The Pen Addict 545/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 545 |
| Title: | Relax Better |
| Release Date: | January 4th, 2023 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 545 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 545 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 545 |
| Length: | 5858 min <br />0.967 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 545. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Happy New Year, Brad.
Brad Dowdy: Happy New Year, Myke. How are you doing?
Myke Hurley: I'm good. Until I started reading the intro, I didn't realise that last week's episode was not in 2023. It was still in 2022.
Brad Dowdy: I will admit to being very confused when you said Happy New Year, Brad, because we just spoke last week and I literally had to look at the calendar. I was like, huh, Myke is right. It is the new year. And even though we've only spoken a few days ago, it was in that old year that we are no longer going to discuss. We're going to discuss 2023, Myke, all the things that are coming down the pipeline. We're going to talk about my theme for the year of 2023. And we're going to talk about some classic, classic topics that I can't wait to dig into.
Scribble Pen
Myke Hurley: Well, first up, should we talk about the scribble pen?
Brad Dowdy: We absolutely should talk about the scribble pen. When should we not talk about the scribble pen? I feel like it's just mandatory, right?
Myke Hurley: Yep. So this is a hilarious thing. I was checking my RSS reader yesterday and I was on Mac Rumors, which is a website that I use a lot for my Apple Focus stuff. And they referenced Apple getting a patent for an Apple pencil that can sample color from real world surfaces. This is the logical conclusion for this technology.
Brad Dowdy: Is it though? I feel like it's not because what was it last year? We actually saw like the mechanics of like the ink changing version. Do you remember those videos that I got sent?
Myke Hurley: Oh yeah, of course I do. That wasn't a logical conclusion. That was an illogical conclusion.
Brad Dowdy: But they're still trying. So I don't know how that we can like drop a conclusion.
Myke Hurley: But it's not going to work, Brad. We went through this already. It's not going to work.
Brad Dowdy: It's really, really not going to work. But now Apple, well, maybe if they're thinking about this digital idea, right? Which is, let's be honest, this is not a new idea, right? But the Apple putting a patent on whatever technology they want to come up with to solve this problem, if we're even going to go that far, of pointing a device at an orange peel and pulling it up digitally. Okay, well, you know, Apple's got a pretty good track record of solving problems.
Myke Hurley: This would be a really great feature for an Apple pencil. Like people are saying, like, what Apple pencil three might be and like this kind of thing would be genius. Now, the thing is, this is just a patent. So, you know, stuff like this may never happen, right? But they just they just patent it because it's an idea that they had. They also filed a patent in June 2020 for a very similar thing, which would suggest that they maybe are getting closer to it because they've they in 2020, they filed a patent for a computer system with a color sampling stylus. Okay, that was and now they've filed another patent for this type of technology. And so that could suggest that they are maybe zoning in on what it can and can't do and how they want to how they want it to work. Like now it's like an optical sensor for color and texture. Right. So like it could be like a little camera. So you could say, you know, you're saying your orange peel like in theory, right? You could use that sensor and then you could like paint what is effectively an orange peel with bumps in it and stuff. So this is I think would be a very smart thing for them to do. I think would would would be a really cool product with a really cool demo. Right. That was the whole enticement of the scribble pen in the first place. It has a cool demo. So do I think they will do this? I think it's very possible that they will do something like this. Yes. Will it be next year? Probably not.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's also what? $299, $399. Like this is going to be like a premium, you know, tool.
Myke Hurley: Maybe. Yeah. Maybe this could be like Apple Pencil Pro. I don't think it would be that kind of price, Brad, but I think maybe like $150 instead of $100 or whatever. Yeah. But hey, they continue to surprise me with pricing. So who knows?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. The funniest thing is the comment section of the Mac Rumors, which, you know, we never recommend to read comment sections, but I scrolled down and just kind of ran into it. Scribble pen all up in the comment section. Amazing. Just people mentioning the scribble. Do you remember the scribble? Like, like this, just like this failure. Like it's this whole thing, like even outside of our little world, because it was, it's essentially, it was a technology device, right? So there's definitely some like crossover ideas for the scribble pencil. And it was such a big, you know, the original, such a big scammy Kickstarter, you know, it was aggregated everywhere because it was so stupid that people still just, anytime they see any kind of like device color picking and everyone goes scribble pen. And it's just hilarious. All right. Speaking of pen, Myke, I want to talk real quick about the pen. Have you seen the pen?
Myke Hurley: I've read your review of the pen.
Bullet Journal and Leuchtturm Partnership
Brad Dowdy: From Bullet Journal. So Bullet Journal worked with Leuchtturm, which was their original notebook manufacturer for the Bullet Journal that you and I invented, that collaboration, right? Just out of thin air, me and you are responsible for that. I'm never going to let that go. Are we? We were the ones that recommended Leuchtturm to Ryder.
Myke Hurley: Oh, yes. When we had him on the show, it was like, oh, you might like this kind of notebook. Yeah. Right, right, right.
Brad Dowdy: So now they have a long running partnership with Leuchtturm. They make the Bullet Journal version two notebook is amazingly good. So I implore people to check that out. You don't have to be a Bullet Journaler to use the notebook. It's just, it's mostly, you know, open pages, you know, notes. What's so good about it? Like pre-printed. The paper quality and the build quality. Right. It's, everything is upgraded from like, say your traditional Leuchtturm A5. The binding, the cover, the paper thickness, the construction of it. It just feels substantial, right? It feels really, really good. So it's super nice.
Myke Hurley: I bought one of these. What am I talking about?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I bought one of these. They're great. And they're fairly priced. They're like 25, mid-20s, mid-20s.
Myke Hurley: I was genuinely shocked by the quality of like all the foil stamping and stuff. Like, I don't know how they are making it for the price that they're making it, especially that it comes with the little pocket guy. Like, I just can't work it out. Yep. They must just be making it in such huge volumes. I guess. Honestly, the only way that I feel like you could sell this product for 25 euro, which is they sell it for, and make money on it, is they must be in large volumes. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Because when they launched it, they sold out like immediately. Yeah. So I don't know what that volume looks like, or, you know, if it was just like a slow launch.
Myke Hurley: Well, actually, you know what? It's probably piggybacking on the volume that Leuchtturm make for their regular book, and they're able to like put a part of the production in for Bullet Journal.
Brad Dowdy: I don't know, because this one, this is different than any other notebook that they make.
Myke Hurley: Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know why they do it. There's not,
Brad Dowdy: there's not a stock, there's not a stock version of this notebook, as far as I'm aware. Not that I've ever seen.
Myke Hurley: So it's different to the regular Leuchtturm 1938 than its construction, is that what you're saying?
Brad Dowdy: Oh, 1917. Yep. 1917. Or 1938. You know, one or the other. Whatever, whatever. Yes, it's different in construction. So, absolutely. I don't know how they're doing it then, man. Different dimensions, yeah, different everything. So anyway, the, the Dre Greffel, the pen is, was originally a Leuchtturm product, again, that Leuchtturm just launched in 2020, but they made this design that is really like a throwback design to like early 1900s, like German, you know, pen design. It's a really classic looking pen, but Leuchtturm launched it with like a dozen different colors. It's an aluminum barrel, and all the aluminum barrels are like these bright colors, colors, and like the nose cone and twist mechanism were white, and it's just this really super, very Instagrammable pen, and also like a very good pen in its own right. So, Bullet Journal collaborated with them to make a Bullet Journal model, and it looks fantastic, and that's, that's the kind of the reason I wanted to, to bring this up. It's just a really unique pen. It's on the smaller side of the ledger, right? It's not a, a big, big, chunky, overbearing pen. It's like a subtle type of pen that would go really good in conjunction, just sitting right, right next to your Bullet Journal. And interestingly enough, it ships with a 0.5 millimeter gel refill. And I talked about this on our gift guide with Anna, that this pen surprised me so much that I thought it would be a great gift guide. I knew I wanted to review it, and then I'm also giving it away on the blog, which I do a lot on review products. So I just thought it was worth pointing out. And what I missed in the beginning is the, the stock, uh, Drager fell from Leuchtturm. It, it just comes with a ballpoint, um, refills. And like I said, the Bullet Journal one comes with a 0.5 millimeter gel Parker style refill. The stock Leuchtturm apparently also comes in a mechanical pencil, which I haven't seen. And so people know how much I enjoy my mechanical pencil. So I'm going to look at that too. Uh, I need to add that to the 2023 shopping list, Myke, I think, because I think it's such a neat design. It's smaller than it appears on the pictures, right? Like I, I probably didn't do enough good comparison shots. I have like a handheld shot. You can see like how small it is. Um, but I, I like small pens anyway, so it's right up my alley.
Myke Hurley: So I really love the look of the Leuchtturm version, the drag fell. Mm-hmm. Like, cause what I don't like about the look of the Bullet Journal one is the nose, like cone, like the cone, the tip that goes all the way down and brass, like it looks a little awkward to me with how long it is, but the Leuchtturm version has a grip section basically. And then also the tip of the pen, right? So I just think design wise, that feels more intentional to me. Like I like it more where I think with the Bullet Journal one, it looks to me like something went wrong.
Brad Dowdy: Mm. It's a little starker of a line in the design, visually speaking, with the Bullet Journal, with the black and brass. I love the black and brass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks fantastic.
Myke Hurley: too large, that like just singular brass section at the end. Right.
Brad Dowdy: So that was my only complaint. Like some people will not like the grip area of that pen because you can get too low and then you start tapering down the cone there. But like you can grip it a little bit further back too. So yeah, it is a little bit in the weird zone from a grip perspective. Like I didn't have a problem with it because I actually grip, I grip kind of on the nose cone itself in that particular pen, the way I hold it. And it didn't bother me, but it would bother some other people for sure.
Yearly Themes and Goal Setting
Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke, one of the topics we like to cover here is a bit of a tag along to your cortex themes, which I enjoy talking to you about. Now you have an episode of cortex episode 136 where you and gray, this is the most recent episode, right? This was the last episode.
Myke Hurley: we haven't, we haven't put one out in January yet.
Brad Dowdy: Okay. So where you and gray go over your previous yearly themes, talk about, well, you know, what went well, how things went, then talk about your themes for 2023. And it's an idea that I've always, you know, appreciated that y'all, y'all came up with because it's kind of how it's definitely like in line about how I think about, you know, coming into a new year, not necessarily making resolutions because you're just kind of setting your up yourself up to fail and kind of these black and white situations. A lot of times with these resolutions and the idea of a theme, just having this overarching kind of like, guide or, you know, light, you're like, you're heading towards kind of thing, um, is, is really a good way to think about, you know, starting a new year. If you want to implement some change in your life, right?
Myke Hurley: You set yourself up to be able to succeed rather than setting yourself up to fail, like resolutions, strong resolutions, or goals that have, uh, a completion state to them. They are inherently there for you to fail. And like one of the, you know, some of the great ones that like we've come up with over time, we use as examples of like, you know, if you said, I want to read 20 books this year, but you read 19 or you didn't, didn't do it. You failed. But if you instead made it the year of reading, you'd be like, wow, I read 19 books this year. Cause that is a success. If it's more than what you've done before, right? Like, and that was the whole idea of the year theme. So like a theme for the year will allow you to just focus on a thing. And if you make any positive improvement towards that thing is great. Like for example, you know, like, um, people might try and say like, Oh, I want to get stronger in the gym this year. So I'm going to do a bunch of, uh, health training and like in strength training. But then what if you hurt yourself and like for a month you can't, but then you focus on your mental health. Well, if you had a year of health rather than I just want to get stronger this year, then you'd be like, well, I focused on my mental health for that month. So I still contribute. It's that kind of idea of like, you're giving yourself a little bit of leeway while also allowing you to improve your life in a way that cares, that you care about that's meaningful to you.
Brad Dowdy: Right. So I like these, these thoughts, uh, going into the year in the past, I've done like, um, year of ideas, year of creativity. Um, a lot of it is, you know, me thinking about, okay, how can, you know, you know, do like a good work, good work life balance. You know, it's a lot of personal stuff like that. And you're, you're a lot the same way listening to yours. Um, and then I'm going to take it a little bit today. I'm going to talk about that, but you know, I'm going to relate, try to relate it to how I use stationary, because really that's like, y'all, y'all cover all the theme stuff, right? On, on cortex and talk about how the house and wise, and I'm going to do a little bit of that. And then think about how I can implement like stationary in getting to these goals or getting to these, you know, living up to these themes. And, you know, I definitely have some questions and I'm still a little bit working this out. Um, but I'm just going to go ahead and, and tell you the, the theme for this year is the year of the healer, which I will greatly explain here momentarily. And it'll make a lot of sense, um, momentarily, but I just like, if anyone, we have any, uh, cortex listeners here. If you listen to Myke, he changed his theme like five minutes before the show. He finally came up with the name. I was having trouble coming up with a name for this, but the idea I had for myself in 2023 was I need to be better with myself, to myself, to the world around me when I'm off, when I'm not working. And, you know, I think of it, you know, just like an on and off switch. Right. And trying to think about this, you know, I have you being a video game fan and me being a video game fan, you know, and the classic dungeons and dragons, you know, idea of a, of a party, right. You know, you have your, your warriors and your healers and your, your rogues and your wizards and things like that. And the healers job is to keep everybody alive. But what's the one thing the healer can't do? Well, the, the healer can't die, right. The healer has to heal themselves first, right. Before they can heal anybody else. And that's kind of like the concept I was working on this year.
Brad Dowdy: As let me, let me state it this way.
Brad Dowdy: I know what I do good. Right. And so when I started thinking about the theme, I had to say, what do I do good? And what do I do bad? And I think I'm a pretty good worker, right? Like I think I do my job. Well, now there's obviously huge room for improvement, huge things to change in, in those areas, but I'm never going to be great or do better work. Work. If I'm in a bad mood outside of work, if I'm thinking about work, when I shouldn't be working, if I'm not taking care of myself first, when I'm not tasked with getting, you know, a job done. Right. So I feel like when I'm working and when I'm on, I'm really good. Like I'm confident in what I'm doing. I feel accomplished. You know, there's obviously things I want to change and you want to keep improving and I'm at my worst when I'm not working and I'm sitting around thinking about working and I'm sitting around. Oh, should I check my email? Well, no, I shouldn't check my email. Well, now I'm thinking about checking my email for the next two hours, even though it's like seven o'clock at night. And I really did. There's no, nothing good is going to happen by doing that. And it's this mindset that I have that I'm not taking my down times more seriously to be even better when I am working or when I am on. So like my off times just don't work well for me. And I get myself in bad moods. I'm not the best husband. I'm not the best dad. You know, all of these things just kind of roll up together. So the idea is, Hey, I have to take care of myself when I'm off a little bit better. And that makes being on that much easier. Right? So like, I feel like I have a good work. I have a good relationship with working, but I don't have a good relationship with not working, which is strange to say. And it's, it's definitely a unique situation because I, I just work for myself. Right? Like I don't, I'm not responsible to anyone else. You know, like I'm obviously responsible to my family, but like, as far as a job goes, like I am only as good as like the things I create. So it, it, it weighs on me differently than, you know, if I have a corporate job or if I work in a group or things like that. So this is very specific to me. And I definitely, you know, admit that. So like the things I do good, you know, I, I, I'm really good at working around a schedule. I'm really good at executing tasks, right? I'm good at helping people. I'm good at, you know, creating like a positive environment. I'm good at creating an open environment. Like those are the things I do good. Like the things I want to do better is to be more content when I'm not on. Like I'm really content when I'm working. Can I ask you a question real quick? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please.
Myke Hurley: Do you mean like feeling good or on work? Like what, what is on and off?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. On work. Okay. I mean like physically working versus like the act of working versus the act of not working. So on would be working, you know, working, you know, on the blog, on the podcast, on spoke, on any of that stuff. And then off being when I'm not, you know, working. So yeah, not like on a, not like on a mindset, but being like on the job or off the job type of stuff. So like, I have a hard time when I'm not working, but I'm also a person that cannot and will not work all the time. Right. That's not my mindset, but I don't give myself like this, this grace of being off. I don't, I don't do off. Well, so that's like what I'm trying to work on. You know, if I can be good when I'm off, that just makes the on that much better. Right. And like getting in the right headspace when I'm off, like that's, that's a tough time. That's a tough thing for me. You know, and I think a lot of people experience that my, my alone time attitude is very challenging sometimes. Right. Like I don't have a really good baseline of being off. So it's, it's, it's,
Myke Hurley: I think that comes from those. It was like, you've always got that one step in your mind back into work. Like, is that?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Cause the work is like the singular responsibility. Right. Like, and it's, it's not overbearing or overwhelming, but it's always there. And only I'm responsible for it. Right. Like I, you know, I'm not going, you know, I'm not going into an office where there's 10 of us, like, you know, you know, going towards the same goal. It's like, it's, it's me, right. Like I am responsible. Um, so, you know, I, I try to think about those things and try to, I never feel burdened by work when I'm working. Right. But I feel burdened by work when I'm not working. Does that make sense?
Myke Hurley: Yes. Well, you're, you're actively in it. You're progressing it forward. Yeah. But then when you're not there, you're like, Oh, could I be doing something more right now?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, all the work stuff I do, like writing and sharing content, creating content and, you know, doing all that stuff. Like that's all great. All kind of pulls towards the same goal, the same, like the pen addict job. Like it's, it's all really good. So it's feels a little bit weird to not focus on the work stuff, but that's where the healing comes in. Like if I'm not, if I'm not a good healer, if I'm not taking my care of myself when I'm not working, well, work's going to be worse, right? Work's going to suffer if I'm not taking care of myself first when I'm not working. So the hard part of this is, you know, what, how can I track this, you know, or how do I have tasks or deliverables? And it's hard to have like these little check boxes for, Hey, relax better. Right. You know, take care of yourself better. Like that's broad. Right. So high school and college me would have been shocked by this next statement that I'm about to make, but I actually genuinely love writing. Like I like the experience of writing. I like the thought of writing. Now I'm not going to write a book, right? Like I'm not going to write stories, but just the act of releasing ideas with a pen onto the page is very enjoyable to me. The act of exploration of, you know, the paper and the ink or the graphite or any of that stuff. So this goes into, Hey, journal more, you know, write more, be more creative when you're not working.
Brad Dowdy: And like, I've never been a traditional journaler and I'm, I'm not going to start now. Like I've, I've proven over the years that like traditional at two 30 on the page that says January the 4th. Okay. Go that, that doesn't work for me. Right? Like that will never work for me. It does not work for me. But just having an open page where I can write stupid stuff or I can think about, Hey, what does it mean to heal yourself first? You know, those kinds of things. I like that type of writing. I really enjoy the tactileness of it too. Right? It's the separation of the analog and digital, which I know a lot of us struggle with. Right? That's why we're here talking about pens. Right? It's, it's different. And how can I use my pens and paper to be, to heal myself better when I'm not working. Right? Because I, some of this, sometimes the pen and paper is work, right? Like if I'm reviewing or testing or doing that stuff. And I, I'm pretty good at separating that type of work writing versus pleasure writing, but I don't know enough pleasure writing. I don't know enough exploring. So, you know, I started a five year journal this year. So that's one little task that I'm using to, Hey, write one or two sentences a day, right? Take this little journal. And it's, there's like each day has like six lines and it's like, it's a very short compact thing. It's like, okay, let's start here, Brad. Let's write one thing. And it doesn't, I don't even, there's no rules in that. I'm not, it's not a gratitude journal. It's not a pen tracking journal or ink tracking journal. It's just like, Hey, talk about today real quick. Like anything specific, you know, I could write it at nine o'clock at the morning. I could write it at nine o'clock at night. There's no like hard, fast rules other than it has to be done every day. That's where I'm starting. Right. So I'm starting there. And then that has made me want to write in my notebooks more. So just thinking about this yearly theme for 2023, I've written, you know, just like two pages in an a five notebook, just exploring thoughts. And like a lot of it's garbage. Like it doesn't matter like that. I don't worry about what goes in my notebook. I just worry about like doing it, like picking up the notebook and the pen and writing you like just for myself. Yeah. Right. So like, do I have any like tasks or deliverable deliverables for this? Like one of the things I want to do is just maybe think about like the things I'm consuming a little bit more because I'm a very avid music listener. I like to read books. I like to play games. And maybe I take some time to have like a little bit of a media journal. Right. Just like I get to use my stuff. Right. You know, that's always important to all of us using your stuff. You know, so maybe I explore, Hey, this new album I listened to today or this song from 30 years ago. That's all of a sudden now in my playlist. Why? Like think about those types of things. And I give by doing that, like being direct about that, it gives my brain this complete separation from work. And I found whenever I've done that, that I have a better, like a more healthy relationship with myself, you know, with my family, my friends, my work. So this hall kind of ties back into the year of the healer for me. You know, I can't heal anyone else. And I'm not, believe me, I'm not trying to say it that way. Like, Oh, I need to heal people or things. I'm not saying it in that context. I'm saying I can't be my best me unless I take care of myself first. Right. And which is the real, you know, common, common thing that a lot of us try to work on. It was like, well, I need to work on myself. And then like everything else kind of comes easier, but like putting that down and writing and actually writing about it and thinking about these things, that's something I'm going to work on. So figuring out what that balance is. And I know you've talked a lot about this and I was listening to you. We have pretty similar themes. Yeah. I was listening to you. Yeah. In this episode, I was like, I'm just nodding my head. It's like very similar. It's like, we have to have some type of separation in like work life balance. Right. That's like the common phrase, but then figuring out what it is that's going to work for you specifically, you, Myke and me, Brad, what are the things that are going to work specifically to set us up for success? In other areas of our life that we want to be successful in too. Right. Like we're not focusing on one specific thing. I'm not, I'm not focusing on, you know, Hey, watching more movies because that's going to make me a better pen addict writer person like directly. But I'm focusing on watching more movies because my mind needs the space to escape and give me the freedom that I'm, when I'm working, I can work better because I'm not thinking about other things. Or when I'm off, I'm not thinking about work. I'm thinking about the movie that I'm watching instead of like, you know, looking at messages or things like that. So yeah, like it's a pretty common idea, right? Overall. I think, you know, a lot of people probably have like very similar ideas and concepts, but, you know, figuring out the way you can break it down. That is, is most useful for yourself. Like, I think that's my challenge. Like over the next week, like I've really been thinking about this a lot and, and writing things down and trying to figure out, like, you know, I want to talk to you real quick and get you to shout out the theme system journal. Like, I think that's a great product. Like I've used it in the past. And, um, like I, I can't really mix in another journal right now. I'm going to do this five-year journal. And that's kind of like my journaling for that. But what I really like, and I said this to you in the past, like, I can't believe how valuable I found like the habit tracker pages. Yeah. In there, or you might call them, there might be a different terminology for that.
Myke Hurley: We, we differ on that a little bit. It is like a habit tracker. We call them like daily themes or daily questions a lot. Yeah. Um, and they're just like, and for me, like these are things that they persist year after year, no matter what my theme is, because I consider these to like, all right, I can have a theme and my theme can be focused on whatever I want it to be. But to actually be, to be like effective in all of the things that I need to be, there are certain things I have to hit every day. Like, am I being creative today? Am I advancing something forward? Am I being a good husband? Am I being a good friend? Like I still have to do all that stuff. If I don't do that stuff, that's like my foundation. Then I can't move anything forward. And then over time I've added some in, right? And sometimes they relate to my theme. So like my last year was year of structure and I added structure and free time into my daily things because I've realized they're important for me throughout the day. And then this year I added something called home because that's also important to me right now. And like they can move on and off, but like they're the things that are like, I have to do those every day. And like really the theme system journal exists to remind you about your theme. Right. Like if you find another way, do that. Like you don't have to buy the journal to do this thing. Right. Like having a theme and thinking about that, working on that does not require the journal, but it is just a good way to like keep that in the forefront of your mind. But if you're doing that in your five-year journal, then do it in your five-year journal and keep your theme in mind that way.
Brad Dowdy: Right. And I do want to, I, one of my tasks is to like think about these daily themes a little bit more and how I want to integrate. Like you, you have to have as much as you and I hate this, this corporate word, you have to have some deliverables, right? Like you, you have to have some accountability to making yourself better. Right. Like there's not, there has to be some hard stuff in here. Right. It's just not all la la land. Just trying to, you know, Oh, I'm going to just going to do whatever. I'm gonna go watch a movie now and read a book. Like you have to have some accountability to have some like real gains in like trying to improve yourself. So like maybe I roll my own like little daily themes or habit tracker or things like that. Or, you know, maybe I'm, I'm been bouncing around looking at a few apps. I don't know that that's going to be a solution because they, there, there tends to be more too much overhead. I really like mentally.
Myke Hurley: Imagine, I disagree with doing this stuff in an app. Like I know that people have their own ways of doing things, but I think that there is such value in sitting down and writing it out, especially because it's then different to everything else you're doing on your phone. Yep. Right. And especially for me, right.
Brad Dowdy: Like who has literally has all the stationary in the world. Like, it would be very easy to like roll my own. So like I've, I've downloaded like six apps and I'm just like, I'm opening and like lasting like 30 seconds and instant deleting. So I see where this is going. Like, that's not going to be something that works for me, but Hey, guess what this notebook is, or, you know, any, something like that. So, yeah, that's what I'm working on. We've got a little, a little, little personal here, not totally stationary driven, but like the stationary is such a core part of my life. And I don't just mean my work life. Like it is, it is important to me regardless of my job and how can I use these pens and paper to improve myself. And like, I really want to work on myself this year. Just as this baseline, like that was my original name for this theme, the year of the baseline, but I couldn't really wrap my head around that. But if I have this good off, off baseline, then that just makes on that much better. And like, I feel like I'm pretty good at on, but it could be better. So, but how am I going to do that? Well, I have to be better when I'm off. And that's, that's a challenge for me. So I'm going to work on that.
Myke Hurley: I like this. I mean, like, so basically if I can, I just want to try and summarize on your behalf, like there are kind of two areas that you're looking to focus on with the year of the healer is one is just like switching off from work more and being more present in whatever the thing is, right? that you're doing that's outside of work. And then two, using the things that you love as a way to give you comfort as well as content. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I love it. We're pretty similar. Like, so my theme this year is the year of the weekend, which is a fact of his music. Yeah. Effectively. Like, yeah, I have had a blinded by the lights. Is that the name of the song from the weekend in my head constantly? I love the weekend, by the way. Great. Great musician.
Myke Hurley: But the, for me is, in essence, I want a better work-life balance. And something I have not done for like, maybe a decade is like truly have weekends, like, in a way that like you work Monday to Friday, and then you have two days off. And like, during those two days, you're not working because you're not at work. You're like, that's like a very typical thing that I think less and less people have these days, but was a thing that I used to have and is a thing that is achievable if you have a good kind of working environment. So it's more about like, then when I have days off work, like once, one thing is making sure I have those days off every week, at least one, two ideally, but you know, and then when I'm taking them off is to do a selection of things that's either A, nothing, right? Right. spending time with my loved ones, or C, doing something to improve my home. Like that, that's kind of like the real simplified version of what the year of the weekend is for me, but there's a bunch of other stuff to it. And I won't do the whole thing because there is a podcast where you can go and hear it, you know, but that's kind of my idea. Yeah. Yeah. But I think like we're circling on some similar stuff this time. Definitely.
Brad Dowdy: Definitely. One of my favorite tweets from last year that, that I made, I don't think, no, that it's, it's not unique, but like my, my comment was do nothing better. Yeah. And like, that's really hard. Like it's, it's, it should be easy, but it's not in the, in this day and age and the, like the type of like work that I do and things like that. So like, I'm always, you know, thinking about things when I shouldn't be. So yeah, we got, got some work to do there. So I love it. I love this idea. I love it. Just, you know, the idea of themes just to, you know, help us be better people, do better, do better work and lead better lives. And, you know, there's a lot of stationary that drives mine. And I, I look forward to exploring even more. And we'll, we'll talk about stuff. Believe me. I, I've used plenty of stuff right now. I'm super mad at sheening inks, like what y'all already know. I am not, I don't like super sheeners, but I'm really mad. I've been using the sheening ink in my pen and it's really, really great. And it's beautiful on the page. And then I come back a day later. And if my hand's a little wet and I touch the page, guess what? It gets on my fingers. And that makes me mad.
Myke Hurley: So I didn't know that was a thing.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Super sheeners tend to not dry very well, not dry very well. I mean, they're technically dry on the page, but you cannot like touch them again. Right. If you touch them, you're going to smudge them even if it's days or weeks later. So anyway, let's cook a pizza. Yeah. Let's,
Downtime Activities
Myke Hurley: let's talk about something we can be doing in our downtime.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens, the world's number one pizza oven company. They make surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas, letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your own backyard. Uni Pizza Ovens are special because they've reached these really high temperatures. You can get up to like 900 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 500 degrees Celsius. That high temperature will let you do two things. It will let you cook a restaurant quality pizza in as little as 60 seconds and give you that quality in your own backyard. But that heat, that restaurant quality, right? That's what you're going to get with that heat. This high temperature is what separates these pizzas from those that you can make in a home oven. And with Uni Pizza Ovens, you can get the different flavors that different types of fuel will provide, right? So you can get a wood oven, you can get a charcoal oven, you get a gas oven. It's going to give you slightly different outcomes, which is why they also make a model called the Uni Karu, where you can choose, like you have all of that available to you, which is cool. I know Brad has the Uni Coda 16, which is great because it can do large pizzas up to 16 inch with an L-shaped burner at the back to give even heat distribution across the whole pizza itself. Like it really is incredible stuff. They're super easy to use and incredibly portable. They have all the accessories that you're going to need from peels to cutters to oven tables. Uni make an app to help perfect your dough recipe. We've spoken about Uni a lot. I think one thing we want to do today, Brad, is congratulate Uni for their 10 years, which they celebrated recently. I know that we were both talking with Christian, who is one of the co-founders of Uni, because Christian's a big pen addict. So hi, Christian, if you're listening. But yeah, just 10 years of doing this stuff. And they're a company that like, I just can't fathom, just how huge they are now. Like it's incredible to me. You know, we knew them from when they started, when they just had the one model, right? And it was like, yeah, like backyard, like little backyard pizza. Hey,
Brad Dowdy: you want to come over? I've got, I'm doing this thing.
Myke Hurley: And now they're just like everywhere. They're in department stores. I've seen in the UK and in the US and department stores. I see them all over like YouTube. Like I just see people using them all on YouTube videos. This is incredible. They really are the best. Like it's such good. They make such a good product. If you have any inclination to want to make pizza, you should be getting yourself an uni pizza oven. And listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an uni pizza oven by going to uni.com, O-O-N-I.com and using the code addict 2023 at checkout. That is uni.com addict 2023 for 10% off. Uni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your own backyard. Our thanks to uni pizza ovens for the support of this show and Relay FM.
Brad Dowdy: They do have a little temperature laser accessory, you know, like a thermal reader. Yeah. Like, I like playing with that thing. And like, I, I'm so like, you know, you, we nerd out about this stuff. And like, if I get like a really good temperature, like if I get in the eights, like getting the 800s, like I don't see 900 very often, but you can get there, but I'm not patient enough. But like, I'll show my wife. I was like, Ooh, check this out. 825.
Brad Dowdy: It's like sweet. That's going to cook in like 30 seconds. It's awesome. So yeah. Love my uni. Love my uni. All right. Real quick little segment here. Um, a little bit tacking on to like the year, uh, not necessarily a theme, but kind of like what we're looking for from stationary. And we generally don't do like forecasts or predictions or things. I want to see from the industry because it's, I don't mean this in a bad way. It's generally static, right? Like it's, you know, there's, well, there's always surprises every year, some new design or some new concept or someone doing something interesting with, you know, some existing materials or shapes or anything like that. So like, I kind of just let it come to me, right? I'm not going out there saying, Hey, I really want to see this this year. Um, but I do have products I'm personally looking for this year, but I thought you, you and I kind of are on the same terms and you said it in the doc here, kind of what I'm alluding to. And why don't you just go ahead and lead and say what you, what you wrote down here? Because I think that's a good jumping off point.
Stationery Products for 2023
Myke Hurley: If there's something I'm looking for from stationary this year is I want products that will surprise me. Like I want there to be things that come onto the market that are new or different in a way that I hadn't expected or doing something in a different way. Like one that I'm interested in and I don't think, I don't think you've got it yet or you haven't spoken about it. Um, is the shown design nib. Yes. Right. Yeah. This is the kind of stuff where I'm like that kind of thing. Like, well, how different is it? And like, what could it be? You know, like I want to see things that are new. That's what I want this year. Not just like a new design, but like someone's taken something and going in a new direction with it and getting different results to what we would have experienced before. I don't know if that's going to do that, but that's the kind of thing where maybe it will, you know,
Brad Dowdy: that's exactly right. And, uh, we have talked about the Monarch nib. Um, it's now released and you can get in, uh, different batches. They're, you know, they're very particular nib and difficult to make. So, um, we'll put a link in the show notes to the Monarch page and you can pick like the group, like the month manufacturing group that you want and you can get on there. Now I'm waiting until there's, I'm going to see if there's a new nib size because this one's a little bit wide, right? That's just the design of the pen of the nib so far. So I'm going to, I'm waiting and see, but that's exactly like what I want to see. Something that surprises me, something that's interesting because I'm very content with the things that I have. Like it's a good place to be, but also as someone who follows the industry and who is always on the lookout for new stuff. Like I see plenty of new stuff, but like what is really going to like move the needle? And, you know, maybe it's something like the Monarch nib and, and I think that's like a super pleasant surprise. Right. And it's also, I know that it's also a very, you know, very specific, unique product for very, very few people. Right. So that's why one of the categories I always look at is, you know, just for, you know, ease of, of saying it, it's just, you know, Japanese gel ink pens, right? Like that market is one where there's sometimes some fun stuff that happens. And then that bleeds into other types of products and other types of stationary. One thing I would like to see just big picture. And I've mentioned this in years past just about companies in general. I really think we can do like collectively as a stationary industry, having some more paper options and not necessarily in paper types, but in, I'm a real big believer in these big companies, say like the Japanese big three pilots, sailor platinum, even brands like Pelican. And we saw Lamy do it is making their own notebooks and committing to saying, Hey, this is what we believe in, in paper. And I always want to see that. And Lamy started to branch out a little bit and they've done some good, good jobs with their own notebooks. I want to see like the big brands surprise me with some paper, right? We have great paper from paper manufacturers, Midori, you know, one of my favorites, Morimon, Kikuyo, Life. Like we can, we can name a thousand paper brands. Like we put, believe me, we have plenty of paper, but I kind of want to, I kind of want a statement of work from some of the pen manufacturers. Hey, pilot, what do you think a notebook should be? Right. They make some paper products. They make some like letter writing products, you know, sailor. What do you think, you know, a notebook should be like, maybe they're not interested. Maybe sailor just wants to make inks and pens and nibs and that's enough. And robots, I guess, but you know, I, I kind of, I don't know. I really like for something as simple as a notebook for companies to like, you know, plant a flag and say, Hey, this is what we believe in. So I would kind of like to see that. I don't know if we will, but you know, who knows just one of those things that's always, I've always found interesting as a watcher of the industry that why doesn't pilot tell me, Hey, this notebook, it will be awesome for your pilot nibs and pilot inks.
Myke Hurley: Huh?
Brad Dowdy: Just, it just doesn't exist.
Myke Hurley: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: So anyway, I do have a small shopping list for my own pens collection that I I'm thinking about. Like I said, I'm mostly content and I'm working on, you know, we'll, we'll talk about later this month. The pen attic 100 project is, is about to be rebooted here this month and get some real traction. Yeah. We need to get some traction on this. Like it just got, it just got hung up late in the year. It just got busy. You know, it's a, it's a big project. So like I said, I'm really content, but there are a few things that I'm monitoring. Maybe I'll end up with these products. Maybe I won't. One is the pilot decimal, which I've talked about a bunch. Um, I have plenty of vanishing points. I want the thinner barrel decimo and I could go out today and buy just, you know, one of the stock decimos, but I'm kind of holding off for like the one, like I don't, I don't want to really dabble in decimos. I want to just like go right into the deep end and figure out like, Hey, this is the perfect one for me, even if it's some weird limited edition that I got to overpay for, but just be the one, because I think in the end, I'm going to like the narrower barrel of the decimo over the vanishing point. There's slightly narrower diameter. So I'm looking forward to that. So, you know, I hope to be at some more pin shows this year. Maybe I'll find one at a pin show that I'll pick up or find something on eBay or something. Who knows? Who knows? I'm not, I'm not overly anxious to like just jump in and buy one. Any of these pins, I could just go out and buy right now, but I'm trying to exercise some patience. Um, the Scribo Puma has been on this list for probably like two years now. They make it's, again, it's a smaller pin acrylic. They have a stock extra, extra fine nib that they do. And that's kind of what I want for this pin. So they just came out with some new colors, which I think are actually going to be, I'll probably end up with one of the ones, uh, of these, these three new acrylics that they did. They're, they're really pretty right up my alley, kind of wild looking. So that's probably, that would, that would be easier for me to just like come home with one day than a decimo, because I think I've kind of already decided on the one that I want right now. And then the last one is more broader in that the, the idea of the Toma pen is fantastic to me. And in the past, you know, I've gotten to see some of their, some, most of their pens are like, are gigantic. And they have these gigantic pens and they, these gigantic nibs, but they've started to make a smaller model and I got to use one in San Francisco. So this smaller model fits my hand well. And once I got to like a barrel size that I found that I enjoy from them, I was curious about the nib because they're these very long nibs. Like you'll have to go look at them. They're very unique. I'm almost like a custom made nib, but, and my, my concern was that they were going to be too flexy because they're very big and they're made from gold, but they're not, it was like a really firm nib, the one, the pen that I got to test. And now that's back on the list. That's a, that's a mega expensive pen. Like that's something that I would have to really, really think about and really find the right one. That's not just something you buy on a whim.
Myke Hurley: This reminds me a little bit of like, not really in style, but like in, in idea and, and there's like a, some similarity to the, is it Ebelwood?
Brad Dowdy: So the Elwood. So that Elwood was probably, probably my most interesting pen purchase from last year. Like it's one of my favorite pens. The Elwood pocket master is the model I have. The Tomas are bigger. There's just something about it. It's like,
Myke Hurley: you have to think about it. You want to make sure you do it right. They're really well made, but there's also like a cylindricalness. Yes. To both of them, whether there's a similarity that I feel.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. I think that's fair to like, they have the same idea, small maker, like one person shops, right. But they're making like really high end, really detailed, really almost custom. They're not necessarily custom, but it's that type of feel, right. You're buying something very, very special. So that was the, the Elwood was my celebration pen for episode 500. And still like, that was, I didn't do like really a pen of the year for like 2022, but that was probably one of my best purchases of the year. Just in what I'm looking for, as far as uniqueness, feel and style for me personally. Right. But again, like you're alluding to, like, it's not for everyone, like not by a long shot.
Myke Hurley: So what is the ordering process for one of these? I don't know. I don't know.
Brad Dowdy: I would ask. So see why has one. I would probably ask my friends. I would, I would probably just start a, probably started like an Instagram DM with them and say, Hey, I see this model that you've shown. Can we do something like this? Like it would, it would be a process. Like, you know, it's, I would imagine like, this is not something you necessarily just go buy off the shelf. Right. So it would be a longterm thinking about and building process to get something like this. So I kind of want to, I kind of want to see him again in person because I was kind of, I had written them off because of the size before, but now these, these smaller ones that they seem to be making more of and getting to hold one going, Oh yeah, like this is going to be a problem. Like as soon as I got that in my hand, I was like, Oh yeah, it's good. It's, it's, it's, it works for me when I thought it would just wouldn't work for me. So yeah, that's a, that's, that's on the, the big picture longterm. Uh, I guess we need to get to episode a thousand for me to celebrate again. So it might be like 10 years from now, I'll celebrate with that pen. Start saving up now.
Myke Hurley: Oh, sorry, but that's going to be a really long time.
Myke Hurley: The one thing I kind of have in my mind for 2023, um, is I want to buy some stationary in person. I've realized, you know, over the last couple of years, such, I've added such little to my collection. And I think the biggest change for me is I haven't been able to buy products in person. You know, I was going to a couple of pen shows a year and I would spend the most money there and buy special things, things that I would fall in love with that way. And I feel like I need that to come back again. Um, for me. And so like, I'm trying to work out what that's going to look like. By the way, Brad, I realize now something got lost in our break here, like in a, in a little time. I got the Bulbasaur pen.
Brad Dowdy: Nice. You told me it was on the way. So let's save that for next week. I want a full breakdown. Okay. I want a full breakdown of that. Let's save that for next week because I think that's a, I want to explore that a little bit.
Myke Hurley: Okay. But yeah, I, you know, that, that was something where like, I would have got that no matter what it was, you know what I mean? It would have been like, I don't know, like a pencil or whatever, you know, but, um, but yeah, I, I want to bring some stuff back in, but I don't know what, like the only things that I've been adding to my collection consistently is Mark ones. You know, I have like seven of them now or something ridiculous.
Brad Dowdy: I got a pretty sweet one. I don't know if I'll talk about it. You've got a pretty sweet one.
Relay FM Annual Gifts
Myke Hurley: Uh, I mean, you can, we could talk about it and show it off, but like, so every year, uh, Relay FM, we, we gift our hosts something like as a thank you for being with us another year. We've done like, um, we did a wooden block that our friend, friend of the show, Myke Dudek helped us do. That was the first one. Uh, we've done like enamel pins. Um, we've done challenge coins, challenge coins, uh, but this year, bottles, we, yeah, the Yeti mug, the bottle, like this is stuff that just like hosts and some friends, um, in like the art discord mods, get them to, but we did a, uh, custom Mark one. So we did like, we formulated a Sarah cook color with Tom and Dan and did an engraving on it. And I think it's sick. I think it's my favorite.
Brad Dowdy: I was so surprised. Oh, you did a Fisher space pen. I think the first year I forgot. The first one. Yeah. I think it was the black, the black one, when the engraving, but this is my favorite Mark one. I don't have as many as you, but I do have the orange one. So that's a pretty good, like, you know, I like the orange, uh, a lot. Tom and Dan sent me that because they know I like the orange. I think this is my favorite one. So I'll put a picture of it on Instagram.
Myke Hurley: There's not many of them blue with like some, some like glitter in it kind of like, it's got like some, some flex in there. And then like a goldie copper knock. It's awesome. It's so good. It's so good. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Like I didn't know, like I knew I could say to you, like, Oh my God, thank you. But like, I didn't want to say it out loud, like to the internet. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: This is just like one of those things like gang, no matter how much you may ask for it. Like we're never going to sell something like this for, for relay. Uh, cause it's pretty expensive. It's like a large commitment. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. To, to buy in on it. But like, yeah, it came out really good. Really, really good. Yeah. Like if I post that on,
Brad Dowdy: post it, if I post that on Instagram, it's just going to cause y'all problems. So yeah, people always want everything,
Myke Hurley: like the water bottles and stuff like that. Like we know. And like, there's nothing we can do about it.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So I appreciate that. That was really, really great. As soon as I opened it, I was like, Oh God. Yeah. It was great. So, um, but yeah, one last thing, uh, just, uh, revisiting what you said about being in person. Like the, the pen shows definitely make a difference to like, um, you know, like my enjoyment of the stationary. So I hope to get, hope to get back out there a little bit more this year. Um, that's one of the reasons why the Panatic 100 is delayed because I went berserk at, uh, San Francisco and Orlando back to Mac months. I still have like, there's, I was still looking. There's, uh, two pens I haven't even used from Orlando yet. So that's why there was a little bit of delay in this project. Getting going is like, I needed to regroup here real quick, take a break. Um, like I haven't really bought anything since then because I'm still going through using the stuff. So, um, I think next week we'll talk about using stuff, um, getting some new pens inked up for the new year, things I'm using, things I'm enjoying, um, things I'm going to work on, uh, being, being the healer and healing myself first. Um, good man, uh, with, so, uh, getting some great enjoyment out of this stationary world in 2023. And I look forward to it.
Myke Hurley: If you want to catch up with what we're talking about here, find some links. You can go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash five, four, five. If you want to find Brad in the meantime, we've got a pen addict.com.
Myke Hurley: Spokedesign.com. Twitch. Twitch.tv slash pen addict three times a week. Brad streams over on Twitch and go to pen addict on Instagram. Still doing Twitter.
Brad Dowdy: Uh, I'm around. I'm answering on Twitter. Yeah. I'm answering tweets. I'm not necessarily like direct posting. We should probably talk about that next week to talk about like a little social media changes and things like that. So we'll, we'll update next week, but the best way to find all my stuff, if you go to pen addict.com, I'm trying to do a really good job at keeping the menu bar up top, all my current projects. So you can just click through all those links there for the podcast, for the stream, for any social media stuff that I'm doing and, uh, all that fun stuff.
Myke Hurley: Uh, you can find me. I'm I Myke on Instagram. I am Y K E at Myke Hurley.net and at theme system.com where you can find out more about the theme system. Uh, this is a slight thing, a thing we're working on. So we've always used us TPA, right? In the past. Yeah. So there are, you can still do the RCPA in the ways you've always been able to, even if we're not using Twitter, if you are, Oh, absolutely. You can do hashtag RCPA and they'll still go into our thing. If you're in our members discord, you can use question mark RCPA. And now also in the show notes for every episode, you will see a link that says submit feedback. You can click that link and you will go to a form on the relay FM website where you can submit your questions, follow up, whatever you want for the show. And then they go to us to look at Brad. I'll tell you how to do that later on. Uh, this is a brand new thing. Or if you want to go to your web browser, go to pen addict feedback.com. It will take you to the form. This is a new thing we're trying out because as more and more relay hosts, uh, not on Twitter and not on Twitter as much, or especially for me not being on and people want to send follow up and feedback. I don't want to make it out that like, you should pay to be in the discord as the way to get feedback to me and to us. Right. So this is a free way for you to just go to our website and leave the feedback, um, and then we'll see it.
Brad Dowdy: Excellent. Love it. So, well, yeah, we'll explore all these, all these little, uh, little slight changes, uh, next week. Cause I have a bunch of things I want to just kind of discuss. They're out there. There's some links to share about some of the just technical changes and, uh, social media changes that, uh, I'm, uh, using, uh, and changing for 2023. So yeah, it's all good stuff.
Myke Hurley: We'll be back next time. Thanks to uni pizza ovens for the support of this episode. And thank you for listening until then say goodbye, Brad.
Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.