The Pen Addict 491/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	491
Title:	The Symphony
Release Date:	December 8th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Anabelle Hiller
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 491
Audio File:	Audio Episode 491
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 491
Length:	6666 min <br />1.1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Brad: Hello and welcome to The Pen Addict podcast. This is episode 491. That's a lot of episodes. As you can tell, my name is Brad. This is not Myke. Myke is in his velvet jacket gallivanting around the world once again. And so he has asked me to step in, find a guest. And this is a guest I've actually been wanting on here for a while. And I am very excited to introduce Annabelle Hiller to the show. Hello, Annabelle. How are you?

Annabelle Hiller: Hello. I'm good. What an honour to be invited on.

Brad: I'm really excited to talk to you. I've followed you online for years. We've talked, you know, as internet people talk, like we air quote talk. It's like, hey, Annabelle, do you know about this pen? Or hey, can I send someone to you to fix something for them? But I have to ask the most Myke question I've ever asked. And this is one of the things that he's known for that I'm not really known for, because I personally don't like this question. But for you, I really have to know how you're going to answer this question. What is it that you say you do?

Annabelle Hiller: What do I do? That depends on who you ask, probably, depending on where they might connect. But I'm a jack of lots of things. I guess I'm a designer, kind of. I am a goldsmith, that I know. I'm a nip specialist slash nipmeister, if you like that word. Fiedermeister, maybe. I don't know.

Introduction

Brad: We can discuss that. We can discuss that terminology later. That's actually a good point.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah, I make stuff and I fix stuff so that they may continue to work in the future.

Brad: That's beautiful. That's exactly what I think. That's a great way to put it. Because I get that question and it's impossible to ask when you do lots of things. I mean, it's impossible to answer when you do a lot of things. And I've boiled it down to when I'm talking with people I don't know, I just say, I talk about pens on the internet. And then they do that sideways dog head tilt. What did you just say? I mean, we can explore that more if you want, but otherwise, I'm good with that. But I like how you said that. I design things to let people use them for the entirety of their life. So that's great. So I want to dig into your background. I asked you that question because knowing you a little bit, I know you're into a lot of things. And when I first discovered you online, I can't remember, it's been years. But I was like, oh, look at Annabelle's Instagram. There's harps everywhere. So let's start with the music background. And tell me what music was a part of your life and how that period of time was for you.

Annabelle Hiller: Right. So the audience can't see me right now, but you can. And there's a harp right behind me, as you can tell. So yeah, I grew up with a ton of music, maybe because I'm Austrian. And that's just a lot of music is very, very important in Austria. It's very heavily funded by the government. It's very easy to get any sort of musical education. And so I was kind of thrown into it at a very, very early age. I started playing the piano when I was six. And I started playing a harp when I was 10. I started conservatory for harp when I was 12.

Brad: Wow.

Annabelle Hiller: And just kind of did that. I went to a music high school in Vienna, which is for people like me that would, that started conservatory quite early, but still wanted to get a high school diploma. So there'd be a lot of like music classes baked into that high school. So you could get credit for the conservatory. So I just, I did that a lot. So that was my main thing for, I don't know, for so long. And when I was around 17, I realized that had I actually practiced more, that I could be really, really good. Cause I was, I think I was solid. Like I was, I had potential for sure, which is why I could get away with not practicing for ages. And then at some point I was like, Oh, wait, my colleagues, they're like way ahead of me. Damn it. Okay. Let's, let's buckle down. And let's actually go for this. So I decided to audition at different conservatories all around Europe. And the conservatory in Amsterdam was crazy enough to let me in. And that's why I moved from Austria to the Netherlands to study with this very renowned teacher, um, that teaches here and thought she would give me a chance for whatever reason. Um, so that's kind of my music background. I did that for about a year and a half and then I had to quit for various reasons. Um, but yeah, music was the focus of, of what I thought would be my professional life for well over a decade.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. You put a lot of time in, in, in effort into that. And I have to ask you specifically, what drew you to the harp as like your, your preferred instrument of choice?

Annabelle Hiller: Um, several things I'd say. So first I actually wanted to play the cello when I was little, but my mom wouldn't allow us to play an instrument where you had to control the pitch yourself. Cause that can sound very, very bad for a long time before you like get a clip on that.

Brad: She was, she was, it was self-preservation on her part.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah, for sure. Um, but when I was 10, um, we were in Salzburg for the summer. Um, Salzburg is also where my mom is from and where Mozart was born and all that fun stuff. And we were just in the inner city and there was a harpist playing on the street, just busking. And I saw that and I was like, why? What's that? That's, that's nice. And I just, I sat down in front of the, like as close as I could, like, you know, as I could get without being too embarrassed. And just, I sat down and listened to her and I thought maybe 10 minutes had gone by, but apparently it's been like two hours. And at some point my mom was like, where's that daughter of mine? What happened? Um, I was just mesmerized. And that's kind of when I decided I wanted to play that. And, uh, my mom being who she is, she was like, okay, I guess, I guess that's her second instrument now. Cause everybody plays at least

Brad: two instruments. So. So yours was piano. First piano and then harp. And then we also did lots of singing and choir stuff. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. One, one more, uh, one more harp question, because I, I am just really, really ignorant in, in this whole thing. And I'm, I'm fascinated to know, how would you compare the level of difficulty of playing the harp to like just any other instruments in general, where would it stack as far as complexity? Cause from an outsider, for someone like myself, who knows absolutely nothing, it seems like one of the most intimidating, there's no way I could make this, you know, sound pretty at all type of instruments.

Annabelle Hiller: Right. I mean, so I kind of have a default answer to that, which is every instrument is kind of hard and kind of easy. Um, so, so what's really easy with the harp is just to generally get something that sounds kind of nice. You just pluck a few strings and you're like, Oh, wow. Pretty. Um, however, on the harp, you don't usually just play a chord or a melody. It gets quite complicated. The, um, just the repertoire that we play is kind of tricky. And also the fact that we don't just have two hands, but also two feet, because we have seven pedals that we need to take care of as well. So that's, that's hard. Um, and if we attempt to try anything chromatic, I don't, I don't know if you know how a harp works. Um, I don't know if you know much about music theory in general. Not really. Not really. Okay. So I could get into that, but pedals and chromatic stuff is really, really hard compared to on the piano, for instance, like a piano is fairly easy to just kind of get a, just to play something simple, but there's like the repertoire can get so, so, so hard. Um, whereas a violin, it's really, really hard to make it sound good. And so the threshold to get just something basic to sound good is quite high. I see, but they never have to play harmony. They never have to play like super big chords or whatever. They don't have to

Brad: coordinate all four limbs. So does that why violinists think they're so special?

Annabelle Hiller: I mean, the violin is very, very special. If you like, so something that I really, really, I wouldn't say I'm, I'm jealous, but something that I wish the harp was capable of is just having one note and just putting so much, like, I don't know, you can, because with a violin, you can play one note and you can expand, expand it and you can let it get it quiet and loud again. You can add like a vibrato kind of thing, but on the harp, you pluck the string and that's it. It can't grow anymore. It can't, you just pluck it and it fades away. And that's something that I super, super love about string instruments that a harp or a piano just can't do, sadly.

Brad: I'm assuming that's how your, uh, your very now famous Instagram handle at strings and pedals, which we will share, we will share in the show notes, right?

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It just then moved into pen stuff. And now I feel like I can't change it anymore because I've always had it. And that's how people know me. And now that'll be my username.

Brad: Yep. Yep. I think so. And, and just for listeners out there, that wasn't, uh, Annabelle playing the harp a moment ago. That was actually the bell of the town hall in the background. And I want to leave them in because it was perfectly matched to when you were talking about how to play the harp and these bells started coming in and it was amazing. And I loved it. You told me that might happen and I'm excited that it did.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah, it'll happen a few more times. I'm very sorry.

Brad: No, it's, it's, it's perfect. So you, you started to mention pens, but I'm not going to let you get all the way there yet because you had a transition when you decided that, you know, like pursuing music, you know, for the future wasn't necessarily the plan and you change paths. Um, I don't want to say like completely, like it's a completely different medium, but I think the idea of say moving, moving from music to jewelry making, which you did, I think there's, you know, just the way I think about that type of work. I think there's a lot of crossover in the person who does that in that you're working with your mind, you're working with your hands, you're, you know, you're making something, you know, just from your own creation and then you have a platform to share that thing. So how did you get into jewelry making and what was that transition like? Um, yeah, so actually I'm going

Annabelle Hiller: to cut you off right there. I don't really care about jewelry and I've never cared about jewelry.

Brad: Okay. So that's the wrong terminology.

Career Transition

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, so here's, here's what happened. Um, I had to quit music for one reason or another. Um, it being, it just wasn't feasible for me, uh, mentally I have horrible stage fright and that's not great if you study music performance. Sure. Um, but I also couldn't not do something creative. In fact, I never thought I was creative. I always thought I was recreative because I didn't compose music myself. I just played what somebody else invented, but I knew I had to do something or I could, I don't know, leave my mark behind or whatever. Um, and I actually decided to do this goldsmithing study that I did not because of jewelry. I don't really care about jewelry. I don't really wear it. I did it because I wanted to make pens. Um, I knew that I wanted to work with pens in some regard. Um, I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what that would entail, but I figured learning how to manipulate metal is probably the best way to get there. And then as I did my goldsmithing study, it's, they just make you make jewelry and which is kind of cool because jewelry isn't, I mean, jewelry can be anything, right? It can be quite artistic. So you do learn a sense of, I don't know what is visually appealing, um, a sense for shape and, and art and composition and stuff. So that's definitely cool and helpful, but, and I will make jewelry occasionally, um, say like engagement rings for my friends or whatever, but it's not really what I, what I got into metal work for. That makes sense. Gotcha. So yeah. So like the,

Brad: the focus is really, I mean, I, to, I know, I guess I have to trying to define it without defining it, but like goldsmithing and metalworking is more of the correct terminology for what you do and what you want to do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, tell me about the, the, the program you went through, cause I was following you kind of your journey and the, you know, all, all the, the ups and downs and trials and tribulations. And it was, it's like a real, like, it's a big deal to go

Annabelle Hiller: through what you went through. Right. Um, yeah. Ask me a more specific question. Cause there's so

Brad: much I could say. What was the schooling like, right? You had to go to school or were you working with like other masters and trainers specifically? So what was the process like of becoming essentially a, a, a master goldsmith? Is that the correct terminology? I guess kind of it's, that's also a

Annabelle Hiller: whole thing. Um, cause in the Netherlands, uh, there's not really like a law that says once you have done this, you're a masters that there's a guild that says you've had, you have to have run your own business for 10 years and have taught in order to consider yourself a master. However, I did make a masterpiece at the end of my study. So yeah, it's, it's a whole thing. Nobody agrees on anything. Um, gotcha. And I think in Austria, had I done the same course, I would be considered a master goldsmith there. So do with that what you will. Um, yes. How many, how many years was,

Brad: have you spent working on this? Four years, baby. Nice, nice. Yeah. So that's awesome. So it was

Annabelle Hiller: actually, it was interesting cause I had this idea that goldsmithing might be cool, but I had no, I, I'd never done anything like it. So, but what I learned, um, or realized over it. So I basically just jumped into it thinking, let's just try this. Maybe this is the thing. Um, and I got really lucky in that it was the thing that I ended up being good at and that, and what I, what I particularly loved about goldsmithing is that, um, so with harp, right, you usually have a certain time period where you prepare for a concert or whatever, but what really matters is the day of performance. If you screw up on that day, people just think you're bad. I, I'm not, I'm not swearing. I'm trying

Brad: my best. I'm going to give you a behind the scenes, give the listeners a behind the scenes. Annabelle

Annabelle Hiller: has a swear button. Oh yeah. Okay. If I up, then people are going to think I'm

Brad: Myke is so happy right now.

Annabelle Hiller: So, yeah. So, so the, the main thing that matters is the day of performance. If I don't feel well that day, I'm, it's just not going to go well. However, you're defined by that. Yeah, exactly. That's just what people are going to perceive you as. But with goldsmithing, you have a whole month or however long to prepare something. And on the day of the presentation, it doesn't matter how you feel because you've already done the work. You've already done everything that you needed to do. And funnily enough, even so at, at the, the last year and a half of my study was just pure internship. So you work with goldsmiths and they teach you and whatever. And I noticed even then that just by the fact that I was observed, I did much worse. Hmm. So it's really this me being observed makes me feel really, really insecure and it's silly, but that's why I work from home and nobody can bother me here.

Brad: Yeah. See, I don't think it's silly as all. Who's someone who deals with, you know, anxiety and like, you know, having to perform and things like that. Like it's a real thing and then can be just like debilitating. And I'm glad that it sounds like, you know, the gold, the goldsmithing is, is really kind of what you were meant to do. And you're able to use that platform to go into pins. And you, you mentioned before, like you decided to kind of go down this path because you wanted to make pins or, or make, or be involved in that industry. So I want to talk about that. I want to get into how kind of the, the pin thing started and, um, and kind of break all that down and then tie all this in together. But first, let me take a quick break and talk about one of our sponsors this week. And that's, uh, that's Harry's. So you can hang out and chill for a minute, Annabelle. I'm going to, I'm going to get this, uh, Harry's ad in, in, and this episode of the Pinonic is brought to you by Harry's. Harry's is the gift that keeps on giving their blades are sharp and long lasting and still as low as $2 each when it's finally time to replace them. Um, I'm a Harry's customer. I'm a Harry's fan. I use pretty much all of their products, um, especially the razor blades. They are the best I have ever used. I'm probably, I don't know, well into six, seven, eight years into using them. They're great. They're the perfect gift because they offer high quality and fair prices. They make sharp blades that last German engineered and award running razors that are backed by a hundred percent quality guarantee. So if your recipient doesn't love their shave, you'll get a full refund this holiday season. Listeners can get $5 off plus free shipping on Harry's limited edition holiday shave set. Go to harrys.com slash pin addict and check out, check out everything that they offer. The sets come with a weighted handle, three razor cartridges, foaming shave gel, and a travel cover. Everything that you need for a smooth shave, all packaged in a handsome holiday gift box. To claim your $5 off plus free shipping, go to harrys.com slash pin addict. Our thanks to Harry's for support of this show and relay FM. So I think, um, $5 off of your final, uh, project in goldsmithing class probably wouldn't make a big dent in the purchase price of, of the pen that came out of it. So we will have a link specifically in the show notes for what I'm talking about right now, but can

Annabelle Hiller: you discuss, um, the symphony? Oh boy. Oh, I could, I, in fact, I have talked about it for hours and

Brad: hours and hours. Oh, I hope I'm not bringing up any bad thoughts. Oh, no, no, no, no. Um, no, it's just,

Annabelle Hiller: so if you work on something for so long and you've invested so many hours of your life into it, it's very difficult to summarize, but the symphony is a pen. Very good. Yes. Um, and it's so, so when you do this, this four year study, um, I, I guess I haven't answered the question properly earlier. So it's a four year study. The first two and a half years, you kind of learn all the basic techniques, be it engraving, stone setting, just sewing, filing, whatever handy skills you need as a goldsmith. And the last year and a half, um, you work with goldsmiths and just get more trained and they also prepare you to make your final masterpiece. Um, which you spend about a year working on. So with the symphony, um, I decided to go back to my music roots. Um, as we mentioned, I was a harpist and I decided to also go back to, I guess, my, my geographic roots. Um, because the, the foundation for the symphony pen is Gustav Mahler's fifth symphony. Um, Mahler himself grew up, well, is that right? Um, I guess he did grow up, um, or at least spend his adult years in Austria. He was a Jewish composer and conductor and he wasn't very liked at AHA because it was the year 1902. And, um, you know, historically lots of stuff was brewing there. Um, but he composed this symphony, which the theme of the symphony also spoke very, uh, closely to me, which is, it, it kind of deals with, with death and what one does, um, to get over it. Not really the stages of grief, but what happens when somebody dies, what, how does it kind of affect you? And every, the symphony consists of five, uh, movements and every movement I kind of adapted and transformed into one part of the pen. Um, which is why it doesn't look super mega coherent just because every movement kind of deals with a different aspect of, yeah, what you go through. And so there's like the overlay of the pen. If people click on the picture, I love the overlay. It's my favorite part. It's also coincidentally my favorite part of the symphony, which is the adegetto. And, um, yeah, that's what I did. I tried to turn music into something visual and it turned into a pen. Surprise, surprise. And, uh, that's why it's called the symphony. And I like it.

Brad: I hope so. Cause it is absolutely stunning. I have to ask you before I dig into more of the

Stationery Discovery

Annabelle Hiller: stationary stuff, where's the symphony right now? Uh, right now it's on display at Applebaum. Gotcha. Yeah. I don't know. Cause otherwise it would be in my room and that would be a waste. I think

Brad: maybe it's kind of nice. Right. So I have this long running statement that I say repeatedly that pens are made to be used. This is not, this is an exception to that rule. This is an art piece. Other people should share in the joy of this pen as much as any individual user. I believe it's just, it's stunning and it deserves to be seen and discussed. Um, I kind of agree. I kind of disagree as

Annabelle Hiller: well. So the thing, as soon as I can figure out how to make a second one, I will make a second one. And that one I'm going to use to death. It's perfect. I hate that I can't use it, but I don't, but right now it's the only, it's, it's also kind of a prototype. Um, really? Cause how often can you actually make a pen that costs that much material? Um, and I'm also going to make more for people. Like I will, I decided that I'll make another five pieces, um, because it's the fifth symphony. Um, perfect. This one being number zero, cause it's mine. Um, but as soon as, uh, as soon as I can figure out how to take care of all the parts, um, I'll make more and then I'll, I'll use that one. I don't want it at Applebaum. Uh, I, I mean, I want one at Applebaum maybe for people to look at and to see my work, but I want to use it. I want to use it so much. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

Brad: That's awesome. So how did, how did stationary become a thing in your life to begin with? Like, so, you know, you've had this whole music background and you're in goldsmithing, but you've always had kind of a background of love for stationary. So how did that start?

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. So, um, again, I'm from Austria. Austria is super old school with a lot of things. Um, and that includes in primary school or elementary school, um, you, uh, we have to use fountain pens to write or had to, I don't know what happens now. I guess nowadays kids just learn coding or whatever. Um, which to be fair is really cool. Kind of jealous. Um, I'm kind of like technically inept, but back in my day in the nineties, um, in, in primary school, we had to learn to write writing and particularly accursive with fountain pens. So my first fountain pen was a Pelican Pelicano P something, something. I don't remember. It's blue. It's very ugly, but it's great.

Brad: Yeah. As great as Pelican is the Pelicanos. Well, yeah, that's a thing.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. They're not cute. They're not cute. Um, so I've always used it. And I remember in high school, people would then usually switch to ballpoints. I remember not particularly liking them because you had to apply so much pressure and you'd kind of press through the paper and I didn't love that. So I kind of, I tried it a few times and every time I found myself going back to fountain pens because just because they felt better to me. Yeah. When I was 18, I, I asked for a, like a nice fountain pen for my birthday, like a, whatever that means. Right. Right. Right. And I ended up getting a vintage Montblanc 144. However, the people at the shop didn't want me to use a gold nib because I'm left-handed. So I ended up getting a glass nib

Brad: in the Montblanc. Can you imagine that happening right now?

Annabelle Hiller: Uh, yeah. The irony is, I don't know, it's tangible. It's, it's really funny considering how many pens I've had, I've like saved in the last few years. Um, wow. But yeah, so when I got that, when I did research as to which pen I would like for my birthday, I, I, that's when I fell into my

Brad: rabbit hole. Oh boy, that was 10 years ago. Wow. What happened? Yeah. I mean, pens happened, like it happened to me too. It's like, wow, this is actually a thing and it matters to me. And I want to share that with other people. And it's so cool. So as you went down kind of this fountain pen journey and were you just kind of using them all day? It was like, it was your main, main writing instrument. Did you enjoy fountain pens? And that was just kind of, you know, that's what you used and you use them, you know, through school and through life and things like that.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah, for sure. But there was also something, I don't know. It's actually kind of funny looking back. Um, I remember having to do homework when I was like maybe seven, your homework would be write 10 sentences about something. And I remember just being so distracted by my pen that I, it took me ages to do the homework because I just kept looking at how, how the ink came out of the pen. I'm pretty sure I've destroyed a few nips as well because I wanted more ink to come out of the pen. Um, yeah, I, I don't know, you know, there's just something magical about pens and how the, how the ink just comes onto the paper. And then if you, for the first time get a vintage pen and you just wonder about who has used it, what might've been written with this thing? Like who knows? Um, and then at some point I wanted to figure out how pens write, what makes them write, what doesn't make them write. Um, so I would buy, uh, like broken old fountain pens at antiquity stores and try to kind of restore them, figure out why they work and why they don't work and on and on it went.

Brad: And, and now you actually take on work as repairing pens, doing nib work. You work with Apple Boom. Is it, is it fair to say you work for Apple Boom or work with Apple Boom?

Annabelle Hiller: Um, I think, hmm, good question. It's kind of, it's, it's maybe like a mix between the two. I am, I'm not a freelancer who is hired in. I do have like a regular paycheck, but when it comes to, I have a lot of, um, I don't know, yes, the, the relationship between me and yours, yours is my boss at Apple Boom. Um, it's very, how, how, I can't think of the word, like we'd consider each other more colleagues and partners than anything else. Right. So he will always take my opinion into consideration when it comes to pen shows. Um, I usually don't work as an Apple Boom nib specialist, but I'm my own person.

Brad: Right. That kind of stuff. So you do, you work with them, work for them, but you also have personal clients, personal work. And, you know, we have something very specific I want to talk about later that you're, that you're doing and that you're building. Um, but yeah, it's like, but it's a good, I mean, it's a good, like working relationship. And if people go to Yoast or, or see Apple Boom, they, they know that a lot of times that, you know, if they need some repairs that you will be working on them, especially, um, especially in the Netherlands and in, in Europe and maybe eventually in the U S I don't know.

Annabelle Hiller: I mean, so yeah, so I actually don't take on private nip work on at all anymore because I, because I suck at admin. I suck at replying to emails. Like, is it a bad word? It's suck about, I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Brad: No, no, it's no, I'm feeling your pain in that. Like the, the admin, the admin work for creative people is like the worst bugaboo, right? It's, it's the worst. It's like, can't I just do the thing and then magic happens from there? Like, yeah, exactly. Like I don't, how often do I have to

Annabelle Hiller: tell people to just send the pen to Apple Boom and order the product on the Apple Boom website and we'll ship it back. And then my colleagues do the shipping. I just, who's got time to do admin, except unless that's your main thing, right? Like I appreciate Yoast so much. He replies to all the emails. He does, he does all the customer care stuff. Um, very grateful that he does that because I could not, it's stress. It also stresses me out so much to, it's like, where's my pen? Why is it not done yet? I was like, because he gave it to me two days ago. Sorry.

Brad: No, no, no, no. So do you have a, um, like a, a workspace set up at home? Is that where you do most of the work? Do you have a workspace set up at, at work? Yeah. Uh, Annabelle is showing me the setup right now. Like I, I, that was a, it was an easy question for me to ask because I can visually see it of our call right now. Um, so yeah, you take on most of the work at home.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm at, I'm at Applebaum once a week. And so Mondays, usually Mondays I do. So we have a service called, um, what do we call it? Tuning smooth, maybe. So a lot of the times when you order a pen at Applebaum, there's a little checkbox. And if you check it, then the pen will end up on my table before we ship it out to you. And that's basically just me making sure that the pen actually writes. Um, sometimes people say, Oh, I like it super wet and super smooth, but it's also a needle point. Um, so I'll try to, to make that happen for the person. And so Mondays out just for that, just the kind of quality control stuff before the pen goes out and then any nib grinds and actual repair, um, I do at home and I just take the bags of pens at home every week and do that.

Brad: Gotcha. What, I just had a question that I am very interested in and hopefully I think other people will be interested in. What is your, um, quality control ink of choice? What are you using to test

Annabelle Hiller: the pens? To the detriment of many, many, many people, I use the same ink always and it's

Brad: diamond majestic blue. All right. All right. I just had, I had, I had to get that on the record. Uh, I it's, it's funny how much I want to know people who do this for a living and are trying to gain consistent results. They will commit to, you know, especially people doing nib work and maintenance work. They commit to like a singular ink for that works. Cause so now, you know what to expect you personally, what to expect. Oh, I've delivered this correctly and this is the ink I use. So I always want to ask that question. Yeah, absolutely. You have to limit your variables,

Writing Consistency

Annabelle Hiller: right? So the only variable you want is the nib. The paper has to be the same and the ink

Brad: has to be the same. And then. Okay. So what's the paper now? The rhodia. Okay. Because

Annabelle Hiller: Abba Womb sells it and that means I can just grab it from the back. And I think that might be the

Brad: most common. Yeah. It's funny that, um, all the, all the nibmeisters use blue. I wonder why, why is that, is blue just generally more, um, I don't know. Um, To be fair. A little bit better performance. Almost. No, I never see anyone use black.

Annabelle Hiller: Uh, I mean, okay. Uh, black is a rough one, right? Cause it'd be super unsatisfactory if the black wasn't very, very black. Yeah. Um, but if it's too black, then it's too hard to clean. Yes. Um, and that's, if I could go back in time, I would maybe choose a different ink because diamond majestic blue kind of sticky and kind of hard to clean, but it's just kind of what I've always done. So that's what we're going to stick with. I'm not going to change it up now.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. It matters. Like it, it really matters. The people who work on products like you do, like it, it matters to like your consistency, your quality of work and to how comfortable you are within sending that onto the customer saying, Hey, I did a great job here and this is the result and enjoy your pen. Exactly. All right. So I want to, I want to bring in, um, some talk about the Dutch pen show because I have actually a lot of questions about that. I don't know. I don't know how much you're involved in that, but I want to, I want to take our last break right here so we can really dig into this. Cause I'm, it's more of a curiosity thing for me. And like, I didn't know, even before I talked to you, like if you're even involved in it at all, but I have questions. So, but let me first talk about if I came over to the Dutch pen show and I slept in a hotel, would I get to use the hello pillow? So this episode of the pen addict is brought to you by hello. Hello make incredibly comfortable buckwheat pillows. I don't know if you ever tried one, but it's pretty different than your regular fluffy pillows. They're amazing. I use one then like, I can't not use it. It's kind of crazy. It supports your head and neck and doesn't collapse under the weight of your head. Like traditional pillows, hollow stays cool and dry compared to feather or foam pillows. Plus buckwheat tends to breathe better, meaning it doesn't get all warm and humid. So no more flipping to the cool side of the pillow. It's always cool. And you can add or remove filling to suit your needs. So your pillow can be just the way you like it. Turns out people have actually been sleeping on buckwheat pillows for years. They're popular in Japan and also appear on the pillow menus at fancy hotels that I'm going to stay in when I come to the Dutch pen show.

Annabelle Hiller: Wow. Wow.

Brad: So I love these pillows. I love them so much. They're made in the USA with quality construction and materials. Certified organic cotton case is cut and sewn for durability and the buckwheat is grown and built in the United States. So here's the deal. You're probably curious to try one of these things out by now and you can, you can sleep on it for 60 nights. And then if hollow isn't for you, you just send it back for a refund. Head to hellopillow.com slash pen addict right now to get your own buckwheat pillow. That's hellopillow.com slash pen addict. And if you buy more than one, they have a special discount for up to $20 off, depending on which size you opt for. They have fast and free shipping with every order and 1% of all profits are donated to the nature conservancy. So give it a try. If you love it, keep it. If you don't just send it back. So head over to hellopillow, that's h-u-l-l-o pillow.com slash pen addict. And our thanks to hello for their support of this show and Relay FM. All right. So yeah. Are you going to bring me one of those when you come to the Dutch franchise? The only problem is it weighs like 20 pounds.

Annabelle Hiller: Just an extra suitcase. That's fine. Which is perfect actually, because you're going to have to bring back a whole suitcase full of pen stuff. Exactly. And I'm thinking I will just,

Brad: if I go to the hotel with the pillow menu, I'll just steal it from there and bring it to you. Perfect. So that'd be easier. Perfect. Perfect. All right. So tell me about the Dutch pen show. Are you involved in any of the show? Like as far as like creation admin running of the show,

Annabelle Hiller: or is your involvement strictly like attendee slash vendor? I am weirdly involved in the Dutch pen show. Um, well, it's not, I guess it's not that surprising. So there are four hosts of the Dutch pen show, which is four different shops. And I don't know how much I'm supposed to say, but my colleague at Applebaum really does most of it. Um, her name is Chris and she almost single-handedly organizes everything, which this year was a rough job. Um, due to, I don't know if you know, but there's been this

Brad: slight health crisis going on globally. A little bit might've heard of something.

Annabelle Hiller: Um, and so I think it's called Kony. It is, it is. Um, except Kony seems to have gone away. Um, so my, so the way that the Netherlands has been handling this whole thing is that every few weeks or months we have, Oh, you hear the bells again. Um, you can, uh, we have these press conferences where they say what's going to be allowed or not allowed for the next month, month and a half or whatever. So really we had a hot month and a half to put the whole, uh, pen show together, which is really, really hard. Um, and her being, um, a close friend and colleague of mine, I was like, okay, anything you can't, you can't handle or can't like, don't want to do, just throw it at me. I'll try. Um, so I kind of taught myself how to use, um, Adobe illustrator this year. So I've been trying to help with like all the like visual stuff. We, um, I, I helped kind of figure out any logo and any sort of like posters and flyers and, um, like the floor plan and all that. I've been trying to help with that. Um, but that also means that I've just kind of known who's going to be there and what's going to happen, what the schedule is. So yeah, I heard a lot and I helped as much as I could. Um, so, so there comes the, you're probably going to ask, Oh, what's the show like? Um, and that's about all I know. Cause I know what we prepared, but what happened to show itself? I am not sure. Cause I was at my table and there were lots of people and I like, I got up twice to pee

Brad: and that's about it. Um, yeah, I, you don't have to explain anything to me about that. I understand completely. It's like, I was there and it was busy and now I'm home. Yeah. Yeah. But like,

Annabelle Hiller: particularly just cause I just sit at my table, I have like a line of people waiting every now and then I look up and check the line and I think, Oh God, make it stop. Oh no. What do I do next? And then I have the next person and then they go away and I hope they're happier than before they sat down. And then it was crazy because, um, the, the last time we had the Dutch pen show, um, my friend John Srofke, um, who's a NIP specialist person from the UK, um, far more established than me cause he's been doing it for like decades. Um, and we usually sit next to each other and kind of work together to manage the line. But this year he couldn't come because of that little health thing. So I was all on my own. It was hard. Apparently at some point people stood in line for one and a half hours. It wasn't. Wow. Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll figure it out for the next

Brad: one. I'm sorry. No, it's like, it's like, it's like one of those good problems, right? Like it was like we did the thing we put on the show and it was popular and we're happy about that. And but did I, did everyone have like the best experience? You know, like I'm worried about every single pen that comes by and everyone's happy. Right. So yeah, I, I totally get that.

Annabelle Hiller: And people kept bringing me food. And by the end of the day, I just had a pile of food next to me

Brad: that I never touched. Yep. Yep. It's so hard to stop. So what, what year of, of the show is this?

Annabelle Hiller: It's, it's a pretty new show, right? Yeah. It's a, it's an infant show, I'd say. Um, this was the second edition because last year there wasn't one. However, the next one is in half a year already. Um, cause the next one is on, I hope I don't say, I think it's June 12th.

Brad: Okay. I'm writing this down because you can book a flight in five minutes. I mean, I wish I would, if the, if the world was in a, in a better place to where I, I know for sure I can make the trip. But ever since, you know, the first announcement of the, the first, uh, Dutch pen show, it's been at the top of my list of wanting to travel and get overseas and see some, some other between, you know, um, the Dutch pen show, the London pen show and the Madrid pen show. Like those three are always like at the top of my list to go visit, go see, go see people, um, spend some time in the communities, um, that build up these shows because I, I, I just think it's so cool to just have all these, these friends around the world that do these cool things like this. And, and, you know, speaking of the community, what is the Dutch pen community like? Because it seems, you know, I put, I put like a kind of a generic weird question in, in the show notes, but only because I have so many friends in the Netherlands and it seems to be a very analog friendly type of community that really, really get into their stationary. So what's the, what's the pen community

Annabelle Hiller: like just in general where you're at? Um, the horrible, I hate them. No, I'm kidding. No, no, no, no. So, so the Netherlands, it's such a funny place. I've been here for eight years now. Right. Um, but it's still, sometimes I'm just so flabbergasted by how Dutch they are. Um, so, because I don't think that fountain pens are really that much like ingrained into the culture as much. Um, I think people will own a fountain pen if maybe they have a fancy job and like to, to kind of show off their little Mont Blanc pen. People will have a fountain pen if their parents maybe used one or they're particularly into writing or there's this new wave, right? And by new, I mean like maybe the last decade or whatever, how long we've been around where people realized, oh wait, fountain pens are kind of cool. Calligraphy is kind of cool. Let's get into that. Um, but it's not so much that people grew up really using fountain pens. For example, my partner, when I met him and to me, he's like a standard Dutch dude. And I asked him, Hey, what's your favorite kind of stationary? And he was like, what's stationary? It's like things on your desk. And he's like, oh, my computer, I guess. Um, so it's really not that commonly used, but when Dutch people get into things, they really get into it with anything. They're just hella enthusiastic people. And then, yeah. So the Dutch community is, I don't know why. I don't know why. And particularly in this country, we have so many cool shops. Obviously, Uppelbaum is the best, but like...

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say. It's like, I mean, believe me, I haven't gone and researched all this, but like per capita, like coolness level of shops in the Netherlands has got to be like really high up there, right?

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. I was actually kind of worried when I moved here because I thought, you know, Austria, we have this like rich history of old stuff. Like how could... Now I live in this like weird country where everything's kind of modern and like everything's super innovated all the time. And then it turns out that like the coolest shops are here and they carry the coolest brands and like a wide array of like international brands. Like I don't... Okay, I might be wrong about this, but 10 years ago, I don't know where I would have bought a Japanese fountain pen in Austria. But I also wasn't that much into it yet at that point. But yeah, it ended up being a really lucky accident that this country just has so much to, yeah, to provide.

Brad: Yeah. It's really cool. That's why, you know, not just the Dutch pen show would be at the top of my list, but just to travel for, you know, just like see the cool Dutch stationary community and the pen community over there. Yeah. And we'd definitely go to all the cool shops.

Annabelle Hiller: We'd probably just like organize meetings. Just when you're here, it would be like, okay, everybody get together. Let's go. And also because it's such a small country, right? Yeah. You can just travel around really easily. We have various little pen groups, like we have a local kind of The Hague pen group. Hardly any one of us actually lives in The Hague, but it just kind of happened that we call it that group. But we literally travel across the country, the tiny, tiny country just to meet up in different places and go to different shops together.

Brad: Yeah. It's really cool. It's fantastic. And that's something that we in the United States miss out on is kind of the active local scene, like where you can move from town to town easily. And in those short trips, you can get like a world of difference where here it would be like very time consuming just to travel to like a singular place to see a singular thing. So yeah, like I definitely, definitely want to get over there and visit as soon as possible. I like, I'm not joking. Like since last year, like even when travel was shut down, it was like the Dutch pen show and the London pen show were a weekend apart. And I was like, that's perfect for me. And then of course we couldn't do it. So now it's...

Pen Shows and Community

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. And then there's also the Hamburg pen show, I think is around that time as well. And the Pelican Hub is around that time as well. So the fall, autumn... Yeah. I'm in. I'm in. That's usually quite a busy time period for us. It's really cool.

Brad: Yep. Yep. All right. So let's, let's take it into some stuff that you're using or more specifically some stuff that you're showing on Instagram. So there's a certain set of nibs that you've shown on Instagram and I'm going to put a link in the show notes to this. And I imagine since you've posted this picture, it's become a little bit problematic for you.

Brad: Yeah. So just, just for listeners who have not clicked through the link yet, which you will, I'm the front picture. There's three, three images here on Instagram. The front picture is five, very custom nibs and I'll let you take it from there.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah, correct. That's what they are. They are, the nibs, I made them, they're kind of fun. So I, I've actually given them a name finally, because for months I called them just the foldies, which, I mean, that's kind of describes them, but it's not as pretentious as I want them to sound. Um, so, okay, so here's, here's what happened. Um, I obviously for years and years and years, people have been really into stacked nibs. Um, and I kept thinking what a shame it is that people take a nib and then they take a second nib and cut that in half and just put it on top of the other, like in my mind, design wise, there had to be a way to just make a nib that doesn't, that has kind of this stacked layered thing to it without taking two perfectly fine nibs and just, you know, um, welding them on top of each other. So I kept thinking, I kept drawing, making prototypes out of paper and whatever. And I arrived at those things. Um, these ones. And so the reason that these ones are silver is because I'm technically still a broke student, um, and silver is much cheaper than gold.

Annabelle Hiller: Um, so yeah, that, that's the idea. I wanted to recreate this kind of layered effect, um, on a nib, but it being made of one sheet of metal. Um, and then I kind of wanted to see what happens. Turns out silver is actually really, really cool because sterling silver on its own would be technically too soft, um, to use unless you really, really like work hard on it. But because you have the two layers on top of each other and they're all welded to the same point, that just kind of makes them a bit sturdier, but they're still quite soft. Um, the only thing I'm still unsure about is how well it holds up over time being, uh, touching ink, right? I don't know how the ink affects the metal, um, over a long period of time. That's something I'm still testing. Um, but regardless of that, it's, it's kind of inevitable that I really, really, really want to get into custom nibs because there's so much cool stuff you could do. Um, and I think that's kind of, that's something that we deserve and don't get much from the pen world. I think, um, like if you look at Mont Blanc, you can get the craziest design pens, but you always get the same nib. Um, and I think we really, really, really crave a unique nib experience. And whenever something new comes out, we're like, yes, give me that. Let me try that. Let me experience something new. So that's kind of what I'm chasing right now. Um, I've also made some gold versions of it as well. Oh, and I haven't even said the name yet. So I call them, okay, hold onto something. So you don't faint from the pretentiousness. I call them the harmonic nib series. That might not mean much to you. However, if you have studied music, um, basically my friend drew said, Hey, do you have a name yet? And I said, no, what do I do? And he's like, well, is there any way that you can incorporate a music term with something that kind of overlays itself or whatever? And I said, Oh my God, you're a genius. That's exactly what this is. So a harmonic series, um, refers to, okay, how to explain this? Uh, let me, let me Eli five this for you. Um, so any note will have a kind of bass sine wave to it, right? You know, you kind of know what that looks like. That's like goes up and down. Um, and so the reason that your voice sounds like your voice and my voice sounds like my voice, even though we might talk at the same pitch or whatever is because your sine wave will kind of, um, it will have this thing called overtones where you take the same note and it kind of shortens it and lengthens it. And Oh God, how to explain this? Ah, I'm sorry. Um, so every voice or everything doesn't just resonate on the sine wave, but there'll be something called overtones, which is that bass tone, but maybe twice as fast or three times as fast or four times as fast, um, frequency wise. And depending on how many overtones your particular voice has, that is what makes it sound like your voice. Does that make sense? Yep. Really? Yeah. It's really, it's kind of, it's kind of hard to explain. I wish I had some visuals to Google it. It's cool. It's a cool science acoustic stuff. Um, like if you, for example, look at a string and you pull it, um, and you like slow it down, slow down that footage, you see that the string itself will not just swing like in its entirety, but there will also be some knots in between there. So it'll also swing within itself in its half and in its third and in its fourths and fifths and so on and so forth. And that's what you, and those knots create overtones. And so depending on which overtones are activated with any individual thing, that'll make it sound the way it does. Um, and so there's kind of like overlay idea. I ended up choosing as the name for these as in the harmonic nip series overtones, you call it harmonic series. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wait, hang on.

Brad: Yeah, it's really, I actually, as soon as you said it, I was like, okay, that's perfect. And then with the explanation, okay, it's really perfect. And yeah, I think that's out. That's outstanding. I think that's, that's really cool. So what, what is your, like, what is your hope for these nibs? Like, do you want to make these as like a thing, like, you know, going forward? Like what's, what's

Annabelle Hiller: the plan here? Um, okay. So something that I'm working on right now, it's very recent. It's very chaotic. I don't know what's going to happen, but a month ago I went to the Dutch Chamber of Commerce and signed up my own company. I'm very excited and I'm very stressed.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. That's a big deal.

Annabelle Hiller: But yeah, so I'm basically starting my own business and here's hoping I want to make a batch of these in the future. I was hoping early December, but that's clearly not happening. Um, and so I would love, so the idea of the company is to just make different stuff, custom nibs, custom roll stoppers, just anything that would allow me to put in my creativity, make cool nibs, um, make more pens. Definitely like the symphony can't have been the last one. Um, there has to be more. Um, but yeah, so my idea is that that will just be a, like a series, the harmonic nib series. Um, and to then also, so I think the first batch I would just do one to look kind of fundamental and basic. And then once I've sold that first batch from a business perspective, so I can afford more tools, um, I would love to just make more custom nibs, be it these, be it just normal nibs, be it new designs that I come up with. And for the first 10, so that's the idea. I want to make first 10 pieces. Um, and they're going to be in pens that I won't turn, but my friend Tone will turn. Um, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but my friend's Giants pens, they're the only Dutch pen maker, um, that I know of. And they'll saw some of my best friends. Um, so they're going to make the pens for me that I can put the nibs into. Um, and that's kind of, that's kind of my idea and my goal to make more stuff.

Brad: I love it. I love it. I'm super excited for you. And I know it's nerve wracking, but you got this. It's going to be great. And I know you have the, like the full support of the community and, you know, one of the things you mentioned before, just about our basic expectations for nibs in general for our fountain pens, it's like, you know what, it, it kind of is lacking. And I love to see this creativity come out, especially from, you know, someone I know, like, like yourself, who I know, like really, really believes in this stuff. I think it's just fantastic.

Brad: Thank you. It's nerve wracking. It is. You got this. You got this. Thank you. All right. So now we go to further nerve wracking questions, because I put something in the show notes. I'm going to, I'm going to get you out of here. We've been like an hour. I don't want to take too much of your time, but I have to get to this question and I don't normally do gotcha questions, but I think this is going to be fun. So I put it in the show notes. Top secret fun question is all, you know, about what I'm about to ask you, but let's just say I might know people who might know you and they mentioned that I might should ask you about your F1 fascination and a particular, a particular notebook that you keep relating to Formula One. Can you explain this to me?

Annabelle Hiller: Oh yeah, for sure. Okay. Okay. So I don't...

Brad: See, easy question. Easy, easy. Top secret fun question.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. I don't mind it at all. Okay. I reckon your audience is mainly American, right? Is it?

Brad: Yeah. I mean, we're pretty worldwide, but yes, mainly.

Formula One Enthusiasm

Annabelle Hiller: Okay. So America recently has discovered Formula One a bit more and I'm very excited about that. Formula One is the only sport I follow. It's very cool. It's very dramatic. There's so much going on. There's like individual people you can root for and I really, really enjoy it. Um, I even have my own discord where we have a Formula One channel where we talk about Formula One once a week.

Brad: Oh, cool. Yeah. Myke's a huge Formula One follower. A huge Formula One follower.

Annabelle Hiller: Up on my discord. Come chat with us while we watch the race together. It's so good.

Brad: I'll get him on there.

Annabelle Hiller: Um, and so I just, in my bullet journal, I have a double page every year where I track every single race. I track all the points every individual, uh, driver gets. I love it. I love the statistics behind it. I love the drama within this show. Um, the show, the sport, which, so the reason that it has recently become so popular in America is because of a Netflix show called Drive to Survive, which is highly dramatized and highly inaccurate, but fun. Um, and that's why more and more Americans seem to have gotten into it. And I'm very happy about it. More people should watch it. It's great. Um, and when you do hop onto my discord and talk to me about Formula One.

Brad: Yeah. I love it. I love it. And if you want, we can, we can share the link in the, in the show notes to that if you're up for it. Um, but yeah, I, I have not been bitten by the bug yet, but I am on the edge. Like I, I'm a sports person. I generally like sports and, you know, not all sports, but I like sports with a certain level of nerdery and F1, I think would give me that. And I just, I, I'm one of those sports fans. If I'm into it, I'm all in, like, I can't just watch it on the side and pick it up here and there. And let me flip on this race on Sunday and pick it up. I have to be like in, like I have to know all the things. So I haven't quite had the time to commit to that, but maybe, maybe buff before this season's out and heading into next season. Um,

Annabelle Hiller: Oh, imagine though, imagine though you came, you come to the Netherlands and you, we go to the Dutch race and then we head to the London pen show the weekend after or something. Come on.

Brad: That, I mean, you do not have to twist my arm for that. Like that would be amazing. That would be

Annabelle Hiller: amazing. Um, I mean, there's, there's many things that you, that could, um, pull you into formula one, right? So there's like a lot of history and like statistics or whatever. Um, there's the, the human aspect to it because formula one in 2021 is very different than it was in the nineties because a lot of the drivers are young and have Twitch channels, right? You know them really, really, really well. Um, and then the other thing is of course the engineering. Um, and I mean, I don't know much about engines and again, my partner will tell me about this engine is really

Brad: cool because it does that. And I'm like, yeah, like I'm not a car person whatsoever. Yeah. But being like,

Annabelle Hiller: oh, now the, the back wing does a little bendy thing and that makes them be way faster on this track because, because the, I don't know, because the air is a bit thinner on this track because in like the mountains somewhere, this is so cool. And it just, I don't know, you can, you can learn so much, especially if you know nothing about it. You're just like, wow, magic is happening. I don't

Brad: understand what's going on, but it's so exciting. Yep. Yep. Like I, I see myself making, making that move here before long because it sounds like completely, completely up my eyes.

Annabelle Hiller: That will be allowed. That will be allowed. We welcome you.

Brad: And maybe I'd have to join the discord channel to, to even, to learn even more. So hell yeah. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So you're fantastic for joining me today. I really, really appreciate you taking the time, getting to learn more about you. I knew you were awesome, like before even like talking to you online, but you were like legitimately great and a much needed voice in our space. And I am very, very happy that you, you came on this show and thank you so much.

Annabelle Hiller: Well, gee, how do I react to that? Thank you for having me. Uh, it's been an absolute pleasure. Um, I'm so glad to have talked to you voice to voice for the first time, finally, after, I mean, I've heard your voice a lot of times for hours, but it's, you know, it's always a different thing to actually have a conversation and have a back and forth and let's hope there's going to be

Brad: an IRL version of that. Yes, I hope so. There, there will be, I like, I'm not even going to say, I hope so. There will be, um, you know, we'll just have to figure out when.

Annabelle Hiller: And also realistically, um, if things get better, wait, I don't, where are you based roughly? Does the internet know? Am I allowed to, to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. East, East coast, US. I'm in Georgia.

Brad: So like I'm actually as not as close as I could be to getting over there, but like flights are not

Annabelle Hiller: bad. Right. I've made that flight before. It's not an unrealistic expectation. I think, um, that I would make it to probably definitely the Boston show at some point. Right. Um, right. Right. What's it called? The Commonwealth show? Commonwealth. And maybe DC. I don't know. Okay. Yeah. How about everybody bully Yoast, um, into, into making me go to the show? Cause I would love.

Brad: Oh, I'll do that. Cause he went to DC last year, right? Yeah. What does he have to provide? Huh? Yeah, exactly. So I'll get, I'll get, I'll get on him. I'll send him some, some messages.

Annabelle Hiller: Yeah. And I, I'd love to experience a US pen show at some point as well. Cause so a thing that you guys have that we don't really too much is that like after dark stuff, like the Dutch pen show is a one day pen show. People come and then they go, um, Madrid is three days. So you have more of a, uh, pen show after dark kind of vibe there. Yeah. London kind of, but it's, if you go to any of the Dutch pen shows, I really highly recommend, um, also attending at least the Dutch pen show because it's, it's just a bit fresher. Um, like a bit, I don't know, we have like workshops and it's, yeah, there are people my age. Whereas in London, like I love the London pension, I love the Dutch, uh, the, the UK, um, community. Right. However,

Brad: it's quite established. Yes. Yeah. Like, uh, the, our modern community likes the event idea as opposed to the show idea. Right. Like I think there's a difference and I totally believe in that. Yeah. Yeah. It's totally pen con. And, uh, we, we've talked about that. Like the best thing that we would all love is like to have a pen con would be like the greatest thing. The best. So that would be cool. The best. That would be cool. All right. So I'm going to get you out of here on that. Maybe, but I don't know, we shouldn't maybe talk until the bells ring again. I don't know.

Annabelle Hiller: Oh, okay. I think it'll be like three minutes. Three minutes. Yeah. See, I'm already on the time of it

Brad: because I've been writing them down. So I see it's every 30 minutes, but no, we're not, we're gonna, we're not going to do that. Um, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, this was episode 491. Uh, thanks to our sponsors, Harry's and hello. And, uh, I really appreciate you, uh, coming on and, um, this will not be the last time. So until next time say goodbye, Annabelle.

Annabelle Hiller: Goodbye, everybody.