The Pen Addict 308/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	308
Title:	Full Metal Body
Release Date:	May 16th, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 308
Audio File:	Audio Episode 308
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 308
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, and this is episode 308. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, and Joe Parra talks with you. You're going to hear about that a little bit later on. There's something fun there. I'm excited about that. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley.

Myke Hurley: Hi, Brad Dowdy.

Cross Tracker

Brad Dowdy: Or should I say, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Because that's what was happening right before the show, as my cross-tracker pen was going off that we were going to talk about in this episode. Yeah, what is this? I figure since you're so far away from me, I figured I was getting alert that we were separated. Like, you have a tracker implanted in your body, and I have you installed on my app here on the phone.

Myke Hurley: Wait a second. How did you do that? Is that what you do when I'm sleeping in Atlanta? Oh, no. He got me.

Brad Dowdy: I think I've said too much. I think I've said too much now. So that's what that alert was. You were going off, Myke. You were too far away. It's when you went to get your water. It tracks you when you're at your podcast desk, and then when you went to go get your water, it beat me saying, oh, you have lost your connectivity with Michael Hurley.

Myke Hurley: You know, I actually think that, funnily enough that you mentioned that, I have a pending request in my five of my friends from you, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know how that happened.

Brad Dowdy: So let's talk about that. That's one of my least favorite apps ever. Okay. But I know Ana likes to use it, and I was using it when Tiff, I had to pick her up at the airport because the domestic terminal is so big. So I figured, well, I'll just go ahead and throw Myke in there too since I'm here at the airport, and I can figure out where he's at.

Myke Hurley: Now you have my location forever because I just shared with you indefinitely. I can see exactly where you are right now, and you can do the same for me.

Brad Dowdy: Wonderful. So who needs the tracker? But this pin needs the tracker, Myke. My cross tracker pin. Did you see this thing?

Myke Hurley: We spoke about this a long time ago, I feel like. And I don't know exactly why. Maybe it was just announced or something like that. But we spent time talking about this before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It seems like about a year ago, I'm pretty sure it was just maybe the fountain pen because I don't remember. Because I remember them being like crazy expensive, like $200, $300, and to have the fountain pen with the little tracking mechanism in it. And that just seemed like egregious to me as like, I don't need that. Who needs that? I don't know if this ballpoint pen came out at the same time, but this is a much more reasonable ask from something that hardly anyone needs. Right? Who needs a pen with a tracking device in it in case you leave it behind? But I guess there's a certain group of people that do. Especially with cross, they're in this market of, hey, gift and gadgety type products, right? Right. So cross is known. Like this is probably a pen you buy for someone else you think you're being funny. It's like, hey, this is the way to stop losing your pen, right? So it surprised me in how nice it's built, how good it feels, how well it writes, and that the technology actually works. Which is what you don't see often in a analog digital crossover product, right? Like when we talk about handwriting recognition, I know that's way more complex than location tracking. But those handwriting, you know, and transfer it to digital devices, those products tend to rarely work. But this is actually a product that works. So it's got this little Bluetooth mechanism in the cap of the pen. And you download this app on your phone, you set it up, it knows where your pen is. It knows if you leave, if you're not in like a Wi-Fi safe zone, like you can put in your safe zones, like at your house, so your pen's not going off all the time. Like if you walk about 20 feet away from your pen, it starts beeping. It starts beeping. And it's like a reminder, you get an alert on your phone. It's like, hey, you left your pen behind. And it was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And it really works.

Myke Hurley: I can totally see it being a frustration in certain instances, right? Like as soon as you said that, I imagined ye olde corporate Myke, right? That I would, you know, I'd be at my desk and I would go and use the bathroom or go to lunch or whatever. And my phone would be pinging me to tell me that I've left my pen behind. And it seems kind of strange because it's like, well, I don't always need to take my pen with me, right? Like that's kind of the funny part about it. But yeah, I get it. It's a fun idea. I can see how these two companies decided to work together, right? Like this is a benefit, like a positive for both of them, right? Because they get kind of a bit of cross-pollination amongst their customer base. And it is a serious novelty gift, right? Like it's not a joke gift, but it is kind of like if you gave this to someone, there's an inbuilt joke. You'd be making a commentary. Yeah, right? That like, oh, like either you're always saying people are stealing your pens or you're always losing your pen. And now that won't happen. And so it is a fun product. But I think one of the things that I've been concerned about, and it seems like that's not the case, is that the extra size and weight that the tracker requires would like ruin the writing experience. But I guess that's not the case.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I assumed was going to happen because it's a very wide pen. And you know how I feel about wide pens. You have to have a wide tip to write with. And this has a medium ballpoint tip. And that is fine. Like with this width of the barrel, as long as it has a wider tip, it's fine to write with. And it's lighter than I thought. This must be, it's a very, very lightweight. I'm guessing it's aluminum. I tried to look or it's either a very thin brass. It's not as heavy as I thought it would be. It's a little back-weighted at the top, but I've definitely felt worse. So this is, this was a surprise. That's why I wanted to talk about it because I just, you know, pooh-poohed the idea of its even existence, right? So I'm impressed and I kind of like it. And, you know, I'm not going to go run out and spend $95 on this pen, but it's a valid thing. And I am kind of impressed with what they did.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's made its way onto, I guess, the standard, I have a somebody in my life gift kind of idea, right? That you could be like, well, you know, you can also get this pen, which is kind of cool and it has something fun about it that somebody might enjoy, right? Like, you know, it's a cool thing to talk about when you're in the office, that kind of deal.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. And my friend Myke in the chat room reminds me, they also have other products. They do a pen case, Cross does a pen case with actually the tracker built in, you know, a little pocket, like which you could use tile for or anything else, throw that in a pen case, which I've done in my backpacks and things like that. Use the tile system. So that's cool. I like how this is one of those analog digital crossovers that works and I'm glad to see it. You know, it's not a for everyone thing and it's not something I'll get a lot of use out of actually the losing part because I tend not to leave my pens behind, but I just actually like the pen in general. So it's pretty cool. That's pretty sweet. It will not be making the trip to Houston.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. So you're off to Houston this week?

Brad Dowdy: This week? Tomorrow. Yeah. I am. I've very much lost track of the days this week. Because it's been busy and when I'm going out of town that everything just gets shortened up. So I was in Atlanta Monday, home working all day yesterday, podcasting and packing today, then off to Houston tomorrow. So I'm going to be at Drumgools, the pen store in Houston. The big time pen store in Houston. Maybe the one and only pen store in Houston. I don't know. Houstonians can tell me more about that. But Drumgools is going to be the place to be this week. I'll be there Thursday afternoon and Saturday in the store. So Thursday afternoon, there's an event with Montegrappa CEO Giuseppe Aquila. I think I'm pronouncing that right. So he'll be there talking about Montegrappa pens. And I'll just be hanging out. And I'll probably sit down for an interview with him real quick. And then Saturday, I'll just be in store all day, just, you know, doing meet and greet, working at the shop, you know, glad handing, you know, kissing babies. Those things I do, Myke, you know.

Myke Hurley: Blessing people's pens, that kind of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So that's, it's a fun trip, you know, not much businessy going on, but more of a fun trip for me going to Drumgools and hanging out with Larry and Christine and Michael, their son. I've gotten to know them throughout the year, you know, just as they've started to branch out into doing pen shows. So we've gotten to meet them and they wanted to arrange this. So it just worked out really, really well. Well, the timing was right for me to get down there for a couple days and hanging out. So I wanted to throw in what I'm packing for this trip and how I'm packing, what I'm carrying. And as we were leaning up to this, we already got a question in the chat room. Hey, how do you do this when you fly? So we get these questions a lot and all the time. So I wanted to just go through, since this is a short trip, this is just a carry on trip for me. Um, I'll rarely check anything unless I'm taking not to a show because then the luggage gets quite large when I'm carrying all the gear. So my carry on bag of choice is the Tom Ben Aeronaut. Of course, you've heard me talk about it a million times. It's the 45. It's the larger of the two bags. But even for me, and I say that meaning for someone my size who carries larger size clothes, um, you know, I'm not as dainty as you, Myke. I can't fit all my clothes in a Ziploc. I can fit five, six days of clothes in the Aeronaut easily, easily. So, yeah, for this three days, this short trip, the Aeronaut's the way to go for me, uh, for clothes, toiletries, all that type of stuff. Then, one of these days, Myke, I'm not going to carry my Bowgear Bullpup backpack anymore because it just gets me in trouble because everyone wants to know where they can buy it. They're out of business, but no one's made a better bag than I've tried yet. And, I need to try to find a replacement just so I have something good that still exists. Because one of these days, something's going to happen to this bag and I'm going to be SOL. So, it's the best bag for me ever made. Um, I just, I don't know. I like everything about it. And I, it's a special bag. It had a lot of special features made on it, of course, because I'm a special guy. And, uh, it was a special purchasing process for this. So, this bag is really, really cool. But you can look at it. It looks like, I would probably like one of the GORUCK bags if they weren't just all black. One of these days, if I find, like, a very colorful GORUCK, I might get that because that's probably the thing it's most similar to. So, I carry my MacBook Pro and that's the 13-inch. That's what I do all my work on. I have not embraced the iPad life, Myke. I can't do it for, like, blogging and writing and all that stuff. But, um, yeah, one of the questions I'm going to just sidetrack here on the backpack thing. The Tom Ben, since I'm a huge fan, I've only tried the Synapse 19, which is too small for me. They have a Synapse 25, which I don't really love the style of. But I think that would be kind of, like, the perfect fit for me for what I need to carry in a backpack. But it's hard to give up this bow gear. So, that's one I need to look at. So, in that backpack, along with my laptop, I'm bringing my A5 seed case. That's things in use every day. I'm not going to lie. We did a good job on our seed case, Myke. You did. You know, I'm proud of those cases, which, of course, mine carries my Hobonichi Cousin. It will carry my Pentate B, the titanium one I got from there. What was that Kickstarter anniversary project thing?

Myke Hurley: Do you remember that, like, last year? Yeah, like, it was some anniversary from, like, their... Yeah, they had, like, these special limited edition things from previous good characters. Characters? Yes. Not characters. What am I thinking? What's the word?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Good people.

Myke Hurley: Companies? Whatever. It doesn't matter. Companies.

Fountain Pen Carry

Brad Dowdy: Good projects. Yeah. So, and that also carries my Pelican M805 Ocean Swirl. So, we'll talk about fountain pen carry more in just a second. But that one, I've been using the heck out of that pen.

Brad Dowdy: It's got an extra fine nib, which is as big as I'll go on a Pelican and without, you know, kind of modifying it down. And it's just been a wonderful writer, wonderful, beautiful pen to look at. So, it's great. On top of that, I am packing a few pens for this trip. I'm not going to overpack. Like, if I was going to a pen show and might bring, you know, a couple dozen pens, which sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It just depends on the show. Like, Atlanta, I brought more pens than normal. You know, like, when I go to LA, I bring less. So, here I'm just going to bring one Brasstown. I have four pens I'm definitely bringing, which is the Sailor King of Pen, the Pilot Custom 823. Those two pens are always inked and always go with me when I travel. I just enjoy those and people like seeing them if they have questions about them. Those are two pens that you don't often get to lay your hands on and try out. So, I always make sure to bring those. Then I'm bringing the Sailor Royal Tangerine. Naturally. Which is kind of my new.

Myke Hurley: I'm using mine today for the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I use it pretty much every day now. I carry it with me in my pocket when I go to knock. I carry it with me out of the house. I just, I love that pen. And then the pocket-sized Pelican M101N that I just got recently. Actually, from Trong Ghouls, which is why I'm bringing that pen. And then I'll carry a pocket notebook. I'm bringing the Knocko pocket notebook, our dot dash black notebook. And a shown design pen. I have the cap with the clip on it. So, I like that pen. And that's my air travel pen. Like, if I want to take notes during the flight, I will carry that pen and notebook on my person. Because it uses the Fisher Space Pen refill. So, I know it's not going to blow up on me during the flight. So, to circle back to how do I fly with fountain pens, I'll put every fountain pen I own in this brass town. Every fountain pen I'm bringing. So, like, I will take out the ocean swirl from the seed case. Pop it in the brass town. And then I will take that brass town. Have all the nibs up. And stick that in the back pocket of the seat in front of me. So, anytime I bring fountain pens on a plane, I travel with them nib up. I'm not going to go through and make sure all the ink's at full capacity. Because that has not been an issue for me. But as long as I've traveled with them nib up and they just sit there the whole flight like that, I have had zero issues with any fountain pen I've ever traveled with. It's very, very easy to do. So, that's the way I do that. And then, like, my shown design pen, I don't have to worry about that leaking. I can grab, you know, the notebook I'll probably have in my pocket if I want to write something. But that's pretty much it from a stationary perspective. The only other thing I'll carry on this trip, I have a Shure MV88 microphone. Which just plugs into the port on my iPhone. It gives me a good microphone for interviews. So, if I interview Giuseppe from Montegrappa or if I interview the Drum Ghouls, I can just turn that on and it picks up audio wonderfully. So, it's really, really cool. So, that's it. That's how I pack. It sounds insane to, like, talk about packing all this stuff. But when I go on a trip, I kind of want all these things. And it's really not that much when you pack it down. My backpack will be half capacity, probably. I just, you know, I could probably bring something smaller if I wasn't bringing my laptop. I wouldn't need a full backpack.

Myke Hurley: I'm assuming that this isn't, like, the constant travel kit, right? Like, it adapts depending on what you're bringing and where you're going and what you're doing.

Brad Dowdy: That's exactly kind of the point here, right? This is not my... Every trip's different, it seems like. Most of the pen shows are kind of like this setup here. Sometimes I'll have a few more pens and then a few more, like, accessories that I'll worry about. And then if I'm going on a non-business trip, I won't take any of the fountain pens, most likely. I'll take or maybe take one and just, you know, carry it somewhere different. But, yeah. I've gotten real good at packing. It takes me, like, no time now, especially on a short trip like this. I sweat about the pens and paper I'm carrying more than, like, the clothes and that type of stuff. It takes me, like, ten minutes to pack my clothes. It'll take me, like, an hour to figure out, man, I need one more pen to put in here. Which one should I take? You know, that's always the dilemma. It's just silly stuff that we like to get ourselves bogged down into, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I just rearranged my whole bag. Like, I haven't changed what I'm putting in it, but, like, I have a whole new system of how everything goes in. Like, I have actually taken some things out, which will now go in my checked luggage, which used to be in my backpack. But I've worked out now, like, how I can get everything even more nicely in my Peak design, which I absolutely love that bag, by the way. Like, just love it, love it, love it so much. The Peak design every day, I think it's called.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Every day. That's a great looking bag. Love it, man. That's a great looking bag. Like, it reminds me of the boundary system that I bought, and I haven't taken that boundary out of the house once. I guess I'm just going to have to sell it.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to give you the whole, like, this is why you should buy the Peak when I see you later on this year. Okay. All right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because I'm not, like, I'm only, like, slightly in the market for a backpack because I love this bogey so much. But it's going to come to its end at some point in the future, and I want to have my next backpack. Even though I have five backpacks probably in my closet right now, the bogey is the only one that gets any love. Every now and then, I have an A-Lite backpack that's really large. Like, if I'm going to take, like, an overnight bag, and just for, like, an overnight trip, I'll just pack that because I can put my clothes and laptop and everything in there. So, I'll play around with it a little bit more.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this Peak design bag, though, it's spreading like a virus amongst everyone. I know, I know.

Brad Dowdy: I've always thought it was really good from the moment they launched it, but I never thought it was for me, necessarily.

Myke Hurley: Right, okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. All right, should we take a break?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's take a break because I'm interested about what you're about to talk about.

Joe Pera Talks With You

Myke Hurley: All right. So, for our sponsor today, Joe Pera Talks With You, I've got to bring things down a notch. I've got to be a little bit more chill. All right, so, you ready?

Brad Dowdy: All right, I'm chill. Yeah, I'm in the zone. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Hello. There's a new show coming to Adult Swim called Joe Pera Talks With You. It's a quiet show about Joe and his friends and the things in his life, like breakfast food, rocks, weddings, being woken up by thunder, grilled chicken, pumpkins, full drives, and more. Before I finish this ad, let me give to you a personal request from Joe. Joe had something that he wanted me to tell everybody, Brad. Joe says, please watch. Joe Pera Talks With You, Sundays at midnight on Adult Swim. Our thanks to Adult Swim and Joe Pera Talks With You for their support of this show. It's a TV show, Brad. A TV show wanted to sponsor The Pen Addict. That's nice and weird, huh?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you're ruining my chill right now. Like, I was really getting into that.

Myke Hurley: I've watched some of this show, and it's that super weird and, like, wonderful comedy, right? That's, like, that kind of, like, it's super low-key, like, real chill, but it's funny, and it's, like, super weirdness. It's good. It is very good. I watched a bunch of clips on the Adult Swim website.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, you had me at rocks, right? I mean, like, who does, it's like a podcast about pens. Who does a TV show about rocks? Joe Pera does. Joe Pera is apparently a chill guy I need to get to know, because this sounds like the show I would make, right?

Brad Dowdy: Joe Pera sounds like our people, so thank you, Joe Pera and Adult Swim for sponsoring the Pen Addict podcast. That's awesome. That is really cool. Yep. Is it as awesome as the Kaweco Sunrise and Sunset, though, Myke? Is it?

Myke Hurley: I need you to tell me. Is the only difference between these two pens that one has a gold nib and one has a steel nib? Yep. I don't get this.

Brad Dowdy: They're different, Myke. One is the Sunrise and one is the Sunset. Which one do you think is which? Which one do you think is which? Let's play this game.

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm looking at the page right now, I'm afraid, so I'm sorry.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I would have guessed wrong. I would have guessed wrong.

Myke Hurley: So, Sunset has a gold nib and Sunrise has a, is it a steel nib? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, it's not a, it's a gold plated nib. It's a steel nib with gold plating and gold trim. Yep. And the Sunrise is the silver nib, silver plating. I totally would have picked the other way around for the naming, right? But whatever. It is what it is. And I mean, you know, full disclosure, Fonta Plumo, where these are special editions at, sponsored the Pen Addict blog this week. So, thank you, Frank. He's an awesome dude over at Fonta Plumo.

Brad Dowdy: But that wasn't going to hinder me from talking about these. I'm in. I don't know what to tell you.

Myke Hurley: But they don't, there doesn't need to be two of them. I think it's kind of silly, honestly.

Brad Dowdy: I can get that. There's very little difference. Like, I'm buying one of each only because I'm international and I'm getting one, right? So, I might as well get them both. And then I'm going to give the gold plated one away. So, I bought them both so I could have one of them. But I don't care about keeping them as a set. So, I got the second one to give away.

Kawekos

Myke Hurley: It's just like the weirdest set. It's like, it's so, it's like, because this isn't a thing, right? That like if you, you know, you can buy Kawekos and choose the nibs anyway. That's why I find it so weird, right? Yeah. So, if I buy a Kawekos AL Sport and add a gold nib to it, does it make it the Kawekos Sunrise AL Sport? Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, I don't get it. No, because you don't have the gold trim. I guess so. What's the trim though? Like what? On the cap? And the writing on the barrel.

Brad Dowdy: The stamping.

Myke Hurley: Oh, okay. That doesn't really come through in the photos. In the photos, it's exactly the same.

Brad Dowdy: Because it's yellow on yellow. But I'm buying it for the yellow barrel. Like I said, if I was...

Myke Hurley: That yellow barrel, I love it. I love the look of that. But like, I just, I don't know why, what I think about the strange. Like, it just seems strange. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, like I said, if I was local or walked into the shop or saw these at a pen show, I would buy a single pen. Like, I don't need the set. And I have a feeling that most people are going to buy, if they're interested in it, buy the one that appeals to them. It is kind of funny, the sunrise and sunset. Like, there's that much difference between the pen, you know? Yeah, I know. It's not really drastic.

Myke Hurley: It's so different. We had to give it a different net. No, you didn't. Like, but sure. You go, Cafe Co. You go. You do you. Do you, man. You do you.

Brad Dowdy: But I'm buying it for the barrel color. And I'm glad I can get the silver trim. If it was only the gold trim one, I wouldn't have bought it. That's true. So, I'm getting the silver trim. You'd be mad about that. Yeah. No, I wouldn't be mad about it. But, like, I didn't buy the orange one.

Myke Hurley: You'd be raging. Brad calls me up on the phone when these things happen, and he's so angry. No, that's not true.

Brad Dowdy: They did one in Spain last year or two years ago that was orange, and I didn't buy that one. So, I don't buy them all. But I really like this yellow. The last one I got was, like, two years ago they did. Someone in the chat room, I'll have to correct the name. It was the one in Hong Kong. It was, like, a light blue. Like, I don't know. They called it something island. Or it had some kind of tropical name to it. And I was really happy.

Myke Hurley: Yellow's cool because you don't get yellow pens, right? Like, yellow is rare, and I don't know why. Maybe because, like, typically you wouldn't actually have yellow and gold together, right? Because they kind of clash. So, maybe because there's so many gold options, like, for pens that, like, typically people don't do it. But, yeah, I don't know, man. Like, I've got the Heliacula Sunset, right? The Canaleia. And that's got a bunch of yellow on it, but it's not all yellow. Like, this is, like, all... I don't have an all yellow pen. Yes. I think that's what I like about it. And I like that they chose, like, a real, like, vivid yellow. Like, it's, like, really bright. Yeah. So, it does look cool. I agree with you for that. But they really didn't need two models.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you there. So, the blue one I was talking about, thanks to Critter in the chat room, was called Lagoon Blue. So, I knew it was something tropically sounding. So, I'll use the heck out of this pen. But the problem with Frank and Fanta Plumo is he always has cool stuff. And he did an ad a couple months ago on the pen act for that Conid with the orange finials, like the demonstrator barrel. And the ends were orange. And I've been dreaming about that pen ever since. So, I bought that one, too. So, I was like, well, if I'm spending $25 on the Kaweco, I might as well drop three bills on the Conid, right? That makes sense, right? That's how you do it?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Why not? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, that's what you do. That's how these things work. It's like, I bought the Kaweco, and I threw in a Conid for good measure. It wasn't the other way around. So, it's silly that the $25 pen was the jumping off point to make me commit to the $300 pen that I've been fawning over for a while and could never decide on. So, I got that one coming. So, we'll be talking about that one more once I get it. You know, it should only take like a week or two. Frank's shipping is pretty fast. So, yeah. I did just go with the steel nib on the Conid. You can get titanium nibs on that. I didn't like my last Conid titanium nib, so I'm going to try steel. We'll see. We can go from there.

Brad Dowdy: But the pen itself is just, it's crazy. I should mark the occasion when it arrives, though, shouldn't I?

Myke Hurley: Yes, most definitely. There's only one way to do that, actually, it turns out. This is a really cool Kickstarter campaign from CW&T.

Myke Hurley: And it's, it really, it's, I love this. It's called The Time Since Launched. And it is a single-use count-up clock. So, it comes in this tube. I was thinking, it looks like an explosive device. Like... It's a little sketchy looking, yeah. Sure. Like, you, I don't know how they're going to ship these. Right? Like, I'm really intrigued to see if these things get through, like, international customs. Because it is a glass tube with a kind of sketchy clock in it, right? You get, like, the, you get to see, like, the circuit board of the clock and these two LCDs. And it has a pin on it. And when you pull out the pin, the clock starts counting up. But that's also very bomb-like. But anyway, this, this is, like, it's a cool little idea that they've obviously had and they put it into production, you know. And it is a beautiful kind of design object in a way, like, and an art piece. Because it's, you know, you pull out this pin and it starts counting up. And the idea being that you would want to maybe mark an important moment in time. And they've kind of, they say they've built it to last for 2,738 years. So it's no joke, this thing, right? This is a thing you will have for the rest of your life. And it will be like, oh, it was this amount of time since we did this. I love this project. But I haven't backed it. Because I have no idea what I would use it for. The two things I would want to use it for, I can't do. So, look, I sent this to Stephen and he agreed, like, something he wanted to do. We would have pulled the pin when RelayFM was founded. Right. Or I would pull the pin at the moment that me and Idina get married. But this thing doesn't ship until next year. So my feeling is I will probably buy one of these one day. I'm assuming that they keep it around. But I wouldn't want to buy this and then just sit and wait for it. Because it could possibly, it would probably be years before I would actually pull the pin. And maybe that's part of it, right? Like, maybe that's part of what makes it art in a way, right? It's like it sits and waits for you until that moment. But I would, I know what I'm like, right? Like, you know, I have like a bad habit of, I don't know, like, you know, if you like you fall over and you get like a scab. You know, like I'm bad with those, right? Like, I can't leave them alone, that kind of thing, right? Or, so I know that like, I would just, it would just be there. And one day I would just go over and just pull it a little bit. And then the pin comes out. And then it's like counting from the day that I made a dumb mistake.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So for those of you who are new to the show, CW and T are good friends of the podcast. Good friends of mine, Sayway and Taylor, out of New York. They're wonderful designers and they make my favorite pin, the pin type B, which I alluded to before. So that's how I got to be friends with them from their first Kickstarter years and years and years ago when they were making a barrel for a high tech C. And they've never been like directly in the pin business. They're more in the invention business. And they always come out with new and weird stuff. And I heard about this last year sometime. I think it was on a different podcast that they were on. And I follow them pretty closely and, you know, because I always want to know what they're up to, even if it's non-stationary related. And when I was doing these show notes last night, I hadn't put this in the doc yet. And I went back this morning. I was like, I'm going to add this into the show document. And I was shocked to see that you had added it there because it's not stationary related per se. But CW and T are such great stationary makers, great pin makers. And actually great designers. And actually good friends. They're incredible designers. I thought this was a cool thing to talk about. I do too. Because I agree with you, I think pretty much 100% what you said without going back and listening to it. I love this. I love the idea of it. I love the technical aspects of it. And I won't back it because I don't have any time to pull the pin. It would just show up and I'd go pop. And that thing would be running. I don't want it sitting around.

Myke Hurley: I can't have it sitting around, right? Because I would pull it. I would definitely pull it. But this is totally a thing that if this was available to buy right now, I would be buying one. And so as soon as we get married, somebody hands it to me and I pull it out. It's perfect. It's like a ceremony. But this isn't on them. This is not their fault that I can't get it for the time I want it. And I actually agree with them. They've had a lot of questions like, can we set it back to another time? I agree with them that no, that they're not going to build a way for that to happen.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's the art of it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The art, it reduces the whole point of having it. If you can set it for four years and then pull the pin, that's bad.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. I love it. I think it's a great project.

Myke Hurley: I hope they continue selling it. So I can think about maybe buying it when we have our first kid or something.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. That's what I was going to say. It's like, I'm not going to have another kid. I'm not going to get married again. I'm not going to start the pin addict business again. Those are the big things that have happened in my life. You know, the next big one, you know, I don't know what it would be. So it's like, I don't know. But it's cool. I love it. I wanted to talk about it just because I'm a big fan of what CWNT does. And I thought it was really cool.

Myke Hurley: I saw via our friend Thomas Hall. Thomas does a great job for me. When he finds something cool, he sends it to me. I really appreciate his work because he has a 100% batting average on this one. Every single time he sends me something, it's always something I like. And this is the Pelican M815 Metal Striped Special Edition. It is a, what is it? What do they call it? 815? Is that M815? That sounds bad.

Pelican Numbering

Brad Dowdy: So this one is 815. And it's, I don't know their full classification system. I like that so much. The 8 is the size. The 5 is the trim. Either it would be a 0 for gold trim, 5 for the silver rodent trim. I had no idea.

Myke Hurley: I like it more now.

Brad Dowdy: They have this weird system. So the middle digit, I mean, I guess the 1 is for metal inserts. I don't know. Because the only thing I ever have is 0s.

Myke Hurley: All right. So I'm on board again because I just thought that they randomly picked these. But that Pelican numbering system is kind of incredible. How do you know that?

Brad Dowdy: From buying enough Pelicans to know. But I don't know the full details. I could get something wrong there. But I know what the first and last digits mean.

Myke Hurley: That's really cool. I found a thread in the Phantom Pen Network talking about this. So I'm going to just put that in the show notes. There's like a lot of people kind of breaking down what it means. That's kind of cool. So if you want to find out more about that, you can. But this is beautiful. It's black. It's a black pen. It's a Suveron. And it just has these little silver stripes that go up the body. That's wonderful. Wonderful. What size? What size is this?

Brad Dowdy: It's the 805 size. So it's the second largest, which is my favorite size. That's what my Ocean Swirl is an 800 series. So the difference is it's those stripes aren't just for look. That's what the standard stripe barrels do. And like they did the Stressmon last year and the year before with the gray striping. These are actually physical metal stripes, I believe. And that's the difference in this one. And that's why Thomas, I know, sent this to us because he's been a big fan of any time Pelican adds metal to their barrels. So they did the metal rings and they've done the metal stripes in smaller sizes before.

Myke Hurley: I want this pretty bad. It is palladium plated stripes of brass.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: That is big boy stuff. The rings and the clips are palladium plated and the 18 carat gold nib is completely covered by rhodium in order to obtain the silver sheen. Boy, oh boy. I want one of these.

Brad Dowdy: And it's going to feel different. That's the kicker with these, right? So Thomas gifted us each one of the long ago discontinued metal stripe pins with the blue barrel. It's a 200 series. I think it's a 215. Only because he loves them so much, he wanted other people to experience what the difference the metal adds to the pin. And I've never seen one in this size. So I wonder how it's going to feel. But I'm actually going to feel awesome because the Pelicans are pretty light to begin with.

Myke Hurley: Do you think you'll get your hands on one of these at some point? Do you think?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. It's so new. It doesn't even come out for, what, another month and a half. So it's too early to say. I'm not going to buy one or order one. I don't know if I'll get a loaner to test out or see. I would be anxious to see what the weight's like. I imagine it's going to, I mean, everything Pelican makes is so finely engineered. I fully expect this to be just a great feel and a wonderful writer aside from looking stunning. I mean, it's amazing looking.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, man. I love this. It's too expensive for me to just buy. Like, MSRP is $850. And you can get it at different prices in different places, right? So like the Nipsmith, where I'm looking at, I go for $680, which is okay. But I'm not going to drop $680 on this because I don't have a Pelican this size. And I have no idea what the weight's going to feel like. So, you know, this is something that maybe one day I will pick this up at a pen show and it will enter my life. Because I only have one Pelican, which is the one that Thomas gave to us or gave to me. It's the only Pelican that I have. So, yeah, it would be. But it's too much money. It's too much money to just for a pen that I really don't understand, you know? Right. Kind of size and weight and stuff like that. But beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: And this one will sell well because all of their metal stripe pens, I think I mentioned before, are always very much sought after. And this is a limited edition. So, I imagine this will, I mean, all their limited editions, you know, do really well. So, it's not like I'm saying anything like crazy. But they do such a good job. I mean, Pelican does a wonderful job. I don't know what else to say. It's fascinating. I'll be anxious to try one and see what it feels like. But it'll probably be DC before I can get my hands on one. Because if they're not out to the end of June, you know, I won't see one at Drumgools. I won't see one at the Raleigh Pen Show two weeks after that. So, it'll probably be DC before I get to test one out. And then I will let you know.

Brad Dowdy: Or just buy it for you.

Myke Hurley: Don't do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, because that would not be a gift. I'd be there with my handout. Although that could be your wedding present. Which, you know, don't get your hopes up.

Myke Hurley: I'm just going to say, like, if you were going to spend that money on a wedding present, I would prefer the money for our honeymoon. Yeah, right. Exactly. Don't get your hopes up there, buddy. I can make that go a lot further in Hawaii, right? Than that pen's going to get me. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I love you, but not in that way. Nah.

Myke Hurley: Nah. You're good. You're good. You're already spending enough money to come over. You're good. Oh, please. Please. Please.

Ask TPA

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, yeah. That pen's great. So, I'll be anxious to hear some feedback on this. And I fully expect it to be great.

Myke Hurley: All right. What else do we got? Is that it for new products? We're going to go to Ask TPA?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think let's knock out some Ask TPA. There's some really good questions I want to get to. But first, a word from our friends at Squarespace.

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Brad Dowdy: That's a good code, that penaddict code. I like to support those guys. I just built a website and used the code penaddict at checkout and got my discount. What websites are you building? Oh, did I say that out loud? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Brad Dowdy: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Having some fun. Doing some things. Feeling the flow.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting. All right. So, first, as TPA starts with an apology. I apologize, Nico, because I told you I was going to answer this, I don't know, two or three weeks ago. And I keep forgetting. So, I finally remembered to put this in the show notes.

Myke Hurley: So, the next question today comes...

Brad Dowdy: And we're on to a dorkable. So, yeah. Sorry about that, Nico. I said I want to answer this on the podcast because we get this question a lot and I think it's an awesome question. So, Nico met me at the Atlanta Pen Show. He purchased a knock lookout in the coffee amethyst colorway. He said it was a pleasure meeting you and hope to again. The knock case is amazing. Thank you, Nico. And this is what inspired my question.

Myke Hurley: This was the bribe. This was the bribe that was required. Yeah. Yeah. Say it's amazing and you'll get it on the show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. If you want to get your emails read, just follow this template. I love the colors of my coffee amethyst case and I was wondering how you come up with colors for your products. They are all interesting color combinations. Do you choose these colors yourself? How do you decide on them? Do you have any inspiration stories on how you picked any of the color combinations? So, I have kind of, I guess, two things to say about this. One is why we do it, which then leads into the how we do it. But the why we do it goes back to when we started the company. There was no one making a good quality case that I thought looked cool that I wanted to use for my pens, right? I could get leather cases, brown and black, sometimes burgundy if they were fancy. Or I could get the nylon cases from Japan, which didn't have the structure I wanted. So, the idea behind just the company in general, when we were going to, you know, plant our flag on colors was to do something like a backpack company would. And you can look at backpack companies, you know, like Topo or Rickshaw or Timbuktu, you know, where you can like build your colors and put all these things together. We weren't going to do custom stuff, but we wanted to put together cool colors, like make baby backpacks for your pens, right? That's essentially what we were doing. So, having colorful and unique pen cases was the start, you know, was one of the reasons why we started this company. So, knowing that, then we get down to actually picking the colors. And that's all Jeff and I, my partner in Nock, Jeff Brookwicky, who we sit down when it's time for colorways, we will sit down, we'll take a morning in the shop, we'll get out a huge stack of fabric samples, we'll get out zipper tape samples, we'll get out zipper pull samples, we'll get out thread samples, and we'll start with a general idea. Let's say we want to make a purple case. So, is it going to be dark purple, light purple, somewhere in between? Is it going to be, like, radiant? Is it going to be deep? You know? And then we figure out what, you know, exterior or interior fabric we want to play off of. What's going to be the main color that's going to lead the conversation here? And then we start digging through other color samples to figure, find out something that matches. And not only matches, it's probably not something you would think of that would match. Like, purple and yellow goes together great. Like, that seems kind of obvious to us, so we might do something different. And we do basic colors, too. Like, we've done navy and gray. I mean, those are just good classic colors. So, we don't do only wild colors, but we kind of mix and match the basic colors, which, you know, your black exteriors, your gray exteriors, your more subdued, like, overall look and feel of colors with some wild stuff, like our unicorn barfs and unicorn snots. You know, those are the things that are fun. So, we kind of have a range of picking those out. And it's really just a matter of Jeff and I taking a morning, like about two months ago, we had to pick out our colors for the fall, for holiday season and Christmas season to get them ordered. So, we took one morning at the shop and came up with three brand new colorways. And it takes a while to, like, figure out all the details, but it's actually a shockingly little amount of time. We don't care about, like, trends or what's happening. We just care about what we think looks cool when we put it together. And hopefully, other people like it, too. So, that's kind of it. There's no science to it other than how Jeff and I feel. And I think we've been, you know, pretty good at putting together good combos so far. So, that's pretty much it.

Myke Hurley: You certainly have.

Brad Dowdy: So, that's a long way of saying we have three new colors coming this fall. But y'all don't have to ask me when, because it's going to be a long time. So, it's end of the year type stuff.

Myke Hurley: Next question comes from Adorkable. I've been listening for a while now and funsing with fountain pens for longer. Those days... Sorry, these days, I mostly have my carry set all taken care of. Fine dib decimos for Bujo tasks, medium nib excellent A's for journaling, and stub nibbed 580s for titles. I really like this setup, but my eyes and ears are always tuned into looking for something new whilst listening to the show. I can guess you are both much and much the same. So, my question is, if we like what we have and it works really well, why do we keep looking? What exactly is there to gain beyond a wallet? Thanks for your time. It's not about what there's to gain. That's not what this is. The thing is, no one is ever 100% happy with anything that they own. It's always like, oh, I love this thing, but I'd love it if it did this, or I'd love it if it looked like this. I think it's very rare in our lives that we can get a thing that we are perfectly happy with, and that chase for perfection, or that chase for something that could, or the promise of could be better, is the other part of it. Maybe you think what you have is exactly right for you right now. There is the could be better. Oh, look at this new Twisby. That might be even better than the one I already love, right? Which is another part of it, right? Like, oh, I love this one already. This is new. It must be better. That's what it is. It's not about trying to necessarily, like, oh, we're good. Why do we need to find anything more? It's because human beings, their desires seem to be tailored towards always wanting more, or always wanting better.

Brad Dowdy: Does that say that right? Yeah, I think so. For me, it's a lot about transitioning as I learn more about things, and learn more about what I like to use, and what works the best for me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yes, but why do you need this color sailor, right? Like, it's, you know.

Yellow Pencil Question

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and this goes back to just the very most basic question is, why do I need anything more than a yellow number two pencil? It's, well, because, like you're saying, we have these desires to find things that fit our needs, and fit our personalities, and fit our styles. But, you know, it's, I do understand the sentiment. This is more of a, for me, it's more of an enough thing, as like, do I have enough? Like, I don't want to have too much stuff. And I'm at that point right now, like, where I have too much stuff. So, it starts to get uncomfortable for me when I have too much stuff. And like I just said, I bought, like, three more pins during this show. And so, it's like, why do you keep doing that? It's like, well, you know, I'm also in the business of it. And so, I like to try different things and new things. And, you know, I'll sell other things that I don't really use. So, I guess we keep looking because, like, I think, like you said, Myke, it is in our nature. But I think what Adorkables always is also saying is, like, is that a healthy thing? And it may not be for some people. Probably not. I talk about that all the time. It's like you, we talk about buying things and limited editions and FOMO and things like that. But you have to know yourself better than, like, anyone who you're listening to, anyone whose opinion you're listening to. And, you know, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to give opinions on products and maybe help you find the one thing where you do. I would be, it would be awesome if you told me, Brad, you recommended this pin. It's the best pin I ever use. I never need to buy another pin. That would make me ecstatic. Like, you know, that I've done my job. Like, you did great. You found the perfect thing. And you don't need any more. That'd be an awesome place to be. And then there's a group of us that just, like, love pins, right? I love fountain pins. And when someone makes a new thing, like Franklin Kristoff makes some other shape or other color, I want to add that into my Franklin Kristoff collection because I love the brand and I love the colors. It's just kind of like with any other hobby or with any other thing, like, you're into. You know, it's managing what you use versus what you need versus what you have to have versus what's required versus your budget. And so it's a very tough question to answer. But I would hope, like, in a dream world that we all had one pin and that was our favorite pin and that's all we use. But then that would be disingenuous as well because my business that I run is around all the things, right? So it's a weird conversation to have sometimes.

Myke Hurley: You're in the buy more business, but we all are. You know, if you're selling stuff, I'm in the buy more of our sponsors business, right? Like, it's a thing. This is capitalism at its best and worst. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I always, the only thing I concern myself with is just making sure people are happy and stay within their budget, not getting themselves into, like, financial ruin because they have to have the next latest and greatest. We have to say this. That really bugs me.

Myke Hurley: We always have to say this whenever it comes up and it's really important. You never get yourself into debt over pens. God, no. You never do that. Never, ever, ever do that. Yep. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, yeah. And just, you know. So I, like I said, the dream world would, everyone had that one pen, but then my, one of my core philosophies, if you will, is, you know, this is why we have more than one pen, right? Because there's, not everyone has the same needs or assigns the same values to every single object. So, you know, it's the great philosophical question. And we'll have to get our favorite philosopher on there, Mr. Myke Independence. So, yeah. So buy responsibly and love what you own. And if you don't, sell it and get rid of it and move on to the next thing. I don't know if we answered that question. Did we answer that question?

Myke Hurley: I have no idea anymore, but I'm going to say yes. It's a tough question. This next question comes from TheRealNibCreep. What's your favorite Japanese ballpoint made out of metal? Think an alternative to the Parker Jota.

Brad Dowdy: This is a shockingly hard question.

Myke Hurley: Hmm.

Japanese Ballpoints

Brad Dowdy: Japan as a whole does not have many metal barreled ballpoint pens. You see that more in the American market, or maybe at least I do, because of the machine shop pen making thing that has kind of taken over. So, I actually had to think about this. The first one came up real quick. And it's the Uniball Jetstream Alpha Gel. So, it's not a full metal barrel, but it's a brass barrel with a rubber grip. A really nice grip, actually. So, that's one I use, but it's not like the Parker Jotter. You know, it's not like a full metal body, full metal to the touch pen.

Brad Dowdy: And the other one I use, which I really love, but I use it very infrequently, and I don't know why, is called the Pilot Ageless. The specific one, I would put a link into JetPens. In the show notes, it's a fantastic pen. Mine is the one I saw. I had to order from Japan. I wanted it so much. It's a black metal, like a brushed matte black with a walnut wood grip section. It's pretty amazing. But those are kind of your answers for Japanese metal pens. I wonder if we're going to start seeing Uniball do more with the Parker Jetstream refill that they've made. Like, I wonder if we're going to start seeing, like, a Parker Jotter style that fits that Jetstream body and do some more, like, $20 metal barrel pens. There's just not a lot of options for that right now out of the Japanese market that I've seen.

Myke Hurley: Let me tell you, I've never seen this Pilot Ageless before. That is a really cool-looking pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They're expensive, and the refills are actually hard to find. So there's a lot of negatives to that pen, other than it looks really cool. It looks like a spaceship. Yeah. So I have one of those, and it took me years to pull the trigger on it just because I didn't think it was the value. Then I kind of found the one that spoke to me, and I haven't seen it for years. Like I said, I had to get it. I don't know if I bought it through eBay. I went through some very not normal channels to get the one that I have. I have it in my Instagram feed. I went and looked to see if I reviewed it. I haven't. I'll have to dig it up on my Instagram feed. It's probably a couple years back in the feed, but it's really, really cool. So I don't have any recommendations other than that because that's a really good question. So I will keep my eyes peeled, and I'll be interested to see if Uniball is going to do something with this new refill that they made. So we'll see.

Myke Hurley: All right. What do we got next?

Brad Dowdy: We have Jeff Sandstrom, new podcast listener. Sorry if already answered. That's okay. All of our questions have – a lot of the questions have been asked before, and we like talking to new listeners about new questions that they have. I'll be attending the Triangle Pen Show in Raleigh at the end of May, and it's my first show. Any tips for first-time pen show attendees? Should I bring a bunch of cash? Is credit card okay? Thanks. So I will be there as well, Jeff, so be sure to come say hi. I'll be at the Nock booth with both of my kids, so come say hi to us there. And I can help you out with anything you need at the show, any questions you have. But a couple of things that I always reiterate when we get asked this question is, one, take it slow. You will have a tendency to get overwhelmed. Even on a smaller show like Raleigh, it's still bigger than any other thing you've been to for, like, pens and paper. And even just a single table with the quantities of things that they have laid out in front of you can be overwhelming. Take it slow. Breathe. Drink a lot of water. Bring snacks. Stop for lunch. Do anything you can to not just go buzzsaw crazy through the entire show. Because even though you say it and you try to do it, you end up getting overwhelmed. It's like, let me look at the next thing. Let me look at the next thing. Do I need to buy this? You know, what should I do? Go slow. Breathe. Secondly, the cash or credit card question. Most vendors now are taking credit cards. There will still be some cash-only transactions. Most of the time, you'll be covered. I'd bring a mix of both. You know, make sure you have cash, but a lot of times credit card is going to be okay. Okay, I do, when I meet first-time pen show goers at a show, I always tell them I'm open to, like, any buying questions they have. Like, if they have a question about a pen and they're wondering about the price, feel free to come talk to me about it. Like, I'm glad to take the time to help make you more comfortable with any purchasing decisions you have. I know those don't come lightly, whether it's a $10 pen or a $1,000 pen. And, you know, it doesn't matter. So, you know, come to me with questions. I'm glad to help. And talk to the vendors. Like, they're more than willing to answer any questions you may have. Like, they love what they do. That's why they travel around the country and go to these shows. They will gladly answer even what you think is, like, the most simple, basic question. They're used to answering that, and they just want to help you find what's going to work for you. So, take it slow. Take it easy. Ask questions. Come holler at me if you get in a bind. And have fun, you know, and talk to people. So, it's great.

Myke Hurley: And our last question today comes from ATP Colors. Brad mentioned last time how the crazy fine platinum UEF nibs, like how crazy fine that they are. But my platinum UEF is about the same size as my Pilot EF nib. My choice of paper or ink affects the line width more strongly than my choice of these nibs. Is that your experience as well? That paper or ink can affect the line width maybe more than the actual nib can? Yep.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, and that's the one thing we don't mention about is what do they call, like, the trifecta, like, the triangle of things that, you know, everything has to be made on. You have to have, it's the nib, ink, and paper all determine how the pen's going to write. In general, any platinum UEF I've ever used has always been noticeably finer than a Pilot EF. Now, I say that knowing that Myke could have a different experience than me because he used a different ink and a different paper. So, that will absolutely affect your experience. You know, if you're using, like, a coated paper like Rodia, man, you can get some crazy fine lines because there's no bleed. The ink's not going into the paper at all. And your line will be super fine. Add in a dry ink to that, it's going to be, you know, it's going to look wispy, you know, with a UEF nib, even compared to a Pilot EF nib. So, I think the UEF nib is clearly finer than a Pilot EF on a neutral playing field, if you will, you know. So, the ink and paper absolutely make a difference. So, that's always a good thing to point out, say, you know, if you're wondering about a nib, you know, talk about what ink and what paper you use. And that does narrow things down because it can change, you know, if you change any one of those three things, you know, your writing experience is liable to change. And then mix in a fourth thing, which is your writing style, how you hold the pen, what type of pressure you use. So, yes, it's a very specific particular thing, which is good to talk about from time to time. And always, you know, I like to remember, you know, to ask people, like, what ink and paper they're using sometimes when they talk about writing. And I sometimes forget even. And those are equally as important as what nib you've picked out. So, yeah, great question.

Myke Hurley: All right, that wraps it up for today. If you have a question that you would like to ask us in a future episode, just send a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. And they go into a document. Or if you're in the pen addict Slack, you can just ask them. Do they just ask them straight to you, Brad? Is that usually how that happens?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I miss a lot of those because they roll off the screen. So, I prefer Twitter for hashtag AskTPA.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it is better. Like, if you're on Twitter and you can fit it into a tweet, that's the best way. Because they go into a spreadsheet. So, we don't even need to look for them. They just go into a spreadsheet and we pick them up when we're done. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Or email. I would rather email than Slack. Just because Slack's for, like, a live conversation. Like, following up on old questions is almost impossible in Slack.

Myke Hurley: So, you can get emails at hello at penaddict.com?

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: All right. You can go to penaddict.com to find Brad's work and go to knock.co for his pen cases. He is dowdyism on Twitter. He is penaddict on Instagram. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks again to Squarespace and Joe Perra Talks With You for their support of this week's episode. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Pip, pip, cheerio.