The Pen Addict 19/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	19
Title:	Brad's Top 5 Pens
Release Date:	June 21st, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 19
Audio File:	Audio Episode 19
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 19
Length:	3838 min <br />0.633 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined, as always, by your host and The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, sir. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: I'm great, Myke. How's it going today?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, very well. Very well, my man. Cannot complain at all. This episode is brought to you by Igloo and Squarespace and we're going to be talking about those through the show. So, we promised something to our listeners.

Top Five Pens

Brad Dowdy: We did. We did. We talked in last week's episode. On the day we recorded, I had written a post on penaddict.com about my top five pens. And that's a post I've done for years and kind of on an unscheduled schedule. It's one of those, you know, I always want to do and keep updated. And I always know it's time when I start getting more and more emails. I was, where's the list? Where's the list? Do you have an updated list? I was like, okay, I need to get this out. I need to be more scheduled on it. Do it, you know, once a quarter or at least twice a year.

Myke Hurley: Or just when there's a significant change.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. I think that was kind of the delay this time. And, you know, if there's not a bunch of – there used to be a lot of turnover in my top five list. You know, when I started the blog and trying and discovering all kinds of new and different pens that I'd never seen in my life. And, you know, not that I'm still not discovering those things. It's just that the rate of change has become slower and the ones I like I'm latching on to more. So I actually had a little, you know, in my intro I was like, you know, this – it took me so long because there was finally a big change in how my list looks. You know, we could link back to some old top five lists. And it's mostly, you know, the micro-tip gel-ink pens. You know, the high-tech Cs, SinoDXs and things like that. But this top five list was kind of a change for me. So I thought it would be a good episode for the podcast.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, what I'll do is I've linked to the post in the show notes. But I'm going to put a link to the top five category that you have. So people can just go back and read all of the posts that you've tagged with top five.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. And actually I think I need to update some of those tags. I think back in the day I wasn't tagging it properly.

Myke Hurley: It looks like there's quite a few in there.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, good, good. I'll double check and see if there's a few more I can add into that list.

Myke Hurley: Now I'm going to lay claim to some of the change that you had. I think it's this show that changed a lot of your top five because you started moving into fountain pens. That's right. And I think that is this show that helped you do that.

Brad Dowdy: I think you're probably right. I would have to go back and look on any top five I've ever done before. I'm not sure that there was a single fountain pen on there. I'd be willing to bet there's not.

Myke Hurley: If I look at the full 2011, which was the previous one, you have no fountain pens on that.

Brad Dowdy: That sounds about right.

Myke Hurley: No, none at all. Not even a Kaweka.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And now there's two. That's a big change. That's a massive change. That's a huge change. Especially, you know, when I talk about this list, you know, I have the little caveat in the intro that, you know, this, it's not necessarily a top five list of what I think are the best pens or it's not a top five list of the pens I think, you know, pen addict readers should go out and purchase.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's a really important caveat to make, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Right. What this list does, for me, it's, I call it basically a snapshot of the pens that I'm using on a regular basis for, you know, a lengthy period of time. Like, you know, over, say, the past four or six months, you know, this, these five pens have gotten the most use in and I've enjoyed the most over that time frame. And, you know, because I'm always discovering new pens and, you know, these types of things change. And, you know, one might go start collecting dust and another one take its place. So it's kind of a fluid list. But it's really more of a snapshot type list of what I'm currently using and enjoying. And it's by no means saying these are the best pens or these are the pens you have to go buy right now. It's a personal list of what I'm using right now.

Brad Dowdy: So you ready to dig into it?

Myke Hurley: Without further ado.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think, you know, readers who follow the blog and for a while and been listening to our podcast for a while probably have a pretty good guess at what number one is. And that's, it's the pilot vanishing point.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not going to lie to you. I was hesitant to put it at number one.

Myke Hurley: Oh, tell me why.

Brad Dowdy: That's not because it's not the pen. It's far and away the pen I use the most and the pen I enjoy the most using. I was just a little hesitant that readers would freak out just based on the past history of my blog and, you know, the price points I stay in.

Myke Hurley: You're putting a $140 pen on the top of your list. That's, you know, that's quite a big thing, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Where in the past, you know, it's, if you look at the number ones on my list, probably averaged probably about four or five dollars. Yeah. So I was actually, I mean, I was hesitant. At least, I at least gave it some, some mental consideration. I was like, you know, is that really, is that something, is that the way I want to take this? But you know what? It's the truth. So, I mean, there's no reason to not, and not posting what I'm using as my favorite pen right now. I mean, it's, it's far and away the pen I use the most and has been ever since I got it. Probably. I think I got it back in April. Since then, it's probably, gosh, I don't know. I couldn't put a number on it, but I've definitely used it more than anything, especially now that I'm back to working in an office environment. I really use it a lot then.

Brad Dowdy: One of the things that's been happening, though, recently, Myke, is I've been freaking out a little bit on it. Because I'm using it so much, I'm like banging it around. I actually got it stuck in my pants the other day. What? Like, you know, I'm writing with it and I'm reaching down under my desk, you know, I'm writing and I'm holding it in my hand and I've got the, I've got the nib exposed. And I reach down under my desk or something and I catch the nib in my pants. I'm like, oh, no. And like, have I misaligned the nib? So, it's good that it's getting a lot of action. It's getting, it's getting broken in, broken in very, very well.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, mine took a terrific dive a couple of days ago. And I thought I'd ruined it, but it was fine. The nib was, was, the nib was out, but it didn't even, not a thing happened to it. I think it's a really strong nib.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I didn't seem to have any fallout from it, but it, you know, there was something else the other day. I don't, I don't think I dropped the pen, but I caught it on something else or banged it on something. And it, it can take a beating. I mean, so far, I mean, I'm not doing, it's not like I'm working on a construction site or anything.

Myke Hurley: It's not delicate. It's not.

Brad Dowdy: It's getting mangled. But yeah, it doesn't seem to be a little delicate, fragile pen, which is good when you're, you know, that's, that was always one of my hesitancies getting into fountain pens, right, is the fragility or the frailty of it. And, you know, once I finally got over, hey, I can, you know, take this pen around in my pocket, take it to work, take it to wherever and not have to worry about it, you know, exploding ink over me. That, that kind of helped me turn the corner on, you know, some, some of my favorite pens and, and using fountain pens more and fitting them more into my workflow, into my writing, writing cycle and things like that. So, I mean, it's, the vanishing point is, it's not just number one, it's number one with a bullet. I mean, it, it gets used, it gets used probably more than the other four pens on the list combined.

Brad Dowdy: So.

Myke Hurley: That doesn't surprise me.

Brad Dowdy: No, it, it, before I bought it, I guess it would have surprised me. But once I got it in my hand and started using it, you know, it's, it's, it's lived up to the hype. And that's, you know, I guess that's kind of rare these days, you know, in, in, in all the circles we travel, you know, there's lots of hype and things like that. And you always wonder, is something going to live up to the hype? And this one certainly did. So I've been very happy with it. Nothing's changed. You know, my, my initial thoughts on the pen have not changed. My usage of the pen has not changed. So it's, it's a solid number one. Um, I have a feeling it might be there for at least a little while. Um, I don't see anything really challenging for the top spot anytime soon. But my number two pen on this list is probably the most shocking. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I was, I was very surprised when I saw this cause I have one of these, but I bought it as like a novelty item.

Moleskine Roller Pen

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. And it's the, it's, it's the Moleskine classic roller pen. And this is one of those, well, I guess I'll try it type of pens. You know, Moleskines traditionally, um, are not, uh, how should I say? Very, uh, cost effective. They're not, they're not a good value. Um, be it their notebooks, you know, I, one of the worst products I've ever reviewed is their, the Moleskine index cards, um, which are beautiful, but you're almost scared to use them because of just the flat out cost is outrageous. Um, these Moleskine classic roller pens, you know, from my, my vanishing point was $140 and I'm not really sweating the price on that. But the Moleskine classic roller is $15 and you know, you pick it up and feel it. Like if you've, you know, I don't know, I know we both use one, but for someone trying it for the first time, it doesn't feel in your hand like a $15 pin. Like the vanishing point feels like $140 pin to me. Right. The Moleskine classic roller, I, I, it's number two on my list. So I obviously like it. I mean, I don't want to degrade it, but it feels like a, almost like a Bic, just like a regular Bic in your hand. It's super, super lightweight. There's not a lot of substance to it, but what really sets it apart for me is the gel ink cartridge.

Brad Dowdy: And I don't know who they're getting these from. Um, I haven't done all the research, but it is, it is an exceptionally good gel ink cartridge. And it's, and the reason why I like it is because it comes in a 0.5 millimeter. Um, there's a 0.7 millimeter option, which I've never tried, but the 0.5 writes like a dream. Um, you know, I never would have thought that Moleskine could pull this off to be quite honest with you.

Myke Hurley: Um, I mean, on, on, on the, on Japan's website, they've got the refills and their Moleskine branded refills. Mm. Mm. So yeah, yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't really say who's doing it.

Brad Dowdy: Someone gave me a thought the other day. It's actually shaped. I mean, it's a traditional Parker design refill. I wonder if they've contracted out through Parker for their, their gel refill. Cause their gel, Parker's gels are generally pretty good. I've just never seen one that's 0.5 millimeter.

Myke Hurley: Because they, they have that like, they have that, that, that peculiarly shaped end that fits in the clicker, right?

Brad Dowdy: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: They have that on them. And that looks like a Parker.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. You know, and the other thing I thought I would hate about this pen, maybe that's why I like it so much. Cause I was so sure I was not going to like it. So it makes me like it even more is the, you know, the, the rectangular shaped barrel.

Myke Hurley: That's just so it fits on the Moleskine, right? Cause they're made like with the clip clips to the, to the Moleskine notebooks. That's what they're made to do.

Brad Dowdy: That's the whole, that's the whole premise of their pen and pencil line is to be able to, the clip design is unique to where it'll clip on the cover. And the pen barrels and pencil barrels are rectangular shaped. Like if you've ever, if no one's familiar with this, if you've ever seen a carpenter's pencil that you see a lot of, you know, woodworking, you know, if you've ever seen one, you know, it's a, it's a, it's literally in the shape of a rectangle, two skinny sides and two wide sides. So it'll lay flat on the Moleskine notebook when it, when it's clipped on there. Um, you know, and that's obviously when you see a pen that design, you get some grip issues depending on how you grip the pen. You know, that's, it's like a Lamy Safari with the molded grip or the pilot vanishing point with the clip in the grip area. If, if you have a non-traditional grip, it's going to be an issue. Um, you know, it's just one of those things. And somehow, you know, I thought it would be an issue for me, but it's when I'm writing with it, I don't even notice it. It's extremely comfortable for me to write with. Um, and you know, I, I like the, just the base, the, the basic classic roller, the black plastic barrel. I've bought the metal roller and I bought the click roller. Um, since I liked, since I liked the basic one so much, but I had the basic ones actually my favorite of the three. The metal roller is really, really nice.

Pen Weighting

Brad Dowdy: It's not worth the cost difference in my mind. And plus it, it's, it's weighted strangely when you post the cap, but yeah, that's, that's for another post in another podcast, but it's super nice. It's not worth $50 where the, the regular classic roller and the click roller, I think are both 15 or at least in that ballpark.

Myke Hurley: And you're happy to pay that sort of price for them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, I think that's the maximum. Um, at first it was a little shocking. Um, to, to feel how light and, you know, not substantial feeling this pin was when I first purchased it. But when I started using it, that, that went away. I was like, Oh, this is, this is very nice. I mean, I, you know, I, I, I talk about it in the review and in, in this top five list it, the, it's, it's not a great value purchase, but it's a, it's a really good pen. And it's one I use a lot.

Myke Hurley: Cool.

Brad Dowdy: My third pin on the list is one.

Myke Hurley: We're going to get to it in a minute. We're going to get to it in a minute. I'm going to cut you right off there so we can talk about our first sponsor this week. Um, and this, this episode of course is brought to you by the fantastic people at Squarespace. Squarespace provides you with everything you need to create an amazing, powerful website. And throughout this week on the shows, I've been talking about Squarespace's importer tool. So if you have a blog elsewhere, um, on movable type, type pad, WordPress and blogger, you can import your blog to Squarespace. Um, all of those, um, services have an export tool. So you can export something out. Um, and then you're able to import your blog into WordPress. Oh, sorry. Into Squarespace, not into WordPress. You don't want to do that. That's a horrible idea. Um, what, what makes Squarespace different to all the others is you don't just get your, uh, posts and your comments like many other systems. You put a bunch of information in so you get all of your media imported over from your blog. Your URLs get redirected and everything so they remain working and it makes sure that it matches the URL scheme. And all of your data moves along too. Um, the system is really superb and it's something that I wanted to talk about in a different fashion here. Because our good friend Brad has a, had an interesting time with the, um, with the importer and has actually in turn made the importer tool better. So it seemed, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have a first, first hand knowledge of how the, uh, the importer tool works. And, um, you know, I, when I converted my blogger for type pad and we've talked, we've touched on in the, uh, in the podcast before that I had an error, uh, in an issue with the redirects when my import was working. So I contacted, um, Squarespace, their support. Um, they were actually, you know, able to dig into it. You know, their, their depth of knowledge and interest in fixing my problem was deep. It wasn't like a superficial type thing, you know, where they're like, um, is your computer plugged in? You know, is it powered on? You know, it was like, okay, you know, I've got this access. I see what's happening. Give me, you know, let me see your access. I'm going to test it out for myself and see what the problem is. And they went and did it. I figured it was going to be some error on my part. And, you know, they'd say, you know, they'd say, oh, you're doing this wrong. And we'd fix it and move on. But it turns out we hit a bug in the Squarespace code. And so they had to, uh, issue a bug fix, um, issue a bug fix for, um, you know, this, um, getting the redirects from a TypePad blog. So, um, you know, I went back and forth with them. It took, it took a couple of weeks to fix, but, you know, they had to put in, I'm sure, you know, working in the IT field, they can't just, you know, apply a change for one guy and fix it and go. They have to go through their testing procedures and things like that. And, um, you know, it took them a couple of weeks and they said, hey, they sent me an email, said, hey, we got it fixed. Try it now. And boom, as we say, everything was fixed.

Myke Hurley: We know the system's perfect because Brad helped iron out one of the bugs. But what's really cool about, like, because I wanted to talk about it in a slightly different note as well, is just to highlight their support. You know, they could have just said to Brad, yeah, it's a bug. Sorry, here's your money back. See you later. But they didn't do that. They appreciated that Brad wanted to use the service. He'd paid. He wanted to use Squarespace. He wanted to switch his blog over. And they appreciated that. So instead, they took the time and the man hours to get it fixed. And then when they did, Brad had everything imported over for him. All the URLs worked. He had all of his posts. It was, you know, it is a pretty seamless process. I've done it a couple of times, too. I did it quite recently. I moved my personal blog, MikeHurley.net, to Squarespace. And it was simple as pie. Now, you get all of this, including rock-solid hosting, with plans starting as little as $8 a month. I want you to go and try all this out. And if you have a blog elsewhere, you can chest out a trial with the blog importer. I think in your two-week free trial, it imports, I think, up to 25 posts. Just so you know, so they're not going through all of the work on their end, you know, because all you need is to trial it. So go and do that now. If you've got a blog elsewhere, go try out their blog importer. And you can do that by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70decibels. We've worked with Squarespace to get a two-week free trial for you. If you go to that website, of course, there'll be a link in the show notes. And if you are as impressed as I know that you will be with the service after playing around with it for a couple of weeks, if you use the offer code 70decibels6 at 70-DEC-I-B-E-L-S-6 at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first order when you purchase one of their extremely affordable plans. Thank you very much to Squarespace for sponsoring.

Myke Hurley: So, number three.

Brad Dowdy: Number three is an all-timer. You know, actually number three and four. But number three is the Pilot Hi-Tech C 0.3mm black with the grip.

Myke Hurley: Old faithful is this one, isn't it?

Hi-Tech C Pen

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is the pen that, you know, I wouldn't hesitate to buy by the dozen. You know, like I wrote, I've got one at my desk, you know, at my office desk, in my backpack, you know, in my car.

Myke Hurley: Stuck into your pants.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's for the 0.3 Hi-Tech C is kind of my sweet spot between 0.25, 0.4, 0.5. The 0.3 is the one I like the best. I think readers, you know, tend to try that pen. They, I'd say the majority, just for writing purposes, prefer the 0.4mm. I find, I find the 0.3 to just be that much cleaner and sharper and works well for my writing style.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I've loved this pen for years. It's been number one on this list before. I don't know if it'll ever be off the list completely just because I use it still so much. And, you know, that's what I'm trying to capture here, what pens I'm using regularly. And now that, you know, we've talked, we've done an episode on Kickstarter pens and there's so many of them being made for this exact refill. You know, this is a really good pen. And, you know, it's, if you haven't tried a micro tip pen and you go in and you want to say, I want to try this 0.3, you might be a little disappointed. It's definitely a kind of a finicky pen, I say. You know, it's got some ink flow issues sometimes, but if you get it started and start writing with it, it really writes like no other micro tip pen that I use. It's one I really like. Have you ever gone to like a 0.3mm? I mean, I know you've tried some things here and there. You prefer the 0.7mm, but have you ever tried something that fine?

Myke Hurley: I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think so.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and you probably wouldn't like it. I mean, I've talked to you enough now to know generally what you like and your writing style and things like that.

Myke Hurley: And it's not something I'd recommend to you, but I'll have to get you one to try out. Yeah, if I was going to, it would be just for experimental purposes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this wouldn't be a pen that would ever convert you to say, oh, this is all I'm going to use to write with.

Myke Hurley: I bought those Muji gel pens and they're 0.38. So it's still, it's very fine, but not that fine.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. And that being the conical tip of the Muji and the needle tip of this 0.3, they're vastly different feel when you're writing.

Myke Hurley: So this is more smooth. And I imagine, in my opinion, the high-tech scene will be more scratchy.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, yeah, very much so. And in this case, scratchy is good. I talk to a lot of readers that say it's scratchy or I say, I said it's scratchy. Why do I like it? Well, when you're dealing with that fine of a tip, that's just part and parcel of it. I mean, that's the deal. It's not a 1.0 millimeter liquid ink pen that's an oil slick you're writing. You're writing metal on paper. However, there's going to be some of that feedback. And it just depends. For me, I enjoy it. And it doesn't bother me in the least. Good. Number four is a pen that you've tried in a different size. And it's another pen that I have a lot of in a lot of different places because I always want to have one handy. And that's the Secura Pigra Micron 03 Black. And 03, I think, translates to 0.35 millimeter. A lot of people prefer these two as art pens or drawing pens or felt tip pens. It's really a plastic tip, I guess, drawing pen. You find them in art supply stores. And they're in with the crafting aisle. If you had a hobby-type store that you could go to. They come in a lot of different colors, a lot of different tip sizes. I prefer the black. It's not a pitch black. But the ink qualities of this pen are something that I like to have handy. I got an email this week about ink being waterproof and was out of consideration for me. And it's not at all. I mean, I've never purchased a pen because I felt that, you know, because it was waterproof. You know, I've never purchased a pen because it contained waterproof ink and not purchased one because it didn't. It's just not a consideration for me. But I do know with the Pigma Micron that it does have, you know, special ink qualities. The ink's archival, you know. It's a pigment-based ink, so it's not going to fade. It's going to be waterproof on the page. So, you know, like Uniball talks about their super ink technology and their pens, you know, to help prevent check fraud and all that, which is true. But these secure Pigma Microns are equally as secure, you know, as far as their ink properties go. So I actually use it to sign a lot of things because I know my signature's not going anywhere with this type of pen. And last and certainly not least, I had trouble with the number five spot. I wasn't sure what to go with. And, you know, I actually, you know, one of the things that helped me put this list together is I go through my pen case that I've talked about. And, you know, we might touch on a different pen case we've been looking at here recently. But my Nomadic Roller pen case, you know, that's the one that's with me all the time. So it carries my favorites. And I looked in there. I was like, what pen in here besides the Vanishing Point and the Moleskine?

Brad Dowdy: What pen am I grabbing the most out of here to use? And then it hit me just like a ton of bricks. The Kaweco AL Sport fountain pen, now that I've got the EF nib for it, is a really, really awesome pen. I'm a huge fan of the Kaweco EF nib. It's firm. It's super smooth. I mean, just shockingly smooth for an EF nib. And the build quality and style, styling and looks of the AL Sport, which is the aluminum body Sport, is fantastic. You know, like I said in the article, between that pen and the Vanishing Point, I'm completely spoiled as far as fountain pens go. I mean, I have a hard time giving other fountain pens, you know, a fair shake just because of these two pens. I enjoy them. They fit me the best.

Myke Hurley: Right. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: And what I want to do with a pen and the things I want to accomplish with a pen and how I want the pen to look and feel. You know, I've got several, you know, Mami Safaris. You know how much I like the Pereira?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And the Pereira EF nib is pretty killer, I will admit. But I use this Kaweco AL Sport more than any other non-Vanishing Point fountain pen that I own. And, you know, if I get other fountain pens into review, and they're nice. They're certainly nice. You know, something like the Twisby that, you know, I've reviewed and we've talked about before. Yeah. That's a great pen. It's never going to be in my top five list. It's just not. It doesn't speak to me on the level that these other fountain pens do. So I think I'm jaded now, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Oh, dear. What have we done to you?

Brad Dowdy: I know. It is a lot your fault.

Myke Hurley: I'm sorry.

Lamy Safari

Brad Dowdy: I mean, you know, when we started this podcast, I was like, Myke really takes this Lamy Safari to work every day. And that's all the only pen he uses. How does that work? And look at me now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's cool, though. I'll use a fountain pen all night at work and not even think twice about it.

Myke Hurley: You're posting ink reviews now.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I know. And don't get me started on that. I'm a horrible ink reviewer. I look at all these other guys and girls that do these ink reviews. They do such a nice job. The level of geekdom in fountain pen ink reviews is like they turn that up to 11. I mean, they really, really go in depth. And I just don't have that comfort level to do that yet. But it'll come one day when I'm able to dissect and ink like some of these other reviewers.

Myke Hurley: Practice makes perfect.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Myke Hurley: So we're going to, as you mentioned, we're going to talk briefly about a pen case that we've been using before we finish. But just before we do that, let me tell you about our second sponsor. And this is a sponsor that's doing something really special for us that I know the listeners of this show are going to love. So our sponsor today is Igloo Software. Igloo is your digital workplace. It's a place for you and your team to give status updates, have discussions, and share files of each other all in one awesome, beautiful online place. You can create spaces for each of your departments or teams, which include their own calendars, forums, blogs, document repositories, and Twitter-like status updates. You can even make these spaces private if you need to. You can upload any type document into the spaces you create, share it with your colleagues, add comments and ratings. You can then spread it between departments for approvals before locking down the final version if you're sending it out to a publisher or marketing or whatever it is that you do that you would need Igloo for. Igloo is project management at its best with an easy drag-and-drop interface, which is simple to set up and help you maintain your intranet. You don't have to have meetings for everything anymore, and you don't need to worry about having meetings for all aspects of a project that you or your team are working on. When you post a document or start a discussion, only the people you want to contribute can. It's all about making your workplace more efficient, and Igloo takes care of this for you. You can try Igloo for free for 30 days, and they're giving that to all of our listeners. You can go to igloosoftware.com forward slash 70 to try that out, and you can start your 30-day free trial. But Igloo are also doing something really cool for us. They're giving away a Field Notes national crop set. So they're going to give that away to one of our listeners. Now, if you sign up for the demo, you're entered automatically. But if you want to win the Field Notes national crop set, but you don't want to try out Igloo for some crazy reason, you can also go to igloosoftware.com forward slash 70. There'll be a link in the show notes. And you can just enter the contest right there. So thank you very much to Igloo for offering the free trial to everyone, and also for understanding our listeners and knowing what they enjoy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's awesome. That's a really cool set. And I remember when it came out that I said I hadn't bought it yet. Well, I did end up breaking down and buy it.

Myke Hurley: Good, good. I'm coming to the end of the corn, which is number one. Cool. I've been using, oh, man, have I been using the Palais Journal. I'll save that for another time.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that setup's working well for you. How you added in the Field Notes into the Palais.

Myke Hurley: Yep, love it, love it. And I've been using the Field Notes the most. The Palais, I've been kind of sketchnoting it a bit. I've been sketchnoting quite a lot, you know.

Brad Dowdy: That's great. Yeah, I already mentioned that. You know, in the Enough podcast, you know, where the Pen Addict podcast has now become the podcast that will not be named.

Pen Addict Podcast

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we refuse to talk about it. Because we may get all of our listeners spend too much money.

Brad Dowdy: I know, I know. That was funny. I listened to that last night. But yeah, I'm glad that's working out for you. That's really cool. I love it, man.

Myke Hurley: I really do.

Brad Dowdy: It's excellent. Yeah, so let's talk about this pen case.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And it's the Lid Lab Teffa pen case.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we spoke about it a bit last week because it was part of my massive haul of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we talked about it in the pen case episode. You know, that was one that I did not own. And so many readers recommended saying this was the best. I mean, they were sending me pictures left and right. You got to get it, got to get it, got to get it. So I guess I got mine about the same time you got yours from JetPens. It's a really good case. I did have some issues with it as far as you pretty much have – the pen pretty much has to have a clip to function properly in that case. And that's a little bit of a hang-up for me just because I carry things that don't have a clip like the Kaweco AL Sport. I mean, that's a pen that's with me all the time. You know, a pen with a shorter body style and no clip like that, you know, it's a challenge to put in that case. That being said, the amount of pens and other stuff that it holds is outrageous. Yeah. I mean, I can't believe how many pens I can fit in there and a notebook and ink cartridge refills and lead and an eraser. And there's still room for more. I mean, it's a pretty impressive case as far as, you know, the quantities of things you could get.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: And, you know, I really see it – I think artists would really enjoy this case just being able to carry the wide variety of art pens. You know, if they're like a portable sketching kit or things like that, the quantities of things that you could put in there, you know, the different tools that, you know, an artist might need when they're away from their workspace. This case would – it would do very, very well in a situation like that. For me, I'm trying it out for a couple weeks. I switched out my roll pen case into this case for work and taking it with me. And the first day I switched it, I switched it back the next day. I'm not going to lie to you.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Brad Dowdy: I was like, oh, I got to switch – I got to give this more of a chance. So I put it back and now I'm sticking with it for at least a couple weeks. And I'm actually – I'm getting into it now. I like it better. It's working for me. I don't know if it's the perfect case for me. I don't know if there is a perfect case for me or if I'll go back to the roll pen case. But it's working out really well in my second trial. I guess I was disappointed at first that, you know, I couldn't fit in my non – my pins without clips in them. Like I have the P1 Premier pin from Kickstarter. I mean that's a smooth barrel and I just don't want that stuff flying around. But I'm making it work now. So I figured out if you stuff enough pins in there, it doesn't matter if it has a clip. You just wedge it in there and it will stay put.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it will. Yeah. But it's best to have clips. I'll put a link in the show notes to my – to the picture that I posted on Twitter which I called you out for. Yeah, exactly. I sent Brad a tweet that just said this is how a real man uses a pen case. That's right. Because you've been crying and moaning.

Brad Dowdy: But I did reply. I took a picture of mine.

Myke Hurley: And of course that will be in the show notes too. My pen case that is. Let's not go there. Yeah, no. I love it. I really, really do love it. I think it's a great case for me. It works perfectly because it fits just exactly what I need. And you'll see in Brad's picture on the far – you have a lot more pens in yours than I do in mine I think. But on the far right you can see the Kaweco AL Sport just tucked in there.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. If you put enough pens in there, it'll wedge in there tightly. What I have – And then the far left, I'm not looking at it, and it probably didn't – you know, the lighting was a little bit off in that picture. The pen all the way to the left is actually the P1 Premier pen that's slid in there too.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. I see that. That one would probably fit a bit better because it's larger. Yep. But like I have one of the little clips on my Kaweco. And you can't see it. But so basically when you sort of open it up to the part where there's pockets, I have the refills of my pens. And then I have the Kaweco clipped in one of the little netted pockets.

Brad Dowdy: There you go. Yeah. That's cool.

Myke Hurley: That fits quite nicely for me in there because it fits quite snugly in that little pocket. So that works very nicely for me indeed. So, yeah, I like it very much. Right. So I think that brings us to about the end of this episode. Now on our next show, which is going to be obviously next week's show, we're going to go through my top five, which a lot of people probably already know what that is anyway. And we're also – I believe, Brad, that you made a call on Twitter for some listeners to send in their top five. So we're going to have a couple of those.

Future Pens

Brad Dowdy: That's right. I have a couple of those to talk about next week. So that will be fun.

Myke Hurley: Excellent. So, sir, where can people find you on the internet if they wish to do so?

Brad Dowdy: You can find me online. My blog is at penaddict.com. You can email me, thepenaddict at gmail.com or click on the contact button on penaddict.com. And you can find me on Twitter at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M.

Myke Hurley: Awesome. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter. Thank you very much for listening to this episode. Thank you to our sponsors, Igloo and Squarespace. Until next time, bye-bye. Bye-bye.