The Pen Addict 210/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	210
Title:	Tiny Tiny Pocket Tornado
Release Date:	June 22nd, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 210
Audio File:	Audio Episode 210
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 210
Length:	6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 210. Today's show is brought to you by the ever-lovely Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, I quite clearly have the conference flu, and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Man, that's the worst, isn't it? I had that from Atlanta.

Myke Hurley: I remember.

Illness Recovery

Brad Dowdy: It does not go away, like, weeks. Like, you start feeling better after a few days, but like, the actual crud part, it just takes forever. But it was worth it, right? I mean, it's the price you pay for awesomeness.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean, look, there are people, I know, like, Federico's in a much worse state than me. I'm mainly just a bit stuffed up, I guess. Yeah. But I'm doing good, I'm doing good, I just apologise for how I sound this week.

Brad Dowdy: That's alright, that's alright, it was worth it, so we can, you can regale us with all the wonderful tales of WWDC. I at least want to hear, you know, just a little tidbit about it, you know, did you have fun, did you get to meet a bunch of people, you know, how the live recording went, because y'all did a RelayCon that I could not attend this year for WWDC, and I want to know how it went.

Myke Hurley: Well, you'll always hold the mantle for the first ever RelayCon. You know, the first ever RelayCon was the pen show. That's right, pen addicts rule, pen addicts number one. Pen addicts forever. It was, the actual RelayCon WWDC event was fantastic. It went off without a hitch, we had some good surprises. We did, if you're interested, if you know of these shows, we did a Live Robot or Not, which was a surprise. Oh, nice. WWDC.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha, so it all just rolls up in there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's all in there, so it's a bit of connected, then Jason joins me from Upgrade, Serenity Caldwell, Vi Moore joins us, we talk about some stuff, and then we have Cortex, kind of a mini Cortex at the end. Yeah, it was a very different episode. It was full of stuff. I can't believe it was just over an hour long. It felt like I was there for my entire life. But that's just the way that these things go. When I'm on stage, I always feel like it's twice the length that it ends up being, which is why I need a good timer application or something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, that's the stress of setting it up, too. When you get on stage, and once you start, that's the easiest part. It's the lead up that I think is the toughest part. Yep. Yep. Yeah, well, good. I'm glad you have fun. And were there some pen addicts out there? I know that. They were texting me, tweeting me, sending me pictures. So, yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Fun to see all that stuff.

Myke Hurley: I was happy to see that. I received the special delivery.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so I had a couple of things that listeners had sent to me to give to you, and I thought, well, our good friends Stacy and Baron from Atlanta were heading out that way. So, I made a handoff to them. So, they hand-delivered. What did you get?

Myke Hurley: Right. So, one thing, it was awesome to see them. It was lovely to see some friendly faces. I was able to, I only really got to talk to them before I recorded, so I was in a bit of a haze. But I took the delivery, and so in there was a correctly sized pen addict shirt, because you had previously given me an extra lodge. Yep. I don't know what you're trying to say, but fine. No, no. I got the Titanium Retro 51 that we'd spoken about before. Recreational Grade Titanium. Yep. Who is it? Sorry, I've totally forgotten. Who was it that sent that through?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it was a gentleman named Harry.

Pocket Tornado Pen

Myke Hurley: Thank you very much, Harry. I'm using it today. What a beautiful thing. And I like that my one's a little bit battle-worn, you know, and I love it more for that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. It's scratched up, dinged up. Mine's the exact same way. He sent me, he only told me he was sending you that pen. And then the envelope shows up, and he's like, oh, hey, I found another one, and I found, what else did you get?

Myke Hurley: A tiny, tiny pocket tornado. How cool is that? Yeah. I think I own one of these in silver.

Brad Dowdy: Well, they did one with a stylus on the end. They did like a Mr. Retro with a mustache. Yes. That's not the one you have. That's very true. The one you have, he said he got it about 20 years ago. So I put the letter in there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you did, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: The refill still works inside this one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I thought that was pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: This is a nice little one to add to my collection, because it looks so funny.

Brad Dowdy: But that titanium's cool. It's the big shot shape, so it's that wider barrel, but it's probably lighter than the standard one, wouldn't you say? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's definitely lighter. It's definitely lighter than the regular ones. But the twist mechanism on the end, being made out of aluminium, makes it a little bit heavier. So the balance in it is peculiar. Not bad, but just different. But I do really like it. And the titanium, titanium has such a weird feel, because it's a warm metal. Yeah. You know, it's a very interesting material to use, and very soft feeling. But I like it a lot. But there was something else in the package that I don't fully understand. Mm-hmm. It's a noodless pen.

J'Herban Emerald Ink

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So a listener named Penelope, who is a wonderful, fantastic listener that always is sending in gifts. She sent me a bottle of the J'Herban Emerald of Chavor, and she said she – we talk about these noodlers and their flex nibs, and how we've had some trouble with them. And she said, hey, I've got these two. So she sent me both of them, and I was like, well, I'm sending out this package to Myke. Let me send him one. I don't need both of them. So it's just a pen to try. It's got the piston filling mechanism. It's got the steel flex nib. It's just one of those interesting pens that I thought I would like to see what you could do with. You know, I've had one of these in the past, an Ahab, and I just did not like it at all. But that was a few years ago. This is a slightly different and improved model. So this is – yeah. So this is the Conrad and the acrylic. I forget which acrylic is yours called. It might be on the box. I don't know if you even have it, but they're really, really pretty.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I've been enjoying playing with this a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, so have you inked it up and given it a shot?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Like I've obviously put Emerald of Chavor in it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, cool. That's the perfect choice. Yes.

Myke Hurley: Because just by looking at it, I could tell that it was a flex nib because the nib looked really weird. Right? Like it's just – it's completely flat, and it just has a line that goes all the way down the middle. So the nib basically splits in half.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's got a very long slit up the middle to get that flex in the steel nib.

Myke Hurley: Yep. So I've been playing around with it a bunch, and I kind of like it, you know? Yeah. It's kind of fun because it's kind of weird, you know?

Conrad Pen

Brad Dowdy: Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's very different than any other pens. So you said this is called the Conrad, this one? I believe this is the Conrad. I don't have mine in front of me, but I believe this is the Conrad. It's like a $30 or $40 pen, something like that. That's not overly expensive for a flex. They do tend to be fidgety. People do have frustrations with the filling system sometimes. But in general, you're not going to get a good flex nib for that price. And, you know, it's – I think you said it correctly. It's a fun pen to play around with.

Myke Hurley: Like, I wouldn't use this as an everyday type thing, right? Right. It doesn't feel like an everyday pen to me, but it's one that I'm – I don't know. I'm just kind of playing around with it and having some fun with it. Like, you can get them on Penchelle. Penchelle have them. They're like $40, as you say. But, yeah, this is like – I feel like I've had something like this before and just, like, couldn't wrap my brain around it. But now, like, I don't know. I'm kind of having fun with it. Like, I feel like I'm pushing it too far sometimes. Like, I hit it, but I'm kind of pressing so hard that I end up just making two very thin lines with nothing in the middle. Does that make sense? Sure.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's called railroading. Oh, what a great name. For obvious reasons, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but I'm surprised that, like, the flexiness is working for me. And I need a lot of practice with this type of thing because, as we've spoken about before, and me and Anna have spoken about this. I don't think on the show, but we've spoken about this. Being a lefty, depending on your writing style, can be really difficult for flexy stuff. And, like, she was telling me that she basically has – I mean, she has learned a different way to write for flexible nibs.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, she basically goes under, right, for flex, but had to train herself to do it.

Myke Hurley: Which is super difficult for me to do. Yeah, I can understand that. But, like, sideways on and stuff like that, I'm able to get some fun shapes out of it. But basically, I've just been today just scribbling with it. And it's been fun to play around with. Plus, I mean, so this is the thing. Like, it's a really cool-looking pen. Like, it has that swirly-colored acrylic. Like, it doesn't look like an expensive pen.

Myke Hurley: It kind of looks like – it's a fancy-looking pen, and you're getting what you pay for, I think, with it. Mm-hmm. You know, because you get some of these – like, you know, if you get something like a Newton pen or an Edison, they have a similar look, but they look expensive. Yeah. You know? But the Newton's one don't. But they're not meant to be that. Exactly. Exactly. But I like it. I love it. I'm really having fun with it.

Brad Dowdy: It was a nice surprise. That's great. I am surprised at that. So that's pretty cool. Did you pick up any other stationary stuff? That was the end of the secret gift pack that you got. Did you grab anything else while you were there?

Myke Hurley: I didn't buy anything other than just some, like, Apple stuff, but it's not real stationary things. But I did have a package that came through. Should I talk about this now? Sure. Let's do it. So me and Thomas Hall had worked this out, that he was going to send me one of his Nakayas, so I could try it out to get a feel for the size. So he sent to me, it's a Urushi Piccolo Long writer. And he was, you know, he basically sent this over to me because he wanted me to get a feel for the size.

Myke Hurley: And so let me talk about the pen itself. So he told me to treat it like it was my own. So he included a cartridge. I filled it with Fuyugaki.

Brad Dowdy: Good move. That's good.

Myke Hurley: That's what I would do, right? That's right. The size of the pen feels just right for me. Yes. So I feel very confident in the Long writer, the Piccolo Long writer now, as the size for me. That's a good size. It's maybe a little bit longer than some other pens that I have, but, like, the material that it's made out of and stuff, it's a nice balance. I like it. I like the size of it. And the really interesting thing about this, so the one that I have, it's just orange with a clip on it. It's just plain orange. But there's something about it. Like, the material is so hard to gauge. Like, it looks like plastic, but it feels different. Like, it feels special and expensive.

Nakaya Pens

Brad Dowdy: Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. In the hand, Nakai's are hard to explain verbally until you get the chance to hold one. First, you're shocked by how light it is. It's a very lightweight pen, even if the shape might be large, like in the case of the Piccolo Long. Then you grab the pen and it feels very firm. Like, you feel like if you drop it, it would shatter into 8,000 pieces. But it's actually very solid. At the same time, and the most interesting thing I find about it is it is very warm. Like, you were talking about how titanium is a warm metal. Yeah. It's nothing compared to what the Arushi over the Ebonite feels like when you write with it. It's like those little heat pads, almost, that you see. Like, if you put your fingers down on a pad and you see the colors come through, you can feel the warmth already. And it's just very enjoyable to write with. It melts into your hand when you're writing. Like, you don't notice it. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And so, I'm very confident in the fact that I think an Akaya is a pen that I would enjoy now. And I feel like I know his size. But I have a problem with what I was sent from Thomas. He sent me an elastic fine nib. And this is easily one of the most beautiful nibs I've ever seen. Like, I've seen elastic nibs before at the pen shows. And I want one because they're so stunning, right? Because the Akaya nibs have the little heart in them, which warms my heart every time I see it.

Brad Dowdy: The little breather hole on the nib.

Myke Hurley: It's just the fact that it's shaped like a heart is like, yes, I'm all for that. And then the elastic nibs have the big cuts out of the side, right? Which makes the nib bouncy. Right. But I just cannot find a way to get this pen to feel comfortable for me. I can see that. The nib is very scratchy. Like, very scratchy. One of the scratchiest nibs I've ever used. And I'm not sure why. Like, if it's fine or because it's elastic or because it's something to do with my left-handed style. Like, when I try and use this pen normally, like, with my kind of overhooking upside down, a lot of the time ink just doesn't come out of it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think it's probably all the above, but it's mostly the elasticity of it. It's splitting the tines at an angle you can't deliver ink to the page at, right? There's not an even angle for the ink to be delivered properly. Like, one tine is probably higher to the right and one tine is probably lower to the left. So, one, that's causing the scratchiness. Two, that's causing the ink not to be delivered. But it's mostly because it's elastic and your writing angle. If it was a stock fine, you could probably get closer to a good feel from it. And you still may want to go with, like, a medium. This makes me very sad.

Myke Hurley: So, like, if I slow down and write in a different style, maybe if I hold it on the side, which is not very comfortable for me, it's less scratchy and the flex is really interesting, like the elasticity. But I guess what this process has shown me is that, one, I shouldn't get an elastic nib. And, two, that I have to go for a medium. I think I always would have gone for a medium, but I probably would have gone for an elastic nib. So, Thomas has done exactly what he's so good at doing and showing my way. But I've got to say this time, it's made me very sad.

Brad Dowdy: You just wanted to like the elastic nibs because they look cool.

Myke Hurley: They look so amazing. And even using them, like, when I could get it to work, it was like, oh, man, this is so cool, right? Like, the way it, like, bounces and stuff. Right. You know, and, you know, I wasn't being, Thomas, like, explicitly told me to use it, really use it. Like, I was going at this thing, you know? Sure. And I was really trying to have fun with it and, like, pressing it and doing crazy stuff with it. But, yeah, it just wouldn't work for me. And I'm very, very sad about it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you should be happy. I mean, it's... Well, happy that I haven't wasted the money, right? Right. There's resolution on one part of the puzzle. One part of the puzzle has been solved. Actually, two parts have been solved. One, the shape and size is great for you. Two, the nib is not. So, the puzzle's coming together, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yep. So, I know what I'm looking for now. Now I need to just bring myself to the point of ordering it. And I know that there's some... I'm really being pushed to and will buy from Aesthetic Bay. Um, and can get help with that.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's the only place... Yeah, that's the only place you can get that shape.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly. I mean, so that's one of the reasons I'm being pushed there. But, um... So, I'm definitely going to go for it. I don't know. I feel like I know the setup that I'm looking for now. Uh, I'm just hoping now that a medium nib will be right for me. Like, I'm concerned now, you know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, in your, um... Your pro gear is a medium? Yep. It's going to be very similar to that. Okay. Maybe not quite as firm. But it's... I mean, it's essentially... You don't own a platinum, do you? No, I don't. Yeah. Oh, I don't think I have a platinum medium I could send you. But if you like your Sailor medium nib, you will be just fine.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Well, my Sailor medium nib is one of the best nibs I've ever used in my entire life, right? That's the reason that I love that pen so much. It's because the nib is unlike anything I've ever used before. Like, it's so smooth and delivers ink so beautifully. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's why I love it, right? The one Nakaya I sold had a stock medium nib, and it was wonderful. I loved writing with it.

Myke Hurley: What is the... Just a straight up... Straight up medium. What is the cheapest platinum that I could get which would maybe have a similar nib? Is there such a thing?

Brad Dowdy: No, because it's the gold nib. You got to get the gold nib, so it's going to be the 3776, probably from our good friends at Pen Chalet. They always have good deals on that pen. It's an awesome... It's a pen worth owning regardless. It's great. And the nib is going to be exactly like it. We get... So many people have that pen. We can find one to get you on loan. Or heck, even a Nakaya with a stock medium nib. I just don't happen to have one anymore. I used to.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think it's because I'm not in a position immediately right now where I want to purchase the Nakaya, so maybe I have a little bit longer. But I think it's going to be soon. And I'm willing to... So my feeling about this is I'm willing to pull the trigger on a medium because I could get work done on it. Sure. So people are sending me, including Punky, are sending me messages now saying that they will send me one. Yeah. It's fine. I think I'm pretty resolute in what I will go for because I wouldn't want to get abroad. I wouldn't want to get any other kind of crazy nibs. Medium is kind of what I think I would go for anyway. And as I say, I can get some work done on it if it doesn't fit me exactly. So now it's just a case of buying it. Yep. Which I don't think is a media thing. That's going to happen. But soon. I know I'm soon. I'm set now. So Thomas, thank you as always for helping me along my path as chief enabler. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So we have another thing that I forgot to put in the show notes, Myke. And this is since it's related to Thomas as well. I wanted to go ahead and put it in there. He's been sending us images via Myke Masuyama, who has a friend that's doing. I'm going to butcher this. So y'all in the chat room, tell me this because I never get it right. I always want to call it Mackie E, but it's Mackie A work, like the painted work on the pens. And at the Atlanta pen show, Myke was showing some pictures of his friend that does work. He's painted a koi, a snake and a frog, rodden, and different rodden work on these pens. I'm going to put these pictures in the show notes because Myke Masuyama asked me, told me I sent him a pen to get this done. He's sending off a batch to his friend in Japan this week. And he wanted me to mention on the show that if anyone's interested in this work, it's $150. You send a pen, preferably a black pen, a large barrel black pen. Like I sent my Pilot Custom Heritage 912, which is a large pen. And it turns out Thomas sent the same exact pen. We kind of think alike. And I'm going to get the koi finish on it. And it looks amazing. I'm going to put all these photos in the show notes. I'll get that to you, Myke, when we're done. And we can put that photo from Fountain Pen Day. And Kerry already has his return because he ordered one in Atlanta with the rodden work on it. Did you see that one, Myke? Yeah, I did. That's pretty crazy, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, these are stunning. I don't think I have a pen that fits the bill to have this work done on. I don't have a black barreled pen that I love so much that I want this work done on, you know? Yeah. But if you do, like if you own something like a 3776 or something like that, yeah, this is a no-brainer.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so what you want to do is you want to reach out to Myke Masayama via his website, mikeatwork.com. Hit him up on the email. Say you're interested and tell him that you're sending the pen. And he'll coordinate because he wants to ship all these out in a batch. And, you know, this will get you in on that. But it's $150. You can choose from one of the four designs. And this is kind of a test run to see and to see if this is like a viable thing for his friend to do. His friend lives in Japan, so he wants to send these all at once. And it's just really fascinating work. The price is very, very fair, I feel. I don't own anything like this, and I think it would just be stunning looking. So I'm all about getting that koi done. Again, it looks amazing. And we'll have some more pictures in the show notes than the Instagram one I just put in the chat room. So we'll list them all in the show notes. You can, if you're interested, you can see what the designs look like.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, the one that Carrie from Phantom Pen Day had.

Myke Hurley: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of amazing.

Myke Hurley: Yep. All right. So should we take a break now? Yeah, sure. That sounds good. That might be a good idea. Because I guess if you want to get in on this, you probably want to get yourself a pen to put it on.

Brad Dowdy: That's a good call. Look at you. You're a professional podcaster.

Myke Hurley: I know, right? A good place to get some of these beautiful pens that will be perfect to have this work done is from Pen Chalet. Because they have all of your favorite brands. Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco. And they have roller balls, fountain pens, ball points, mechanical pencils from all of them. They have fast and reliable customer service. They're always adding new styles of pens every single month. They have great discounts all the time. Close out specials every two weeks. Discounts twice a month. And with all of the brands as well that I mentioned, Pen Chalet also sells limited edition pens from them. And also pen accessories, carrying cases, holders, refills, fountain pen converters, and so much more. They sell internationally with reasonable shipping rates. And if you order in the United States, they do free shipping on orders of over $50. I mean, and who's not going to spend more than $50 at Pen Chalet? Come on, let's be serious. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Whenever you go there, you should just fill up your cart. Because you're going to get 10% off anything at Pen Chalet if you click the podcast link at the top of the website. And enter the password Pen Addict. That will tell you what your 10% coupon is for this week. And also give you access to our special offer. We have the Lamy Tipo pens in aluminium black. They're 35% off plus the extra 10% off you get with the coupon. Brings them down to $9.36. So you can find out more about that. But on the Pen Addict page over at PenChalet.com, you just hit that podcast link at the top of the site. And enter the password Pen Addict for this week's special offer. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for sponsoring Relay FM and the Pen Addict.

Lamy Tipo

Brad Dowdy: So let me talk about this Tipo real quick. This is actually one of my favorite weirdo Lamy pens. I love this pen. Not everyone does. It has a little bit of a slick grip. The ridges are plastic, so it's a little bit slick. And then the knock is just the clip. And it's a little bit awkward the way it pokes out. I happen to love it. It's just a cool feeling plastic barrel. And it fits the Pilot G2 refills, which means it fits the Pilot Juice refill, which means I have my Tipo on my desk at all times with a Pilot Juice blue-black .38mm refill. I love this pen. It's just really cool. And then I scrolled down his offers mic. He snuck something in here that's pretty crazy. It's the very last item on the list, and it's the Pelican Special Edition Suvarian M800 Burnt Orange Fountain Pen. This is a killer pen, and it's $570. The retail is $845. Street price is usually around $700-ish, I think, at other sites. For $570, that's a huge break on a pen that was very, very popular. They launched that in 2015, and it's a limited edition, so when it's gone, it's gone.

Brad Dowdy: That's tempting. Not going to lie.

Brad Dowdy: That's a good deal on that pen. Not going to lie. So take a look at that. But, you know, that's the opposite ends of the spectrum between the Tipo and the Burnt Orange, but wow, that's crazy. That's a good deal. Yeah. So you can tell the pause. Yeah, I can hear those words turning. I'm really thinking about it. Yeah, that's a good price on that for a really, really great pen.

Myke Hurley: Cool. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Let's not spend my money during the show, but wait till after. All right. So last week, so we recorded early for last week's episode, but I don't know if you got anything that I didn't get, but I got more feedback on last week's episode than I've gotten on a show in a long time. I don't know if you noticed that by chance. Did you?

Myke Hurley: I didn't see much more than usual. I think maybe a lot of it came direct to you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think most of it does. Anyway, so I was just curious if you had anything. Everyone really appreciated the honest conversation around the burnout topic. And even Ed, who we spoke about on the thing on the show, because we were kind of referencing, you know, some of the tweets he had to me and, you know, he wanted to talk about that topic. He's like, he, you know, he thought the show went well and he's like, y'all want me to come on and talk about it? And I was like, you know, we have gotten so much feedback on that episode. I actually went and re-listened to it this morning and I felt pretty good about it myself. So I am trying to get Ed on next week. It's not signed, sealed and delivered yet, but we'll do that. So any more questions you guys have on the topics we discussed last week about blogging and, you know, doing this as a business and burning out and, you know, responsibilities and things like that, let us know. And I'll send out a tweet once we finalize it to make sure that Ed can arrange a schedule to come on. But we'll talk about that. Everyone really, really appreciated that topic. I got more wonderful emails about that specific topic than I have in a long, long time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm not surprised. You know, whenever we cut to the bone, as it were, some people tend to enjoy that. You know, if you've been listening to the show for a long time, I think people care about us, because people care about you especially, I'm sure. And they want to, you know, if you kind of talk about something raw like that, it connects with people.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So on the opposite end of that spectrum, we got a ton of feedback on the Ackerman conversation we had from one of our emailers about us butchering the names. So Ralph did two awesome things. Number one, he recorded a video on YouTube with all the pronunciations. And separately from that, Myke, he created an individual file for each name, shared those in Dropbox if someone wants to build a soundboard. So every name of the 30 Ackerman inks, or 31, has its own sound file. So if anyone feels frisky and wants to make a soundboard, we have all the files. And thank you, Ralph. That was freaking amazing. Yeah. How cool is that?

Myke Hurley: I watched the video today. Uh-huh. It doesn't matter how many times I watched this video. There are names in here I will never be able to say. And my favorite thing is when every now and then they just throw an English one in there. Yeah, right. Like Chinatown Red. It's like, a minute ago, you're talking like, making these sounds like, sounds that I can't make. And then it's like, oh, Chinatown Red. Like, what? What are you doing?

Brad Dowdy: So not only that, not only did Ralph come through in a big way, Gerard, who is also in Holland, he made another video of the Akramal inks, of all the pronunciation. Actually, the sound quality is a little bit better in his. And then he also has Jay Harbaugh and Orochizuku videos that he linked to me as well, where he's pronounced all of this stuff. So how cool is that? Our listeners are amazing. I know. These are fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: So thank you, Ralph. Thank you, Gerard, for doing this. This is so cool. I'm just fascinated by doing this. And I listen to these things. And I'm like you. It's funny. And I even got another email about the shocking blue name, how it just seemed to be just a regular name. And the gentleman, I don't have it pulled up right now. So I apologize. I'm missing your name. But he said that was related to an actual band from that region, was how that name came about. So I'd like to look into that a little bit more, because I think that's pretty funny.

Myke Hurley: All right. Well, they're all in the show notes in case people want them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we'll have all these links. You should go listen to these videos and brush up on your pronunciation skills. And I will do that and I will still butcher them. So but I'll work on it. You know, maybe I can maybe I can perfect like the inks that I own. That should be my goal. You know, I can't do them all. But the ones I talk about all the time, like 28 and 8. I should work on those. 28 was one of the hardest, though. Yes.

Myke Hurley: 28 is one of the hardest. All right. Well, I'm going to do here. OK, I'm going to I'm going to bring it up so I can hear it. It won't come through in the in the audio of the show. So it's just in my headphones here. I want to see if I can bring up number 28 and see what I can do based on the pronunciation from Ralph. All right. OK. Yes. So where are we? OK, so I'm just going to listen to this now. See what I'm able to put up.

Myke Hurley: Oh, my God, I can't. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it.

Myke Hurley: Try one more time.

Brad Dowdy: Hang on. This is like live Rosetta Stone.

Brad Dowdy: This is tough, man.

Myke Hurley: Just close your eyes. All right. Be the ball.

Myke Hurley: Hufquatia Grun. That is my attempt. That is my attempt there.

Brad Dowdy: That was wonderful.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Hufquatia Grun. So now you you you now own Akramo Annunciations on the show. Good job. Nailed it.

Product Sales

Myke Hurley: All right. You've got some big news this week. Now, I had an idea that this was on the way. We've spoken about this recently because you've been doing something secretly in the back that you didn't tell anybody about. A selection of knock products are now made to order.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So all of our primary goods, all of our primary cases, which we consider the Sinclair Brasstown lookout and Hightower. That's what we sell the most. That's what's the most popular. That's what everyone wants the most of. We've had well-known stock issues, keeping colors in stock, keeping products in stock. Jeff and I started working on this a couple of months ago, knowing that something had to change. We can't keep making.

Brad Dowdy: 30 red and navy Sinclairs, putting them on the site at 12 o'clock noon on Friday and having people not be available to purchase the case and they're gone in an hour and people get ticked off. Understandably so. We had to stop that. We had to get in a place where either we have so much inventory that it's not an issue or we need to manufacture things differently. Our workflow has to be different. Yep. So we don't, we're not in a position to have all kinds of inventory. So we chose the second path. Well, that involved a lot of things. Number one, and most importantly, could we actually accomplish this? Could we take an order when it came in, produce the case and have it shipped out in a reasonable timeframe? We were very, very unsure about that. We ran our own internal test for about two weeks running pretend orders, timings, quantities, different things, different shop setups, different sewing machine setups. And by the end of that two weeks, we're like, oh, this is better than I thought. I think we can actually do this. I think we can actually get hit the numbers that we need to be able to produce cases. Because our argument and our theory in the past was it's easier to make 30 cases than it is, or it's just as easy to make 30 cases as it is to make five, right? But you get kind of pigeonholed into those 30 cases where that's the only thing you make. Well, maybe we can make five of five different kinds.

Brad Dowdy: And that's kind of more what people wanted. They wanted to, well, if I only had red and navy that day, well, what if people wanted midnight foliage? Well, I can't tell them when they can order that now because I don't know when it's going to hit, you know, hit the line, hit the inventory.

Brad Dowdy: So we tested it. We made these decisions. So once we realized we could do that, we started secretly rolling in the inventory numbers into the site. So we started with the Sinclair about a month ago. And we just put inventory. We just raised what's available on the site so they wouldn't show us sold out and just let people order them as they stumbled across them. We didn't announce it, didn't do anything. And so we did that for about two weeks. And every day we were able to produce all the orders that came in and have them shipped that same day or no later than the next morning. So we're very happy about that. So as we did this, well, we can't just do it for one case. We have to do it for all of them. So the lookout was mixed in there about two weeks later. And so we had the Sinclair and the lookout with unlimited inventory. We could still keep up. The real stretch was adding the Brasstown. We were nervous at that point. So now we're going to have three cases that would just be available to order. We would have to make them that day. Our goal was to get them that morning, the previous day's orders, and have them shipped by that afternoon. And we turned on the Brasstown and didn't tell anybody again because we couldn't. We didn't want to flood ourselves. We needed to see if we could accomplish it. And we did. Like, we've never gotten anything past, like, the next day. So we felt comfortable enough about a week ago knowing that, okay, we're going to roll this out to everyone this week, let everyone know that essentially the cases are always in stock and we're making them as they order. That means that the order comes in on a Monday. Tuesday morning, we start building that case. Our goal would be to ship it by Tuesday afternoon. That won't always happen, but I think it's reasonable to have, you know, two to three days depending on the quantities. You know, some days are, you know, 10 cases. Some days are 40 cases. You just never know. So if your case gets pushed back two days, no big deal. You still know you're getting the case. Whereas before, people didn't know they were getting the case. They didn't know when they could get the case. They didn't know if they would have to be at their computer at a certain time when we launched it. It's just a much better system for our customers. And we're able to handle the capacity of it. So we're super happy to be able to finally kind of put this out there and let people know they can get the cases that they want. So that comes with one caveat, at least right now. I might think of another one as I'm talking. We're limiting the colors that you can order as we ramp this up. So we just have three colors in the Hightower Lookout and Brasstown and four colors in the Sinclair that we're making right now.

Brad Dowdy: But as we do this, you know, it's allowing us to allow people to order our goods, which is kind of important. So that's the biggest news. The side news from this is that... You're going to make the briefcase. We are going to make the briefcase. And that goes in with what I'm about to say. Oh. We may have actually found legitimate help outside our door to make high quality American made goods at a price we can afford. And most importantly, at the quality expect. Oh, wow. I was kidding around. Nope. We're on the last phase of approvals. And Jeff and I are giddy at the prospects because that will allow us to be way more flexible in colors. It'll allow us to launch products quicker. It'll allow us to have the quantities to go to retail. And it will be an amazing looking product like you expect from us right now. Like, you can't tell any difference at all. And Jeff and I are just like, we're basically having a holy crap, this is what we've been working for moment. Here in the past month. It's not done yet. So I'm putting the cart before the horse a little bit. But I feel... It's far enough along that I feel pretty confident that something's going to get done. It's a pretty big deal for Nock as a company to be able to do this. Because it's going to basically blow the roof off our expansion in a way that we can handle. And that's what we have to have.

Myke Hurley: Because this will be a way for you to make more product without making more Jeffs. Right. Right. Huh. I definitely don't have enough Jeffs. That is amazing news. I'm really happy. But I want to go back because I was being kind of silly. I didn't know that that was going to come from around the corner. But I still have more questions for you on the made-to-order stuff. All right. I'm done rambling. So you fire away. One, congratulations. Thank you. So the other is... And so this is something that... I mean, when you originally told me this, I struggled with it a little bit. So I expect maybe some of our listeners might not get this either. So how are you able to make and sell enough cases now when you couldn't do that before? So like whenever you made cases and put them up on the site, I sold out immediately. And then there were a bunch of people that couldn't buy. So because you weren't able to make enough cases to fulfill that demand. How now are you able to do that if you're just taking every single order that comes through?

Brad Dowdy: That's a very good question. And it's one I still struggle with answering. But I think it was more a case of... So let's see. How do I put this? Because in the past, we had four employees. Me, Jeff, and then the two girls that sewed for us. And they sewed, you know, like 20 to 30 hours a week each. When they were working, there was not necessarily enough work for Jeff to get in there and me to get in there with the amount of machinery we had. To do things in conjunction that were moving products forward.

Brad Dowdy: So we let them go. We ended up letting Alice and Shanika go, which killed us, like, physically, mentally. Like, it broke us pretty hard. We were pretty upset about that for a pretty long time. But we understood as a business that we couldn't continue to operate like that. We weren't making enough product. When we put Jeff... Gave Jeff access to all the machines at all times. He was making, essentially... And this is not an exaggeration. He could outperform two other people at a rate... Two other people combined at a rate between 5 and 10 to 1.

Myke Hurley: Huh.

Brad Dowdy: If he had the freedom to do what he needed to do at the time he needed to do it. And then you mix in me picking up the side stuff. Which, the side monotony stuff. Cleaning cases. Trimming cases. Bar tacking. Flipping cases inside out. To where he can just run sewing machines. It was... It was... The efficiency went through the roof. And it was really, really freaking weird. And I think it was just having... Jeff having complete freedom... To not have to stop... Every 10 or 15 minutes... To either answer questions... Help with design... Pattern... Fix a machine... He's so talented... He runs circles around people... Sitting in front of a sewing machine... So now that he has free reign... He's able to handle that. It's really strange. And it is hard to explain. It doesn't make sense. But the way we're set up... We don't have 20 machine... A 20 machine workflow... To where I can put... Six people on those 20 machines... And work through. Right? Right. We have... Five... That we use... And when you get... Three to four people... There's road... They're stopping... Constantly. Yep. We cleared that out... Jeff has a clear path... For a single case...

Brad Dowdy: And the pace that he can produce that... Is able to keep up... With what we're doing now... With Made to Order. And... You know... I've committed to being there... Instead of two days a week... I'm there three days a week... Doing more stuff... Jeff's there... All the time now... You know... He's had... You know... He had... His two kids... And his wife... And you know... Just had a baby recently... So there's been some... Times where both me and him... You know... Aren't there... But right now... This is really working for us... But... For us to survive... We have to do that... Plus we have to have an outside manufacturer... And... That's where we're at right now... So... Everything's really really going...

Myke Hurley: Yeah... Alright... So if I'm following correctly... In conjunction with the Made to Order... You've also changed the way that... Things are being produced... Mm-hmm... Because Jeff can produce at a faster rate... You're able to kind of... Take a day's orders... And then make them the next day... And ship them out... Yeah... As opposed to like... Making 30 or 40... And then there's like a backlog... And they all hit at once in one week... Because there's a backlog of people... As opposed to spreading that production out... And actually making the cases people are looking for... Right... As opposed to just putting them up... And then 30 out of the 100 people... Can only order on one day... Right... Because he spent time making them... Like making configurations... That maybe not necessarily everybody wanted... Right... Okay... I think I'm kind of following... It is weird right... There is just some... Weird... Economics in there somewhere... Right... That somebody much smarter than maybe... All of us can like... Understand it immediately... Yeah... But to me and you... It's a confusing thing...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah... I mean in the end... It's straightforward... It's just efficiency... Like our efficiency improved... With less people...

Myke Hurley: Okay... So you may have been able to do this anyway... But you just didn't know...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah...

Myke Hurley: Yeah... Yeah...

Brad Dowdy: But to have like the real growth we want... We don't want a 20 person sewing shop... You know... We want to... You know... Make our... Make stuff... Me and Jeff... And then have a partner... That can... Make huge... Huge quantities... That we could never... You know... Afford enough people... Or machinery... Or rent to make... You know... So that's kind of the two-fold... The two-fold plan... That we're working with...

Myke Hurley: Okay... Well this is cool man... Seems like things are really kicking off... In a way that I don't think we expected... Right now...

Brad Dowdy: So you alluded to the briefcase...

Myke Hurley: Yeah I did... I was a complete trolling moment... But seems... Maybe I was wrong...

Brad Dowdy: No... That's... That's the biggest questions... Are like... Okay... When can we get new colors... And then when can we get... New products... Like the briefcase and the folio... That you've been teasing... The folio is on hold... It's not on indefinite hold... We want to make that case... It's a very difficult case to make... Just Jeff and I... Cannot make that... And do this made to order... So we have to make decisions... You know... Around that... And that's fine... You know... We're totally happy with that... The briefcase... Is something we do think we can make... And we actually would prefer to make it... Because it's a little bit of an outlier... For our product line... It's something really different... As opposed to the folio... Which is a little bit different... And... We're working on the final prototype this week... If we can get it in... And then we'll see... You know... That's going to come to market sooner than the folio is... So... I can tell you that...

Myke Hurley: So I basically spent the whole week last week... Telling people... In San Francisco... How awesome your bags are going to be... Just so you know... Right? Like I'm priming the pump already...

Brad Dowdy: Good... Good... That... And you know what... It's going to be kind of a crossover product... You know... Where a lot of technical people... You know... That are into like the digital stuff... It's going to be able to fit their style... You know... As well... And be able to carry a few extra things... So... It's a really... Mega... It's a killer setup... I'm really... Really happy with it... So... Yeah...

Myke Hurley: Alright... I'm looking forward to all of this man... So... We've got more knock news in the pipe...

Brad Dowdy: More knock news in the pipe... So... That's our hugest... Huge announcement... And then we probably... We'll have... Hopefully... Maybe in two more months... Maybe a month... Have another announcement... And I don't know if it'll be briefcase... Or I don't know if it'll be... Retail... Or... New colors... Whatever... We... I don't have the clarity on that yet... But... We've never... Been as excited... About the business... As we are right now...

Myke Hurley: God... That's awesome man... Congratulations to both of you... You deserve it... Thank you... Thank you... Thank you... Thank you... But real time follow up... Chuck has created a... An Acumen soundboard... Already... Already... Already... And I put it in the show notes... Christ... That's amazing... So... Give that guy five minutes... And he can do horrible things...

Brad Dowdy: I know... Right... That's why I love him... You really can't mess it up... That's why I love him... That was his... That was his loner jeep... That I took the... I call it loner... He hates when I do that... His... His... His toy jeep... That I took the first briefcase photo... In front of... So... Chuck's my man...

Field Notes

Myke Hurley: Alright... So... When I was away last week... In San Francisco... The new field notes got released... I immediately made a purchase... For two more... Because... New format means... Must buy more... Because you never know... I think that mine were attempted... To be delivered yesterday... But I had a jet lag issue... Yesterday... That's what I will call it... Uh... I woke up yesterday... Uh... Fifteen minutes before I was supposed to record Remaster... Which was 12.45pm... Dang... Um... I was awoken to the sound of Adina... Uh... Using Find My iPad... To play a noise on her iPad... Because nothing was waking me up... Uh... I had many missed calls... Many text messages... I found out yesterday evening... That my phone was like a one-third volume... Which definitely didn't help the situation... Yeah... Uh... So yeah... That was my day yesterday... And I had a... We attempted to make a delivery note... For a parcel... And I think one of the only things... That I'm expecting would arrive... That maybe wouldn't fit through the mailbox... Would be these... Unless they're just a little bit slow... In the post... I don't know whether they come in a box... Or an envelope... Right? They come in a box... So yeah... So that's why I'm having some issues... Getting these... So I reckon mine will actually be here tomorrow... Which super sucks... But uh... I've read all the stuff... I've taken a look at it... I've taken a look at pictures... But I'm sure you have them... So I want to know... I want to know what you think about it... But let's talk about the announcement... And the way that this has been presented... And then we can talk about your thoughts... On the edition... Okay... Because this is another collaboration... From Field Notes... And I need you to give me a bit of backstory here... Because I don't really know much... I don't really know much about John Dickerson...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah... And honestly I don't either... I could pick his face out of a lineup... Like you know... He's been around for a long time... In the political news spectrum... I don't watch his show... CBS Face the Nation... But I absolutely recognize him... I would never have been able to tell you his name... He's a... But he's a... He's not... I wouldn't say he's like a top tier reporter... He's not like one of like the... You know how like all countries have like their star reporters... From all the networks... He's probably like a... You know... A tier two or three reporter... I don't know... Maybe he's... Maybe he's more... I absolutely recognize his face... But he's been around a long time... He's very well respected... And he's always been a Field Notes fan... He likes his... His analog stationery... You know... Being a reporter... And being a journalist... You know... That happens... You know... Kind of naturally... You know... You're... You start off... You know... Well... I need to jot these notes down... When I'm interviewing someone... And if... You know... If I don't have an electronic device... Which... You know... He's old enough to start out... When he's probably didn't have recorders... And things like that... To... To start... So the notebooks are very important to him... So he found Field Notes... And watching the video... Which is really... Really cool... I... I... All their videos are great... But this is just a simple interview... With John at his desk... He was a fan of the Pocket Notebooks... The Field Notes Pocket Notebooks... And then found the Steno Notebooks... To use at his desk... And he enjoyed them so much... He got in touch with Field Notes... And... Wanted a reporter's... A traditional reporter's notebook... And they chose to work with him... To design this... So... We'll talk about that design in a second... But... The video talks about his story... And how this came about... I'm getting all this from the video... His desk is really cool... It's what you expect a journalist's desk to look like... Did you get a chance to watch the video? Yeah... It's just stacked with newspapers... Stacked with paper... Newspapers... Crap stuck on the walls... Stuff everywhere... Yeah... Which is great...

Myke Hurley: It has a typewriter there for some reason...

Brad Dowdy: Yep... Yep... That's just... You know... Well I have a stack of pens there... That I don't use for some reason... It's... It's cool... It gives your desk a good vibe... A good place to work... You can see the Field Notes Steno book... On his desk... That he's... He's... Using as... As his desk thing... And... You know... He just talks about the importance of notebooks and pen and paper... And... How... The goal in this... Reporter style notebook that he wanted is... To get away from the digital stuff... To get his face out of a screen... And... The notebook... And the pen or pencil that you're using... They have one job... Right? That's the thing that they do... They have one thing that they do... They... Take your notes... The stuff you need to remember... And... I thought... It was just a really cool video... I got introduced more to John Dickerson... I'm actually... Really enjoyed listening to him talk... So that was cool... Um... So... My thoughts... When this hit... So when the email came... I was sitting at NOC... And... And Jeff was looking at me... Because I was looking at my phone... And not making any sound... And I just had this quizzical look on my face... I'm like... I couldn't figure it out... Like... I'm trying to... It wasn't like an immediate... I know exactly what this is... So I had this look on this face of... I need to... Educate myself... And discover... And think about... What this actually is... Yeah... Because it's so different looking... Than anything they've ever made...

Myke Hurley: I mean... It's also different looking... To any reporter's notebook... That I've ever seen... It's super long looking...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah... Right? Yeah... It's very different... Um... It's... I don't have the dimensions in front of me... We can pull them up... But it's... It's gotta be a good... It's three and three quarters by eight inch... Yeah... Okay... So it's long and skinny... Which is good... I like this format... Um... Obviously I make the... The Notco notebooks... The three and a half by five and a half... Um... You know... With the top stitch... To get that kind of look... That's a... A thing I enjoy... So of course I enjoy something like this... It's just bigger... It's more blown up... Um... I was super confused... I was like... Do I... Like this? Do I hate this? Do I love this? Am I ecstatic on this? And it fell somewhere... In the end... The more I looked at it... I was a little concerned at first... And then the more I looked at it... I was like... I think I really like this edition... And I can't wait to like... Get it so I can really see... What it's all about... But the level of detail that they... Continue to produce... Is astronomical... It's... So well done... Um... So talking about it... The cover stock... Is this dark grey cover... I have it here in my hand... If you hear me flapping around stuff... I have to hold it while I talk about it... Um... It's got a dark grey cover... 70 pages... It's a 70 pound vellum... Uh... Paper... Which is really nice... It's smooth... It's kind of ivory colored... Fountain pens work...

Myke Hurley: What's the difference there? Like... Explain that to me... What's the...

Brad Dowdy: What's the vellum? It just feels like a normal paper... If it didn't say vellum... You'd think... Oh it's regular paper... But it's just the way the... I think it's a fiber difference... And I would have to... Look it up and... And see... The shape and size... Are really really good... The binding is... It's a dual ring spiral binding... And then the cover flaps... Over the top of that binding... Which... I don't know... If you haven't seen these... You'll have to go look at a picture... If you don't understand what I'm saying... In... Design... Design wise... That design... Is beautiful... And it functions well... But that's my one nitpick... Is I actually don't like it... In use... Right... Because it extends... The... When the flap... Top flap is flat... Back around... And it's open... It extends like an inch... Past the bottom of the paper...

Myke Hurley: Yeah... Yeah... Because it's got to go over the top... So the extra is just being pushed... At the bottom... Right...

Brad Dowdy: So when you're... It's in your hand... That extra is at the bottom... When it's on your desk... That extra lifts the pad... In the air... Where the scoring is... For it to fold over properly... So your pad actually bounces... When you write... At the top of it... Towards the spiral... There's a lift in there... Um... I'm sure you could break it... Completely in to lay flat... I just haven't gotten to that point yet... But then you're still left... With an inch... Or so... At the bottom of the pad... Which is not useful... And it just serves to get in the way... I would have preferred... Just a straight up spiral binding... Like the steno pad... With the front cover... Not scored to flip around... Over the top... From a design... Like a... Looking at the design perspective... It's killer looking... And... It's really... Really well done... I don't think it's the most... Functional thing... That's a small nitpick... Right? I mean... It's... It's really... Really... It's so well done... I overlooked that... But I noticed immediately... When I started writing on the first page... I flipped the cover around the back... I'm bouncing in the notebook... As I write... Right when I start using it... Which is... Which is an annoyance... It'll eventually get broken down... And lay flat... But like I said... Even when it does... You still have the extra at the bottom... That said... The paper is excellent... It... It... I threw my inkiest fountain pens at it... It did not... Feather at all... There's a... Tiny bit of ghosting on the back... Where you can see through... But there's really no bleed through... It handles fountain pens... Exceptionally well... I think this is a great addition... You know... It certainly... Set people off... In both directions... Like the arts and sciences did... When you come with such... A different shape... From what everyone's used to... Oh it doesn't fit my... Leather holder... Oh it doesn't fit in my... Archival box... Oh... This is not a shape... That works on my desk... Well... I mean... I give them credit for doing something different... As opposed to... I love it when they break... The format... Yeah... So I think... Um...

Myke Hurley: Sweet Tooth... Maybe that makes me a non-purist... Right? Like if such a thing was to exist...

Brad Dowdy: I would much rather than... Break format like this... Than to do something like... Sweet Tooth... Which I think is just... An abject horror... I think that might... I don't agree with that... I think that might be... The worst edition they've ever done... It's...

Myke Hurley: It's bad on its... In a... If you're thinking of it as a... I like to take notes with my field notes... But... As a... Isn't that kind of the point? Well no... But it... Not really... I don't think... Because it's just a different... It's just a different notebook... I mean... Have you run out? Have you run out of field notes... That you can take notes in? I bet you haven't... But now you have something... You can do other stuff with... Right? That's the way I look at it... Right? I really cannot imagine... Anybody that has a color subscription... Runs out of notebooks... So like... Every now and then... If they throw something in different... That you could maybe use in a different way... I'm all for that... In the same way... I can see why you don't like Sweet Tooth... But I don't think that... They shouldn't have done it... Right? Because it's like... Here's the thing that some people might like... Not everyone's gonna like every edition... I mean... I can't ever see myself... Like really using Sweet Tooth... But I have a different type of notebook... To do a different type of thing... If I need it... And I'm cool with it...

Brad Dowdy: Right? The issue... That brings up the... Kind of... The way I'm thinking about it as... Is they redid... A very... Traditional notebook... In the Field Notes way... With the Byline Edition... Sweet Tooth was... A stock edition... With colored paper... That I just can't use...

Myke Hurley: Alright, sure... I mean like... Maybe if you pulled them... Like let's imagine... That they made the Sweet Tooth... But it was like... Glued at the top... It might be like... Oh, okay... You've done something different... As opposed to just... I see what you're saying... Right? Like just taking the original Field Notes... And putting a perforation on the side... I can see why some people... Might not like that... Maybe they could have pushed it... In a different way... But I'd say I like them... And I'm excited about Byline... I bought more of them... I don't think I'll ever really use them... But I bought more of them... Because in the same way... That I bought more Arts and Sciences... Like I found a use for Arts and Sciences... Which meant I wanted them forever always... Right? And I feel like these Byline ones... Are kind of cool... Because I use spiral bound... Notco pads right now... For a lot of stuff... And I'm wondering... Maybe these will find a use for me as well... Plus I do think... They're kind of beautiful in their own way... Right? Like... Oh for sure...

Brad Dowdy: These are stunning looking...

Myke Hurley: And also... Stickers!

Brad Dowdy: Man! That sticker... They're gonna get... They're gonna have to produce this sticker... On its own...

Myke Hurley: They're just gonna have to... It's a big sticker... So like I don't know how it's gonna fit... On my little iPad... But I'll make it fit baby... Because...

Brad Dowdy: It's... Yeah... They're gonna have to start carrying this sticker... Different colors... Whatever... So it's not the one that they did with the... Color subscription... It's that good... It's killer... It's... It's the sticker to end all stickers... I love it... Big fan of the sticker... You know I love them stickers...

Myke Hurley: And plus it's a clear sticker... So I can stick it over other stickers... So... Real good man... I mean I'm... I'm looking forward to getting these... I hope that they come quick... Yeah... I think it's super cool... I mean as I said... Look... I am on record for... Them doing weird stuff... Right... And... And doing fun stuff with that... So... Yes...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah... Yeah... And I... I love this addition... I mean it's not gonna be like an all timer for me... I'm probably not gonna buy extras... I just don't do lined... Paper... That much... I've always been good at ignoring the lines... Yeah... I can't do that... Yeah... A lot of people can't... And for some reason I love graph... You know... And for some reason I find that calming... I find lines distracting... But just as a... Issue within... Yeah...

Myke Hurley: That doesn't make sense to me... Like... You don't like lined... But yet you like lines in all directions...

Brad Dowdy: I think a lot of people will say that... That's... It's a freeing thing... It's... It's... It's closer to a blank... Than a lined page... When you start getting graphs and dots...

Myke Hurley: Do you know what's completely freeing? Huh... Plain... I know...

Brad Dowdy: That's the worst... No... Actually I think lines is worse... Lines...

Reticle Grid

Myke Hurley: My favorite is... My favorite favorite... Of any paper layout ever... Is the reticle grid... In Night Sky... Which continues to just push Night Sky... To my top spot... Because it is like... The minimum... Grid... Yeah... Right... It's like... Here's just some corners... Yep... That's my favorite...

Brad Dowdy: Yep... So... Really good addition... Really happy with the byline... I... Talking with Brian... And Jim... In their offices... When Anna and I went there... They were so freaking excited... About this edition... I mean they didn't tell us... A darn thing... But they were like... Oh my god... We're like... This is the one... Like... So I know they were super pumped about it... And I think it's gonna do real well for them... And you know... So... I guess the next question is... Is... Does this turn into... Does this turn into stock? So we'll see... Arts and Sciences never did...

Myke Hurley: I was gonna say... If they turn this into stock... Before Arts and Sciences... They're gonna get a letter from me man... Right... Cause... Yeah... I want that... I want that big old chunky one... Even if they just make it in craft... I don't care... I just love that format... I mean I have enough Arts and Sciences... Now to sink a ship... Um... But like... I think that that is a... A format... Which they should really... Like invest more thought into... Cause that... That big format is great... And I know they have the stand-up... But I really like the double page... You know that you can get... With the Arts and Sciences... So...

Brad Dowdy: Two... Two last things on this edition... One... One... Um... Design thing that I didn't mention... The pocket in the back... Is perfect... Love it... Huge fan of the... Uh... The pocket in the back size of the notebook...

Myke Hurley: A nice touch...

Brad Dowdy: The second is a question... Maybe the chat room can answer it for me right now... Um... But I couldn't find the answer online... But maybe I didn't dig hard enough... On the back side... Of this notebook... It's... It has a... The number 30... Uh... In between a line... Um... In there... This is edition number 31... Um... The only other thing I can find is... Field Notes is in suite 30... I don't know why there's a 30 imprinted on the back of these notebooks... If... And they also signed off the post... On the product page for the byline... It's signed off in a 30... Does that mean something that I'm not aware of? Um... You know... Right when they... At the very last thing... When they're doing their writing... When they... They say... We yelled stop the presses... That was very satisfying... Then they go... 30...

Myke Hurley: D-E-T in the... In the chat room... Uh-huh... 30 is traditional in the news business... To mark the end of a story...

Brad Dowdy: Okay... I figured it had to be something related to that...

Myke Hurley: I love how like... Immediately someone nails it... Like... Yeah... As Cindy says... D-E-T dropping knowledge... Yeah... Dropping some knowledge bombs all over us...

Brad Dowdy: That's why I wanted to ask that... Because I figured the chat room would get it... So...

Myke Hurley: And also there are many theories... As to why 30 is used at the end of the story... But there is no one answer...

Brad Dowdy: So it's just a code that everyone knows to use... And that's what it means... So that's like... The end... That's the... That's... That's cool... I like it... And it's on the... It's on the back cover of the book... So you know you're... You're done when you flip it over... Great... Love it...

Myke Hurley: This is one of those things... Now I know that... I'm gonna start spotting that in places... You know... Like references to it and stuff... You know... Like you learn something... And you're like... Oh... That's what that means now... Here's a song lyric that I didn't understand before... I mean what a shame that this wasn't the 30th edition then... Really...

Newsletter

Brad Dowdy: I know... And I didn't see that until I got in here... To start recording the podcast... I flipped it over... And I was like... There are 30 on the back... Then I went and looked... I was like... This isn't issue 30... Last one was issue 30... So... Yeah... Thank you, Dett... Awesome...

Myke Hurley: Alright... So I think that wraps up this week... Thanks so much for listening everyone... As always... If you want to find our show notes... Head on over to... Relay.fm... Slash... Penaddict... Slash... 210... There's some good stuff in there... This time... So go check it out... If you want to find Brad online... He's over at penaddict.com... And knock.co... Here's a question for you... Maybe this will change over time... What is your primary destination now? Still Penaddict?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah... I think it's penaddict.com... I think that might change over time... Maybe... I built that landing page... You know... The personal landing page... But I don't... I don't really think that's like... My home on the web... I still think it's Penaddict... That's like...

Myke Hurley: Just for people... Just typing your name into a... Into a Google search... Right... That's where that exists...

Brad Dowdy: Yeah... So like... What else would it be? I mean... If it's not Penaddict... What else would it be? That's where Knock's linked... That's where the podcast is linked...

Myke Hurley: Well yeah... I just want to...

Brad Dowdy: Where all my social stuff's linked...

Myke Hurley: If there's going to be a time in your life... Where Knock is your main place... Yeah... Maybe so... Sorry I'm playing with the soundboard now... I know you are... You know what... In all honesty... I hope that becomes... Because that means that like... You're making some serious dollar...

Brad Dowdy: Actually I've thought about that... And that would be good... That's exactly right... So... I have thought about that... Okay... What is my primary home... And I would... I would like it to be Knock... That would be my goal...

Myke Hurley: Yeah... Because... As amazing as Penaddict is... And has been... And will always be something... You put stuff to... Mm-hmm... Knock has so much more... Potential to... Take the world by storm... We're on the verge... Because you've already done that... With a Penaddict... Right? Like... The Penaddict has done... Has gone to the maximum... Like... The site is so big now... Like... It dominates Google searches... The traffic is so large... Like... It's at its max... Mm-hmm... And there are ways... And we've been over this... Time and time again... Me and you... Privately... That you can make more money... With the Penaddict... But for some reason... You feel like you don't want to do it... I don't know what's wrong with you... Which by the way... Go become a member... Like... If you... If for some reason... You haven't become a member of Penaddict... You need to go and do that... What is that? Penaddict.com slash membership? Members... Members... I always do that wrong... I'm sorry... Penaddict.com slash members... Go sign up... Because you get the very best newsletter... Produced on the internet... Sent to your inbox... Every... Saturday or Sunday?

Brad Dowdy: Saturday morning... Well... Saturday morning my time... But yeah... Saturdays...

Myke Hurley: Every Saturday... You get the best... Newsletter... In the world... Delivered to you... You also get... A heads up on a bunch of stuff... You get... Good discounts on the shop items... I recommend all of them... Because they're all fantastic... Including something super special... You've got coming up... Which is right in my wheelhouse...

Brad Dowdy: Which I can't wait... That's gonna be a... A new image... In the newsletter this week... For that one... Oh boy...

Myke Hurley: You've gotta keep one of those... Aside from me man... You ain't letting them sell out... Until I get one... So keep your eye out for all of that... Go sign up... Be a member... But yeah... I mean... You know... Penaddict is... A institution... Always will be... As will the podcast... But... I hope one day... That you and Jeff... Consider Knock... To be like... The biggest thing in the world... Because it deserves to be... Well thank you... So go and check out... Knock.co... And buy one of those... Built to order cases... Yes sir... And if you wanna find me online... I'm at... I'm like... I-M-Y-K-E... I hope to be back next week... Without all of this... Stuff... In my face...

Brad Dowdy: You actually... You actually sounded better... The longer we went... Which is a surprise...

Myke Hurley: Warming up man... Yeah... Warming up... So that's it for this week... Thanks so much to... Penchalet... For the continued... And awesome support of this show... If you have any pens... That you're looking for... Go look to Penchalet first... Because you get the discount... It also helps support this show... Which is fantastic... But as always... Thank you so much for listening... The real diehard amongst you... Who don't turn off... When I start to do the intro... Got a nice little... Secret conversation here... So... There you go... Thanks so much... We'll be back next time... Until then... Say goodbye Brad... Goodbye Brad... Just follow us... Just follow us...