The Pen Addict 53/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	53
Title:	AMA
Release Date:	May 7th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 53
Audio File:	Audio Episode 53
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 53
Length:	7373 min <br />1.217 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined today by Bradness Everpen. May the inks be forever in your favours. Now, you don't get that, do you?

Brad Dowdy: I don't get that, no, that's lost on me. So this was submitted by a listener. It sounded nice.

Myke Hurley: This is submitted by a listener, at O-Talian, I believe it's on Twitter. Now, people that get that will love that, and it's a Hunger Games reference.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay.

Myke Hurley: So it's Katniss Everdeen is her name, I believe. I believe it's Everdeen. And it's, I think it's something, may something forever be in your favour. I can't remember the actual line now. I've not read the books when you've seen the movie, but I liked it a lot. Oh, that's cool. It sounds nice, Bradness Everpen.

Brad Dowdy: I like that. So we should get people to submit intros?

Myke Hurley: I don't have to, but they can. I just like that one. And not many people submit very different ones. Typically people will riff on other ones, you know. I got a lot of his Bradness suggestions. Different places you could be earl of or something.

Brad Dowdy: That's awesome. Well, thank you for sending that in. That was pretty cool.

AMA Format

Myke Hurley: So we have a very different type of episode today. Brad had a brainwave and he wanted to do an AMA. Now, an AMA is something that's kind of typically found on Reddit, and it's ask me anything. So you will get people, famous people or people that have really interesting jobs will say, I'm such and such person, ask me anything. So the president's done one. Loads of people have done them. In all walks of life, you get people that will just be like, I am an astronaut. Ask me anything. You don't have to necessarily be a famous person. So Brad wanted to do one of these, which I think is great. So what we have is a huge list of questions that have come in from all over the place. Twitter, app.net, email. We've not really vetted them or read them. So there might be some things that pop up a couple of times and we'll just read them and gloss over them. But we did that for a reason. We want it to be sort of off the cuff and fun. A couple of things to note. We might not get to all of the questions today because we have no idea how long it's going to last. Because, as I say, there is a huge list of things in here. And also with show notes, we're not going to include everything that we talk about in the show notes today because it could potentially, again, be huge and probably more than you would ever need. So maybe if there's something new that we haven't mentioned before, it will go in. Well, for example, if I mention that I love the retro 51, it's probably not going to go in the show notes today. Is that fair, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's completely fair. And it could get – I'm really excited about this episode. And it could get a little bit out of hand in just trying to do tracking it show notes-wise. So we'll do our best to put in some important links that we feel are like the most pertinent links in the show notes. But not every pen or paper or item we talk about on the episode today is going to go into the show notes where we normally would have particular topics and we can kind of focus the show notes around that. This one's kind of, like you said, more off the cuff. And it could end up getting pretty cumbersome for the show notes perspective. But outside of that, I'm really excited about this episode. It's something I wanted to do for a while because people ask me – I'm getting questions all day, every day during the week. So I figured I'd give everyone a shot to just kind of throw everything onto the table and ask me and you anything that they wanted to ask. And we got a pretty good response. So I'm excited to see where it goes.

Myke Hurley: We got more than I thought we would, in honesty. There is a lot in here. And it's even still coming through as we were getting ready to record. So we're sorry if we miss you, but we'll try and do it again anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And if I miss you, one, we'll definitely do this again later. And two, if I somehow overlook or missed your question and you listen to this episode and you don't hear it, email me or tweet me directly. And I will promise – I will guarantee you an answer. So how about that?

Myke Hurley: Wow, that's kind of a thing. So would you like me to be on reading duties?

Brad Dowdy: Sure, sure. Yeah, and just like you said, we tried to – I copied and pasted all the questions into the document that we go off of. So I read them, but I tried to just throw them in here and not really give them any thought because, like you said, I wanted to kind of be off the cuff and just kind of – like if we were standing there talking to someone, these were the answers that we'd come up with. So I really hadn't had too much time to think about them.

Myke Hurley: Okay, so here we go. Aaron Stanley would like to know, on a personal note, I'd love to know how you came to fall in love with pens, the first major impact writing tools had on your life that you can recall. So more pen-related – oh, so there's a couple here. Right, let's start off, Brad. There's some that I'm just going to direct to you because I think that they're more for you. So how did you come to fall in love with pens?

Brad Dowdy: It was – the earliest memories I have of it, I definitely remember in middle school, like being concerned with the pens that I used when I was at school. And I've talked about before how my grandfather was an influence, being an artist on his own, just being surrounded by paints and pens and papers and books and learning how to draw with him and things like that. And he would take my sister and myself to the college bookstore, and that's where you could get all the cool office supplies that you couldn't get at the grocery store at the time. Instead of just being stuck with a regular Bic or a Paper Mate pen, we could go and get the Pilot Precise and Pilot Razor Point pens, and you could get them in purple and green and these super fine tips that none of my friends have. So those are the – that's kind of the first memories I have when I knew that I actually cared about my pens, and it really never stopped since then. It wasn't a passing fad by any means. And I was probably 8, 9, 10 years old, something like that, when I remember doing that, and it's just been kind of stuck with me ever since.

Myke Hurley: So that's really nice. I actually don't have a story. I think I've just always enjoyed pens, like not necessarily expensive pens or nice pens. I've just always liked buying or having new pens and pencils and paper, or I have since I was a little boy. Nothing – I can't pinpoint anything that would suggest that, but it's just how I've always been. And I, for a long time, thought that everybody felt this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's true. I mean, it takes a while to realize that, you know, for a while there, you're kind of the only one. You know, why doesn't everyone use this? Well, and it ends up being you're the only one that's got kind of the new and neat stuff that no one else has.

Myke Hurley: So I think you kind of covered the major impact writing tools had on your life, that you could like the first impact.

Myke Hurley: What maintenance routine do you implement to keep your feed and nibs in top condition?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is something that I've been working on a lot now that I'm more into fountain pens. And I won't say that I have, like, a detailed, you know, routine. Like, I don't keep a log or anything of pens and ink that I have currently inked up or anything. But what I try to do is anytime – I think I do it a little more frequently than I have to. But anytime I refill a pen, say I'm going to use my, you know, Pilot Custom Heritage and I have it inked with, you know, Uroshizuku Shinkai, which is kind of my favorite pen and ink combination right now. When I run that ink cartridge out, I think most people will say, you know, you can kind of reload that fountain pen two or three times with the same ink without really cleaning it or flushing it. I go ahead and flush everything out, every ink refill. That's me. I think that's a little much. Everything I've read says, you know, every two or three refills of ink, clean it out. And you probably don't even have to do it that much for the normal inks like, you know, the Uroshizuku and some of the other, you know, basic inks. And otherwise, if you're using, you know, like a stronger ink or like a more pigmented ink or an iron gall ink, you want to clean it. You definitely want to clean it every two or three times. But, you know, to keep it clean and in good shape, I clean it out every time just because now I've gotten in the habit of where I can clean the fountain pens really quickly. So I can clean it and dry it and have it reloaded with this, even with the same ink within the span of like 10 minutes. So I don't mind cleaning it out every time. But I don't think you have to do that. I think you could probably fill a pen with ink that you like, use it, run it out, fill it up again two or three times before. Then after about that third fill, you want to give it a good cleaning just to kind of keep it in good shape. Keep the feed clean. Keep the nib clean. Keep everything, keep the ink able to flow through there pretty well.

Online Retailers

Myke Hurley: Awesome. Salami, which is at SilBoltaman8H, says JetPens is cool, but discuss more shops, especially European stores. So I will jump in here. You want to check out cultpens.com. They are a UK distributor, but they ship worldwide. They're really great. They have most of the stuff that we find on JetPens, in all honesty. I've ordered a couple of things from them, and I'm going to be ordering some more stuff from them very soon.

Myke Hurley: TigerPens is another one. I think it's TigerPens.co.uk. It's another European pen seller, distributor.

Myke Hurley: I think for me, they're the big ones. You've got Goulet Pens.

Myke Hurley: GouletPens.com is the Goulet Pen Company. They are US-based, but they also have great selections.

Myke Hurley: And I will actually put those in the show notes, because it is right. We don't really talk about those guys enough, and we should talk about them more. We do reference JetPens because they kind of have everything, and they are US-based. And, you know, sometimes I like to have the exchange rate work in my favor. But if I want something quickly or if I want something expensive, I will go to one of the UK-based places, just because of some of the issues I have had with importing through customs. Is that fair, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, totally fair. And, you know, I agree with all the vendors that you said there. And, you know, like you said, we talk about JetPens a lot just because I think they do merchandising as good or better than anybody. And like you said, they're US-based, which, you know, a lot of our – I said probably the majority of our listeners are. But I second the Colt Pen statement there. Over the past year or two, their merchandising and their stock has really blown up and expanded. They're starting to carry a lot of stuff, and they're really good people. I've talked to them over there several times. And, of course, you know, I also buy from Goulet Pens here in the US. They have a lot of great fountain pens and inks and accessories and things like that that I buy from.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, that's great. Colt and Goulet, they're really active in the community as well, so that's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's another thing. They're both great, you know, online, you know, customer service-wise. You can get answers real quick. And, you know, I'll also throw in AndersonPens.net, similar to the Goulet. There's a lot of real fountain pen focus, lots of fountain pens, inks. You can get ink samples from them if you want to test out some inks. Then they're just more than happy to help out with any questions you might have about, you know, ordering pens. They've been very helpful to me in the past.

Mechanical Pencils

Myke Hurley: Salami also asks, do you like mechanical or normal pencils?

Myke Hurley: Kuru Toga. Just go for the Uniball Kuru Toga, and we'll answer all of your needs.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I've been a mechanical pencil guy my whole life. And these new black wings, you know, the white pearl black wings, that's maybe something we can show note because we haven't really talked about that in the past. I'm starting to get an itch that needs to be scratched for wood case pencils. So we'll see how that goes. Right now I'm a mechanical pencil guy, most specifically the Kuru Toga and other pencils that are drafting style. Mechanical pencils, I don't like, like I don't use the Pentel, the P205. That's kind of a hybrid mechanical drafting pencil. But I like the technical looking pencils. If I'm not using the Kuru Toga, I'll use something more technical in design like that, you know, like the Rotring 600, the UniShift Pipe Log. I like those type of pencils. But, yeah, I'm starting to have a – I'm getting a little bug for these wood case pencils, Myke. So this could be an issue, and we're going to have to have some of our pencil friends on sometime soon. They keep tweeting me too.

Myke Hurley: Heather Raymond, HM Raymond 7. Do you know what? The 7H and the 8H, that was 8 hours and 7 hours. I've just realized.

Brad Dowdy: Ignore that. I was like, another person? That was just my – that was my quick copying and pasting. You know, I didn't really edit these. I just kind of copied them and slapped them in the document. So, yeah, that's exactly what that is.

Myke Hurley: So it's at Sil Bolterman. So thank you, Sil. So at HM Raymond, do you ever feel like hiding your pen and paper addiction for the fear of being judged? I don't anymore, personally.

Myke Hurley: People notice, especially at work, my eccentric pens that I have. Somebody was asking me about the Twisby the other day. They're like, oh, they're nice colors. So I explained to them the type of pen and that it was a Republic of China commemorative edition. And they asked me if the ink was purposeful. I was like, no, it's just lucky that the blue matches because I use the Konpeki. The Hiroshisoku Konpeki ink. But people notice the pencil case that I have and I'm like, it's just a thing that I enjoy. I just like nice writing instruments. And, you know, I just say to people, I think that everybody should consider having a nice pen. And it's something that I care about.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I used to feel like I had to hide it some, you know, years ago. You know, if I use something different than the norm and someone asked me about it, I say, oh, it's just a pen, you know, that I bought. And I kind of like it and, you know, and just kind of kind of blow it off kind of thing and not really get into it. But nowadays, you know, I don't hesitate if someone sees me, I'm less hesitant to use any pen in any situation in any paper in any situation than I used to be. And that brings about more questions about, oh, what is that? Or, you know, or me being, you know, the instigator saying, hey, check this out kind of thing. I've kind of, you know, crossed that threshold where I don't worry about it anymore. And I'm trying to pull, you know, other people in, you know, like I'll just, you know, answer. If someone asks me about a pen I'm using, they'll say, what is that? And I'll just, I'll start going into it. I'll say, oh, you know, check this out. This is, it's, you know, this type of pen or this type of fountain pen. And here's why, you know, it's different. You know, check out this nib on this pen or look how fine this high tech C writes or something like that. Just something a little extra where in the past I used to just kind of dismiss it, I guess, just because I felt like a fool kind of talking about it. Now you're having a discussion about the pens and now I don't feel like that way at all anymore. Now I'll almost instigate it more than anything.

Myke Hurley: At Topher, T-O-F-F-E-R, would like to know, how do you each store your pens? So I have my, I've mentioned it before. I have a large pencil case that I keep at work with some of my favorite stuff in. And I have a pencil pot here made out of Lego, handmade. Because I had nothing else to keep them in. What about you, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Most of my storage of stuff that I don't use is like in big plastic bins and in different pen cases and Ziploc bags. You know, I've got hundreds of pens laying around and I can't have them all out at the same time. So I use, you know, I use these plastic bins and Ziploc bags and I'll sort out just like, like I'll have like a bag of high tech C's and Sino DX's and just various things. And then, you know, I've got like a smaller bin that's just got all my fountain pen stuff in it, which has, you know, some of the pens I'm not using. It's got some ink bottles that I use more frequently. It's got my cleaning supplies, like my aspirators and syringes and extra cartridges and things like that. And I keep that all in like a little small bin that's real portable because I'm always carrying that around a lot. You know, like if I'm going to clean my pens, I kind of take everything out and lay it all out, you know, like a big, the big dork that I am. So that's, that's mostly how I, how I store them. It's really, you know, I store them in bins in a closet. I've got a shelf in a closet that's just loaded with pens and paper, but they're all in storage bins in general.

Myke Hurley: You're such a nerd.

Brad Dowdy: I know, I know.

Myke Hurley: I don't understand the next part. What do you use with your pens? I don't know what that means. Sorry.

Brad Dowdy: I'm wondering if he's getting out. I'm wondering if he's wondering about paper or something like that. I don't know. I don't know, Topher. Well, you can, you can hit us up on, on, on Twitter afterwards.

Myke Hurley: But, um, yeah. There's probably some paper questions in here later. Yeah. Desert Island disc. We said discs and pens. I haven't really prepared Desert Island discs. These are albums that you would, that you would always have with you, right? If you were stuck on a desert island. Yeah. Or that would take some serious preparation.

Brad Dowdy: I know. That's, that's a tough question. Cause you know, I, I take my music, uh, I take my music pretty seriously and I've got, I've got lots of favorites, lots of favorite bands. God, if I had to, can I just have one or do I have, can I have a few or don't make it one?

Myke Hurley: Maybe pick two or three?

Brad Dowdy: Whew. Okay. Desert Island disc. I would take, um, the wedding present, Sea Monsters. That's one of my favorite CDs ever. Um, I take, um, I take, oh gosh. Okay. Let me, should I say one? I take, uh, I take, uh, I take, uh, I take the stand-ins. I like that CD a lot.

Myke Hurley: I don't know either of those.

Brad Dowdy: I'll give you, I'll give you some links. And then I'd probably take, uh, the Smiths meet his murder. There you go. There's three.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Do you want to note those down?

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: Um, I would have the very best of the Beach Boys.

Myke Hurley: Um.

Myke Hurley: Jonathan Colton, best concert ever.

Myke Hurley: And, oh God.

Myke Hurley: Uh.

Desert Island Pens

Myke Hurley: I'm really struggling with this last one. Because there's a bunch of things here that I would take.

Myke Hurley: Oh man, this is rough. Um. I'm gonna say Time for Heroes, the very best of the Libertines.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Oh, look at you. I like the Libertines.

Myke Hurley: Big fan. Yeah. Some tough ones. Like I didn't pick any Arctic Monkeys. Oh man. That's rough. No Kings of Leon. Is it? Maccabees. Those are three bands that I would love to include, but.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. Like I didn't. I. You know, I need. I should take some Joy Division. But, you know, between the Smiths and Joy Division, I'll be awfully depressed on my Desert Island. That probably wouldn't be a good thing.

Myke Hurley: See, that's why, you know, go for the Beach Boys and I'll be happy to be there. Desert Island pens. I mean, a Retro 51 Tornado. Twisby 540 ROC. And.

Myke Hurley: I don't know. Um. Um. I'll probably take a Curitoga as well.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I think if I just had to pick a couple of pens, I'd probably take the Vanishing Point. Um. Pilot Vanishing Point fountain pen. That seems to be a pen I always go back to and always have and always use a lot. You know, if I'm just having like one fountain pen or something like that, I'd probably take that. And I'd probably take a Tombow AirPress. Um. You know, like a pressurized ink refill pen. And plus it's got like a cool clip I could take off and use a fishing hook or something like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. See, that's useful. I should have gone for the Fisher Space pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I think those are mine. So, that's a tough question. You know. And it could go a couple of different ways. But for both for music and for pens. So, yeah. That's a. That's one you got to put a lot of thought into.

Myke Hurley: So, Anthony Scalambrene at Everyday Comment. What's the best fountain pen to get after your starter fountain pen? So, he's saying that he has a Lamy Safari, which is, I assume he's saying, is his starter pen. Which we have lamented over and over again. Wow. That's tough, right? I mean, maybe.

Brad Dowdy: And just so you know, he did a follow-up right afterward. And he says, oh, cartridges only, no converters. So, it's got to be a cartridge fill pen.

Myke Hurley: Then I would say, you've got a German. So, you've got a European. You should go for a Japanese. So, I would say go for a Pilot Prera. Because they're well-priced, extremely well-made and give you the Japanese flavor.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I agree with the Prera. And I love the Prera steel nibs. For the price point of the Prera, that nib is really, really awesome. For like around a $50 pen. I don't know that I've used a nib as nice. But I also enjoy the extra, extra fine nibs. So, I use the Pilot Prera fine nib. And I love it. Every time I use that pen, I'm like, oh, I should use this pen more often. So, that's certainly high praise for a pen.

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, like for me and my history, you know, the Prera, I think, was one of the first things that I bought after starting this show. And I learned so much. Like, I learned that I bought the wrong nib size. I learned so many things. So, you know, because I bought a German, I bought a medium when I should have brought a broad at that time for me. I should revisit my Prera now. I'm adjusting to different nib sizes. But anyway, I want to take a…

Brad Dowdy: Hang on real quick. Let me go. Since I know Tony and I talk to him a lot and I know his style. Oh, okay. He also, he's a big everyday carry guy, likes, you know, knives, flashlights, the tactical stuff. He ought to look at the vanishing point too if he wants to spend the money. That's something that might be right up your alley, Tony. And maybe we'll talk about that offline. Because that's a big jump from the Prera, but it might fit his style.

Myke Hurley: Nobody else should take that advice.

Brad Dowdy: No. Nobody. No, no, no, no. No one else should take that advice. That is specific for Tony. Tony, maybe.

Myke Hurley: No one. Don't do it. Don't do what Sean Blanc did. The guy's crazy. I don't know why he went, you know, he bought a great pen. But to jump that far in, I bet he did trust your advice. It's worked out for him. We actually have two sponsors today. We have Squarespace, who I'll talk about now. And we have a pretty cool sponsor, a new sponsor a little later on. But I want to take a moment to thank the lovely people, the fine folks, the great Squarespace, who give you absolutely everything you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace have been a longtime sponsor. Of the show. And we want to take some time to thank them as well as telling you about them. So we love Squarespace because they give me and Brad and everybody real simple tools to create and maintain any sort of website. Me and Brad both host our blogs there. So I have MikeHurley.net. Brad has PenAddict.com, which is obviously the website you know and love. And it looks so great because of the tools and all of the stuff that Squarespace provide. So Squarespace is a completely managed, hosted environment. You don't have to worry about anything when it comes to building a Squarespace site. You don't have to have any experience at all. You can build something in minutes. You don't have to worry about hosting, scaling or integrating with other services. If you want to build a store, they have Squarespace Commerce where you can integrate a store. Sorry, that can sell digital or physical goods. You've got payments that they can accept, inventory management, order processing. It's all built right into Squarespace. They have beautiful themes and templates. They're really clean. They feature responsive web designs. They look great on any device, any screen size. They have a drag and drop page building system called Layout Engine. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support, fantastic statistics in iOS and Android apps. They have the whole kit. If you want to create a website, there really is nowhere better than Squarespace.com. You can find out more information. Sign up for a free trial at Squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. You can get everything you need there. Squarespace plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan, $20 a month for their unlimited plan. You'll get a discount. You'll get 20% off that price if you sign up for one year up front. You'll get 25% off if you sign up for two years up front. You will get 10% off anything at all off your first purchase if you use the code 70decibels5 at checkout. Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring and for giving you everything you need to make an amazing website. Right. Carrying on. This is a question for me from Ardis Shobano. Shobano. At Lilardy. How many Star Wars Lego do I have? See, I wouldn't see that this is the American person. I assume American or at least not British or maybe European. Let me see. I want to find out where they're from because this is important to me now. It doesn't say, but I'm just going to assume because the question was how many Star Wars Legos do you have? Because that is the American way of pronouncing it because the actual correct European way of pronouncing it would be how much Star Wars Lego do I have? Oh, okay. Because Lego, the pluralization of Lego is Lego.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't realize that. I was wondering where you were going with this, but now it makes sense.

Myke Hurley: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You would say I have Lego or I have a Lego block, I guess. Anyway. So I own the Death Star. That is my most recent purchase. And I guess throughout my life I have had smaller sets.

Myke Hurley: I've never had a set as large as the Death Star. So, yeah, I mean, I've had multiple throughout my life. Just small ones like Land Cruisers, TIE Fighters, stuff like that. Maybe some minifigs that I bought, but the Death Star is the big one. At Joshua Wald.

Myke Hurley: Joshua Wald is all over the network. He submitted a big topic for us on Enough today. Oh, really? Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Because I haven't really talked with him before. Like a lot of the people we're talking about today that have submitted questions, I've talked to in the past. But Joshua, I haven't. So, cool.

First Pen Purchases

Myke Hurley: I think Josh is new. New to the show and new to pens, as he's asked. I'm about to buy my first pen slash paper on JetPens for writing. Any suggestions? I just read the next question. Pens and paper.

Myke Hurley: Pens and paper. So, paper, you should probably look, if it's your first, look at a Rodia journal. A web notebook would be a good thing because it has all of the hipness factor of a moleskin. But much better paper. So, I'll put those in the show notes for you. So, Joshua, what about a pen, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: I think if you're just going to go, if this is going to be your first purchase and you just want to try a couple things out, I would choose one of the Pentel Energel Euro needles, either the .35 or the .5, if you like fine tips. That's a really good first pen. It's a good writer, good ink, very comfortable.

Brad Dowdy: The Uniball Sino DX, of course. I'd probably try a .5 millimeter on that one. And then I'd toss in just a Uniball Jetstream, probably a .7 millimeter, and just see if you like it. You know, those three pens are all, I think, less than $3 each. It's just something to try and see what you like, you know, without having more specifics on, you know, what you're trying to do with your pens. You know, are you just using them for work? Are you trying to accomplish something specific? Are you a student? You know, we can get more specific, and I'd be happy to help you more if you want to send me an email. But those are three that are really good starter type pens to kind of get your feet wet and see maybe what you like and then go from there.

Myke Hurley: You said the Jetstream, the Energel, and what?

Brad Dowdy: The DX, the Uniball Sino DX.

Brad Dowdy: Those are three real good consistent riders, really good performing pens.

Myke Hurley: Okey-dokey. At ISMH, which is Stephen Hackett, wants to know, Brad, how you got to be so handsome.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I use Myke Hurley's hair tips. I don't know if you've seen Myke's wonderful hair. You know, I try to follow your lead, Myke, in your hair care regimen.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: I do. With, you know, the shampooing and conditioner and, you know, the little extra spa treatments that you get. And then I mix that in. I mix that in with girly drinks. And that's kind of a good regimen I have. And, you know, it keeps the skin looking good, looking healthy, and the hair looking good. So, yeah. You know, I really follow Myke's lead. I mean, he is my style muse, if you will. And, yeah, that's why I look so good.

Myke Hurley: Muse, general inspiration, all of those things, really. If everybody followed my tips, you know, the world would be a different place. That's right. Mary Collis, MS Collis, would like to know, do you find your pen acquisitions are becoming more focused, more collector-ish, or are you still dabbling to find focus, if at all? I added if at all in myself. I don't know why.

Brad Dowdy: I'm still dabbling. I would say that I don't have any focus yet. And, you know what? I don't know that I ever will, just because I like so many different things. You know, if there's some new ballpoint pen, you know, I'm going to try it. And if there's some new fountain pen, I'm going to try it. So I don't know that I might – I guess my focus is never going to get – I'm never going to have, like, a laser focus in my pen purchasing. It's going to be more of a looking at everything kind of thing. So I don't know that I'll ever get that focused. And, you know, I might have some offshoots, like, you know, if there's a specific pen that I want to collect more of specifically, then, yeah, I think, you know, in that case I will. But I think in general, I think I won't have any focus. It's too much – I could never be in a monogamous type pen relationship, I don't think.

Myke Hurley: I'm very similar. I mean, I'm still meandering through. Any listeners will know that I am still clearly finding my feet as my obsessions change very, very frequently. We have an email question here. This is quite a long one, but I'll read it through and we'll see. There's a lot of question marks in here, so I'm concerned. Hello, I'm in the market for my first fountain pen in years and I've got my eye on the Twisby 580 EF nib. Given that this will be my only fountain pen and I'm not sure how much I'm going to write with it, my question is ink regarded. Is the refill system easy enough for a novice? I'm going to answer yes. Does that kind of system make sense in my case? Yes, it does. I just want one ink and to go with it. I'm not going to change the colour once a week. I've never bought a bottle of ink before. Is the refill a clean procedure with the Twisby? Yes, it is. Very clean. Does bottled ink make sense if I'm using it with just one pen? Yep, that's fine. That's what I'm doing at the moment too. Or will it dry out? Nope, you'll be fine. The ink will last for a very long time in the bottle. Keep it out of direct sunlight. Would that be correct, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah, that's... Keep it in a cool, dry place. As long as you take general care needs, yeah, you'll be fine.

Myke Hurley: Is the Twisby even a good single pen or is it better as a secondary pen? No, I use it as my primary pen at the moment. You see, I don't have a clue at all, just that I want a smooth EF nib and that the Twisby spoke to me. Perhaps you have a better recommendation. I want to stay in the sub-50 euro range. I need an EF nib and I can't use small pens like the Cuico Sport because my hands are pretty huge. Thanks for a great show. Kind regards from Berlin, Germany, Sebastian. Sebastian, I hope that that made sense. Go for the Twisby. Find yourself a nice ink. Pay a bit of money and maybe get one of the Pilot Hiroshizuku inks. Brad, would you agree with that? Or a J-Herban?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I like, especially with the Twisby's and most of their models are the demonstrator type where you can see the ink in them. So you don't want to stain. You don't want to get any ink that's going to stain that window. So yeah, I would stick with a primary vendor, like a pen vendor's ink, like Pilot or even J-Herban, who makes a few pens. But it's a very tame ink, Diamine, things like that. But just in general, the overarching question is, should I be worried, one, about the Twisby and the filling system? And is it a good enough pen to be my only pen? And if I buy one ink to go with that, is that a good enough setup to be my one and only? And without question, it is. Don't be scared of the ink filling system in the Twisby. It's really easier. It's probably almost easier.

Brad Dowdy: It's probably right after cartridges in the next filling system. It's easier to fill than most converters, I think, this piston filler that the Twisby 580s have. It's super easy to clean. It's a very easy pen to maintain. And if you pick out a Twisby EF and one ink, you're going to be set for a long, long time if that's your goal here. And that should work out very, very well for you, Sebastian.

Myke Hurley: Friend of the show, JJ L. Setter. What would you consider your other or another obsession? And what draws you to it that, for me, does not count podcasting, which is a problem. So I think it's the only other thing that I think about. Brad, what about you?

Brad Dowdy: I've always been a baseball nerd. I used to, you know, my first forays into blogging back probably in the early 2000s. You know, I wrote a baseball blog. And I was one of those real statistical guys, you know, that followed, you know, all the minutiae and the statistics. And I would keep my own spreadsheets and calculate my own statistics. And, you know, I don't do it as hardcore as I used to. But I'm a really, really deep into baseball. You know, I don't have any other, you know, like obsessions, you know, with, you know, I'm not into like movies or I'm not into necessarily electronics, you know, like home theater type stuff. But I'm pretty hardcore into baseball and the statistics that go around that. And that's a pretty nerdy passion on its own. And it costs way less than pens, too.

Myke Hurley: Mine would probably be comic books and comic book related things, movies, cartoons, that sort of stuff.

Myke Hurley: Patrick Grone, Brad would like to know if he can have all of your pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, no. Patrick, you cannot have all my pens. But if I do come up to your house one day, I will definitely be rating your vintage pen collection. And this might go the other way than you would expect. So, yeah, I'm going to steal Patrick's pens, not the other way around.

Myke Hurley: J.L. Abbott would like to know, how much do you and Myke communicate during the week and how difficult is it to adjust to a third shift schedule? Last part, we've got a favorite pocket knife. We'll come to that in a minute. The interesting thing is parts one and two of that question actually go hand in hand. Because Brad is on a third shift schedule, we talk more than I do with some of the other hosts because we're typically awake at the same time. We sleep at the same time. Not just like, oh, we have some overlap. It's practically the same.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that time shift actually works in our favor with my weird schedule.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we talk. I mean, not over the phone, but we probably talk every day.

Brad Dowdy: I'd say we probably talk every day. We're bouncing something off each other every day or just having just general conversations, you know, or hey, look at this or whatever. But we talk pretty close to every day, just like Myke says, because, you know, the way our schedule overlaps. But, yeah, it works out pretty good. And just I don't know if you're just asking in general, Joe, how difficult is it to adjust to a third shift schedule? It's pretty tough. The hardest. I mean, if I'm going on it, you know, not having like vacation and not messing up my schedule, you know, to where I'm working five days on and two days off. Like it's not an issue for me at night. You know, you get pretty used to that part. But what's hard is when you do have days off, even just like my two day weekends, it's hard to sometimes adjust and do, you know, what your family's doing and things like that. So the hardest part about a third shift schedule is you're never really off because you still kind of keep your same sleep schedule through like your two day weekend that you have off. Right. So or else you'll really be messed up. So, oh, and do I have a favorite pocket knife? Yeah, I do. I carry you. Right now I'm using a little small Swiss Army A-locks. It's just a single blade pocket knife with a bottle opener screwdriver, other blade. It's one of the thinnest, smallest knives that I've ever found. And I've been carrying this one for years. And sometimes I'll switch out to us. I have a Spyderco Delica that I use otherwise. So I do like pocket knives. So that's one rabbit hole I could see going down one of these days.

Myke Hurley: Where are we? Anna, at Anna, A-N-A, friend of the show. Daily carry, pens, paper, other tools for both of us. For me, probably paper. I typically have Moleskines just because I have loads of them. So I'm still kind of trying to get through those before I move to more sophisticated paperware. I have used other products in the past. But rather than buying more rodeo journals or whatever, I want to get rid of the Moleskines that I have, which I've amassed over some time. So I buy sort of crazy editions and stuff. Field notes, I'd use more and more and more. Because I have more and more and more of them. At the moment, my daily carry is typically the Twisby 540 and obviously a Retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm trying to get mine down to as small as possible. So right now, last night, for example, I carried one pen case that had five fountain pens. And then maybe, you know, like a high-tech C, I always have. Usually my Render K.

Brad Dowdy: And that's most of the pens I try to carry around with me, like going to and from work, things like that, and that I use at work. And then I'll carry with me either a field notes notebook or a Dome utility journal. I alternate. I have so many of each that I'll fill up one. Like I'll fill up a Dome paper. Then I'll go to a field notes and then fill that up and go back to a Dome paper just so I'm getting to use them all.

Brad Dowdy: And then, you know, I just carry, you know, outside of that, I carry, you know, like a small, like a mini flashlight and a mini pocket knife. And that's pretty much it. I try to keep my carry pretty small so I don't have too many extraneous tools. But I do keep, you know, a small high-powered flashlight and a small pocket knife along with my pens and paper.

Myke Hurley: Cool.

Myke Hurley: Okay. How did both of you get to share your addiction? Ever wonder about that uncommon transatlantic relationship? I don't, especially in my life, transatlantic relationships aren't uncommon anymore. I seem to, well, I talk to more people every day, I think, and have maybe even more friends, I think, that live all over the world than I ever have before. I think mine and Brad's relationship, if you want to call it that, I like to, began on an episode of another podcast on 70 decibels, soon to be on 5x5s, all of our shows will be, called Enough with Patrick Rowe. And we had Brad on because we were both a fan of the pen addict. And I thought Brad was great behind the mic and started to pressure him to create a show with us.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. I got peer pressured into this podcast, but it couldn't have worked out any better. But that's right. That's how we, I mean, I guess we had kind of, I don't know if we'd really talked. We certainly knew of each other before we got on board with Patrick and did the Enough episode where y'all were, where y'all had me on. And then it just kind of snowballed from there. You know, I was hesitant at first to commit to doing my own show. But through your pressuring and, but really it was more the vision you had that, you know, that you felt that this would be a good idea. I finally came around to that. And it's been wonderful ever since. This is one of the most fun things I do every week. So I very much enjoy it. So, and, and I've never even considered our uncommon transatlantic relationship. I think that's just the nature of the beast now. I mean, that's, that's the world that we live in. And I've never thought, I've never thought anything about that just because it's almost, it just feels normal.

Myke Hurley: Star Wars, Zachary, Star Wars. He says Star Wars to Star Trek. I assume he means Star Wars or Star Trek.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's what I would assume.

Myke Hurley: Star Wars. I've never been a Trekkie.

Brad Dowdy: Star Wars, never been a Trekkie.

Myke Hurley: I like the movies. I like the most recent movies, but there we go. So I want to take a quick moment to thank our second sponsor for today. How about that, Brad? The second sponsor on today's episode. I know.

Brad Dowdy: It's awesome. I'm pumped. I'm pumped.

Art Snacks

Myke Hurley: And they're a new sponsor. They're a new sponsor to us. They're a new sponsor to the network too. It's Art Snacks.

Myke Hurley: Well, what is that, you may ask? Well, Art Snacks, you can find them at artsnacks.co. Art Snacks is a monthly serving of the best art supplies. They're constantly searching the globe for the best art materials. After rigorous testing from real art professionals, each order is sent with information about each product and its best uses. Every month, Art Snacks delivers four to five unique, high-quality art supplies right to your door. It's a great way to discover new products, and they also make for a great gift that the artist or pen addict in your life will enjoy. They offer month-to-month, as well as yearly subscriptions. No contracts, and you can cancel any time. Now, that's what Art Snacks wanted us to say, but I wanted to chuck in some of my own thoughts as well, which I'm sure that they'll be happy to hear. So when this sponsorship was booked for us by the lovely Hattie at 5x5, who's the producer at 5x5, and she does account management. So she sent this stuff over to me. I went to artsnacks.co, and I immediately signed up. As soon as I saw this, I purchased a subscription plan with them. They have international shipping, so I believe it's $20 a month, or $30, if you want to get shipped overseas. Yeah, from $20 a month, and they ship all around the world. Obviously, I paid $30 a month, which I think is incredibly cheap, especially with the amount of stuff that I spend. Looking through their previous boxes. So they send these boxes that have, as I say, four to five art supplies that are sent right to you. They've used products that we talk about all the time. So I know that they're the types of people that we love. They do the types of products that we love. So things like, what have we got here? Sharpie pens, Palomino Blackwing pencils. We even mentioned those earlier in the show today. There's the Tombow stuff in there. We have... Karandash. Kurutogas in here.

Brad Dowdy: Rodia.

Myke Hurley: Sakura. See Rodia in the pictures. Yep, Sakura, Pigma stuff as well. So things that we talk about all the time. So we know that we're on the right wavelength for us. I've been searching for something like this. And me and Brad have spoken offline about these sorts of things since we started. A subscription service was something I've really wanted. Because I want... One of the things that I love, I think that we all love about this stuff, is finding new stuff. And it's really cool now that I've got a company that's going to send me a box of new kit every month. And it's going to be surprises. And as well, looking at stuff, I know I'm going to get to try new things. Things I would have never thought about before. But it might be stuff that I love. So I think that everybody listening should go sign up. One, because it's cool. And two, because these are the types of companies that I would love to have sponsored with us again in the future. And if we all go sign up, they will. That's the way I think about it. So I think everybody should go to ArtSnacks. That's A-R-T-S-N-A-C-K-S dot C-O. ArtSnacks.co. And sign up and try it out. I mean, you know, $20 if you don't like the first box. They say there's no contract you can cancel. But I'm sure that you wouldn't want to because it looks like really cool stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it does look really cool. I like the thing that impressed me the most is the range of goods that they're sending you every month. You know, like your kit can include, you know, a couple pencils, a couple pens. And it'll have a paintbrush and some acrylic paint. You know, it's really, you know, it's kind of got that artist-based feel to it. And, you know, then the next kit might have, you know, colored pencils and charcoal and fineliners and markers and erasers and things like that. So I like the way they're going with the product mix that they're doing here. So this looks really cool. You know, definitely check out ArtSnacks and, you know, tell us what you think. Give us some feedback on it. And it looks like a very, very, very, very cool service. And, yeah, I will definitely be checking it out myself.

Myke Hurley: While we're here, something we've never really mentioned before. If you're in the pen industry, pen, paper, pencil industry, you should get in touch with us about sponsorship opportunities because there really is no better audience than the pen addict audience.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, and we'd love to have you.

Myke Hurley: We would. We would be thrilled. Should we carry on? Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you, ArtSnacks.

Myke Hurley: Thank you, ArtSnacks. Thank you very much. Right. Lewis Chase McCoy. What are our task management applications of choice? Task management. Oh, right. Yes. I am on Android at the moment, so I'm using something called Astrid, which has just been bought by Yahoo, so I need to find something new. Brad, do you use any task management applications? Yes, pen and paper. Excellent. Perfect. Also, notes. Simple note, Evernote, you're probably going to say pen and paper again.

Brad Dowdy: No, I've just started. I used to use NvAlt and Simple Note setup, and I stopped. Yeah. And I transferred that to pen and paper. Now I'm starting to force myself to use Evernote a little bit more, and I'm liking it. I'm not knee-deep into it yet, but I'm starting to dabble in Evernote. So I might start using that more. I'm starting to do some more of the daily capturing stuff. Chase had a double-dipped. He had a Twitter question and an app.net question. The second one is, how do you separate journaling digitally with apps like Day One and journaling with pen and paper? I actually started to use Day One app this year, and I like that a lot. If I do any type of journaling, it's actually through Day One because I've never really kept a journal before. It's never been my thing. I keep all my task lists and to-dos and everything, and that's all pen and paper. But journaling, ironically enough, is digitally with an app like Day One, which really just makes it really, really simple.

Myke Hurley: So I no longer put anything into Simple Note. I have an account, and I have some stuff in there that I just haven't moved out yet. I mainly put things into Google Drive. I do a lot of collaboration stuff, so all of the podcast stuff really goes in there. And I'm using Evernote as well. I've just started using Evernote again, and I need to get into it a bit more. Cool. With journaling, I use Day One, but I don't really keep a diary. I tend to – this is kind of bad. I tend to keep images of things that I want to remember. When I say that, it's typically like somebody said something nice or, you know, basically ego-boosting stuff tends to go in there, as well as some memories. But it's mainly ego-boosting stuff, which is terrible.

Brad Dowdy: No, that's good. Yeah, I don't use it as a diary either. I use it more – I think it's more of a memories, you know. I use it to kind of organize some of my pictures on things that I want to remember. I do use it a lot with my kids and things like that. I don't use – I'm tempted to use Brett Terpstra's Slogger.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that looks like too much to me to go in.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. That looks – I've downloaded it, but I haven't installed it just because I don't know if I want to dump everything into Day One because I don't know that's what I'm really using it for. I'm using it just for, you know, to – you know, just kind of some memory capturing. You know, I was here then and, you know, we did these cool things, that kind of stuff. But I don't use it like an everyday journal or a diary.

Music Preferences

Myke Hurley: Official show mascot, Kanuni Raneshin. I have one for you both. The most embarrassing music track that you're happy to admit to. I guess this is something that we love. I think that maybe even saying that the very best of the Beach Boys is on my Desert Island Discs, it might be bad enough. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, this is actually really easy for me because I have a six-year-old daughter and, you know, you can name any music that, you know, a six-year-old girl will be into. But mine and her – our jam right now is we're into Taylor Swift. We are never, ever getting back together.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's a –

Brad Dowdy: We rock it out on some Taylor Swift right now, so I'm not too embarrassed to admit that.

Myke Hurley: Brad is an unfortunate person to have on your RDO friends list as he ruins the heavy rotation.

Brad Dowdy: It's – you know what? If there's one thing that drives me crazy, it's that. And, you know what? There's nothing I can do about it because my – between my wife and kids getting into my RDO account, it's like ruin. Like everything at the top is, you know, Taylor Swift and One Direction. And, you know, now I get these notifications for like, you know, you might like or here's some new albums, you know, from One Direction. I'm like, oh, man, y'all are killing me. So, yeah, you have to dig a little deeper in my RDO listening because, yeah, they – you know, with the kids, the short attention span, there's probably about 10 songs that are in heavy rotation. And we're talking like five times a day each. So it definitely skews everything.

Myke Hurley: How do you physically store your pens and equipment from Brian Esposito? I think we've covered that.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yeah. Tupperware, basically. But, no, I use like the large storage bins. I think we covered it. That works best for me right now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Cool.

Myke Hurley: At Uncle Larry, 1112 – 112, I think. I'm not sure.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Sorry. I really screwed you up on these. I think that's probably – it's probably just Uncle Larry. I think that looks like some kind of minute thing.

Myke Hurley: 11,218 minutes ago. So, ever use Clairefontaine 3.5 by 5.5 side staple notebooks? Cheaper than Field Notes and more fountain pen friendly but are thicker. I think it might be safe to say that both me and Brad don't use Field Notes just for their paper qualities. Like, they are great but we love the designs and the collectibleness of them.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. And I think – I know which Clairefontaines he's talking about and I think I haven't used them because I don't think they come in graph. I think they might only come in lined. I will double check and if I'm wrong about that, I will order some because I definitely would like to check those out. I think I know which ones you're talking about. I've looked at them and I think I passed over them for that reason but I could be mistaken. But I'll check back into that.

Myke Hurley: Theodore Liu has asked two questions. What's your favorite second fountain pen? If someone has a typical entry pen like a Preppy or Safari, what would you recommend to them next? I think we covered that earlier.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, I would like to elaborate though and say, you know, look at – we talked about the Pereira but I would look at the TWSBI, the TWSBI 580. It's a good price point. There's a lot of value in that pen, you know, as far as what you can do with it and the quality is great. It's a really good second fountain pen. That's the one I'd move – like if you're going Lamy Safari for – it's kind of your entry-level pen. And I'd look at a Pereira and I'd look at a TWSBI very, very hard.

Myke Hurley: Favorite use of or seen with a pen in a movie? Mine is the explodable Parker ballpoint from Goldeneye.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, see, I've got nothing on this. This is one I actually looked at and thought about.

Brad Dowdy: I can't come up with anything. I can't come up with anything.

Myke Hurley: And he – and Theodore is given his – the open interrogation scene in Inglourious Bastards. A very close second is the tank scene from Indie Free.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'll have to think about that. I do have a favorite book – a favorite book paper scene.

Myke Hurley: Go for it.

Brad Dowdy: This is just a brag. My sister is a bookbinder in the movie The Good Shepherd. It's about a particular book and she actually made those books as props for that movie. So that's pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: That is very cool. That is very cool. Okay, rapid fire.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I like this one.

Myke Hurley: Black or blue ink?

Brad Dowdy: Blue.

Myke Hurley: Black cap or retractable?

Brad Dowdy: Retractable.

Myke Hurley: Cap, even though I never post them. Highlight or underline? Line. Highlight. Underline. Cursive or print?

Brad Dowdy: Print.

Myke Hurley: Cursive.

Brad Dowdy: This is why this show is so good. We're on the exact opposite so far.

Myke Hurley: I kind of go in between both. Lined or graph or dots?

Brad Dowdy: Graph.

Myke Hurley: Dots. Even though I don't use enough of them. It's just my preferred of all of those. Staples, glue or spiral?

Brad Dowdy: That's a tough one.

Myke Hurley: For me it's staples because there's a lefty. There's never any issues.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to go staples as well on that one.

Piston Fillers

Myke Hurley: Glue or spiral can cause problems for left-handed people. Yeah. Piston or converter? Piston. Piston because I actually don't like converters very much after using pistons. Converters are very messy. Vintage or modern? Modern. Modern. Yeah. So we kind of ended up going together after you said that we were apart. Brian Schenker. That's B.L. Schenker. Ink creep. Why does it happen and can it be prevented? I don't know if he's insulting you there, Brad. No.

Brad Dowdy: No. He's referencing the Lamy Safaris in particular. And those, I don't know that you can prevent it. I've seen it happen in pretty much all of my Safaris. The ink comes through the tines. You can see it on the feed. You know what? With the Lamy's, you've got to clean them regularly. And still, even though you have a fresh pen, it still just goes through the nib. I hate to say it. It's almost just like a feature of a fountain pen. I'm really anal about keeping my nibs clean. Like when I'm writing, I don't like ink. Like after I've inked them, I try to clean them off really, really well. So nib creep does bother me, but I'm starting to come around to where it's just kind of a fact of life. You know, now there's ink and nib combinations that are worse. I've noticed, though, particularly on the Lamy's, seem to be the worst out of the pens that I've had. So I don't have a real answer for you there, Brian, other than it's going to happen. And I've seen it happen, especially with the Lamy's. And I've not found anything you can do about it, really. Because the Lamy ink is pretty good. So, yeah, that's kind of how that one is, unfortunately.

Myke Hurley: Joe Lebo at JJLsetter. He wants another question.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, he's not the man.

Myke Hurley: He's the guy. Who are some of our personal heroes?

Myke Hurley: Quick for me. Leo Laporte, Dan Benjamin. Steve Jobs, naturally. Stephen Fry.

Myke Hurley: I think that's a good selection. I've probably missed off some important ones, but... Is that you?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, gosh, that's hard.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. Heroes is such a hard thing. I'm fans of guys. I'm fans of a lot of people. I don't know that I have heroes. I don't know that there's anyone that I necessarily look up to. I'll have to think about that one.

Myke Hurley: Interesting.

Brad Dowdy: That's a hard question for me. That kind of caught me off guard there. I was not ready for that.

Brad Dowdy: Hmm...

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't know. Fair enough. I'll have to get back to you, Jen. It's fine. Sorry. Myke Piontek, FMF is dead.

Myke Hurley: How do you get a job in the pen industry, Brad?

Pen Industry Jobs

Brad Dowdy: That's a good question. That's a tough question. For me, it was just luck. I mean, I was just persistent in my blogging, built an audience, built kind of a rapport with the readers, and that turned into a rapport with various pen companies. And then we just got to talking about JetPens. They wanted to try to do a couple different things, and they asked if I was interested. And I said, of course, yeah, I was. In the end, it didn't work out best for either of us. But I think it's probably a hard industry to get into because most of the things that you and I and other people see are publicly are all from the marketing PR side, right? So that's how, you know, those are the paths that are the ends to the pen company. And, you know, I don't know if that's where you would want to be or not. You know, I don't know exactly what you're looking for. I mean, but, you know, all the people that we interface usually are, you know, marketing PR types. So, you know, those are the skills you want to have, you know, being very, you know, open and accessible and providing information and, you know, having a good rapport with the audience. That's what helped me. But, you know, I also wasn't looking to get a job in the pen industry at the time. It just kind of happened. There wasn't anything specific I did. I just did what was important to me and what I felt was the right thing to do, and it just kind of worked out. So, you know, I wasn't looking for that job at the time, so I don't know if I have a great answer. Like, because I didn't target it and say, you know, here's what I'm going to do, and here's how I'm going to get in. And it didn't work that way for me. It was more just kind of on a whim, thing kind of happened. So it was a fantastic experience. I loved it. So, you know, if I ever have a, I don't know if I'll ever have a next job in the pen industry, it'll probably be blogging, you know, just doing what I'm doing. Maybe it'll turn into a job one day. I don't have any plans to do that, though. But I guess what I'm saying is my next job in the pen industry will be a job of my own creation. I don't know that I will ever work for anyone again, but you never know.

Myke Hurley: That's a really, really good answer.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Mpacer on App.net. This might be more appropriate for John Siracusa, but how do you actually deal with the health issues that arise from constantly writing and typing? I've gotten better with my wrist posture. That doesn't mean it's easy. I don't have any answers for this.

Brad Dowdy: I thought this was a really good question, and this may not be the answer you want to hear, but not so much in typing, but in writing. When I write with, you know, my high-tech Cs and the really fine pens and my printing style, I use a heavy grip pressure. I don't get near as much writing fatigue with fountain pens.

Brad Dowdy: And you may not be a fountain pen person, but I have found that fountain pens are, the way you write with a fountain pen is less stressful on your hand and your wrist. I can't really speak to it in typing. I mean, I type a lot all day, and I haven't, fortunately, knock on wood, I haven't really run into any issues with carpal tunnel or any of those type of issues with that combination of writing and typing. But I have found that I do have a lot less stress in my hand using a fountain pen, for what it's worth.

Myke Hurley: Okay. You have a time machine that only allows you to revisit past pen decisions. What do you change? This is from Brad Huss, which is at SPH33R. It's sphere, I guess. Sphere. I never would have purchased the Oto Rook.

Myke Hurley: Terrible decision.

Brad Dowdy: This is funny, because mine is very much along the same lines, but broader. I would waste less money on lower-end fountain pens, which encompasses the Rook and the dude from Oto. You know, there's lots of things. You know, there's tons of fountain pens available that are less than $30. There's very few that I've found that have been worth the price, no matter if they're $5 or $25. The Safari's one, that's why we talk about it all the time. There's maybe a couple of others. You know, so I've spent way too much money and too much time with other pens in that $10, $15, $20 range that I will never go back to again in my life. And, you know, that's probably hundreds of dollars of pens sitting there that I could have applied that money in a better fashion buying a single pen or two pens. That would be much better. So, there's definitely been some waste in that area. So, it's kind of along the same lines as you, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah, just... I guess if I was only going to pick one, it'd be that. It's probably the worst pen I've ever used. Well, not the worst pen I've ever used. It's the most disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. Michael Franznik. Two obvious questions. At least obvious to me, he says. Excluding vintage pens, which I believe contain the best value in Estabrook. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: What do you consider the best or worst value in pens you have actually used? So, I guess what he's asking is consider satisfaction versus cost and gifts may be considered. Value-wise, what do you consider to be the best and worst? I guess value... Best value, I guess, would be something along the lines for me of like a Lamy Safari or a Pilot Prera because they're so good and they're very cheap. I would also go with the retro in there as well. One of the reasons I love that line is because I think they are actually relatively cheap for what you're getting. Worst value, I don't think I've spent enough, honestly. Yeah. To really get into that. What do you think?

Brad Dowdy: I think my best value, like modern pens-wise, is the Twisby. Probably the 580, which is the current model. It's really versatile and it's really high quality and I think it's a completely fair price.

Brad Dowdy: Worst values, I really think, are the cheaper pens. Kind of relating to that last question, you know, like spending $20 or $25 on a couple of Oto fountain pens, that's just turned out to be, you know, money flushed down the toilet. You know, it doesn't have to be a $200 or $300 pen to be a bad value. I mean, I thought, you know, a $25 pen that I'm going to use one time to do a pen review and never use again, that's pretty poor value. So, I think some of my worst values have been in some of the cheaper pens, to be quite honest.

Myke Hurley: Interesting. Okay. And also from Michael, do you better appreciate, as he does, collectors of vintage firearms and automobiles now? Can you imagine your interesting quality tools transferring to another tool or machine? I guess, yeah, I appreciate collectors of all kinds. Vintage stuff too, although I've not really got into vintage stuff, so for me, it's just collectors. I have an addictive personality. I become obsessed with things. Pens is a long-term obsession of mine, we spoke about earlier. So, yes, I can totally see that I could transfer this interest, not that I would remove my pen addiction, to something else in the future. I have no idea what that could be. I get consumed by things. It's part of who I am.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, I agree with that completely. I definitely have that same type of behavior traits. You know, I do find certain things and obsess over. I could see me getting, I definitely appreciate all the collectors, different types of collectors, and I could see myself, you know, I read a lot of things that like about watches or about knives or about, you know, flashlights, a lot of that everyday carry type stuff I like. But, you know, that's all stuff that can get really expensive too. But I could, you know, I don't think I'll ever like go full bore like I've gone with pens and that's why pens are so great because you can find something awesome for, you know, $3 and that can really change how you work and how you do things whereas getting into some other things are, you know, quite cost prohibitive. Not that it won't happen down the line but I can definitely, I definitely respect and, you know, see the enjoyment that a lot of other collectors have.

Myke Hurley: Sorry, I was taking a drink. Last question from Todd Peppercorn. On behalf of his wife, when does it all end? Mrs. Peppercorn. Unfortunately, Mrs. Peppercorn, it doesn't. Yeah,

Brad Dowdy: I'm sorry. Yeah, it doesn't.

Myke Hurley: When the pens end, which will probably be never.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, which is great for us all and I know, I know Todd, Todd is happy to hear that answer too. He's like, yes, it never ends because Todd's a pretty good collector. He uses lots of really good fountain pens and, you know, I talk to him pretty frequently and he's got some good stuff so you can tell your wife that I'm sorry, honey, it doesn't end and then figure out what you can buy for her to make up for all your fountain pen purchases because it's not ending anytime soon. I can promise you that.

Myke Hurley: Okie dokie. I think we've come to the end. Well,

Brad Dowdy: we have. Yeah, unlike this show. Yeah, unlike this show, it is ending soon. Right now.

Myke Hurley: Not forever, just this episode. Oh gosh, no. We're not doing that again.

Brad Dowdy: I got an email about that the other day. Did you? What is it? That episode, the take a break episode, someone said, I just listened to that. She said it was so depressing but, you know, I was consoled in the fact that I knew already that there were more episodes afterwards so it was okay but boy, I was like, yeah, in retrospect, that was a pretty depressing episode.

Myke Hurley: And it was unintentional, wasn't it, that we...

Brad Dowdy: Totally, totally unintentional. I thought it was a great episode personally but it's not in line with, you know, what a normal episode would be. So anyway, we won't get stuck on that but yeah, this was a fun episode. It was. I was excited to do this and we will do it again soon, you know, maybe later this year we'll do it and see, we'll get another batch of questions, see how it goes but I love doing stuff like this just because, you know, the community around this podcast and just around pens in general, you know, even, you know, other pen bloggers, other pen companies, everyone is so helpful, so nice and, you know, I just wanted to give back a little bit even though, you know, I'm free to answer questions all the time and yeah, it was fun.

Myke Hurley: As I say though, there is no greater community than the pen addict community, our community. That's right. We have the best one because of all of you guys who tune in every week and we love you all dearly and we're very, very happy that you continue to be with us and, you know, we really, really appreciate it and we appreciate all of your questions. I've tried to do this sort of stuff in the past with other shows. I've never got that many questions. Never. And this is on shows that have much larger audiences. So, that just shows you guys are so engaged and we love it and as Brad promised, if any question was not answered, feel free to contact him. You're going to get a better answer out of him but if you've got stuff that's maybe non-pen related, you know, so we had some other stuff, feel free to ask me too. I'd love to hear it. I mean, I can help where I can with the pen stuff but we all know that Brad is the real guru around these parts. So, get in touch with us. I know for me, Twitter and app.net are best, especially if you want shorter answers or they're just short questions. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E on both. Brad is at dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on app.net and dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. Also, if you want to email Brad if you have longer questions, email thepenaddict at gmail.com. Is it good? Perfect. Perfect. So, I think that we are at the end, sir.

Brad Dowdy: We are. Great job by you.

Myke Hurley: One hour, 15 minutes.

Brad Dowdy: Good deal. I think that worked out well.

Myke Hurley: Not too far off what I thought it was going to be, which was 90 minutes I said to you before we started. not too far off that. So, thank you for sticking with us. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and we will, of course, be back next week. Until next time, I'm Myke and he is Brad. Have a great week. We'll see you then. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.