The Pen Addict 563/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	563
Title:	Outs and Ins and Arounds
Release Date:	May 10th, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 563
Audio File:	Audio Episode 563
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 563
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 563. Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace and Ooni Pizza Ovens. The Pen Addict is a weekly show about pens, paper, and the analogue tools we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad: Was this the early morning intro? This was a special, it was some OG stuff. We used to record later, but now we're in, we have an early morning event because all of our schedules are screwy this week. So, thank you for...

Myke: We're scheduling this week, which we're going to find out about why in just a minute. But yeah, we used to record the show, all of my shows were recorded, like, post 5pm, you know? Your time. Yeah, because I was working, but now I don't do that. Yep. Same.

Jury duty experience

Brad: Yep. So, we have quite the week here and there. Mine kicked off with jury duty, Myke. Not just regular jury duty, grand jury duty. So, we... Well, I'll do the best for you, Brad. Right, right. I mean, I'm going to ask to get you to re-record that intro and step it up a little bit for my grand jury entrance.

Myke: I guess so. I guess this wasn't grand podcast.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I actually had a job in the grand jury, so we'll get to that in a second. But the question to myself, like, literally, like, nah, no one really else cares, Brad, except they probably do. What stationery did Brad bring to his grand jury duty? Mm-hmm. So, here in the U.S., when you have grand jury duty, it's usually a multi-day event where you just sit and hear lawyers and investigators discuss cases that are hopefully getting ready to go to trial. So, you just have to listen to all the pending ledger of the upcoming cases in the next 90 days and say, yes, that should go to trial. That's it. So, you're sitting there. It's very boring. It's quite exhausting to just, like, you just kind of glaze over with all the lawyerese. Um, so, I knew at some point before I even went in there, I've never done this before, that I'm going to want to take notes just in case, like, you need to, the jurors get to ask questions and, you know, try to figure out, you know, make sure we're doing the right things. And so, I knew I would have, like, some opportunity for note-taking. So, the pen I chose, there were several considerations on what I wanted to bring, Myke. I didn't want to bring a capped pen, right? Um, you wanted kind of quick deployment, so I knew retractable was going to be it, or, like, bolt action. So, like, the spoke pen was what I wanted to bring, but I'd be, you know, taking it in and out of the magnet cap all day and just making a racket probably in a quiet courtroom. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. So, and plus, I didn't want to be tempted. I would totally be tempted to do that. Um, I thought bolt action would be fine, but then, in the end, I thought I just kind of wanted a ballpoint pen. Um, just for, you know, writing on crappy paper, which I assumed correctly was going to be the only thing available in the courtroom. And I chose my Caran d'Ache 849 Orange Pen Addict Edition. So, it has a blue Caran d'Ache Goliath ballpoint ink refill, which turned out to be important. I needed blue ink because I ended up with a job, Myke. So, there were, y'all didn't know what y'all signed up for today listening to me talk about jury duty. I'm fascinated, personally. So, there were 21 jurors in the room, and there are two jobs that were required. Out of that 21, we had to have a volunteer for two jobs. One was the jury foreman, which kind of just, you know, was responsible for getting everyone to vote. We have to vote on each case, basically, whether it goes through or not. And then they have to have a, um, a clerk to the foreman to, like, track the votes and, like, sign off on everything. You gotta have two signatures on each case file that we had to have. So, um, I was not really interested in being the foreman. So, someone took the foreman job, and they said, said, how about, how about a clerk? And, uh, no one said anything. And someone said, does anyone have good handwriting? I'm like, damn it! Does anyone, can anyone, like, write well? I was like, okay, I'll be the clerk. So, I was, uh, I guess I was built for the clerking job.

Myke: Why would you, damn it?

Brad: This is, like, this is the perfect thing for you, right? Right, right. Like, I didn't hesitate too bad. I was like, oh, I guess I'm gonna volunteer, right? So, what, unbeknownst to me, um, the foreman and the clerk are now residing up in the judge's box for the entirety of the jury, uh, of the grand jury. So, we're actually sitting up in, like, where, like, the judge would be, um, in front of all of our peers and behind the lawyers and investigators. Like, we're on, we're on some high ground up there. I was like, oh, I didn't know I was gonna be on display this whole time. But, um, it was fine. So, basically, I had to keep count of the number of cases we heard because that, in the end, that has to match, like, how many cases were presented in front of us. Because they later, this is all has, this is all just, like, official type of stuff, right? So, every case had its own, uh, document packet where the foreman had to sign off on the vote and then I had to sign off validating the results and I had to put the date and the month and the year and my signature as the clerk that I validated all the stuff every time. So, 61 times, Myke, we heard 61 cases over two days. I am done as of yesterday afternoon. Thankfully, I do not have to go back today. Um, so, yeah, it was, uh, it was a long experience. It was, it was very interesting. We had one just completely wild case, which, like, I would be allowed to talk about. I don't know if we want to bore the listeners with just a complete sidebar. But, uh, we had one big interesting case come across that we got to listen to. And, uh, yeah, that was it. So, my, my Karen Dash did work for the two days of jury duty. Signed a lot of official documentations. My signature is now in the official, uh, record of, I don't know, 61 different cases coming up to trial here in the state of Georgia. So. You saw 60. 61. 61. Jeez. So, some of them were quick.

Myke: How long do you spend per, like, like, I don't know what you would call it, session? Like, per each, each person they're coming in.

Brad: So, we went full nine to five the first day. Then we went, like, nine to two the second day. Okay. Um, some of them literally, so all you hear is.

Myke: Do you not see any defendants, do you? It's just the lawyers. Yeah, they come in.

Brad: The lawyer and, and then the person responsible for investigating or the person or the officer who handled the case. Like, so, very basic cases. A lot of them took, like, literally less than five minutes. It's like, hey, um, you know, we have one count of, um, you know, um, I don't forget the right terminology, but basically a car chase, you know, like running from an officer, right? Like, you know, they were, the officer tried to pull the person over from speeding. The person ran, you know, went 120 miles, 20 miles an hour. So, it's reckless endangerment. So, it's a felony. Um, you know, officer, what did you see? I pulled, you know, they went, go through, say, I went, you know, had this person going 120 and a 70. And, you know, I attempted to pull them over. They would not comply. I eventually got them over X miles down the road, the end. And then we vote on that. Do we want this to go to, basically, we'd say, do we want this to go to trial? Or should this go to trial? Do you vote in the room?

Myke: You didn't have to leave the room to vote, right?

Brad: They leave the lawyer and the investigator leave the room. And then we go, do, we're not saying should or shouldn't this go to trial. We're saying, do they have the correct evidence to move this case forward, right? Do they have the right person? And did that person likely commit a crime? And they have all that information. Yes, this should move forward. That's basically what we're saying. So, like, literally no cases did we turn down.

Brad: So, but there were a couple we had questions and were closer votes than other ones. Some were like that or, like, just very simple. But then we'd have a longer case where the investigator might spend, you know, 20 minutes explaining to us, like, all the details that they have. So, yeah. If anyone's interested in our wild case, just go Google Operation Viper and you will enjoy what you find in that.

Brad: What? So it was kind of amazing.

Myke: I found one. No, this is in London. So that's not. No.

Myke: USA. There's lots of Operation Vipers.

Brad: Well, it's all one case and you're going to get a lot of hits.

Operation Viper and snake cases

Myke: Operation Viper and the 200 snakes being bought or sold from undercover officers with the Georgia Department. That is, like, my worst nightmare. Yeah. They're my biggest fear. Snakes are my biggest fear.

Brad: So, like, death adders, king cobras, like, the most poisonous gabin vipers. So we got to hear from the investigator who was doing the undercover work on that case. It was freaking wild.

Myke: Sounds horrible. I hate it so bad. Yeah.

Stationery in the courtroom

Brad: So stationery-wise, in the rest of the courtroom, we obviously had, like, the lowest common denominator, little small legal pads, you know, just terrible paper that I was writing notes on, which was fine. I lucked out that I got to keep using my pen because it had blue ink. I didn't even think about, like, I'm going to have to have, like, photocopies, right? What kind of photos? It'll be black? No, you can, but you don't want, you want the original to be a standalone, so it's got to be separate. It can't look, the original can't look like a photocopy, so they don't want the black on it. So it's reverse. Right? They want the original to stand out to be the original, so it's got to have blue ink. So myself and the foreman used blue ink. All the lawyers used blue ink while they were writing on their documentation. So the lawyers had, I saw a Uniball Jetstream 1.0 millimeter. I saw a Uniball Signo 207. I couldn't tell what tip size, probably 0.7. Because there were some big notes on the documents that I could see. All retractable type pens, right, for a quick deployment. I saw some generic blue pens. No fancy pens. It was just all, like, basic. We got to use blue ink. And that was pretty much it. So, yeah, it was interesting. It was, I cannot believe how tired I was by the time I was done doing this, for sitting there for, like, all day long listening to this. I was like, oh, my God, I am exhausted from listening to all the legalese. So it was interesting. I'm glad it's done. So my stationery acumen proved helpful having the blue ink ballpoint pen. And I signed my name a lot. So it was good. Well, lucky. You were lucky. I guess. I mean, I volunteered for it. Like, I was like, okay, cool.

Myke: No, like, to have the blue pen with you? I was lucky to have the blue.

Brad: I could have brought anything else. Like, I was thinking about bringing, like, a roadie. And that one had a black ink refill. And then I had to use whatever blue ink generic pen they gave me, you know, from corporate express or whatever.

Myke: Did anyone have any nice pens? Like, even the people that seemed to be going in there a lot?

Brad: No. No. So all the lawyers had, like, those basic pens. And then, like, all the jurors were provided pencils.

Myke: Right. Okay. You know, if they needed something. I assume you weren't allowed to take anything away, right?

Brad: Right. No. All of it was trashed by the time we were done. Because I had a few notes on my thing. Like, you don't want any of that. But it's also, like, not, like, a private, necessarily, like, a private thing. All these go into the public record, right?

Myke: That's fair.

Brad: So.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: So this was not, like, we were not on, like, a trial jury where it's private.

Brad: So, anyway. It was interesting. I'm not going to say it was fun. But, like, I'm glad it didn't last more than, like, the day and a half that we were there. Because it was pretty.

Myke: And you didn't have to see anything that could change you as a person.

Brad: Right. Right. We did get lucky on that. There was nothing. There was some, you know, there was some extreme stuff. But nothing, like, nothing that's going to give me, like, nightmares for, like, you know, weeks.

Myke: Yeah. I feel like you wouldn't have, even in the bad ones, you probably didn't see the worst stuff. I would assume. I don't know. I don't know how much evidence they show you.

Brad: No, not much. I think it's mostly just talking. There's not a lot of visual. It's just like, hey, here's the details of the case. And, you know, let's go through that. And do we have, you know, all our I's dotted and T's crossed mostly is what we're doing.

Myke: I have such complicated feelings about the jury system. I feel like I may be too big for a pen podcast. Yeah. But just like this idea of, like, you said that they were talking in language that was complicated, right? Well, not. But then they're asking you to make decisions?

Brad: No. So they have default language in every case. That's the basic. So they would have to list, like, the which code of the law did they break? You know, what are we charging them with? And it'd be GA, C9, 5, 4, 3, 2, 8, 7, 9. And, you know, and just like all stuff like that. Right.

Myke: It's not like you just don't need to hear that.

Brad: Right. And there'd have to be, like, each one would have to end an official wording of, like, you know, under order of the state of Georgia and the, you know, blah, blah, blah district and on and on and on. But, like, for, like, each charge in each of the 61 cases. And, like, one of them had, like, 51 charges. And it's like, oh, my gosh.

Myke: It's like the thing about it that becomes weird to me is, like, when you actually go to a proper trial, it becomes like a show. Mm-hmm. Right? And so, like, the legal professionals are actually putting on the best show they can for the jury. Which, like, that just feels wrong to me as, like, a way to handle this stuff. Like, why can't it just be settled professionally? Right. It's manipulative. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah, it's manipulative. Right? I mean, their job is to be, like, persuasive. And how are they going to do that? Well, they're going to prey on emotions and feelings and things like that. Right? As necessarily, you know. Oh, then facts are, like, round, like, secondary. Right?

Myke: And that just feels wrong, right? Yeah. If you have the best lawyer, you're more likely to get through no matter whether you did it or not. Yeah. Yeah. So, we didn't have to deal with any of that.

Brad: I don't know. No, this was more, this was, like, a procedural thing, which I was not totally aware of how it was going to be. I knew it was going to be that way, but it was really just, like, very black and white procedural. We have to read these words in the specific order. We have to hear from the person involved. And then you have to take a vote whether this goes to trial or not. Whether we have enough, whether we have the right person and enough evidence to take this at trial. And they're not going to stand in front of us if they don't, generally speaking.

Myke: For sure.

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Brad: Oh, shout-out of the week. Minimal Scholar, JP. I love reading Minimal Scholar. I have yet to meet JP in person, maybe at DC. I think he goes to the DC pen show sometimes. I'm going to DC this year, so maybe I'll get to actually meet the mastermind behind Minimal Scholar. And what JP does is he'll have a regular weekly kind of what I'm using, right, like the currently ink stuff. And there's always a pretty decent five-, six-pin rotation. Why did I choose these nibs? Why did I choose these ink colors? Sometimes there's a theme of ink. Sometimes there's a theme of nibs. You know, all tiny nibs are all big nibs. So I like the thoughtfulness. JP definitely writes a lot as a scholar. I believe they're a teacher. So that's the other topic that JP writes about with frequency is writing about writing, like note-taking, indexing, all of those type of things. And I always get a lot out of reading about other people's systems, right? Like I want to see how they're doing notes. You know, JP's done some posts in the past where he'll be reading a book and we'll talk about how he takes notes while reading the book and how that stuff, information is captured. Like all of those things are very, very interesting to me. And it's always done with like stationery, right? Like it's all, it's all pens and inks and paper. So it's very fun. Lovely blog. I've been following them for a few years and it's great. Keep it up, JP. Great job.

Weekend activities and Chicago trip

Myke: So we just had a big weekend.

Brad: You had a big weekend. Lots of official documentation going around between you and I.

Myke: Is that, yeah? Okay. Interesting. I mean, I guess so. I guess I see what you're saying. Yeah. So we just, not, you know, I wasn't involved, but we just had a new king and queen. Watched the whole affair. It was very regal as you could imagine, but it was, I kind of, I enjoyed it. I thought it was really nicely done. There was, it was like quite a beautiful ceremony and the whole thing. And, you know, it was, it was interesting to watch as well as it was weird. It's like a very strange thing. Cause obviously I've never got to see this and it's like, it was super interesting to see how they manage all of the weirdness to it. But also I think added in quite a lot of things that I liked. Like there was a lot of, whilst it is still quite a religious affair because that's just kind of what the monarchy is all tied up in. There was a lot of like multi-faith representation, which I thought was good. It felt like maybe as modern as you could make something like this today. There's lots of music too, which was really good. It was, it was a very, it was also just like super weird, super interesting, but I had, I find it kind of fascinating. But obviously the biggest moment for me was when they gave a document of some description, some kind of declaration to King Charles for him to sign. And he pulled out a fountain pen, which I think concealed a Sharpie. It is like maybe a two millimeter stub nib that this guy's got running on this thing.

Brad: I've zoomed into that thing and that's about what it looks like. It might be, I think it's probably like double broad.

Myke: But it was, it was a fat wet line there that he signed. And obviously my mind went to what is the pen, right? Obviously, of course, there were lots of articles written. And I'll put one in the show notes of like, that he, it worked, the pen worked. Because obviously, you know, listeners to the show know. That's the key. Yeah. That he's had issues with his pens working.

Myke: So yeah, I was really intrigued. What is this pen? And I've been doing some digging and looking around. I've seen a bunch of TikToks and stuff like that in my searching of people trying to work this out. Mm-hmm. And Fibber wrote in asking the question and then sending in a second thing to penoutfeedback.com suggesting that it might be an Onoto pen because they have made a pen called the Coronation pen, which is a very expensive pen. I don't think this is it. I feel very confident in that, actually, that it is not that pen. My expectation is, I don't know who made this. I can't work that out. This is not a pen that anybody else could buy. This was a 100% custom-made piece. That's my thinking. I assume by some British brand, right? Because why would you not? We have them. And that was historically the way it was done, too. Idina was looking around. She could find things about the pen from Queen Elizabeth's Coronation. There was information about that. But there's nothing that I've been able to find to say who made this pen. But I expect it's a British brand of some description. But this is a purely 100% custom, for him, made product.

Brad: Yeah. And we can't really get a close enough shot of the nib to see. The nib looks refined enough for it to be a legitimate maker, like an Onoto. Not just maybe a metalsmith making a nib. Although they could be very etched. And we do know people who have that type of talent.

Myke: Oh, I expect it is a pen brand, right? Like a well-known pen brand. But I just think that this was a custom-made pen by that pen brand. That's what I would expect.

Brad: But maybe between, like, you know, Onoto, Conway Stewart, some of the… Yarder lead? Yeah, Yarder lead. That would be a good choice. What I can't tell if this is, like, a silver with a bunch of etching, or is this, like, Mother of Pearl, like, inlay type of…

Myke: I think it's silver. I just think from when I was watching it, it looked very silver. And I expect it is a silver pen. Yeah. Or, like, white gold or something, right? But it looked pure metal from the imagery that I saw.

Brad: Mm-hmm.

Myke: Yeah, it's interesting. Who knows, like, can give us evidence, right? Like, we can all make a… Like, you could point to this and nod to him and be like, maybe it was them because they made a coronation pen. But, like, the pen that they're calling the coronation pen does not look like this one to me.

Brad: Yeah, hopefully it'll come out eventually, right? I mean, that's now, like, in the history books, right? If you made it, why would you not, right?

Myke: Like, if you were responsible for making this thing, surely you'd want to talk about it.

Brad: I know there was a big Reddit thread I was following trying to sort it out, and it was the same kind of conversations that we're having. I don't know if it ever came to a conclusion, if they got any further. But there just weren't many images outside of, like, either the live TV or the images that we're getting, and they're just not telling enough to, like, totally say. And no brand has had the press release, right, saying that… Not that I've been able to find it anyway. Yeah. Here's the cost. Here's the materials, right? There's usually, like, a full detailing of pens like this, right? You know, how we made it, what are the materials, what are the specs of the pen, and stuff like that. So one comment on the actual handwriting, he is a very far-back gripper when signing documents. This was the same as the initial documents he was signing when, you know, the world was fascinated with his terribly working pen. So this is very much a marker-type pen signature. Sure. So I always find that interesting. So, yeah, I will want to get the pen specs. I actually am obviously interested in the ink, right, to see, you know, are we using, you know, your Diamine Registrar's type of ink situation. What did they make? Like, you know, we had that post from a week or two ago talking about, like, the special ink created for the coronation invitations. Did yours ever come? Like, did you ever get your invitation?

Myke: I think you got lost in the mail. Maybe when we moved and they hadn't updated our address. I expect that's what happened because I didn't get my invitation. Yeah, the timing. I will say there was one person I was looking for in the crowd and couldn't find him, Johnny Ive. I'm assuming he was invited, right? I would think so. Well, he designed the seal, so I couldn't find him. Maybe he was there, maybe he wasn't, but I was keeping my eye out. Yeah.

Brad: So what pen did you use to sign your fealty to the king?

Myke: It didn't have to do that. There was this thing where they were saying that, like, they were going to ask the public if they wanted to do it during the coronation. And people got real mad about it, and they didn't do that in the end.

Brad: What a terrible decision that would have been.

Myke: See, I don't think so. I mean, maybe people are going to hate me for this. But it was an option. It was like, you didn't have to do it.

Brad: But you're asking for trouble. Well, yeah. Like, you're literally asking for trouble. That's the thing, right? Yeah.

Myke: Because this is a thing that you do if you are becoming a citizen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to do it. And so there was something about it where it's like, I've experienced that. So this is where maybe my feeling comes across as different. It's like, I experienced Adina do that, and it was a very beautiful moment. Like, it meant a lot to me. It was very emotional. And I just thought about, like, all of the people that truly cared, like, enough to want to become citizens, pledged to the queen. And now they might want to pledge to the king as well. Like, that was kind of where I was coming from. And so, like, to me, it was kind of like, as an option, like, to do it. But, yeah, people didn't like it, so they changed it.

Brad: Yeah, that turned around real quick, real quick. So big, big stationery week in both of our lives. Crazy times. It's funny that, like, we really think about this stuff. It's like, I worried about what pen I was bringing to jury duty. You wanted to see what Ben the King's writing with. Yeah, it's cool. You know, it's cool.

Myke: Yeah, I love talking about this stuff. And those two of equal importance. Absolutely. All right, let's take our second break, and then I want to hear all about the Chicago Pen Show. How does that sound? All right.

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Brad: I saw Christian cooking in his vault the other day. He was putting pictures out on Mastodon. I was like, man, that is just sick. That looks so cool.

Myke: I would have bought that if we hadn't moved. Now we've moved and I've got a backyard, I want the gas one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad: I agree. I wouldn't want to trade it out, but I get the option of that and watching him and seeing what he was doing with that.

Myke: I was like, yeah, that's pretty sick. But we were in the apartment.

Brad: I would have got the vault. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's cool. That's cool. All right, speaking of pizza, Myke, Chicago, big pizza town. Deep dish, baby. Do you have any deep dish? I had some. I did, I did. First night I was there, Friday night. Our friends at Canalea took me over to Lou Malnati's for a little deep dish, little thin crust, kind of a little mixture of all the things. So yeah, it was good. That's my favorite.

Myke: I know people have, I'm sure if you're in Chicago, you have your favorites, but I've been to Lou Malnati's a few times and I always have a good time, including when I was there accidentally in September last year, where we, as I tend to be, whenever going to or from Memphis, I have at least one problem. And we had an issue of our flight and we had to stay over the night in Chicago. And we ended up,

Myke: we stayed over and we arrived late. We're like, look, we're in Chicago just until the morning. I want to get a deep dish. We're like, all right, let's do it. The problem with deep dish is it takes a really long time to cook. And we were so tired. And it was like half past 11 at night and then we're eating a deep dish pizza. Like half past 11, Chicago time.

Brad: Yep. Yep.

Myke: But it's worth it.

Brad: That's the move. All right. So this trip was worth it. It was good to get back to Chicago. It had been about five years since I've been to the Chicago Penn Show. Literally nothing had changed. Same hotel, same location, same general setup with a hotel, hotel atrium filled with vendors, hotel ballroom filled with vendors, all basically connected. One big show is really good. I actually, when I say nothing has changed, I mean that kind of in a positive way. Like, cause I like the setup and I like the location and I like the hotel. Yes, it's out in the suburbs of Chicago. You're not really getting downtown without a hall. Um, but like for a Penn show, for a self-contained Penn show, we talk a lot of times about how, you know, we're not necessarily, um, going around town for the show. You're in and around the hotel as much as possible. So you kind of want those amenities right there and have some options outside of the hotel close by, like walking over to food, which was easily done at the Chicago show. So that was great. So, um, I like, I actually like the location and the layout and the size of the show. It's a good medium size show, similar to Baltimore, uh, as far as size goes, like bigger than Atlanta, uh, for sure. And, um, the crowds I thought were really nice, you know, it was Friday. I got, I got in one, two o'clock Friday afternoon. Um, so it wasn't overly busy Friday afternoon, you know, it was a decent enough crowd. Um, not slammed. Uh, Saturday seemed to be busy from open to close, which was great. And then I wasn't there Sunday to see what the Sunday was like, but, um, it was very crowded on a Saturday and a Friday night. And, um, it was, it was a good time. So, um, I had two priorities on my list for heading into the show. One was to get my initials painted on my plotter. So I picked up a plotter narrow at the San Francisco pen show. That is now what I use, um, pretty much every day during the week. It's kind of like my main planner task list to do list calendar. Um, and they brought, uh, some of the team over from Japan to Chicago. They had an event earlier in the week at Atlas Stationers, which is a local stationery shop in Chicago. Like, uh, the Wednesday before the show, I think they had an in-store event. So they were definitely bringing, uh, they, they brought a crew with them to Chicago. And I'm very appreciative of, of them for like traveling from Japan over to this show. So they had an, an artisan, like painting, like hand painting initials on a plotter. So they had appointments like every 20 minutes, uh, Friday and Saturday. I was planning on getting, getting up early, going and doing that Saturday, but I came in Friday afternoon, was hanging out over there. They had one spot open for Friday afternoon. So I took that spot and, uh, got that done. So that was the first thing I did. I just went ahead and knocked that out right out the gate. I was very happy with that. Um, the second thing on my list was to check out Newton pens. I wanted to get a prospector, which is one of Sean Newton's oldest designs. It's very, um, visually striking. And it's something that I wanted to pick out in person. Like I, I've never owned a prospector. I've always enjoyed seeing them and enjoyed like, enjoyed, uh, you know, getting to handle other people's prospectors. And I kind of, it wasn't like my first choice when I was buying like a Newton pen. Like I've had a Shinobi for years. Um, but I've kind of, it's kind of grown on me as like, I really, really want that pen. Yeah. Yeah. So it took a while for me to like, get there to like decide. I was like, yeah, the more I use them, the more I kind of fell in love with them. So I wanted to be sure if I was going to get one, I wanted to pick it out in person. I knew Sean was going to be there. And fortunately, um, there was a model or color material that I liked. So he makes them in three different sizes. There might be four, but I think it's three different sizes. Um, and I bought the smallest, uh, which is still a big pen, but if it's like a number six, Yovo nib, and then he makes a one that's a little bit bigger than that, that also fits a number six Yovo nib. And then he makes one even bigger that's designed around a number eight size nib. So, um, when I say I bought the smallest one, it's still, you know, a very, very big, normal size pen. There's just all the rest of them are bigger. So it was nice to talk with Sean and Liz hadn't seen them in a while. Um, you know, he let me just kind of, you know, go to town, testing out all the pens, you know, I was swapping nibs in and out to just kind of get a good feel of what size I wanted. Picked one out, picked out a cool material. Um, I haven't had time to even really unpack all my stationery from the show because I went right into the jury duty thing Monday morning. So I'll have some pictures and start talking about all this stuff later this week. I'm getting back to a more normal schedule starting on Thursday this week. Um, so yeah, I got that. It was great. I am very, very happy with that. He, you know, he, one of the things I didn't know when I bought the pen is he fits his Yovo nibs with the ebonite feeds from I believe it's Flexible Nib Factory. So that's kind of like a nice little upgrade. That's a very nice, uh, good flow feed, right? That's, um, it's kind of, it's not even an add-on. It's basically included with the purchase. So then I got, uh, Gina from Custom Nib Studio to put a Curse of Vitalik grind on a fine steel Yovo nib. And I'm just kind of been, you know, using that ever since I got it. It's really, really great. That's my only pen I bought, uh, for myself. So, um, I did good, like really just knocking out the two things I want to do on Friday, but that put me in position on Saturday to just be wide open, which is not always the best thing.

Myke: Um, yeah. Worst place to be wide open is a pen show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pen show purchases and accessories

Brad: So, um, I bought a lot of accessories and ink, uh, and things like that the rest of the show. I didn't buy any more pens for myself. I got some pens for review and giveaway. Uh, obviously I, I tend to do that a lot at shows. I like to pick up some maker stuff, which I will talk about in coming weeks when I do reviews. And subsequent giveaways, things like that. But it's always great to see Angela from Inky Converters. Um, they always have like the coolest like stationery accessories. You know, uh, I bought some washi tape and some stamps and, um, they make, they make, uh, stationery themed band-aids now. I was like, well, I have no use for these, but hell yeah, I'm buying those. Like who doesn't want a band-aid with an ink bottle on it? I do. So, um, you know, things like that, you know, and I've bought desk pads from them in the past and, uh, desk mats, um, you know, keychain stickers, buttons, all that pens, all that PIN pens, all that fun stuff. And it's just, she designs all this stuff. We're great artwork and it's just so much fun stuff. And I love Angela so much. She does a great job. Um, I got to see Dan Keller from Good Made Better who I haven't seen. I don't even know the last time I've seen, uh, Dan, you'll know Dan from the Inkwell mostly. I'm using it right now. Yep. Yep. So I picked up a couple of, uh, different model Inkwells that I, uh, don't have, uh, mostly for giveaway stuff. Uh, got to talk to him about the, uh, right well Kickstarter, um, all the, all the work he's doing. Um, it's really cool to see someone who you met like the first time that they were just like putting like random like wooden, like pen holders on a table at a pen show, you know, five, six years ago into now just like a really refined maker and super well-respected, uh, artisan and creator. So it's, it's really cool to see. It was great to, to hang out with him as kids. A couple of the kids were there, uh, helping out. So we talked for a while, uh, thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with him. Uh, I finally got to meet, uh, Eric Gama of Amarillo Stationery. So, uh, he had been on a friend of the show podcast with me, longtime, uh, friend, talked to him all the time. It was great to actually meet in person instead of over Zoom. So got to check out all his wares, came away with some, um, an awesome item from him, which I will share, uh, at a later date. Like literally none of this stuff is unpacked. It's all in bags on my desk. I just haven't had time. Um, I got to meet, uh, uh, Brendan, uh, from Atlas Stationers, which is like the big Chicago stationery shop nowadays. Um, they did a, uh, bang up business. It looked like at the show. Every time I went by their tables, they had, they had most of two aisles, um, probably like an aisle and a half worth of tables. It was just crazy busy. Um, the whole time they did a good job. They had a bunch of staff working. Like it was just packed. Like I'm glad I talked to them on Friday because there's no way I would have talked to them on, on Saturday. So that was cool. So, you know, maybe I'll be talking with them in the future, see if we can, uh, you know, work up some, some in-store visits or something like that down the line. That's always fun to, to think about future projects to do. Uh, I finally got to meet, uh, Jeffrey Coleman of Tentarius podcast, uh, picked up some of the awesome sailor inks that he collaborates with, um, for the podcast. And I had bought the first ones, the, uh, uh, the tortilla. Gosh, I'm, I don't have all the names in front of me. The first ones were the tortilla and the hobbit. I don't know. It wasn't a habanero. It was a, it was a different type of, um, pepper or maybe a chipotle, um, where the first set in this set was, uh, blue corn or, uh, gosh, corn. And I think agave, I don't, I'm terrible. So there was two new inks, a blue one and a purple one. I picked those up. Uh, those came out a little while ago, but I haven't had them yet. So I picked up a couple of bottles of those, uh, to give away. Of course. Um, it was fun seeing, uh, Patrick from Papier Plume, who I haven't seen since Chicago, the last time I was in Chicago. Um, they always tend to come from New Orleans to this show. And it was great getting to talk with him for a little bit. And he said, you know, the store is doing super well in new Orleans. They're having a great time. They're making all kinds of things now. Um, they've always made their own inks. And he said, they're just dabbling into making more stuff and everything's going super well. So that was great to hear. I got to check out Ian Shone's, uh, Monarch nibs that he anodized. So he brought a set of anodized, uh, Monarch nibs. I came this close to buying my Monarch nib because I was talking with Gina and they let me borrow their own personal grinded Monarch. And I was like, well, if I've been holding off one to get something finer, right? And I'm like, well, could you do that for me if I bought one? And they were like, yeah, of course. I was like, oh, great. That's, that's like the last thing I wanted to hear.

Myke: I feel like that's not the way to do it though. Because if Ian is going to do finer nibs, he is, he is. Then I'm just saying like, if he's going to do it, you should wait and do that. Yeah. In the sense of like what it would be to review this product. Because if you bought it and had it ground, it's not the same thing anymore.

Brad: That's fair. That's fair. So yeah, I am completely fine holding. I was actually tempted if, if some of the, most of the anodized nibs sold like right away. So if there was like a really cool one, I might've had a hard time waiting. But there, there was just a couple left. They had been blown out pretty well over the show.

Brad: I got given something that's already up on the website for giveaway. My good friend, Marty Henderson, retro 51 connoisseur collaborated with retro on a, a model that is sold through drama goals. It's called sprinkle ops. Have you seen this one? I don't think we ever talked about it on the show.

Myke: I've seen it and it's awesome. Yeah. But I have a question.

Brad: Sure. Sure.

Myke: So I've been seeing this pen around a lot and I've been seeing it like, uh, being posted with loads of products that look like this, like knives and stuff.

Brad: Right. Right. So this is going on here. Yes. So Marty's into the, the, the very EDC type of carry thing. And when I saw him in Atlanta, this hadn't come out yet, but he had the prototype and the way he was explaining it to me is that this style was initially like in the EDC world, like as like knife handles and bags and all this other accessories before, before this. So this is like, you know, in addition to like all the other EDC type gear that came before it. So it's like, it's, he basically the best way he explained it to me is it's a whole thing. Right. Like, it's literally a whole thing.

Myke: Like how, like why? Like, I don't know, but it's like, because I found one of Marty's posts, like shows all of their sprinkle things. It's like, I'm just really confused about it. Like, why are there so many knives that look just like this?

Brad: You know? I don't know, but I'm way in on it. I want one,

Myke: which is also why I'm asking.

Brad: But I literally had no idea this existed before Marty shared the pen with me. Then he showed me like all the different things. Like he had some of the other stuff with him, like one of the little pouches that's in the image and one of the knives. In Atlanta, I was like, really, this is like a whole thing. I was like, yeah. So he gave me a pen and a single pen sleeve to give away on the blog. And I was told him I would be, he said, he said, you know, he can hear. I just, I talked to Larry, you know, drum goal. We wanted to give you one and you can do whatever you want with it. You know, keep it, use it, review it, give it away. I was like, Oh, I'm going to give it away. So like that is already up on the blog. So I promised him I would do that. Because I, I, I need, I need someone else. I need someone else to win this. So I'm not tempted to open it and use it for myself. And maybe I'll just go buy one on my own. I think there's, there's not many left. There was only 500 of these. I'm sure they're probably going to sell out without, without question. So like, it was, it was a great show just from seeing people that I haven't seen in a long time, meeting people in person for the first time that I've talked to. Like, heck, I mean, you know, Eric from Amario and I have like had like zoom calls, you know, together and, you know, chatted and stuff like that, but never met in person. So it's great to be able to do that. The hangouts at night were really good. Chicago has some good space. It doesn't necessarily look like that when you walk in, it's like, Oh, where are we going to hang out? But like you can hang out. The bar has like tons of like movable seating. So we can get into like these long tables and just spread out and, you know, throw all our stuff on the table and, you know, share pens, talk pens, play with things, talk about stationery. And then when the bar closed at 11, you know, you could just move right out into like the four year area. And there was enough seating to just kind of hang out a little bit more if you wanted to. So it was, it was very comfortable in, in that aspect on Saturday night. Well, like after dinner, went to dinner with Sarah and Kimberly from the pen addict who were writing, right for the pen act. They were both at the show. I brought my microphone and we recorded a episode, a friend of the show. That'll be coming out for pen addict members. Just the three of us. We got, this was a give full credit to Eric gamma. This was a, he's just like, Oh, you should call this the pen addict performance reviews podcast where I review Sarah and Kimberly's work.

Brad: So that, so it was the performance reviews podcast. So we talked a little bit about that, but basically we just cut up for about 30, 40 minutes and I'll, I'll have that out. I haven't listened to it yet. It was on this one mic that I record this podcast with, which is not, you know, like a, a spatial pickup type of mic. So, you know, we definitely had to play past the mic. So who knows how it sounds, but I don't even care. It should be fun.

Myke: It should be okay. But yeah, if like someone's talking and they haven't got the mic in front of them with the microphone that you use, you're just like, yeah, say goodbye. Like it's not.

Brad: Yep. Yep. So there's, there's some of that, but yeah, we were, so hopefully, hopefully it comes out good because we had a, we had a fun time cutting up and that was pretty much it. It was a really smooth, fun show. I really enjoyed it. Uh, it was a pretty quick trip. Um, O'Hare airport is awful. I just wanted to go ahead and get that out there. It is so convoluted and just tacked on everywhere.

Myke: It's complicated, but once you understand the layout of O'Hare, I actually kind of, I kind of like it, but I know what you mean. Cause sometimes to get from one place to another place, you have to walk down like long aisles, right? When it's just like, it's just over there, but I can't get to it.

Brad: Yeah. It's lots of outs and ins and arounds. Like it's nothing seems very, very direct. And it is very under construction, which like, I mean, all airports are like perpetually under construction cause they're so massive. Um, but it was, it was a hot mess. It was, it was fine. Like it was fine. So, uh, the, the travel, the air travel was fine. So like in the, you know, the boarding and all that, um, not a lot of good, uh, restaurants open, uh, in the, in the morning, uh, for food. But otherwise it was, uh, it was good. Uh, I, that it was not bad enough to like mar any kind of trip, but it was just like, I'm spoiled with Atlanta for being so gigantic, but so efficient and properly laid out. Uh, I'm, I'm very spoiled. So it's, it's hard to get busier and bigger than Atlanta. Um, so I have a lot to compare it to and it just does not work. I like Atlanta whatsoever, but that I won't let that mar what was really, really a great trip. Um, yeah, like lots of good memories made in two quick nights, right? Like that's, that's kind of the way you want it. Right. It was, it was very good. Uh, spent way too much money. Um, not just, not like on pens, but like, it's like a lot of just, I was buying like all the accessory stuff. So I have lots of, I'm, I'm set for giveaways, uh, for the next several months, uh, just in all the things I bought, um, to, to review or to give away and stuff like that. But it was just, it was a legit good time. I, I, I've always recommended the Chicago pen show from, you know, five and six years ago when I was going to it a couple of times. Um, and I, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who could get to it again.

Myke: I really want to go. I really want to go. I love Chicago. Uh, so Chicago is a great town. High on my list of shows to go to at some point.

Brad: Yeah. This would be one to, to tack on to, right? Yeah. Like you go to the show cause you're out in, out in the suburbs, but then you tack on a couple of days in town. Um, yeah, but it would be similar to how I did San Francisco,

Myke: right? Like be in San Francisco and then go out to the, pension. So pension is not in San Francisco.

Brad: Right. It's been a couple of days in the city. Yeah. Um, doing stuff and then went down to the show and yeah, it's great. So yeah,

Myke: good stuff. All right. If you want to catch links to this week's episode, you can find them in your podcast app of choice. So you can go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash five, six, three. You will find a link there to send in feedback for the show, but you can also go to pen addict feedback.com and you can send us your followup, your ask TPA questions, anything you like for future episodes. If you want to find Brad before next week's show, you can go to pen addict.com, spoke design.com, twitch.tv slash pen addict. And Instagram is at pen addict. Mastodon at pen addict. You want blue sky yet?

Brad: No, no. Do I need to be? I've asked for an invite. I wouldn't mind having my name on there, but I, if any, I will, I will say this, like, this is not the digression you were looking for. If anything, they're just going to keep coming fast and furious. I would rewind completely back to micro dot blog is what I would do.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: To be honest, is the way I'm thinking about this whole situation that we're in right now. I like my Mastodon. And I like my micro dot blog. I'm good, but I wouldn't mind having my name on. I really don't care. One of them. I'm really not interested.

Myke: I don't know what I'll do with it, but I kind of got to be in all the places. I feel like if I'm going to contribute or all. So I'm at, I'm Myke. I am YKE. That's where you'll find me everywhere. And you go to cortex brand.com. The Mark one is back. The cortex. I saw the pictures look great in blue and black, both in limited numbers. So if you're interested, you can go and get one. We have some in, and we're also about, this isn't important for the listener, but we're about to, to have a very, very important restock of the psychic notepad, because we are about 10 days away from selling out. So we were able to get some rushed and sent over. Did a thing I've never done before, Brad did a partial shipment. Okay. So we ordered like however many thousand and got 1000 of them put on a plane.

Brad: Yes.

Myke: While they're still making the rest. And they're going to pull the boat.

Brad: It was a time timing inventory thing. Right. Because if we would have waited, it was a management on the boat.

Myke: They would, we would have gone out stock within like 10 days.

Brad: Hey, one more business thing before we get out. When is our Lego going to post for relay FM members?

Myke: That's a great question. It's going to be on the 18th. So I was going to mention it more next week, but we have a special coming out. Well,

Brad: you're not going to mention it next week because I'm not talking to you next week.

Myke: You know what? You're so smart. And it's such a great point. So we have recorded our member special and it is going to be available on the 18th. If you are a relay FM member during this time of the year, you will get no matter what show you support, a bunch of extra content from various relay FM shows. It's only available for relay FM members. This year, Brad and I conducted the ultimate friendship test. Once again, where Brad built a Lego set. I had the instructions and I had to guide him through. We also, during this conversation also spoke about golf because we were talking about, we might do that. We actually combined the two. So during the build, we're also talking about my foray into golf. You'll be happy to know, Brad, that this is now breaking the timeline. The clubs that I ordered arrived today. I'm going to go, hopefully pick them up for the end of the week. So I have my gloves.

Brad: I enjoy seeing your pictures.

Myke: Yeah, I will. You bet. That will all be available for you to listen to on the 18th, May in the relay FM crossover feed, which all members get access to. I'll put a link in the show notes to the relay FM crossover feed, but you have to be a member to get access to it. But yeah, you can go to relay.fm membership. You can find out more about all of our shows that are available for you to sign up for. You can sign up to support this show. I really appreciate it. But no matter what show you support during membership season, you will get access to this bonus content and we really hope that you enjoy it.

Upcoming chat with Bryce from luxury brands

Brad: Yep. And one more thing for next week, I have a chat coming up with Bryce from luxury brands, the U S distributor for platinum color verse, Waldman among other things. So we already have next week's show done in a really good conversation. If you ever wondered what a distributor's job is, Bryce and I tried to cover that for y'all next week.

Myke: Yeah. Cause I'm not going to be around next week. So yep. Please enjoy that. And we'll be back next time until then say goodbye, Brad.

Brad: Goodbye, Brad. Brad. Brad. Bye.