I want to grow the pen addict as a brand. You know, I'm not going to lie. I think there's something there with the website and the name and things like that. But so, you know, I want to build a pen addict store. You know, I want to do something like that. You know, not a physical store, an online store. Physical store. That'd be pretty cool one of these days, wouldn't it? Don't worry. That's not on the right. Don't worry. I'm not alluding to anything there. That's not on the radar. But those are the kind of big things, the big picture things that I'm working on with Nock and with pen addict. I have that more defined with Nock right now than pen addict.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: But pen addict, I've been doing so long, I can do that quicker. If that makes sense.

Myke Hurley: The funny thing is, you can go from having a job and two side jobs to one job and a side job. Yeah. You know, like the website can become your side job, but that will take like all the time that Nock and the pen addict had on it before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly.

Myke Hurley: You know, depending on how you want to split up your time. Right.

Brad Dowdy: So like the time, like I was kind of figuring out how to explain that earlier. Nock's going to get a lot more of my now free time, right? My old jobby job time is now going to go a lot to Nock. But that's because I already spent a lot of time of my previous free time on the pen addict. So that percentage, my time spent on pen addict is going to increase, but it's not going to increase near as much as what it's going to spend with Nock. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And even though that will increase, it won't be at the detriment of anything else. Exactly. Exactly. All right. So I have one thing I wanted to mention and a couple more questions. So like, you know, you've been talking a bunch about like what this is enabling you to do and thinking about like, you know, making the jump. And it reminds me very much of when I did this. And it was like we were able to get so far in a short space of time, really, with RelayFM. But it was after many years of work, right? In the same way that you had. But we just had a new beginning type thing. But the company got so quick, like so far so quick that I was looking at it and was like, I've been able to do this with such limited time, you know, that I've been able to put on this. Like, you know, I'm able to put a few hours, a couple of hours a day at most into this thing. And we're able to make X amount of money every month. Imagine what I could do if I could give all of my time. And I assume that that is a very similar feeling to how you are right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, completely. And I mean, it's a huge unknown, right? But it feels right. And it feels like it's the time. And the things I will be able to do now that I could have never done in the past because of time are going to start like, you know, flying off my tongue like that, right? Let's start this. Let's start that. Let's do this. Now I have the time to do that. And I think it's only going to be good. That's, you know, that's going to be the focus is where to redirect all this new time. Even though, you know, it's going to be a lot of hard work and a huge challenge. It's just the shifting of time into something that's like in my core, right? This is like who I am. Like this is, you know, I didn't love pens and paper as a kid for no reason, right? I mean, it was something in me that obviously grabbed me. And then something eight years ago that made me start writing about pens of all things. And something that three and a half years ago made me do a podcast about pens. It's in me, right? And figuring out a way to do that as a career is not the easiest thing to do. And it's taken a lot of time and it's super challenging and it's going to continue to be super challenging. But trying to, I'm excited about trying to solve these problems. And I say problems, it's, it's not, there's not, it's not a real problem, but it's trying to figure out, okay, what can I do to make this whole world of stationary better and welcoming to more people? How can I, you know, get knock out in the world more and bigger and grow that company? And these are awesome challenges to have right now. And I'm glad I could finally, you know, make that jump and to start working on these things. And, uh, it's going to be hard as hell, but, um, it's really, really exciting. And, you know, I've got so many moving parts in the background already and, you know, I'm not overwhelmed. I'm like excited. It's like, it's going to be a good challenge that I'm, I'm up for. And, um, you know, it's going to be good.

Myke Hurley: And my last question, shall we record earlier in the day?

Brad Dowdy: So I've been thinking about this a lot and we haven't, um, we haven't not talked about this even in passing. Number one, yes. Yes. And number two, we should probably switch the day. All right. So we'll have to talk about your schedule because I want.

Brad Dowdy: Monday to be, that's going to be a really good day for me to be at knock all day. This Monday, after the weekend, after weekend orders come in, after weekend emails have piled up, getting that extra help by me physically being there on a Monday would be great. And I could actually record there after everyone leaves, but I think it would just end up being too challenging and we should maybe consider moving the day aside from moving it up during the day. So we will absolutely do it earlier, buddy. You deserve that after all these years. We've never recorded at an early hour, except on one or two rare occasions if I had a holiday or something. Um, but you have done this at this hour for as long as the show's been running.

Myke Hurley: We should talk about that maybe when we get off the air today.

Brad Dowdy: You're, you're a little bit ready. Yeah. A little bit ready.

Myke Hurley: Uh, so that's why question's over. Um, and we probably, we've run a bit long today anyway. Uh, but I'm so, I'm so happy. I'm so thrilled that we get to talk about this. I'm so pleased that it's happened, you know? Um, and nothing bad has happened and, and that it's all good stuff, you know? And, and the reason you're doing this is because everything's going so great and it's not because something's falling down. And, and, and, and, and, and I'm so happy that I, uh, get to have a little bit of a part in this and, and that really means a lot to me. And, uh, I'm so happy that we've been able to get to this point after all these years and you deserve it. So do you want to sign us off? Is there anything else you want to say?

Brad Dowdy: Well, I just wanted to say, we didn't even discuss how it will change the podcast and it's not going to change it other than maybe we might change the time, but you know, we're going to have lots of things, lots of kind of different things to discuss. I think, um, more so than we normally do.

Myke Hurley: There'll be new challenges and new things for us to discuss, like on a personal level, which we've always done a bit of that. Um, obviously you're going to be busier and there's going to be more things going on there, which is going to be really exciting. But I think more than anything, we'll be able to put more time and effort into it. You know, there'll be less scrambling at the last minute to make sure we've got everything in place and we'll be able to do more guests and stuff because Brad will be more flexible on time. And you know, there's going to, I, I, this will only mean good things for the show.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Exactly. Right. And, you know, to, to sign it off, I, I couldn't do it without everyone listening right now, everyone reading the blog, um, everyone talking about the pen addict, everyone being so supportive through all these years. It's, it's a mind blowing community to be involved in. And I'm glad that I can be involved in it every minute of every day from now on.

Myke Hurley: If you want to catch our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash pen addict slash 185. You can also find the buttons there for, if you want to become a member of relay FM and see your membership money, go to this show. You can feel free to do that. And thank you to everybody that has, it really means a lot to both of us. Um, if you want to find Brad online, head on over to knock.co and pen addict.com. You want to also look for Brad on the social networks. You want to find him on Twitter. He's at dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. And he is pen addict on Instagram. And I am I Myke. I M Y K E on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks again to our sponsors this week. The great people over at lynda.com, Karos customs and pen chalet. And we'll be back next time. Thank you so much for listening until next time. Say goodbye, Mr. Free time.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Mr. Free time.