The Pen Addict 284/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	284
Title:	Weird and Wonderful Stuff - Holiday Gift Guide 2017
Release Date:	November 22nd, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Ana Reinert
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 284
Audio File:	Audio Episode 284
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 284
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict episode 284. Today's show is brought to you by Casper Panschalea. And ho ho ho, my name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy, the jolly Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy.

Holiday Gift Guide

Brad Dowdy: I couldn't even hold it in through the intro, I'm a terrible podcaster.

Myke Hurley: It is our holiday gift guide episode, which can mean only one thing. We return the triumphant third host of The Pen Addict, from Will Appointed Desk and Orion at Hyanna.

Ana Reinert: Hello!

Brad Dowdy: I feel like we need those confetti poppers and stuff and cheers, like, yay!

Myke Hurley: Yeah, everybody can now pop their designated confetti poppers, which we sent to all of our listeners in the mail. If you did not get one, I apologise, but they were sent out to everybody in advance of Anna's triumphant return to the show. And here, there goes mine.

Ana Reinert: Excellent! You've made much better sound effects than I did.

Myke Hurley: Okay, we're good to go. It is the holiday gift guide episode, which I know everybody looks forward to so much every year. There are lots of confetti poppers occurring now, so you can hear them around the world. But Brad, at the last minute, as Brad likes to do, he threw a spanner into the works and completely upended the way that we do our gift guide episode. So, Brad, would you like to explain what you've done?

Brad Dowdy: Well, I thought it was time for a little bit of a mix-up, at least for this year, and we'll see how it goes. But, you know, we generally cover topic-based gifts or price range gifts or, you know, a fountain pen gift, a paper gift. You know, some very kind of generic headers, if you will. This time, I started getting some questions about, hey, I have this party coming up for the holidays. What can I buy for a gift? Or, hey, I have a group of engineers in my office. What can I get for a gift? I was like, you know what? What if we take all these questions and answer all these questions as the gift guide? Not only will it help those specific people, it'll help other people that generally have the same questions or fit into the same kind of category. And it's a little bit different than what we've done in the years past. So I just thought it would be fun. And luckily, y'all answered the questions. So, you know, whether you liked it or not, I appreciate you accepting my little foray into doing something different this time.

Myke Hurley: As always, Brad, we will follow you into the abyss. Whatever you want to do, we will just follow you and do it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I apologize. That's going to be your early demise, both you and Anna. We trust you.

Ana Reinert: It's a bit of a challenge.

Myke Hurley: We knew what we were getting into when we started this thing.

Brad Dowdy: So I grabbed a bunch of questions and I'll read all the questions and then I mixed up the order that we answer them in. So let me start it off with probably the question that made me want to do this type of gift guide episode. So this is from Peter. He says, I'm a UX designer and I like to give pen-related gifts to my group during the holidays. The group size varies, but we're usually five to seven people. I don't want people to feel the need to reciprocate gift giving. And I have plenty of other holiday gifts to buy. So I try to keep my budget per person in the $10 to $15 range. I also try and keep the items the same, but maybe change up colors to make each one unique. My go-to in the past has been a field notes book and a good gel pen. He says, what would each of you pick as a notebook and pen for under $15 for people who write and sketch a lot, but don't realize there are better options than what exists at the local store? Bonus points for having some kind of variety. Well, this is a variety show to begin with. So I'm going to go ahead and give us all full bonus points ahead of time, regardless of our answers. Yay! But I'm going to go ahead and go first on this one. Since it's UX design and a lot of sketching, probably smaller areas, I always look at the Pilot Hitech C, which I see a lot of designers using and swearing about that pen just because of its detail ability. And I'd add in a Quattro notebook, which is a very kind of UX-y design notebook. It's a small grid pad. They're like $6, $7, $8. They come in blank, line and grid, I think. It's just a very cool, looks like a UX designer kind of notebook to me. So, yeah. And, you know, the pen and the notebook for probably like in that $10, $11 range, I think, is probably a pretty good kit. Anna, how about you?

Ana Reinert: I picked the iPen Store Rosetta Notes. They are also available in lined, grid, or blank. And a three-pack is about $9.

Ana Reinert: Paper withstands pretty much anything you throw at it. And then I also picked the Platinum Preppy fountain pen, which you can get for about $3 and comes in a variety of colors. So, again, also variety. And so if you wanted to break up a three-pack of the Rosetta Notes, that's like a $3 notebook and a $3 pen. So you could then throw in a roll of washi tape and still be pretty much under $10 per person.

Myke Hurley: All right, Michael, what you got? If you want to impress people, I would recommend the Kurutoga Mechanical Pencil because I've just found that like if people have a slight interest in this type of stuff, the Kurutoga is very impressive because like, oh, it's the, you know, the lead rotates when you put it down, right? So I find that to be a good gift for people that are slightly interested because like, oh, that's interesting. And I would say I would just one up on the high-tech C and go for a high-tech C Kalito because I think that's also just a really great gift for people because you can get them a bunch of really interesting colors. And I think that the barrel is vastly superior and nicer to hold than the regular high-tech C barrel. I have nothing for paper other than field notes to recommend in this category. So again, if you want to go for some weird variety, maybe you want to give somebody like a slightly jokey gift or something, then go for the left-handed version of the field notes because they're so weird and wonderful. That's probably what I would recommend there. Because for the UX design, I do have a product that I would love to recommend, but it breaks the budget. But I'm going to recommend that product and then we'll answer later on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I wrote it down too, but we'll hold that for later. Breaks the budget. Ana, have you reviewed the Rosetta notes?

Ana Reinert: Yes, I did.

Brad Dowdy: And you liked them, right? I haven't had a chance to try them yet.

Ana Reinert: The paper's all from Michigan, so it's all the same. It's the same as the cover stock that's usually used for field notes. Oh, okay. Yeah, the Rosetta is all French paper, inside and out. When I tested it, it was all fountain pen. You could even use brush pens and everything. So with UX designers, so even if they hit it with markers or pencil or anything, they'd have really good luck with it. And really reasonably priced.

Brad Dowdy: All right, so Peter was the reason that I wanted to go this route on the gift guide. Evgeny, who's normally in the chat room, I don't know if he is today, was the reason that made me almost regret this decision. Once I put out the call for questions, this is what I got. So thank you very much for this, Evgeny. He says, My mother is a fan of anything circa 1950 and loves my growing fountain pen collection. The question is this, what fountain pen related gift should I give that meets the following? Number one, stub nib. Number two, colors are reminiscent of the pine forest of Arizona. Number three, vintage or vintage feel. Number four, good earthy ink or pink ink with some water fastness. Number five, good fountain pen, EDC paper and ruled. Number six, a case that screams hippie. So I almost canceled this whole idea after Evgeny, but I was giving him a hard time. This was a pretty amazing question. And I think we all did pretty good on the answers here. So Ana, what do you have for Evgeny or his mother? Actually,

Ana Reinert: this one was super challenging, but for the pen, I immediately had a good answer, which was the Karis customs decograph in deco green, which not only was the color, I thought a perfect match for pine forest of Arizona. It's actually made in Arizona.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that's perfect.

Loic Term Notebook

Ana Reinert: So I feel like I nailed that one. For the notebook, I thought a Loic term would be good. It's lined, it's good paper, and it's available in a ton of sizes with a ton of different colors for the cover. So you could get soft cover, hard cover, A6, B6, whatever size you want.

Ana Reinert: The ink, I went with the Kyo Iro in cherry blossom.

Ana Reinert: Yeah. Which I thought was a sort of a more muted pink, which I thought would be a good match. And for the case,

Ana Reinert: fifties and hippie, I couldn't make a match in my head.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I, like I say, we did a good job answering this. I think we did because it was really hard. Like we didn't, I don't know that all of us put that fit every spot on the, on the question list, but I think in totality, we got something here. So like, Myke, what did you do? You, you, you, you pretty much, bailed on us. You said you left, I'm going to leave this to the experts, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I, this one was too, it was too difficult. I couldn't conceptualize a good answer for most of these. So I just went with a pink ink and I'll just recommend Califolia and Dranopal because it's wild. Like it is a very interesting pink that I love very much. And that's my only, my only recommendation for this list because I got really scared by it.

Brad Dowdy: I was very intimidated by the question too. And then when the answer hit my head, I was like, ah, I got it. At least for the pen, the pen and the pen wrap. I'm good on the paper. I skipped, but I think Lloyd's term is probably the right answer. The ink, Anna and Myke's are very, very good choices. And you know, I'm a fan of pink inks, but for the pen, I, the Estherbrook J, the foliage green colors of the Estherbrook, I thought was a really pretty green. It's a vintage style pen and you can get them in a stub nib, you know, like a broad stub nib. I actually found like a perfectly restored one that I'll link into the show notes, but it's a good picture. You can see what you get. Estherbrooks are reasonably priced. It's really pretty color. It's got that vintage look for the pen wrap. You can go with something from my friend, Claire written in rice. She has a shop where she hand makes pen wraps. There's definitely some hippie feeling designs in there. And if you're not going hippie, you can go with derpy Koi, or you can go with a lumber, sexual Fox, or, you know, there's lots of very, very cool designs that Claire does. I have several of her wraps. They're awesome. And, uh, there's some hippie designs up on there right now.

Ana Reinert: So I think between the three of us, I think we covered it.

Brad Dowdy: I think we nailed it. You know, that was hard to get all of them yourself, but I think between the three of us, between the deck of graph and the Estherbrook, I think those are perfect choices. The Lord,

Myke Hurley: let's just be real about this guys. It was between the two of you. Honestly, let's, let's, you know, come on, let's just, you know,

Ana Reinert: I think the Califolio and Chernobyl was a good call.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, always. Plus that'll look good in both of those green pens, just like the Kiroiro. Um, so yeah. All right, Evgeny, uh, you'll have to report back and see, uh, if we did any good for you, you know, if any of these stick.

Myke Hurley: We're in the chat room right now and saying that we did awesome. And good thing that, uh, he budgeted $400 for her because he's going to need it. He's covered.

Brad Dowdy: He's covered now. That's the one. We did it. I meant to say that in the beginning. That's one thing about a lot of these questions. Some have budgets, some don't. So we had to do a little bit of guesswork, uh, along the way. All right. This next one is a little bit of a side diversion, not necessarily a gift guide response, but a gifting question. This is from Sarah BG3L online. It says, how do you low key ask someone that you went out on a limb and bought a stationary gift for in the past, if they actually use it and our future stationary gifts green lit. So like, how do you like sneak in there and determine, you know, okay, I bought them the stationary gift in the past. Did they use it? You know, are they, am I, you know, free to buy them stationary gifts in the future? And I just said, you kind of got to lead them by having all your stationary stuff out when you're around them, like have your pen or your paper, your fountain pens, uh, outplayed around. You're like, you know, get them to try out, Hey, do you want to try out this pen of mine? Oh, by the way, did you ever use that one? I got you the other time. And I mean, you might put them on the spot a little bit, but that's kind of a,

Myke Hurley: that's low key, man. That's like high key right there.

Brad Dowdy: Like you are effectively just putting a spotlight in their face. You know? Yeah. Well, Anna might be able to handle it better. Well, how did you answer this, Anna?

Ana Reinert: Well, and I think Bijou 3L, because she's also a knitter, will appreciate my response, which is like when you knit somebody something, you know, if you knit them a hat, um, you're going to have, you know, if you give it to them, it's, if they don't ever wear it, you never see them wear that, or they never tell you, Hey, that hat, I love it. I wear it all the time. It's the same thing with a, a pen or a notebook. If they never tell you they use it, or they never say, Hey, I love that pen you gave me. You're either going to have to ask them, or you're going to have to assume that if they never tell you, they never wear it. You know? Yeah. Um, I, my husband suggested, Hey, I was thinking about buying my brother, my friend, the same pen or the same notebook. So I was going to ask you, Hey, do you have any feedback or recommendation? Should I get them the same color, the line or the graph and use sort of the side, side approach as a way of, you know, sort of asking if they liked it. So that's a possibility.

Myke Hurley: Do you have any ideas, Myke? Yes. I say buy them a refill and you give them the refill and you're like, I'm not sure if you knew where to get these from. So I'll get you one. Here you go. And if they go, Oh, awesome. I needed that. Then you know that they use it. If they go like, what are you talking about? Then they have no idea what you're talking about. That's how you do it. That's low key. Cause you're not, you're not asking them, right? It is low. It's way more low key than like, Oh, Hey, you, do you use that thing? I bought you. I'm on the download me. I got, I got it all set.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So based on Anna's answer, I would like to tell Evelyn in the chat room and Sarah, who writes for the pen addict that I love my hats, that they knitted them and that they knitted for me. And I wear them all the time. So see, I'm taking your advice there. And I'm telling them directly that I love the knitted gifts that I received and I will continue to wear them. So thank you so much.

Ana Reinert: That's how you get more knit where you have to tell them or you'll never get

Brad Dowdy: more. Never get more. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Let's, uh, we're going to go do a good job of spending people's money today, Myke. So let's, uh, let's double down and talk about our good friends at Pen Chalet.

Pen Chalet

Myke Hurley: Pen Chalet. So all of the stuff that you're looking for from all of the brands that you love, they have fast and reliable customer service. They have great shipping, which I can attest to. As I get my products from Pen Chalet way quicker than I ever expect to get anything sent to me from the U S and they have great shipping rates too. Like it's not one of those situations where I go down and I'm like, Oh man, I'm going to add like 25% of the price back in for shipping. I don't feel like that. That's what I love about Pen Chalet. And if you're in the U S it's even better because they do free shipping on orders of $50 in the U S and come on, let's be real. Like, are you going to spend less than $50 at Pen Chalet? Come on. There's so many great things for you to be spending your money on, even though they do all of their amazing discounts. That just means that you can, you can add even more stuff into your shopping cart, pen cases, pen holders, refills for the people that you want to buy refills for to give them on the low key. You can do that. Pen Chalet, uh, founding pen converts is so much more. Pen Chalet, you go to Pen Chalet.com, P E N C H A L E T.com. That is P E N C H A L E T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password. Pen addict for this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. So as well as the usual special offers, what I want to tell you about today, starting today, Pen Chalet have a massive black Friday sale going on that you will not want to miss. And the only way to find out these amazing deals is to go to Pen Chalet.com right now. And of course you can use the code, which you'll get from our secret area. Once you click that podcast link at the top, and you can save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. You don't want to miss out. Go to Pen Chalet.com right now. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So sister on the Slack channel got in two questions because I liked them both. So I'm, I'm going with both of them because the first one we get to pick gifts. So I'm all about that. So she says, what's the one stationary gift you would never get for yourself? Totally frivolous, frivolous, but would love if received from someone else. So what do you got, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I'm going to go with like a bounce on from last year, right? Like for me, the field notes pen, the, is it brands hall?

Brad Dowdy: Uh, belt, the field note pen was last year's. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm saying I'm building. Yeah. So I actually got it as a gift last year and it was perfect. Yes. It's something I wanted, but didn't want to buy myself and similar, uh, the everyday inspiration, Bellroy collaboration cover thing. I absolutely love that, but just haven't bought it myself. So that's a similar kind of thing that I would be welcome as a gift for.

Brad Dowdy: I'm actually surprised you held off on that as long as you have.

Myke Hurley: Well, because it is a good gift for me. Um, I have held onto it because I think somebody, you know, like there might be somebody in my life that wants to buy it for me. So I've kind of just held off as like a potential option for a gift.

Brad Dowdy: So I picked two actually pencil related things that are completely unreasonable. That I would never ask anyone to buy for me. So I'll end up buying these myself. Eventually one day when I want to spend a stupid amount of money on a stupid product. Number one is the Faber-Castell perfect pencil, but not the little plastic, beautiful, not the little plastic, plastic, past plastic-y one. Nice. One of the, one of the, uh, I know one of the fancy schmancy ones with like the, the silver or whatever these things are made out of. The sterling silver cap. Yeah. Oh my God. They're just so beautiful. Yeah. It's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it's for a pencil, right? It's like several hundred dollars. And it's like, I would never.

Myke Hurley: It's got a sharpened bill into it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the perfect pencil line.

Myke Hurley: This is amazing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, and then the second, like completely off the reservation thing is the Carondash pencil sharpening machine. It's not the Matterhorn. The Matterhorn is like 400 and something dollars. This one's only like 200, but it's a desk sharpener. That's $200, but it's so cool looking like it would be really neat looking on your desk and you totally don't need it. It's unreasonable. My $20 desk pencil sharpeners work amazingly well, but, uh, yeah, it's just kind of one of those things that I always like to look at. And then I look at the price. I'm like, no, that's silly. But, uh, yeah. So those, those were mine. Anna, how about you?

Ana Reinert: I chose the, um, trip to a pen show where I didn't have to work and didn't get the credit card bill at the end.

Brad Dowdy: That's an amazing one.

Ana Reinert: Or a trip to New York just to go to CW pencils. Just, I just fly for the day, go to CW and then, you know, fly home the next day. Again, I don't want the, I don't want the credit card bill.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. You don't want to see anything. You just want to show up.

Ana Reinert: And while I'm at CW pencils, I would actually buy the pencil sharpening machine. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's such a cool thing. Yeah.

Ana Reinert: And totally ridiculous. I probably never actually use it because I'd be terrified. I'd break it. Exactly. Cause I have actually broken a, one of the, uh, school sharpeners.

Brad Dowdy: Oof.

Ana Reinert: Yeah. I don't know how I did it, but I did break it.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: All right. And the next one from sister, you want to build a fountain pen gift set that includes a pen, a single ink and a notebook journal notepad. What would you select for a newbie, a confirmed enthusiast and a hardcore user? So this one kind of answers a lot of questions for a lot of people, a lot of good, um, good things. For some reason, I keep putting myself at the top of these questions more. I must've done a bad job sorting, uh, the answers who goes first, but I'm still going to go first for the newbie. I chose the TWSBI eco with a bottle of pilot, a Roshizuku Kanpeki, get that bright blue sloshing around. And that pen would look pretty cool and all on a Rodea ice pad, which I think is a really good way to show off. That ink looks good with the pen. It's just kind of a nice kit that all works together. So why don't we all do our newbies first? Anna, what's your newbie?

Ana Reinert: Okay. This is where I'm going to get in trouble. Cause I said, I said the wing sun six 98,

Brad Dowdy: which are you talking about?

Ana Reinert: I'm sorry. It's essentially a knockoff of the TWSBI eco, but I like it better. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Tell us why you like it better.

Ana Reinert: Okay. It has, instead of actually having a, the TWSBI nib, it has a pilot nib on it or a knockoff of a pilot nib. And I actually like the clip on it better. And there's a locking mechanism on the piston so that it doesn't come undone as easily. I know it sounds really silly, but I have one and I've been using it basically since the San Francisco show and it works really well. And I have terrible luck with TWSBI's. I always get a scratchy nib and pilot nibs aren't scratchy. So not even knockoff pilot nibs aren't scratchy. I'm with you. So for, from all of the knockoff brands, this one I've been very happy with. So it's kind of a knockoff, but kind of not a sort of an improvement. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's got some changes, some different, different features.

Ana Reinert: And it aesthetically doesn't actually look like it. The TWSBI eco, it had, the cap is different. So I feel like they improve change, made it different. So anyway, but yeah,

Brad Dowdy: it's an inspiration.

Ana Reinert: It's an inspiration. It's about $24. So a little bit, a little bit less expensive. And then I put it with a mini bottle of Diamine. So pick your favorite color because they are demonstrators. So whatever your favorite color is, and then put it with a life, either a vermilion or pistachio. So either the lined or the grid notebook for the newbie.

Brad Dowdy: Myke, how about you for the newbie?

Myke Hurley: I would say for the newbie, maybe a rodeo web notebook, because it's kind of in a style that most people will be familiar with. Right. So you kind of, yeah. The one up on the, on the Moleskine. That's what I would go there. And then also a pilot metropolitan. It's just a good all round accepted as a, as a good starter. So that's kind of where I would go for that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a pen you can't really go wrong with. Even like when I, I don't use them, but every time I pick them up, I'm like, oh yeah, I see why this is such a good pen. Like it's just really well made. And like Anna says, the pilot nibs are really, really great. All right. For the enthusiast, I picked a pilot custom nine 12 with a FA nib, which is their super flexible nib. I figure if you're an enthusiast, you're ready to branch out a little bit. And while the barrel of the pen might be a little simple, it's a larger pen. So it's got a really good feel to it. And that FA nib, it's just a really neat, different type of feel than what you would normally have for maybe just, you know, your basic pen. Like if you're coming from a TWSBI or like a Pelican M205, it's just a different feel. And I'd want to put a bright ink in that. So the sailor apricot, I think it's perfect for that pen to see the colors and the shading and it'll perform well with it. And then I chose the Apica CD premium notebook, which is my personal favorite notebook. It's very expensive. So you want to, you want to get it as a gift because of the cost. It's not exactly a reasonably priced notebook. They're $35 where you can get things like the web notebook or the Loitch term for $20 or less that are really, really nice. But if you're going to the enthusiast route, I think you want to expand their horizons a little bit, do something a little bit different. So what do you have, Anna?

Ana Reinert: I put the sailor pro gear or pro gear slim. Cause again, you're kind of going up in the category and then a sailor gentle as well for the ink. And then the Rhodia heritage book block, which is the, um, Rhodia is new line that has the sort of exposed spine, which I think is, Oh yeah, those are cool. Really nice. And I like that the, they're either aligned or grid on the inside and the lines and grid are orange instead of, um, they're either gray or purple marks. So they're not kind of as sort of vivid. They're kind of a little bit more subdued. I really like those. So I think that's a nice change and they're not super expensive, but that's still got the really nice Rhodia paper.

Brad Dowdy: Very cool. All right, Mr. Hurley, how are you going to enthuse somebody?

Myke Hurley: But Lamy 2000. Yeah. If you get a good one, it's going to be one of the best pens you ever own. It is just, it's an all-star. Um, and I love it. Uh, it is a good way, I think, to take somebody who is becoming interested and turn them into, like a devotee, right? Like it's, it's cause it is a, it is a really, really good fountain pen that you can use anywhere and it always fits in and it just, it performs great. So a big fan of that. And then I guess if you're on the train at this point, you've probably picked up some pocket notebooks along the way. Um, and I think that one of the best performing all around pocket notebooks is the story supply edition 407. Um, and I think if you're going to give somebody a Lamy 2000, do you want to give them a good pocket notebook that can, can take it perfectly? And the story supply will do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah,

Myke Hurley: that's perfect. Perfect.

Brad Dowdy: All right. For the hardcore user, what would I get them?

Brad Dowdy: The pen was actually pretty hard. And then when I thought about it, I was like, Oh yeah, that's the one I want to use. I had the exact same thought. I was like, what do you do? And then like it dawned on me and I was like, Oh, it's easy. I chose the pilot custom eight 23. I think that's probably the best all around bang for your buck pin on the market. Despite it being almost $300. It's very expensive, but it's an amazing pen that it ticks off all the boxes. It's got a great feel, great filling mechanism, great nib, great style, great look. And, um, I just think it's just a fantastic pen. And the ink I chose is a popular one. Uh, Anna and I definitely think along the same lines. I picked the, what is actually for the hardcore user, a tame color, but a very interesting ink. And that's the Kiyo no Oto number one, the Nureba Iro, which is the black. When you think about black inks, you don't think that many of them have character. This one does. It's a very interesting black ink. That's just a joy to use. It's really, really pretty. Um, and then I chose the big life, noble notebook, the big honking a four size. It's a really, really cool notebook that kind of makes a statement on your desk. Um, it's a large, very large notebook, but it's beautiful and has great, uh, great paper. So those were my choices for the hardcore user. What about you, Anna?

Ana Reinert: Um, I picked the platinum 3776 as the pen for hardcore. And I picked the soft fine, but I'm sure any nib and a 3776 would be excellent. And then for the ink, you and I were thinking the same. I said pretty much any Kyo Iro or Kyo Noto, um, ink, but I said either the, um, Kyo Iro number two or number five and the Kyo Noto, either the number one. And I was letting you pronounce it. The black. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not.

Ana Reinert: Or the number five, which is the blue black.

Ink Properties

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They don't make it, they don't make it easy for us to tell people what that ink is.

Ana Reinert: And then for the notebook, I chose the Musubi notebooks, which are ridiculously expensive. But, um, if you're talking hardcore, that's the way to go. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That is hardcore. Myke, did we talk about these when I came back from San Francisco? Did we talk about that in the show recap? I can't remember if you're familiar with them or not, but they're these fantastic, fantastic, uh, we did handmade. We did talk about these. Yeah. They're about, about $80 each or something like that, but just stunning notebooks. And I think that's an awesome choice for the heart hardcore. And what's funny is the ink you picked for the, the first thing you picked on a for the platinum is the number two in a soft fine. Uh, that's my exact setup for my platinum. So I, uh, I definitely approve of that message. So Myke, what did, what did you pick for the hardcore?

Myke Hurley: I kind of lay a pen, kind of fountain pen, any, um, whatever it is that speaks to you or the person, uh, aesthetically. I don't know if they do this, but can a layer should do a gift card. Uh, that's my, what I recommend to you and Carol, because I think you really have to choose one. And if you want to buy a gift for someone like it's the choice is difficult, but, uh, because they're so, they're all so wonderful, but can a layer pen, co fountain pen, and a seven seals, seven seas cross field notebook. Um, I think by and large, probably the best notebook I've ever owned. Uh, the, it's, you know, the Tomo, a rubber paper in a format, which isn't constricting to a specific way of using the notebook. Uh, it's beautifully bound. Um, I absolutely adore it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's a great call. I love, I mean, I love those pens, love that notebook. I think that's a perfect setup for the show.

Myke Hurley: The hardcore control. Yeah. We're currently up to 39 links in the show notes. So I think we're halfway done. That's how this episode is.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So it's a, it's once a year special. And I think, you know, all, everyone is my favorite. All these questions are my favorite. I think this question was my super favorite because I was like, Whoa, when I got it. So John Benyon, great guy. I met him out in San Francisco. Wonderful, wonderful guy says, I've got 19 nieces and nephews between three months and 16 years old. I'd love to hear some recommendations for gifts for young writers. He says, okay, you really don't have to recommend something for the three month old, but the point stands. He has a lot of youngsters. He wants to get into writing. So Anna, I'm glad you get to go first on this one.

Ana Reinert: Okay. Well, this one was very easy for me. One, one, I work with lots of people with lots of kids and two, one of the companies associated with the company I work for is Crayola. So I'm plugging the firm. That's right. Crayola makes lots of wonderful writing and drawing tools. And most of them are non-toxic and designed for all of the favorite kids in your life. So, and lots of my coworkers were like, Oh yes, let me tell you this one and this one and this one and this one. Oh, for kids who are just learning to write, you really want the egg shaped ones. If they're already writing, you want the triangular shaped ones. For your older kids, you want the metallic ones. You want the markers. I'm like, they were literally like, they were talking so fast. I couldn't write them down fast enough. So, um, Crayola has what you need. That said, um, there were also other recommendations. Um, one of the things that people recommended was a Magna Doodle, uh, for kids to draw in the car. Um, I have a question for you both. Sure.

Myke Hurley: Were there any, do you know of any Magna Doodle ads that were set to the tune of, uh, Yankee Doodle?

Ana Reinert: I don't know.

Myke Hurley: This was a thing when I was a kid. Really? Uh, the Magna Doodle, uh, ad is, is set, is set to the song. I think it's Yankee Doodle, right? Like, that one, right? This was an ad. It ran for most of my childhood. Um, and I'll put a link in the show notes. So whenever I, I mean, I had a Magna Doodle and that was the song. Everyone knew the song. It was the Magna Doodle song. Um, so there you go. That was the thing that happened to me.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know that we had that, uh, in the U S because I definitely had a Magna Doodle, but I don't remember being brainwashed like that. Oh, a hundred percent. And like that song is just so sticky.

Myke Hurley: Uh, crazy.

Ana Reinert: Um, but I did actually go to our, um, Hallmark store yesterday to just, check and see what all was currently available. And they even have like laser cut, um, wood pieces that can be like for older kids that can be, uh, like punched out and then, uh, colored with like markers, um, that they had for the holidays. So you could like make them like nativity scenes and things like that. So some really cool, interesting things that are out from Crayola. Um, and then the last thing that came up was a Pantone colors board book for kids. I want this. It was so cool, but for kids as young as six months old, so not quite three months, but I got really close.

Brad Dowdy: Like I I'm a kid. I want this book. Like, yeah, that's a, that's a cool book. One of my coworkers said,

Ana Reinert: um, yeah, she said she got it for her son when he was about six months old. And she said, he's like three and he still likes looking at it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's very cool. All right, Myke, what you got? 19 nieces and nephews.

Myke Hurley: I haven't got an individual product for each of them, but I, I split this into two parts. I went back to my childhood and then looking at what's available now that we've seen for younger writers. So I also went with Crayola, um, Crayola crayons. I mean, I was raised on Crayola crayons, right? Like that was just a thing. Everybody has them. Um, I also went with the, uh, B roll, B roll fine liner, B E R O L. Yeah. Of a certain age, especially in the UK, uh, you know, this pen, because this was the pen that you learned to write with. This was the pen. It was in all of the schools. It was everywhere. And you know what? They're great. Like they are great. They're like those plastic tip pens, right? Yeah. And they are, and have always been just like a joy, uh, to write with. So like the barrel fine liner and the barrel handwriting pen, especially, especially the handwriting pen, which was the red one. The final liner was the blue one, but both of those are awesome. Um, and I mean, I would recommend people still buy them today because there's so much fun to use. I would also then, I guess if we're looking at like, uh, stuff for today, like what's going on today, um, I would probably also recommend the Lamy ABC and the pilot cocoon, maybe for the, for the older ones in that group.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Very cool. So I chose one company that we've already mentioned. And I thought the story supply notebooks would make a great gift for any of the kids, you know, buy them in a three pack. You can split them up, give them one notebook each, and then, you know, have different writing tools for each group. I went with colored pencils over crayons. Sorry, Anna.

Ana Reinert: No, that's okay.

Brad Dowdy: Um, although, although I don't have a particular brand of colored pencil, that's kind of your forte. What's, what's kind of the best kind of like easy to get brand of colored pencil? Um,

Ana Reinert: Crayola does make colored pencils.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Well, there you go there. That's what we'll go with. Cause I, I use this, uh, Statler set that was giving to me and, uh, I can't find it anymore to recommend it. But then I also like, like your fineliners, Myke, I like the Stabilo 88 markers. They're like a fineliner type marker. They're very inexpensive and come in like a huge range of colors. The zebra Saracic clip comes in scented pens for the younger kids or character pens. I know they're starting to do some peanut stuff. Um, just a good writing pen, like the Uniball Signo DX or secure Pigma Microns for the older kids or a Jetstream multi pen, you know, something to go along with that as the age gets older, maybe that's what they, uh, they want. And then you can get some very inexpensive, just your basic pen pouch that could fit like the notebook and two or three of these pens or pencils in there. Um, I don't have a specific recommendation, but you could find those at any store or Etsy or anywhere like that. Just find some very, you know, two, $3, uh, pen pouches to put it all in as a kit. So I think that would be cool. So that was an awesome question. So this next one, I'm going to go with, uh, Jane at the tiny badge. This one, I had an absolute challenge with, and I thought about it and thought about it and I'm still not happy with my answer yet. So, and I get to go first. So I get to jump off the ledge. So Jane wants to know how about secret Santa gifts for coworkers? I thought this would be easy and I had a difficult time. And the thing I put in there is a very cool product. Like I want this product for me, but I don't know if it fits the coworker description of, you know, what type of industry Jane's in. Like I put the VR co vintage collection dozen pencils. Like if I was in a, you know, at the, uh, CW pencils coworkers, you know, secret Santa party, you know, I'd be pretty stoked to get the VR co vintage collection, but how do I approach that in a broader perspective? Did you have any good ideas, Anna?

Ana Reinert: Um, I think I kind of, I'm going to lead off what kind of Myke's idea was too, but, um, things like the animal shaped, uh, paper clips, you know, like these are sort of like the $5 and under sort of gifts. Um, but like the, um, jet pens has those, the donut shaped tape dispenser, um, washi tape, novelty erasers that these are like the little gifts that you would like leave on somebody's office chair, like that, you know, right. Kind of dopey little gifts. Like, cause I think, I always think of secret Santa gifts as things that are not, um, super expensive. Um, and like that, you would find, right. That you might leave them. And that could kind of be something that might be in their interests. Like if you know that somebody really likes dogs, you could get the dog novelty erasers and leave those on their chair or, you know, like that kind of, I'm assuming this is like an office environment or educational environment or something like that, where you might leave them in their mailbox, you know, or something like that. So something small, something that's super expensive. Um, you'd leave it with, you know, like a bag of candy or something like that.

Brad Dowdy: So there you go.

Ana Reinert: That was the best I came up with.

Brad Dowdy: I know it was hard.

Myke Hurley: It was hard. Did you have any suggestions, Myke? No, just like what I was saying, I would basically just say, just read the interesting and wonderful Japanese stationary that Japans offers. Like, yeah, it's just a bunch of weird and wonderful stuff on there. Just spend some time poking around and you'll find some weird, brilliant gifts, like stuff that I don't even think you really even need to know somebody very well to buy them. Like if you want to buy them like a tape dispenser that shaped like a pumpkin, right? Like they have that. And I just think it's just a funny thing to buy somebody. So go for it.

Sponsor Break

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Very cool. All right. We have a few more to get to, but let's talk about our next sponsor this week. Don't put me to sleep while you're reading it, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I can't, I can't help you there because we're going to talk about Casper. So this is different kind of sleep. This is, this is going to be really exciting, but you're going to want to go and take a lay down afterwards. Cause I know there's a Casper mattress in your house. Casper is the company focused on sleep. They're dedicated to making you exceptionally comfortable one night at a time. You spend a third of your life sleeping. If you spent a third of your life doing anything, wouldn't you want it to be as best as it could possibly be? Well, that's why you need Casper. Casper mattresses are perfectly designed for humans with engineering to soothe and support your natural geometry. Casper mattresses have all the right support in all the right places. So what goes into making a Casper mattress so comfortable? Well, they combine multiple supportive memory foams for a quality mattress with just the right sink and bounce. Casper mattresses are designed and developed in the U S and their breathable design helps to regulate your body temperature throughout the whole night. And with over 20,000 reviews online with an average rating of 4.8 stars, it is easy to see that Casper is very quickly becoming internet's favorite mattress. And one of those reasons that I know people love it is because Casper mattress, they, they're completely risk-free. They have a 100 night risk-free sleep on it trial. You can get it delivered directly to your door. You can actually sleep on that mattress in your house with your linens in your bed. And if for any reason you don't love it within that 100 night period, Casper has a hassle-free return policy. They'll just, they'll just take it back. No problem. No questions asked. And they'll give you your money back. So Brad, I know that you have a Casper mattress. Are you, are you still here? Did you go and lay down on, or I'm not sure? Oh, he's gone. Yeah, he's gone. Oh, bye-bye. No, bye-bye. No,

Brad Dowdy: my favorite thing about the Casper mattress is that it's cool. Like temperature wise, it like manages like your sleep. I don't get hot on that mattress as I do like any other red grid or mattress and it's comfortable. So it always keeps me cool. I like it. I wish I had them on all the beds in the house to be quite honest. So they're very good.

Myke Hurley: Start sleeping ahead of the curve with Casper. You can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by going to casper.com slash pen addict and using pen addict at checkout terms and conditions apply as casper.com slash pen addict and the offer code pen addict for $50 towards any mattress purchase. We thank Casper for their support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, let's get into pen cases, which is something I know a lot about, but I don't have an answer for this exact use case. And this is from Dr. Saul. He wants to know he needs a pen case three or with three or more slots that protect the fountain pens and has room for a Hobonichi weeks and a credit card or two all in one wallet for a pen addict. So the weeks is the kicker, right? It's kind of a taller, skinnier notebook. And Myke, I appreciate the love man, but the seed case isn't going to work for him.

Myke Hurley: Oh, well, I'm just doing what it can for you.

Planner Covers

Brad Dowdy: It's not going to fit. And, you know, it's hard to find one for that case. So Anna and I kind of went the same route. You got to look at a custom maker that makes a lot of different cases for a lot of different notebooks. I went with my good friend Keegan over at one star leather. Just reach out to him. He may already have a week's pattern. If not, I'm sure he would make it. And I think that would fit well. Anna, who was, who were the companies you were, you were looking at?

Ana Reinert: I found a few companies over on Etsy that make different ones. I found Lyra and company that make fabric covers. I'm not sure if they had one that held three pens, but I knew, no, they held at least two, but they were custom made. So I think you could request something that was a little bit larger. The other one was, and they were out of the UK. Then another one called, and I'm going to butcher the pronunciation. So just bear with me.

Ana Reinert: Cataneta out of, I think Spain or Portugal that did faux leather and then stride Ridge, which was very similar to one star leather. And they had, I believe slots on the outside. That was sort of a, like an open slot that theoretically would hold, probably hold three pens, but your pens would touch. But they were really,

Brad Dowdy: I like that shape though, of the stride Ridge. It was really nice. That's a really neat, really neat design. I have not seen that before. That looks really cool. And, you know, it's already a weeks shape, right? It's already a weeks shape design. And same with the Cataneta. I'm going to go with, with you there. They also have like the design for the week specifically. So yeah.

Ana Reinert: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's, that's kind of the way to go for that particular planner. Cause it's such a good planner, but it is a bit of a unique size. So you need someone that's going to be able to format to that. So. Yeah.

Ana Reinert: And all three of them already had like weeks specific sizes, but I think because they are like, they're made to order for the most part, I think you could probably request, Hey, I could you make one specific to hold my three pens? And, but they, the designs were already pretty specific to hold credit cards and a pen slot and the weeks. So it was just probably a matter of saying, Hey, I really want slotted for three pens. Yeah. A lot closer than I thought I'd get. Cause it was a very specific request.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Very good. I like it. All right. So this next one from Jonathan badly, desk, tidying ideas, and also the best way to wrap pins and ink safely. So two, two part question. We'll take the first one. First, the desk tidying ideas. I feel almost dirty, not choosing something from dudek modern goods, because I have like all the things and that's, what's on my desk and then what I use. So I tried to branch out a little bit and I've been following Peg and all because they've done some interesting case designs. It turns out they have a bunch of desk organizers as well. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. They're a pine wood made. There's like five different sizes you can get or four different sizes you can get from holding just a few pins to something that's like, I don't know, it looks like about 12 or 16 inches long that cold can hold all kinds of stuff. So, you know, that's something I would look at. They're kind of a newish company, kind of on the, on the come up, getting a lot of press these days and they make really good products. I know a lot of people that are listeners are fan or fans of the brand. So that's something I'd check out at Peg and all. Ana, what did you choose?

Ana Reinert: I sit next to a lovely gentleman, but he's kind of a pig. So my first was file it or recycle it. Usually desk tidying is paper problems first and then putting things away. So then after that was jars and Ikea.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I like the jar route. I use that actually in my closet, you know, jars and cups, but I don't have those out on my desk. I've been tempted though, to get some like kind of nicer, fancy, fancier jars to, to do that. How about you, Myke?

Myke Hurley: So I will go with do that. Modern Goods because all my pens are arranged into do that. Modern Goods blocks. And then for more bigger storage stuff, Ikea's office supply range and office furniture. There's a lot of really great options. You know, like I have this like, this like six draw thingamajig, which has like different depths in the drawers. And I was able to buy these rubber inserts. I just put my pens into, so they don't roll around inside of the drawers. Like they just have a bunch of good stuff. Just go poke around on Ikea and you will come out with some good organization options. Cause that's what they're all about.

Wrapping Pens

Ana Reinert: and we forgot to talk about the wrapping stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So why don't you go? I think we all kind of do the same thing. So why don't you lead it off there?

Ana Reinert: Oh, for, and I'm assuming he means wrapping for like shipping purposes. Yeah. So I try to make sure that if I'm shipping a pen, it goes into some sort of box and I wrap that in bubble wrap and then I put it in a shipper. So it's kind of like double, triple, triple wrap. And the same thing for me goes for with ink, but usually ink is in its box, but that's wrapped in cellophane or Ziploc first. And then it's wrapped in bubble wrap and then it goes in a shipping box.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I do the exact same thing. Myke does the same thing. You know, I put the ink and some other type of baggie first, even if it's already in its box and sealed and then bubble wrap it and then box or bag it. Same with the pen. So yeah, just there's, there's not too much protection you can do. I mean boxes and bubble wraps and, and they'll be safe and sound. I've, I haven't shipped like tons of pens. I've shipped plenty and I've never really had a damage issue from just simply adding bubble wrap to the external box and then putting the ink in a little extra Ziploc. So that works good. All right. Dilly wants to know gifts for those in your life who've shown an interest in your stationary hobby, but haven't made that first step. So this is a popular question. We all get it from time to time. And I think it's kind of good for us to revisit this from time to time, see what our, what our answers are. If there's any changes in the way we think about, you know, getting someone started into stationary. So Ana, what do you think?

Ana Reinert: My feeling is also trying to determine like in what direction somebody is interested in the hobby. So, you know, some people might want to go more like my, my first feeling was like somebody like my husband might be more interested in like a Fisher space pen and like a Nemesine notepad. So something that's more kind of sort of space age and modern where somebody else might be way more interested in like some black wings and a field notes, dime store edition that feels a little more maker and, you know, a little, you know, sort of more heritage feel, you know, so it's kind of making sure that when you see somebody taking an interest in the stationary hobby, making sure that you sort of introduce them in a direction that you think appeals to them, you know, so that's always one of those things where it's like, I'm always trying to find in what direction somebody will go. So it's like, if you see that they like, you know, I don't know, a homebrew coffee and they drive, you know, I don't know, like, you know, like they like bicycles, like maybe they're going to want more sort of to go into like vintage pens and, and that sort of aesthetic versus somebody who might want, you know, a Lamy Ion and, you know, sort of, you know, wear a Lamy 2000 or something that feels very modern and very, you know, sort of a very sleek aesthetic, you know, and sort of push them that direction and that, that would appeal to them. So it's like kind of always just sort of sussing out what aesthetically is going to appeal to them and, and sort of lean them that direction.

Brad Dowdy: So Myke, I think a lot of people know what you're going to say here, but that kind of fits into what's, what Anna's just said. So what do you think?

Myke Hurley: If you get your bingo cards ready, uh, retro 51, I think it's the obvious because it's, it's a product that I have used for so many people to help them gauge their interest, right? Like if, and, and you can kind of get someone to be like, look, look at this pen. There was a bunch of different options in it. Just use it. And then everybody uses it. And they're like, wow, this is on the most part. Wow. This is wonderful. And then they're like, they're like, oh, not only does this write so great, they have these million different designs. And I found one that really works for me. So I think the retro 51 is a perfect example here.

Brad Dowdy: And I actually skipped the pen route completely and went to the notebook route because I think, you know, even someone might already have some pens that they use and they may not be the best pens and it might be hard to get them to replace them, but they might be used to writing on office copy paper or cheap legal pad or something. So get them a nice hard bound notebook, like a Leuch term or like a Baron fig, you know, something that's cool looking that, you know, it's going to work well with a lot of pens or pencils. And maybe that's kind of the eye opener that they need to say, oh, there's choices out there and this is something different and it's better than what I'm using. Let me explore a little bit more. So that was, that was kind of the path I, I took on that one. So this is a similar question, but a little bit more direct and that we're going to try to get some employee gifts for Nathan here. He says something that would be appreciated, not super expensive and actually get used. That's a challenge is, is the getting used part. You don't want to, you know, you want to get something that's unique enough to where someone's actually going to pick it up and use these things. So Myke, what do you have? Studio neat panel book.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Like that's perfect for, for the office. Really. It's like, I use one every single day. It fits below my keyboard. It's absolutely fantastic notebook. And especially for this kind of use.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I told Myke last episode off the air that I actually didn't put all of the notes in the show note document because I'd written two full pages in my panel book and I wasn't going to write them back down on there. So I actually use this all the time on my desk. I find it to be a great lap writing pad too. I use it in the vertical format and it's stiff enough to allow me to like sit back in a chair and write. And that's how I write a lot of my notes. So I, two thumbs up on the panel book. I would have gone with that there too, but I'm going with a new release, something that hopefully would be appreciated by the employees. And that's the new field notes resolution edition calendar and to do lists. You know, everyone needs, you know, especially if you're the boss, I don't know if that's a good idea to give them a calendar and to do list. You might be telling them something, but if they're your coworkers, that might work. If not, I would pick the, not the, if not the panel book or the field notes, I like the A5 size spiral pads. For example, we still want it knock the field notes, steno book, something like that. That's a desk pad. That's a good quality pad or the rhodia pads. You know, those would be great desk pads. Those are the type of things that I always used on my desk. They weren't, they were A5 is just the right size for that desk type situation, you know, at an office. Anna, what about you?

Ana Reinert: All right. By the time I got to this question, I was getting a little punchy and I said food.

Brad Dowdy: I think that's an amazing answer actually.

Ana Reinert: But where I work, what would be a big hit would be black wing pencils.

Ana Reinert: That would probably be every time people see black wings on my desk, they get, they're like blown away by them. So anybody like any manager at Hallmark that gave black wing pencils would probably be a huge hit. So I would say a couple of black wings and probably a field notes and those would get used.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So this last one is from Sandra and it kind of encompasses a lot of the questions that we've gone through. So this is kind of the summation of, of all the questions. And it's the way to get someone started in this hobby minus the fountain pens. And they, so Sandra wants, Sandra wants to give her family and friends, a starter pen addict kit. So what do you include in that kit? Especially if they don't like fountain pens. So let's see. Okay. I'm going first on this one. So I give them the one of each, if you will, from a group of pens, like the best gel pen, like the Sino DX, Signo DX, the best ballpoint and the Uniball Jetstream. One of the best liquid ink pens, the Pilot Precise V5. I actually throw in the Zebra super fine brush pen because it's so different, but it's a really neat pen. And then I throw in a pencil, a really good quality pencil, like the Uni Mitsubishi 9850. That's still cheap. Like you can get all of that for about 15 bucks. And that way someone has the opportunity to say, I like this. I don't like that. I like this. And then you can narrow it down and go from there, you know, in the future. And then you can give them like one of the small Rodeo test pads, one of the small Rodeo pads to test on. You know, you can probably, you could probably, if you shopped well, you could probably do all that for about 15 bucks, maybe 20 with the pad. So that gets a little expensive if you're doing several of these, but I want to give a lot of options when I'm trying to just throw something out there to see what sticks. Um, so what do you think, Anna?

Ana Reinert: I thought your list was a really cool approach. Um, I went with, if you wanted to like do an either or, and if you wanted to give somebody like a really good gel pen or really good rollerball. And I, so I thought the pilot juice up, which is a really nice looking gel pen. So if you wanted to just give them one and then like the Rosetta notes, note pad, so you could kind of do like that combination or the retro 51 classic lacquers are really only about $20 each. Yeah. And then the notepad as an option. So I took Myke's retro 51. Sorry. I stole your answer.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's all right. There's his next one. Super obvious too. So what do you have for this one, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Field notes. Look, I mean, yeah, use them, right? Like this is something that you can give to somebody and like someone doesn't even really need to care about pens and paper at all. And they'll use a notebook. And these are like fun little notebooks, right? Like they're cool designs and they're bold and you can put them in your pocket. Like it is something people will just use. Um, and I think that this is a great start.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Totally agree. And totally like the approach we did this time on the gift guide. You know, we may go back to the normal next time. We may take a new, a new batch of ask TPA questions. How many links did we end up with Myke? It's a kind of a huge, huge show notes this week. Um, 72. Wow. All right. So I'm not going to touch that. We'll leave that one alone and we'll let you wrap it up. Thank you so much, Anna for making time for us this morning. We really, really appreciate it.

Ana Reinert: Thanks for your patience. Oh, please.

Myke Hurley: Patience. Never. We will wait for you forever if we have to. Absolutely. We wouldn't, we cannot do this without Anna. Um, Anna, where can people find your work?

Ana Reinert: I'm at the well-pointed desk.com and I'm on Twitter as well. A P P T desk.

Myke Hurley: I have to ask you because I can, I never can get the letters in the right order. Neither can I. The well-tapper desk with Anna Reinhardt.

Ana Reinert: If you go to the well-pointed desk.com, there are links to everything else.

Brad Dowdy: All the things.

Myke Hurley: Brad is over at notco.com, penaddict.com. He is, uh, Dowdy is on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. I am iMike. Thanks again to Casper and Penn Shelley for their support of this show. And thank you for listening. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, everybody.

Ana Reinert: Goodbye. Bye everybody.

Myke Hurley: Bye everybody.