The Pen Addict 298/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 298 |
| Title: | This Pen Show Has Character |
| Release Date: | March 7th, 2018 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 298 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 298 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 298 |
| Length: | 6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 298. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's, Squarespace, and Casper. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by the travelling wanderer, the pen addict, nomad, Mr. Brad Dowdy. The Knock Nomad. Knock Nomad. Yeah, that's way better. That's way better. You should do the intros from now on.
Brad Dowdy: Never. No, it'd be the same intro. Like, every third week, I'd be the same one, because I'm not that original.
Myke Hurley: So you're back from another show, Bolt and Muzzle wrapped up. You've got, what, Little Rock next week? Wow. We're going to talk about those a little later on in the show, as you can imagine.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, no rest for the weary, but I have recuperated. There was no recoup time for this show. Same time zone for me, short flights, easy travels, no crud yet. So I'm feeling, you know, everything's coming up aces for me after this show. And the show was aces itself, so we'll talk about that a lot.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I know. I can see by looking at our notes that you were very enthused about something that you were very excited about. I was worried that you were, like, you were overly excited for Baltimore, so, like, it wasn't going to end up being what you wanted it to be. But by looking at all the notes you've had, it looks like it might have been.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And I'm still typing as you're talking to me. I'm still adding in a couple more things. I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot that.
Kickstarter Campaign[edit]
Myke Hurley: So for the very last time in 2018, we will promote, plug, talk about our Kickstarter campaign. Basically, if you're not listening to this show on Wednesday the 7th of March, you're probably too late now. The campaign ends in, like, 20-something hours from when we're recording this. We have eclipsed the most money we have ever raised. The campaign is currently at $29,836 with 657 backers, which is just superb. Very, very, very, very excited about that, obviously. So thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who is making this year's trips a dead set. We're very, very excited to be doing both Atlanta and Toronto with our stop in New York in the middle, and we're really confident you're going to love the things that we provide for you, the rewards. So thanks so much to everybody that has participated. Probably the next that you will hear from us about this, unless something wild happens in the next 12 hours, will be as we run up to Atlanta in April. So we're really excited. In my journal, I keep writing down every few days in my What Am I Excited About heading, the Atlanta Pen Show. I'm really getting the feeling. Like, I want to, I feel like I need to travel anyway right now, and Atlanta being next, I'm really pumped for it. Like, just as we were starting today, I was thinking to myself, what pens will I take this year? Yeah. So yeah, I'm really, really excited. So thank you to everyone who has made this happen for us again.
Brad Dowdy: Yep, and thanks for me too. This is really awesome and amazing that you guys allow us to do this every year and support us. And, you know, we hope we bring you some fun along the way. I think it's pretty locked in now, so we feel real good about what's upcoming the rest of the year. And once the project closes, like Myke said, as we get towards Atlanta, I'll post updates, because I'll probably have some manufacturing updates by then. Maybe in the first month or so after the project, getting the pens ordered, getting the cases ordered, and then we'll have notes for the Atlanta show for those of you who are attending.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we'll have notes on how to get, you know, your ticket for the live show and things like that. So more to come, but most importantly, thank you to everyone who supported it. And one quick last note, I did send out, I forgot to do it on Monday, I did send out a backers update on how to add the pins, exactly the PIN pins, to an existing pledge if you want an extra set. So the details are in that note, so look for that in your email or on the project itself.
Myke Hurley: Yep, because there are some, like, intricacies about shipping and stuff like that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's not super clear, so I tried to make it as clear as possible in the little notes, so go check that out if you're interested. Thank you, mate.
Myke Hurley: So my sailor, my pink love, has had just a real journey through customs. This is normal. This one has been a little bit more involved than usual in that, like, it arrived in the UK six days ago and has gone in and out of customs twice now.
Brad Dowdy: I would lose my mind. Yeah. I would be besides myself. I guess you're used to it at this point. This one has been... This is all half for you, but...
Myke Hurley: This one has been a little bit trickier than usual because, like, it was put into customs and it told me that customs were raised on it five days ago. Then nothing was arriving. I wasn't getting a letter because they send you a letter so you can pay it. I wish you could just, like, go in online and pay it straight away. But no, you have to wait for the letter to give you the code that you need because with the amount... Like, you have to wait for the letter to come with the amount because you have to manually type the amount into the Royal Mail website. It's so dumb. Really, I just wanted to say, like, oh, customs charge. I just press a button and pay it and then it can get it delivered straight away. But that's not how it works.
Myke Hurley: So it went into customs. It says it got released from customs four days later. So I was like, great. Like, this was yesterday. I'm like, it's coming. I'm going to get it. Like, they've revised the customs. And then today, like 11 a.m., it says awaiting payment of customs charges again. So I think today the letter is being generated now for me to get it out of customs, which I'm hoping will arrive tomorrow. If it arrives tomorrow, I might be able to get it on Friday or otherwise it's going to be Monday. But it's on the way. I'm very excited, especially because some people have been receiving theirs. It really frustrates me that people in America have already got theirs, like, considering that, like, I don't feel like it. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But the Nibsmith, our good friend, the Nibsmith. Dan. Dan. Dan, that's it. I always go. My mind says Matt for everyone. I don't know why it does that.
Brad Dowdy: You know a lot of Matt's.
Myke Hurley: All of these, all the website names are too similar, right? So they get mixed up in my brain. But anyway, Dan has posted some wonderful pictures of his pink love, which has only made me more and more excited because it looks incredible.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it does. And I know our listeners can't wait until, like, our fourth week in a row talking about this pen.
Pen Review[edit]
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh, man. It's going to be next time we're going to get a full-on review. And then we might get, like, additional impressions for the week after.
Brad Dowdy: Actually, I can't wait for you to get it because you've been wanting this thing so bad. That's why we talk about it so much. It's funny. Oh, man. It's like a saga. But the pictures, man. The pictures look good. I might have to go ink mine up now. Mine hasn't been inked up for a while, so I'm going to go ink mine up later on today. The only appropriate ink for that pen is Califolio and Chernobyl. So that's, like, without question what's going in that pen. So, yeah.
Myke Hurley: That is what you can bet your bottom dollar. That's what I'm putting in mind if and when it ever arrives. And, yes, as Cupcake Girl in the chat says, I will be bringing this one to Atlanta. What I was thinking today is I may basically just bring all my sailor pens and then, like, one can of layer and a brooks pen. That's probably all I'm going to bring to Atlanta this time.
Brad Dowdy: But, yeah. You need room to come home with something, too. Exactly.
Myke Hurley: I need big space to come home with what I want to come home with.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's true. That's true. I forgot about that. So I caught an interesting podcast in my feed this week. It's called Cortex. Have you heard of it?
Myke Hurley: I have heard of it. There's a little story behind this.
Brad Dowdy: So I normally don't listen to Cortex, just full disclosure. So for those of you who don't know or are brand new listeners, this is one of Myke's – is this your most downloaded podcast? And we'll make this perfectly clear. It's because of your host, CGP Grey. Hey.
Myke Hurley: Cortex is the most popular show that I do.
Cortex Podcast[edit]
Brad Dowdy: It's the big one. And I don't always listen to it. But there's usually some topics that really speak to me because both of you all talk about working for yourself and getting things done and things like that. And as we – you and I spoke about last week, you started this journal and you brought it up to Grey on the show. And I was actually surprised at a few of his responses. I thought he was going to eviscerate you. Yeah, me too. At some point. I was pretty surprised as well. And then he's like, by the way, I've done this too. So if you're interested more in like in journaling from – I don't want to take your words but from Grey's words, from a more task-based perspective, this is worth listening to. Do you have any – you want to chime in on this real quick? I've wanted to just give a little bit of background about this topic.
Myke Hurley: So I wanted to bring it up on Cortex as a thing that I was wanting to talk about, right? I wanted to talk about the hows and whys of the journaling that I'm doing. But I thought to myself, I can't – like in full disclosure, there was no way I could bring it up before me and you had the opportunity to talk about it, right? Because I felt like if I would have just like thrown out on Cortex that I'm journaling but I'd never had the conversation here, it would have just – I would have felt like I was cheating on you or something. So I made it very specific that I would talk about my journal on this show before I would mention it on Cortex. So that was just like a funny thing that just happened in my brain. I just felt like it wouldn't have been fair if I would have just mentioned on that show that I'm doing a journal but not on here.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So it was pretty cool. Y'all go listen to it. The only question I was left with, and this is where my not listening regularly to the show comes in, Gray has designed some of his own paper. It's digital paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is it just like background stuff?
Myke Hurley: There's some kind of format that he has created like a digital paper to use in like GoodNotes or something that he keeps promising to share because people want it but he hasn't done it and I don't know why. But yeah, he's created some kind of like specific paper format for his journal planning thing that he's been doing.
Myke Hurley: Shocker. Yeah. There is no existing system that can accurately work for him.
Brad Dowdy: Definitely not. All right. So I wanted to throw that in there in case anyone wanted to go listen to more nerdery.
Myke Hurley: It is good extended listening from last week's episode of this show. Where I really kind of delve into the why I'm doing it more than kind of here I was talking about the practicals.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So yeah, it was pretty good. I giggled several times especially at Gray. All right, Myke, I have a lot to say. Yeah, you do. About the Baltimore Pen Show. So why don't we get to it after hearing from our good friends at Casper.
Myke Hurley: That's a great idea. Today's show is brought to you by Casper, the company focused on sleep, who are dedicated to making sure that you are exceptionally comfortable one night at a time. You spend a third of your life sleeping. That's a lot of time. Like if you spend a third of your life doing one specific thing, like, you know, the rest of your time you're doing like you're awake, you're doing whatever. But just a pure thing. You are in your bed for one third of your life. So don't you want to make sure that it is the best, most enjoyable and lovely experience that it can possibly be? Sure you do. And that's why you need Casper. Their mattresses are perfectly designed for human beings with engineering to soothe and support your natural geometry. Casper's got all the right support. In all the right places. So what goes into making a Casper mattress so comfortable? Well, they combine multiple supportive memory foams for a quality mattress that will give you just the right sink and bounce. Their mattresses are designed and developed in the U.S. And they have a breathable design to help keep you, help keep your temperature regulated throughout the night, which you want. You don't want to be too hot. You don't want to be too cold. And that's what the Casper mattresses can help with. They have an average rating of 4.8 stars with online reviews. And they've had over 20,000 of them. So it's very clear that Casper is becoming the Internet's favorite mattress. They will deliver directly to your door in an impossibly small box. And if for any reason you don't love it, Casper has a hassle-free return policy, which is a 100-night risk-free sleep-on-it trial. So you can be sure of your mattress purchase from the Internet because you get 100 nights to sleep on it before you make your final decision. And if you don't like it within that time period, you can return it for free. Very, very simple. Now, Brad Dowdy, my understanding is when you need a little bit of time to yourself, you go and hunker down on the Casper mattress. Is that right?
Brad Dowdy: That was a very kind way to say when you've been kicked out of the bedroom for snoring too loud. You go hunker down on the Casper mattress in the guest bedroom, and it's always enjoyable. It's always fantastic. I prefer it over my regular mattress. I'd be okay just sleeping in there. But, you know, it doesn't work that way. That's a bad idea. That's not good. That's not good for your overall marriage, I think. But no, but the nights I do sleep on the Casper are usually really good. It's a great mattress. I love the packaging. I love that it keeps me cool and comfortable and a good night's sleep. So, yeah, it's fantastic. Love it.
Myke Hurley: You can get $50 towards select mattress purchases by going to casper.com slash penaddict and using penaddict at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Once more, that is casper.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict for $50 towards select purchases. Our thanks to Casper for their support of this show and RelayFM.
Brad Dowdy: So, by way of chance, our podcast is recorded on Wednesday, which gives me like a day of podcasting pen show prep. And then I get to talk about it almost right when I return. It's like a good fit. It's not broken up too much. I can get the whole show experience, you know, between shows and fill you in on the details. And last week, I was talking about how excited I was for the show. And I hope it lived up to the hype and no pressure, Bert. Bert Ozer, who puts on the show, Baltimore Pen Show. And I had high hopes.
Brad Dowdy: And this show met or exceeded every single one of them. I mean, I think it's fair to say this is one of the best pen shows I've ever been to. Wow. Right from the jump, we're going to go ahead and drop that on this show. So, there's lots of things that go into that, which we'll talk about as we kind of go through this. But I just kind of want to talk through the show from the different things I did, different events I did, different people I met. And kind of paint a picture of how this show was because it was really so much fun. And I wish everyone could be at this show just to experience what all of us lucky ones that got to go there got to experience. And I didn't put this in the show notes. But some were not so lucky because we did have a huge weather event Thursday night, Friday, most of the day.
Brad Dowdy: That prevented people from getting to the show a lot of those days, a lot of high winds, snow up north. And it was just kind of a travel nightmare on Friday. But somehow, the show didn't skip a beat. Like, we had a good crowd on Friday, big crowd on Saturday, and then, like, the perfect crowd on Sunday to just kind of chill and go through the day. The knock presence. This was my first knock show of the year where I brought and manned all the knock goods at the knock co booth. So, the way the show's set up, there's one large ballroom. This is a new hotel for Baltimore, so I don't know the previous setup. One large ballroom, then one small ballroom off to the side. So, I was in the small ballroom off to the side. It was me, Pay It Forward table, Van Espen, Jimmy Dolov, Story Supply, Independent. So, it was a nice room. There was some more. Oh, the Baltimore Urban Sketchers were right behind us. So, that was a cool group. So, you know, we dubbed it the cool kids room because the small room always gets dubbed something, right? Because you feel left out of the big room. But I don't think we missed a beat being in that side room, certainly from Knox's perspective. Business was as good as any other large show that I've done before. Like, overall, our sales were right there with Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco. Baltimore slid right in, like, didn't miss a beat. Like, it's pretty consistent what we can do at a pin show. And this one was right there, which I had no idea what to expect. But it was really, really good. So, from a business perspective, very successful show. From a personal perspective, I want to talk about the fun stuff we did. And then we'll circle back around to the actual show itself.
Seed Case[edit]
Myke Hurley: Well, before we move away from Knox, though, I mean, you debuted the A5 Seed case. How was that received?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I wrote that down. I wrote that down here, and I almost forgot to talk about it. Exceptionally well. I only had about 15 to bring. They were gone by Friday afternoon, first day, of course. Everyone seemed to like them very much. And we were missing some on Saturday. So, we couldn't quite kid them all. And from a shipping perspective, from the rest of the seed cases, I only got about 30 in while we were gone. So, I'm not ready to put them up on the site this week. I told everyone I'd be ready to put them up on the site this week. We didn't get enough. When I came home, I was disappointed. And I was expecting very large boxes waiting for me upon my return home. And I was like, wow, this box is small. So, we're a little bit short. So, I'll have more notes later. I'm trying to figure out where the rest of them are. So, hopefully, we can get them out soon. So, feedback was awesome. Everyone who bought them and used them was giving me feedback. It was very good. So, I am very happy with that case. That's definitely like the, what do you call it? That's definitely the prize winner of the case sizes. Yeah. It's the MVP of our cases right now.
Myke Hurley: I want one real bad now for my journal. You know?
Brad Dowdy: It fits so many normal, it fits the most normal things that all of us pit nerds use. So, that's why we wanted to make it. Yeah, because it was funny.
Myke Hurley: I always thought I wanted the traveler's notebook size just because that size intrigues me. But now, I have an actual, you know, I have an actual real need for something in that size range. So, yeah, I'm very keen to get myself one of those probably in Atlanta. Yep. Yep.
Atlanta Show[edit]
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Yep. So, if I don't have a ton by Atlanta, I'm going to have worse problems than showing up to the show without a seat case. So, yeah.
Brad Dowdy: table meaning that they will sit and like kind of captain a table for the night and then we'll sit around maybe six or eight people around the table to come and talk with them and learn from them for like between 10 and 15 minutes and then we make them get up and move the attendees make them get up and move to the next table to go learn from the next so we ended up with six tables and it was the perfect sized event because in san francisco it became so large i was yelling between two rooms and moving people between two rooms and it was kind of a mess but even though it went off like everyone loved it this was a little bit more in sync as far as moving it and the people who hosted the table i'll give them a quick shout out it's martin ferguson jim rouse dan keller dan don community member chris roth from right notepads veto grippy from story supply oh and dan keller's from good made better jim rouse from franklin christoph and martin ferguson from martin's pens so great great people it's perfect right because martin can talk about vintage pens and repair jim rouse can talk about nib grinding dan keller can talk about manufacturing with his pinwheel products dan don can talk about inks and nibs and paper and how they all work together and chris roth and veto both talk about notebook production and paper qualities and printing so it was just fantastic these these people just did a wonderful job the people who were moving around the mixer had a great time and uh it was a really really fun event um i don't want to say it went off without a hitch but it feels like it went off without a hitch right i had a everyone seemed to have a good time have a good time you know there was you know we were a little bit tight on space but we made it work you know we just kept stealing chairs that we probably weren't supposed to steal and you know that's just kind of what you do at a pen show you just kind of make it happen and uh
Myke Hurley: it was fun so that was fantastic that there is a show that i will be at at some point where you're able to do this because it sounds like a really fun thing like i was thinking about it because i saw some of your instagram stuff and i was like there's no way i could host a table because i just i i'm not confident enough in my knowledge right but like i would love to participate like to go and talk to these people uh right and kind of find out more about what they do i was thinking like if brad asked me to host a table what could i even what would i even be able to talk about i feel like i would spend like the majority of the time being taught by other people who were just sitting there but i think it's a really fun thing and i hope that i can i can see it in action
Brad Dowdy: at some point yeah so i don't know where else we'll do this again i don't know what other shows will have the opportunity to do this and where it would work well but whenever we we do we will let everyone know but and it's a fun event you should try to go to um you know if you've if you want to learn more or just hang around people um you know with similar likes and tastes and that kind of rolls into the saturday night event which i kind of felt like you what you were just talking about the pen show after dark event sponsored by kenro industries is just really a hangout and get together where a bunch of us sit at like the similar tables we sat at for the pen mixer we just came and hung out and talked with people who wanted to you know talk about the pen show and talk about what pens you have and what type of paper or you know just various things it was just more of a concentrated uh you know group of all of us pen addicts all at one time like away from the bar to where we can all be kind of more together and so i've been to these plenty of times um at different pen shows and i'm always just hanging out and you know talking to carrie mixing and mingling having a drink whatever and for some reason i this time was i don't know if it was different or better or what but i just sat down at a table and talked to a bunch of people and we just chit chatted back and forth about whatever like some of them wanted to know about like my business stuff other times we were just talking about pens and i had the best time just like sitting down and chatting i never stop when i'm at a pen show right i almost never sit down the entire time at a pen show and that was one of the few times where i could just stop and talk to people with like without having to worry about anything else other than the people in front of me and i just had an awesome time it was uh it was really cool and tony in the chat room reminds me that that worked out perfectly on saturday night mike because there was a kid rock concert in town like two blocks away so this seemed to be one of the hotels of choice so the bar the bar was very very packed that night so um it was kind of right so you
Myke Hurley: weren't in the bar right so like you had your own little chill area away from the kid rock oh my gosh it was kind of amazing like kid rock i'm not shaming you like i'm not trying to do that but like i i can imagine it being a little bit of a rowdy bunch is yeah mostly a different crowd different
Brad Dowdy: crowd but yeah it was fun i mean nothing nothing stupid happened but uh of course it was uh but it was nice to have our own space and i just i didn't realize until after that event how little i stop going at a pen show like i never have time i feel to like just stop and and take it all in and i got to that night and that was like one of my personal highlights right just being able to sit and talk with people you know we do that at the bar you know most nights but it's always loud and raucous not necessarily but you know it's hard to hear and things like that this was just i don't know i really enjoyed just sitting and hanging out and talking with people so that was fun i it's been a while since i've been to a show where i met so many new people um atlanta's usually like that san francisco's like that because it's a cross country right so not everyone makes the trip so you know it's it's a good place to meet new people but this show i got to meet just all kinds of people i've talked to online and never met before and a lot of vendors like chris i mentioned before from right notepads that guy's awesome like i i said in our show notes i'm gonna read this i usually don't read right off our show notes i said chris roth is a national treasure this guy will end up with a statue somewhere even if it's inside his own print shop that's that's what i he's like that kind of like outgoing gregarious character right i mean he's a character in like all the best ways and oh by the way he makes like the best notebooks and printed goods on the planet right so it's this really interesting mix just watching him go at it all the time and he helped me out a lot at the pen mixer he you know held down a table bought a brought a bunch of printed goods to be able to talk about and it was just awesome to finally meet him and we talked together we've talked online for years but to get him to meet him in person it was pretty cool and then he also had a table like right across the aisle from us you know kind of at an angle in in the cool kids room so i got to pick up a bunch of new notebooks from him um he did so he was showing off some some printed pads where he was like really happy with like the letter pressing technique he used so just getting to listen to talk to someone who's so passionate about like what they do it was really cool so
Myke Hurley: sounds like we've convinced him to come out to atlanta chris sounds like i know i know i don't know if
Brad Dowdy: we can i don't know if we can get him on a plane he said he's done dc before but i'd never seen him there so it must have been pre our time there and uh he's done baltimore but uh he said he had so much fun at this show he'll probably just stick with baltimore that's his hometown that's where right is so right we'll see um you know and he uh he definitely paid out on the the goldfield free drink chips that they sent uh-huh in the mail so if you're a subscriber you got you get subscriber extras and the last set was the goldfield um notebook set and with it came like a little plastic chip it said good good for one free drink at right notepad so he pretty much carried around a
Myke Hurley: 12 pack with him at all time that's really fun i like that that's really really good yeah so it was
Herbert Pen Company[edit]
Brad Dowdy: good and i but i watched people turn them into him too it was hilarious um herbert pen company is someone that's new on my radar just recently they did something for they did a collaboration with papillie plume this huge new orleans mardi gras theme pen and box and like this whole thing that came together it's really kind of amazing um you know like the pen is like too much for me not like in dollars but just like in wildness like okay but i see like okay this is kind of cool it's like i don't want it but it's pretty cool well chet was there and i got to meet him and he's doing some really interesting things these are beautiful two things two things i wanted to point out one he's making clear acrylics with what amounts to ink swirls in them so when he's making the blanks and it's still liquefied for example he's pouring in i don't know organic studio nitrogen or whatever into this clear acrylic and making a swirl of the actual ink color in this acrylic and then it and then it hardens and you know then it turns into a rod and then he can turn the pins so i thought that was cool the second thing i thought that he did was really cool is he's actually making acrylic barrels that fit the pilot vanishing point nib units so he's not making like a retractable pin for the pilot vanishing point he's not doing that he's essentially wrapping the nib unit into this pin it makes it look like a hooded nib it makes it look like a parker 51 nib and you can actually change out the entire nib unit and i was like okay i'm getting one of those put me down on the list you know i said put me down on the list now because when i talk about it i don't want to lose my spot i want to make sure i'm down i want to make sure i'm down first online anywhere so it's actually i look through the instagram feed and i stopped looking after a certain point where it didn't come through i have a picture i will put on instagram later i'm sorry i didn't get it off my phone just yet i'm a little behind on the pictures but it's basically like a standard acrylic barrel and the nib unit of the vanishing point you know fits in there you like unscrew it in the middle you can put the nib unit in and then when you screw it back together it looks like a hooded nib like you would expect from a parker 51 it's really kind of wild i i held this pen like a lot just trying to figure it out like he wasn't selling the one okay i found one i found one okay so it's just an interesting look to a like i already know i like the nib right so it would just be kind of cool and i have extra nib units so you provide the nib unit for him and he works around that and gets it in there to have like a nice tight friction fit and i just thought that was a really neat idea for something unique especially for a nib unit that i like so much and have extras of let me ask you this
Myke Hurley: question about that why that specific nib unit because it's different like it's a fantastic rider
Brad Dowdy: it gives you it gives you that hooded nib result in a custom acrylic pen okay so that's why that's pretty much why yeah it's certainly you know he could do everything else and fit yovo and and bock nib units and they're just like everyone else but i appreciate him doing something differently and it gives you a different aesthetic right so it's a completely different aesthetic and that's what i picked it up i was like oh this is cool i thought it was just like a hooded nib and he's like no it's a vanishing point nib unit like the entire thing in there and you can even fit up he'll even make the barrel so it'll fit the entire con 70 converter which is the biggest converter that pilot offers so it's a it's a really neat thing that he's doing so uh i'm on the list for that
Myke Hurley: the blanks the acrylics are beautiful some of them are just beautiful like really really yeah
Brad Dowdy: yep yep they're fantastic and if you have multiple vanishing point nib units as sandra mentions in the chat room you can switch out these nib units it's not like it's glued in there fixed in there right like i you know i have a stub and i have extra fine like i could if i wanted to change them out i could it just slides right in there friction fit so you can pull it out so that's super cool i i really enjoyed that i got down on the list for that um he's already six months out pretty much any custom pen makers like six months out these days it seems like so that's good though
Myke Hurley: but it's frustrating at the same time yeah i want it to be really really busy except when i want one
Brad Dowdy: yep exactly right i was like well just put me down and then we'll we'll we'll sort it all out so i'm on the list for that one and um yeah it's uh it's not the only list i'm on mike oh okay all right i want
Myke Hurley: to find out about that but let me take a break first there's a teaser that's a teaser today's show is brought to you in part by our friends at squarespace use the offer code ink at checkout and you will get yourself 10 of your first purchase make your next move with squarespace and let me tell you why you should because they give you all of the tools that you need to get your next project online no matter what type of website you're looking to build squarespace has everything you need you can get a unique domain name with them you can take advantage and customize beautiful award-winning templates you can have everything set up without needing to install patch upgrade anything it's all available on the web is they have apps they have everything there's statistics they have online store functionality if you need it and 24 7 customer support in case you need any help no matter what type of website you want to build squarespace have got you covered they are the all-in-one platform to help you get your next idea online their plans start at just 12 a month you can sign up for a trial today with no credit card required just go to squarespace.com and then when you decide to sign up for a plan use the offer code ink ink at checkout and you'll get yourself 10 off your first purchase and show your support for this show we thank squarespace for their continued support of the pen addict and relay fm squarespace make your next move make your next website so one of the next places
Brad Dowdy: i stopped and one of the next people i got to meet after only talking to them online and never seeing their work in person even though i own one of his pens is the woodshed pen company this is mike allen i backed his kickstarter earlier in the year i don't know if you remember this pen mike i didn't put the link to my pen in there but it's kind of that rose and violet cracked ice acrylic pen that i got off kickstarter really fantastic this yeah yeah i remember this yeah so he was there um he too's doing his own acrylic acrylics and making his own pens and we talked for a while it's at the night of the i think it was the night of the the pen show after dark it was one of the evenings you know we got to we got to stand and talk there for a little bit and you know i just loved hearing his story and hearing what he's working on and hearing what he's doing and why he's doing it and i almost ended up with another one of his pens i kept going back to this one particular one he's doing some alumalite uh casting and had some really neat neat barrels i don't know how i would explain their difference between a standard acrylic but they seem to be more i don't know like a thicker not in thickness but like a richer color or richer depth instead of like you know some of the acrylics have some clarity in it these seem to be you know more thick and rich and i really liked how they came out i almost ended up with one of those but i held off um i didn't want to blow the budget too much because i actually did buy a couple pens at this show um but yeah he's just a really nice guy he does good work and you know i just enjoyed talking to him so i wanted to make sure you know that the word got out that all these people are coming to this show and you get to see all these things in person that you may have only gotten to see online and i had more people tell me that they this was their first show they're so glad they're here and they get to hold the things that they've only seen online and figure out if it's good for them so it's nice to see all these new makers making it to the show so it was very cool another one of those is good made better which is dan keller the maker of the pinwell he and his wife were there and i spent a lot of time with him he's a very interesting guy and what i like and appreciate about dan so much he is super inquisitive about everything like he's very new to this market like
Myke Hurley: last year dan is a great emailer dan sends me great emails he's a good dude he's nice i really like him
Brad Dowdy: yeah and he's even nicer in person if that's possible um so just hanging out with him and his wife and just you know just talking in general things not necessarily about you know the products or anything like that just talking in general to him was really cool because he's still you know sorting it all out figuring out what he wants to do what he wants to be in the marketplace um he's really you know the effort you can see like in his products look fantastic i know the maryland pinwells maryland flag pinwells were gone almost immediately um it seems like they were i saw him on his table the first day and i don't remember seeing him after that and he was showing me off some new products he's playing around with and just an all-around good guy that like you can't help but support and you know check out his wares and and things like that and it was just cool watching him yeah i think this is his second show like i said they did denver last year was their first show and that was around the launch of the pinwell product and he's already come out with a new product from them he's doing all kinds of different materials and and things like that the pay it forward table which you know i'm a huge supporter of what they're doing what oscar rodriguez is doing they were adjacent to me like we were we were table table buddies table neighbors in the cool kids room and it was awesome to see all of the people come up and all of the volunteers work that table and tell the attendees like what pay it forward was all about and seeing the crowds they have and the enthusiasm of not just all of the volunteers working the table but the attendees who came to the table and were able to get their kids you know something cool to get them started in fountain pens or get their spouse who wasn't really interested in fountain pens into fountain pens or people who are just beginners in this whole thing give them something you know to take with them from the show at no charge just to kind of learn about what we do and what all this is about and why we enjoy you know pens and paper and and things like that so it was super cool to see just all the activity around pay it forward table it was fantastic and i appreciate all of the table hosts watching my table when i ran off from time to time which i did so we had we had a good thing going it was a uh it was a good it was a good setup uh hopefully for all of us hopefully for them i didn't get to talk with oscar about how the show actually ended up but i imagine uh based on what i saw it was fantastic now the other list i'm on mike for pen making was not someone who had a table at the show but it was friend of the show friend of the slack room chewbacca from red dragon pens i got to see his pens in person he was at the show brian was at the show and i was like all right put me down put me on the list i i like his craftsmanship of the pens i like his barrel designs i like the little unique things that he does so uh he's already sent me an email brian if you're listening i'll get back to you on that email i may have already replied i don't know i'm a little space cadet yes yesterday trying to catch up on all the things but brian's work looks really really nice really nice excuse me and so i'm definitely going to work with him to put a pen together for me and as i talk about all these people this is all the new people right like have you ever met any single one of these people at the show besides oscar no at any atlanta dc no and like here i am spending 20 i don't know how many minutes talking about all of this new fresh ideas at the pen show yeah it's wicked it's great because
Myke Hurley: it's like there's all this new stuff all these new amazing things happening at not what has been considered to be one of the big pen shows right right right right right exactly so yeah it's kind
Brad Dowdy: of amazing and i i'll apologize right now i am certain i am leaving somebody out um if i leave you out uh please don't fret and please know that i love you too um except except tony who wants credit for manning the not co booth and uh he actually he actually did he uh i i would trust him with anything at the not co booth except the money so yeah he did a great job he did a great job i would be remiss if i didn't mention some of my old friends at the show and um i'm gonna say you know i wrote this in two sections in the show doc we had the new people which was the uh the part i just went through i did title this old people the this next little bit but that's not because they're old even though one of them is it's because you know they're not like brand new to the scene they're people i've seen and know and met but i love them so much i wanted to give them some shout outs and one of them is of course the wonderful jonathan brooks carolina pen company how can you not love the guy and love everything that he does he was showing off his new harushi work at the bar on thursday night um it looks fantastic some of the new designs he has some of the new finishes he has some of the new artwork he has it's really really cool and then i went over to his table on friday and i saw this double ended pin mike which i put in the instagram i don't know how i didn't buy this i guess i just wasn't ready to spend the money like i'm gonna end up with a double ended pin two nibs on each side eye dropper fill on both sections um i'm gonna end up with a pin like this especially because the colors are crazy
Myke Hurley: it's like purple green and fluorescent yellow yeah i think a double ended crazy pin like this is in my future too because i think it's really i really like it um i nearly bought one at the london show um from twist but yeah and this is something that i will eventually get on my list yeah so he actually
Brad Dowdy: had two of them and they were equally as nice like i it was hard time deciding like which one i like but i still didn't end up with one sorry jonathan um maybe next time i see you or maybe it'll be gone i don't know but you know one of these days i'm gonna have to end up with something like that because the material and the design is just really cool the second person who is a legitimately old person just in age but not in heart is mr paul arano he really embraces the youth movement he sees at these pin shows and tries to bring everyone in to learn about vintage pins like we had him at the the pin mixer in san francisco he did he had a rough day friday getting into the show so we didn't have him friday night but it didn't matter because he just pulls people in to his aura he just likes to talk about pens and this year like he's before i even saw his setup he pulled me aside and we talked for like 20 minutes on his new vintage pencil kick that he's on so he's been buying tons of vintage pencils brings them to the show he's been buying all kinds of vintage pencil sharpeners and restoring them he had a bunch of them at the show you'll see pictures on my instagram feed from all the things that he brought and he's just so passionate about everything he talks about so it's really cool so uh johnny gamber from the erasable podcast and from pencil revolution online he's a baltimore native so when johnny came to the show i made him made a point to bring johnny over and and introduce him to paul and so they got to meet each other and because paul's getting into the stuff and you know johnny johnny is is the pencil master online so i wanted to make sure they talked and then i know the crew from the byob podcast sat down and interviewed paul so look for that interview coming up soon in their podcast feed i haven't heard it yet but i know once it gets edited it will be out there for everyone to listen to so well i'll put i'll make sure once that drops we'll link it in the show notes and talk about it but i'm sure it's fantastic paul is a great guy he um he loves to talk so he he's one of those guys you ask him one question and then you know like an hour later you're still you're still going and you haven't asked a second question so it's pretty amazing and yes there will be uh some some special uh words from mr paul arano either in the the main podcast or it might have its own little little tidbit and for those of you who are there know exactly what this is for those of you who don't i will not ruin the surprise all right so like i said i have probably left out all kinds of people and all kinds of details but bert oser from bertram zinkwell deserves all the credit for pulling off almost a perfect show like we it wasn't without difficulties right friday was a slow day for a lot of people because of the weather you can't control that but bert handled it well you know we had some confusion with the room setup bert's right there in the trenches telling you what's going on you know anything we wanted for the after hours events bert handled he did an amazing job at the show and along with atlanta along with san francisco along with chicago this should be the model for all pen shows it has the right mix of vendors it has the right mix of attendees it has the right size it has the right location and most importantly what this show has and i figured out after going from between la and this show in the span of two weeks i realized what baltimore had and all those other shows had that i just listed that a show like la doesn't have and it has character this pen show has character la is a fine show it's a pen show you go to the show you shop you buy things you mingle with friends and then you leave there's no character to the la pen show baltimore you could feel just like it in the air like a vibe you know it was more than going to buy stuff it was an event it was friends and friendship and stories oh by the way there's also a pen show where you can go buy stuff and then share stuff with those friends these shows that do well have character and those are the shows that are going to see succeed long term and grow not that these other shows are going away but people are going to want to go to these shows that give you more than just the pen show it's really cool you can feel it when you're there i had several people mention that wow this is just fun you know just being around the show even sitting at the hotel bar the hotel restaurant it's fun like it has a good vibe to it it has feel and i realized that's what the difference is between this show and in la there's just you know la had different things this year with construction and stuff going on but i'm comparing it to previous la shows they were generally the same too there's no character to a show like la so you know it this was a fantastic event and it will be a mandatory event for my calendar or for nox calendar you know as long as there's no conflicts baltimore is where i want to be it's where i want to spend my money and effort and time to get to because i know the experience is going to be fantastic so thanks to everyone who made it that way especially bert and all of the friends in the community and and everyone who gave it that character and gave it that feel and gave it that vibe you know it's hard to put in words but it's just a really good show and i think you know all of those pieces are why oh last thing i wrote one more thing one more thing mike if you want a good feel or a good a good vibe you got to go to this instagram feed it's called posting.life this my friend john who didn't think i knew his name when he showed up on friday or whenever he showed up he's like oh you remember me i'm like yeah i remember you he was at dc he took a lot of people pictures and just continually posted them uh over the last few days so we'll have a link in the show notes to his instagram feed it's hilarious and just like i look at the pictures and i remember like oh man that was so cool or you know there's some silly pictures and fun pictures and just random pictures but that gives you a good feel of the show so you know definitely check out that that feed uh he did a great job with it so yeah um it's it's it's going to be hard to top this one right there's a lot of shows right at the top of the list you know the ones that i mentioned and if you can crack that that threshold you're doing something right so yeah it was great show but you got another and we're not done yet so little rock is fantastic in its own right it's i mean i'll say it right now and this isn't being unfair to little rock but it's not going to reach those the heights of the list i made before just because it's small right this is a smaller pen show but i've never enjoyed myself just being at a pen show as much as this because i didn't have to work so i finally got to be last year i finally got to just be there at the pen show and i had a blast telling stories and talking to people i learned so much at a smaller show like this you can actually spend time with vendors and this one not only is anna going to be there this year but matt armstrong is going to be there so and dan smith uh the nib smith who we just talked about is going to be there so you know we're going to have a big time we're going to make uh lisa vaness's hair turn gray quickly because uh we'll be at her shop antagonizing her we'll be at her shop for her um huge show party she has every year i think it's friday night then i'm hosting a party at the at the hotel on saturday night and last year i was surprised like how crowded it was and how many people were actually there to come to the show and staying for multiple days they have a ton of classes a ton of unique classes that a lot of other shows that don't have if you're in the area you should try to make it to arkansas because this is a fun show um i i'm i'm driving so i like i'm i'm feeling okay about that decision right now by the time i'm done with the show and driving home ask me again about that decision um but i'm really really looking forward to arkansas because i can actually get spend some time talking pens instead of like uh you know just kind of like i feel like i'm a little bit working the whole time when i'm there with knock and and things like that so i'll just get to uh i'll get to hang out at this show and i'll be there the entire weekend it's really fun i had a blast last year so you're done for pen with pen shows today just for today tomorrow that's a different story
Harry's Shave Products[edit]
Myke Hurley: this episode is brought to you in part by our friends at harry's harry's is all about a great shave at a fair price which is why over three million people have switched to them and you should join you should be you should be buying harry's products you know why because their founders decided to create a product that wasn't insanely overpriced they wanted to fix all of this stuff they stripped out the unnecessary features the things you don't need like a handle that vibrates and they also cut out the unnecessary costs allowing them to deliver to you the one perfect razor at an amazing price a good shave comes down to good blades so that's why they have their own factory and they make those blades themselves and harry's offers their high quality blades at half the price that you're going to be paying just two dollars per blade and they know they're so good that they offer a 100 quality guarantee now brad i'm sure that this is an essential part of your traveling kit
Brad Dowdy: right now yeah i just need to build out the pen addict traveling shave kit for harry's and get that built on the site because that's what i use i use their dop kit their razor handle their blade and their shave cream in the smaller size there's a portable size and then there's like the giant countertop size so yeah that's the the only way i travel to pen shows keeps me looking good and
Myke Hurley: smelling good mike and harry's is so confident that you're going to love their products their blades and their gray smelling stuff they want to give you a free trial set all you need to do is cover the shipping you'll get yourself a weighted ergonomic razor handle five precision engineered blades of a lubricating strip and trimmer blade a rich lathering shave gel and travel blade cover this set is worth 13 but it's free for you just go to harry's.com slash pen addict right now check out what they're doing and get started all you need to do is cover the cost of shipping our thanks to harry's for their continued support of this show and relay fm all right it's my time now you had yes i need you to
Brad Dowdy: i need you to talk for a while or i can just interrupt you and we can get some nasty emails or something going but yes please talk for a while let us know what's going on michael so whilst i did not receive
Myke Hurley: my pink glove uh i was able to wrestle out of the snowstorm that we've had here uh in oh that's right that hasn't helped with my deliveries by the way true um i've been able to get a kaweco pen sleeve grip or the kaweco grip for apple pencils it's called it arrived um and i've had it for a couple of days and i have mostly my first impressions but it does really kind of feel like a a review of this product because it is it is simple enough that i don't think it requires a lot of time to to really really use it a bunch so one thing that surprised me it comes in the regular kaweco packaging like in the tin that they do the whole nine yards like and i wasn't expecting that because this feels like a little bit more of a technology product right then then yeah then they're typical but no it comes in like the little like brass looking tin that they do you know licensed to write since germany germany since 1883 with a fountain pen on it and it's like okay i get what you're going for but i feel like this isn't the packaging that it should be um but it's nice but it didn't it was just a surprise to me to receive this technology product in their old school
Brad Dowdy: packaging yeah i saw that in the notes i didn't think twice about it now that you've said it out loud i agree with you completely because it just looks like it looks like what you're going to get
Myke Hurley: in here is a sport honestly because that's what they've even got as a picture on the front of it so i think that that should be something that they should think about if they want to sell this product a bit more widely so the body of the the grip itself so like the actual aluminium the sleeve is very very lightweight um it is way lighter than i thought uh and then and then when i put it on the apple pencil i realized why because the whole package together it is noticeably heavier than the apple pencil like i haven't done any science on this but it feels about nearly twice the weight so on its own on with the whole thing together when you put that when you put it on to the apple pencil the weight difference is significant and gotcha the reason for this the reason that this is a problem or the reason that this is happening is because the apple pencil is too long to be made out of aluminium um you know like i've spoken about this a bunch like i want to see i've wanted to see apple make an aluminium version but they need to make it a bit bit shorter because the balance is a little bit weird because this is a very very long writing like piece of writing equipment right like it is i'm trying to find something to compare it to like it's even like three centimeters or two two and a half centimeters longer than my spoke pencil right like it is very large the apple pencil so i mean that's something i've always found a bit peculiar about it the size my expectation is because they made it bigger for battery life um and then they made it out of you know out of a plastic so it's it's nice and light but i've always found it to be a little long and that is accentuated when you're adding weight to the whole thing now the balance is is a little off but overall once you get used to it it's fine but you have to get used to it because it is heavy right it's it's heavier than it should be um but once you once you've had once you've used it for a little bit you kind of you get used to it right like it's not it's not terrible um the mechanism for tightening or like for for like kind of securing it is genius um and isn't very well explained so basically what you have is two pieces you have just at the knurled grip section and then the rest and what happens is there is like this little sleeve at the very end of the grip and it's got a bunch of cutouts in it so like a lot of slits all the way down so when you tight so then you put the you it's it's like a collar like a long collar it's like a few centimeters long and you put the grip section over that and screw it on and what it's doing is applying tension to this like collar and then holding it all in place and that's towards the top of the grip
Brad Dowdy: section not at the bottom towards the tip of the pencil right it actually extends all the way down
Myke Hurley: so like this this collar extends all the way down and it it adds what it does is it increases the tension around the whole thing so you're like squeezing the the the sheath i guess to the apple pencil okay by tightening the grip section around it it's very difficult to explain which is why they didn't really do an amazing job explaining it in the product marketing either but it is a genius way to do it which will not mark or damage the apple pencil it looks like so i think that they've they've found a really smart way of doing it and once you've screwed it on thing does not budge like cannot you cannot get it to budge unless you apply like just horrific force right like force that you never actually apply in a general setting and i mean you can keep tightening it up and you can this thing won't move right like you can you can be hitting this thing down hard and it's not going to come out
Brad Dowdy: so the integration of that once you put it in there it looks seamless like it's flawless the way it's
Myke Hurley: integrated onto the pencil yeah it's done very very very well um the knurling feels great it's very nice it's very slight which i like um so it adds nice grip but the grip section is too far up so you have the knurling and then there's like this little piece of like aluminium that like goes down into the tip you can see this in the pictures so you've got like the the knurled section then there's like a piece of aluminium that has some lines that run around it and then it goes down into the tip of the pencil the reason it's too high up is because they have to leave distance for the for the apple pencil tip anyway so it's always going to be too high up so i've kind of found myself holding it either below where the knurl grip is or just holding the knurl grip and it just feels a little bit too high for me but it works right like it works it's it's a little higher than i would like but i have pens that are like that right like this is a thing it's a personal preference thing but it works fine um but it feels really really nice to hold the the knurling is really really nice it it provides the grip that i want from the apple pencil like i find the alum that did this the acrylic a little bit too slippery but this gives me enough grip without being overbearing you know like it's not i don't feel like it's digging into my hands um the flat sides of the barrel uh is really great so coupled with the weights that are inside of the apple pencil anyway this thing doesn't move right like it maybe rolls once and stops which the apple pencil does not do on its own in my opinion like you put it down hard enough and plus the added weight helps right so just the overall added weight that the aluminium provides is all to keeping it this thing from moving around so my kind of overall feeling on this there are there are some things to get used to there are some drawbacks but this what kaweko have actually done here they may as well have been listening to me specifically because they have made exactly what i think apple should be making it is aluminium with flat sides and a knurl grip like that this is what the apple pencil in my opinion should be like as an aftermarket accessory this is a superb addition to the apple pencil and i think i'm going to get another one of these for my other apple pencil like it is it provides me with basically everything that i want from this product it is just a shame that there's no way really that they can work around some of the drawbacks about compromising the design like the aluminium could just be like halfway down and that would solve a few of the problems right like it could cut off but then it wouldn't look good because they've done an excellent job of integrating the design by having like the just the the shiny silver cuff between the grip section and the body which matches what apple have at the top of the pencil by the cap right like they've done a they've they've done an excellent job designing this product and it solves a bunch of problems it creates a couple of new ones but the overall experience of this
Cafeco Pencil[edit]
Brad Dowdy: is a net positive for me i think the only question i have is similar to when i was talking about the pentel energel cleanup pen last year wide barrel fine tip writing so your smaller writing is it more of a challenge i i understand that there's not that much super fine writing you know using the apple pencil on the on the ipad you know not like i would write on the paper but do you find that to be a challenge your normal normal writing versus say you know the the wider looser sketchy flowing marker style handwriting do you see an issue with the fine handwriting i don't unless it's an extended period of time
Myke Hurley: i feel like the the weight of this thing over an extended period of time the fatigue would set in quickly but like in the tests that i've done it works fine and also you know i if i'm ever i think most people i would expect that most people using an apple pencil are using it for for broad broader strokes than to write like tiny little notes you know like i think that yes it would be trickier with this product but my expectation is that the majority of people that are using it it would be fine right like i i think that if you're writing a lot a lot like a lot you're probably doing on pen and paper right so i would expect i mean and of course there are going to be edge cases of course but i would expect that the majority of people are not using an apple pencil for that purpose it's like they're taking short notes or they're sketching something or you know using it for ui navigation like i do too and i think that it's fine for all of those but yeah if you were spending 45 minutes doing some real intense writing with this i don't think you're going to have an enjoyable experience overall because i think
Brad Dowdy: that the weight would get to you yeah well i think i'm gonna have to get one and at least try it out i think i can see this i i'm just impressed with the build of it and the integration of it that it looks flawless it looks like it was made hand in hand with apple so nice job yeah let's just say like
Myke Hurley: i think it'll do well you could take cafeco's branding off of this and tell me apple made it like you could do that and genuinely as much as i like this product i hope that there isn't need for it in a few months time because i really want apple to make the apple pencil i want right right but i don't think they're going to so this is a this is a product that i expect to be keeping on my apple
Brad Dowdy: pencil for the foreseeable future i think it's really really cool yeah very cool i love it and uh i will keep an eye on these when they start uh heading in in more places other than uh europe which i imagine this is going to be a pretty quick thing it's either going to be zero or a hundred pretty soon right it's either not going to happen or they're going to be everywhere very soon which i
Myke Hurley: i think it's the latter yeah yeah i mean i haven't i was i've kind of been poking around and i haven't
Brad Dowdy: seen anybody else that is selling it right now okay okay well cool well man i am uh i think i'm talked out this week i bet you are i bet you are lots we have lots of ass tpa to get to i think maybe next week uh pre arkansas we can do like a good half episode if not an entire episode of ass tpa what do you think yeah i think we need to get back to it because i have i have them in a document i have them physically here in letters so i think we'll we'll do a lot of that stuff so get all the questions in we'll answer them all next week on pen addict number 299 wow yeah all right thanks
Myke Hurley: again for listening thank you so so so so so much for contributing to our kickstarter campaign uh we are just about to tick over to thirty thousand dollars which is wild like just wonderful wonderful wonderful wild stuff so thank you thank you thank you and if you want to find our show notes for this week they are at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 298 you can find brad at pen addict.com knocker.co he is pen addict on instagram dowdyism on twitter i am imike i am yke thanks again to casper squarespace and harry's for their support of this show and we'll be back next time with episode 299 until then say goodbye brad dowdy goodbye brad dowdy you you you you you