In this episode Brad and Myke cover loads of follow-up topics, including a Field Notes AMA, why Brad chose the specific five fountain pens in his load out, and a cool new collaboration from Cult Pens and Kaweco. We also go back in the archives and discuss how well we have stuck to our stationery resolutions for 2013.
Links and Show Notes
In this episode Brad and Myke cover loads of follow-up topics, including a Field Notes AMA, why Brad chose the specific five fountain pens in his load out, and a cool new collaboration from Cult Pens and Kaweco. We also go back in the archives and discuss how well we have stuck to our stationery resolutions for 2013.
Links for this episode:
Sponsored by Squarespace (use code TALLYHO8 for 10% off)
Hello and welcome to the pen addict podcast episode 67 the pan addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly my name is Mike Kelly and I am joined by a man who I'm sure only owns check shirts because they're a reminder of the grid paper that you love so dearly mr. bread doubt it you know I have a complex about that really no but it just seems like every picture is like that that I do Mike is is referring to this new thing that that somehow came up between me and some of my followers on Instagram where I don't know number one it seems like every picture I'm in I'm wearing some kind of type of check or plaid shirt and that's I mean that's pretty true you should see my closet it's pretty scary and then I just happen to make a picture the other day just showing the the vent retro 51 vintage surf in my pocket I was going register the kids for school so I knew I would have to be writing a lot so that's the pen I chose to take to school to write with and I just did it in my shirt pocket and as a those applied shirt and you know I that was it and I didn't think anything of it posted to Instagram and then someone said I don't have it pulled up right now I can't remember who it was is like we need to have you need to make this a thing we need to pocket shots you know every day and then other people started doing it so now we have this tag on Instagram called pocket shots that you know we've already got other other people getting in on the game right now so it's it's pretty funny but yeah it seems like every like the one I left last night because the shirt I was wearing when I took it is actually the same shirt I have in my avatar photo so it looks kind of funky just happened to be what I was wearing last night so anyway yes that's a that's a thing so you'll see all my pocket shots there are there gonna be variations of plaids and checks and pretty much that's about it that's that's what I wear to work and it's kind of funny so but anyway join us on join us on Instagram and hashtag pocket shots I'll put a link to your Instagram and the show so that tends to be every week but people can go and they can see your your pocket shot photos I don't really put pens in that pocket I put them in my trouser pocket which most people will probably find peculiar yeah I don't do that it's it's very it'd be very rare that I clipped a pin to my pocket now there's a few that I will but otherwise I'm pretty hesitant to do that yeah especially fountain pens or you know something that's not really like really on lockdown I clip them to the pocket mm-hmm yeah or my my space pen is clipped to the notebook so yeah yeah now I'll see that now I will do that sometimes if I have a mini pen I'll clip it to the inside of the field notes and that will go in my pocket but um it's usually clipped to my shirt either the pocket or the placket so maybe we'll have placket shots coming up soon if I don't have a shirt pocket placket you don't know what a placket the placket is that is the the middle section where the buttons are that that kind of double layered thicker part where your buttons go on your shirt I had no idea that is called a placket yes I'm a fashion maven mike yeah yeah I can see the Wikipedia page I am a former Brooks Brothers employee so that's where the the knowledge the knowledge comes from and the I guess the check in the plaid shirts we should carry on shouldn't we probably should buddy we probably should carry on up the charts what charts not the iTunes charts at the weight this rate this is going hey so we got some we got some we got some killer follow-up this week this will be a mostly follow-up show I have a feeling and then we got a little bit of of main topic which is kind of follow up in and of itself so let's get into it okay we talked I think it was maybe I don't think it was last week it was two weeks ago where we posted about this new field notes group on Facebook which caused me to recreate my Facebook account just so I could join this group because it seemed like it was it was going extremely well and it is because Jim Koodle of Koodle I guess what's it what's it what's the main company food and cool partners Koodle partner that's right Koodle partners so he's the he's the founder of field notes along with Aaron Draplin but Jim Jim Koodle and Brian Bedell who works for field notes who is you know I've talked about time and time again he's answered some emails for me who works at field notes I guess I think pretty much since the beginning Jim and Brian took the time out of their day one day last week to do and ask me anything or an AMA session on this field notes Facebook page and seriously if you're into field notes at all and you know even if you're not a big Facebook person you should find a way to go in and read this because as I'm staring at it right now it's 388 comments and that's just not the the members of the group doing this Jim and Brian were extremely effective in answering answering questions and giving some feedback to the users they were very involved they did this for hours it must have been I don't know just kind of look at the time stamps they were in in and out of the group for three or four hours answering questions I was very impressed I read through the whole thing they gave some great answers so you guys should definitely check it out it's they're doing a great job supporting the community and field notes has always done a great job with that they're very approachable and you know they they they like to talk about their product as much as we like to talk about their products so I'm where I was happy to see that and that's a fun thing so we'll have that link in the in the show notes for you to go look at this field notes AMA but you got you got a chance to read through that Mike yeah I wasn't there when it was happening yeah I missed it too I kind of found out about it and it was all done by the time that I found out about it but I've actually read through it well I haven't read it like word for word I was like scanning through and picking out some bits and it was really interesting they were very open as much as you know they will be because you never gonna find out like the next version you know field notes or whatever but yeah it was cool to read I enjoyed it yeah they gave a bunch of bunch of good insight so you should and they do a good job of not spoiling the the next edition because that's a huge part of the game these days I think as big as they're getting I think I think they're I think they're starting to sweat that a little bit now I would kind of if they did spoil it yeah I like the surprise of getting that email oh that's that's the big deal I mean that's totally a big deal I know it's coming soon again though because they're tweeting about like checking proofs and stuff so yep it's coming yep so check out that check out that AMA it's very cool they did a good job lot of good insight there and you have you have something cool coming up related to that right do you want to talk about that yeah so on five by five I host an interview show called command space and command space it was a weekly show where I tend to talk to people in the internet and web community etc now this upcoming week the show is usually released on Wednesdays but I'm actually going to be having two episodes this week because it was a opportunity I didn't want to turn down I have actually got the chance to speak to Jim and to Jim Gudo is going to be a guest of mine on command space later on this week so I will have a my usual episode on Wednesday but fifth episode 57 which will probably go up either on Friday of this week which is the 16th or some point over the weekend will be a special episode with Jim Gudo and we'll be talking about the deck which is his advertising agency but of course we're going to be talking a lot about field notes if you have any burning questions I mean assume that I'm probably going to grab the you know how weird the field notes come from all of that sort of stuff you have any burning questions maybe you had something that you wish you could have got to ask in the Q&A to eat them to me and I'll I maybe will pick some of the best ones to read you on the show if it's anything you know that I haven't already thought about so feel free to do that but yeah so I'm sure that the listeners of this show will probably be really interested in that so look out for that it will be at 5x5.tv/cmdspase so it's like so it spells like cmdspase so it's command space and it will be episode 57 I think I said so yeah you can find it there but obviously you can find a link to the command space page as well in our show notes for this show which are a lot easier to type which is 5x5.tv/panadict and you'll find a link there in case you have not listened before. Awesome I look forward to that Jim's an interesting guy he's got he's involved in so many things he's not just you know people you might just know him for field notes or they just might know him for the deck and not put two and two together and then he's got other things going on too so he's a impressive individual it's fun to hear from guys like that who have were involved in so many things so I look forward to that and I will I'm going to come up with some questions too so I'll send you some maybe I'll get picked if you're lucky yeah he ought to delete my emails I'm sure yeah it's just I just have a filter so last week I talked about my decision to cut back how many fountain pens I carry and have inked up at one time and I guess two weekends ago is when I set this up and the very first night I set it up I had issues and made a switch switched a pen switch an ink and we talked about a little bit that went behind the decision and I got a lot of feedback on that saying where are certain pens that I've very openly discussed as my favorite pen so like in this loadout I did not include the Lami 2000 which I love I did not include the pilot vanishing point which I love and I did not include the pilot custom heritage with the P O nib which I talk about all the time which I love so these is why I originally was like I want to know why you've picked what you've picked him what you've picked right and it was funny because you weren't the only one that said that there was I got I mean I was getting emails like hey where's the you know Lami 2000 or hey where's the VP and I it was a conscious effort I didn't think I would actually get feedback like that at the time I wasn't thinking but then once I started getting multiple people saying well why didn't you pick this this is the pen you love and you talk about all the time and then it was actually a conscious effort to use the pens that I know aren't I know those pens are my favorite pens there's no questions that I have about the 2000 or the VP or the pilot custom heritage 912 those those pens have been solved if you will those are probably my top three favorite pens favorite fountain pens which reminds me I need to update my fountain pen list that's a whole another discussion um I know how much I love those pens so I felt that I need if I'm eliminating myself to five I want to try say I have maybe 20 really good pens that I want to kind of sort out get the details on use more um enjoy more than just having them sit in there in a pin case uninked um I want to get them more into the rotation so I can have a greater experience and appreciation for these pens so that's why I wanted to pick things like the the pilot 51 up god there I did it again the Parker 51 that is just complete brain lock I have such trouble with pilot and Parker it is it's just the 51 though it's just the 51 for me it's just with everything at least I caught myself that time you have the time I don't catch myself and I get get reamed over it over Twitter afterwards like oh you did it again so stupid Brad huh you're so stupid I know you did it again um the Parker 51 which is actually pretty new to my collection I just bought that off my friend Thomas um I don't know like a month ago so you know I want to get that pen I want to use that pen so if I'm limiting myself to five I've only got so many slots in my pen case and you know the pilot Namiki Falcon that pen is amazing and with that flex nib it's I never thought I would like I thought I would like that pen but actually I love that pen so I want to get that in the rotation and then the Twisbee Mini which is well known to me and something I've used a million times but I bought an EF nib for it which previously I had a 1.5 millimeter stub nib so I swapped out the nib so I wanted to use that um the Edison Beaumont Stealth is a pen that you know I've had mixed feelings on when I first tested it out then I kind of came around on it and fell in love with it so I wanted to get more use out of that and then the pilot uh gosh the Pelican M405 which I actually have had loaded out for a long time I still need to review that pen um so that's why I kept it inked and loaded out because I and like I enjoy using it and I need to write a review on it so that was kind of my decision the pens that I love I know I love them and I have no questions about the ones I chose to keep inked up and loaded out um are pens that I still had questions about or wanted to try something different with so that was what went behind this decision this isn't because this isn't a permanent selection right I mean this is going to be a rotating thing but you know it was good for a change to go into this past weekend when I usually clean or ink uh re-ink my fountain pens I didn't have to do any of that I cleaned no pens this weekend I have the same five pens which means my my decision was pretty solid I think so I'm pretty happy with the way it's going and you know I'll be changing them out you know and fitting in new pens I'm gonna have new pens coming in that I want to review and things like that so they'll cycle in and then I'll have some of my favorites coming back in there that I missed like the Lamy 2000 which I'm already missing um I want to get back that back in there eventually but you know that was that was the point behind it is to force myself to use some of the pens that I'm not using as frequently and kind of set to the side the pens that I know are great and you know like I said I feel like they're solved at least and that I love them there's no question about them um so that's that's kind of what went behind it but I did get a lot of questions on that so it was interesting feedback and good feedback so but um this will be a kind of a recurring thing I'll I'll definitely have some updates to this I'm thinking about switching out one of the inks but um really I'm pretty happy with the five pens I have loaded out now but um I do have a couple pens on order that will force some changes into this rotation so I look forward to that too so does that make that make sense yeah man I'm excited to see how it changes yeah yeah I guess it makes sense right the things that you really really love don't necessarily need to be tried and tested and used all the time and right and that's it's actually kind of it's a little bit of a hard balance for me because I do need to review pens I'm not just carrying everything that I love all the time and just going on with my life there's things I need to figure out about some pens because I need to answer some questions um either you know on the podcast or in a public venue like the you know like on the blog doing a review or something like that so that is kind of unlike me in a way like I recently anyway have been finding something and that's what I'll use like I I don't I haven't really been chopping and changing a lot I use the space pen so much more than I thought that I would have done though oh wow that's good just because it's easy and it's always there yes I I'm filling up these field notes books like but I never expected I would have done that's cool we'll hold that thought because we're going to talk about that later yeah yeah definitely but yeah I mean that's that's you know part of trying to figure out all that I do because what I would do before it was say I'd have all my favorites loaded out with ink right so I'd say man I'd have all those pens that I say I love and they'd be in one pin case then I'd have a whole nother pin case of pens I need to test out or you know review answer questions about things like that so that's that's how I'd end up getting 10 or 12 pens inked all of a sudden right so I was just trying to throttle that back a little bit and kind of have a little bit better life cycle of of inking the pens so it's it's I was worried at first it's surprisingly working well right now so we'll see how it goes to to be determined so we got another pin that um it's it's gonna cause consternation when I'm if I'm just inking up five pens when it comes down when it comes down to it yes there's a bit of a bombshell really I think it caught me off guard how about you yeah just a tad so just a tad so why don't why don't you drive this because you actually own this pin and I am waiting for mine so what do you have in your hands so for disclosure previous sponsor of the show cult pens have a a new fountain pen a mini fountain pen that they have been developing in conjunction with Koeko they've actually made it for them um it's called the cult pens mini mini fountain um and it's a very it's a small it's a mini slim uh fountain pen it's I don't know I assume aluminium uh yeah anodized anodized aluminium okay with a matte brushed um finish now also worth pointing out as well the guys over at cult pens sent me this um I you know I feel like I should say that definitely you know I feel like that's important yes and they are sending me one as well I have not received it yet so they sent it Mike and I had these pins to review um at no charge I don't want to get into it too much today um I wanted to mention that it was there and give some very initial impressions but really I would like me and Brad to talk about it back and forth a little bit when he receives his which might even be by next week yeah I would wager it probably is so hopefully next weekend we can um dedicate like just like a review slot dude and um we can go back and forth about it so the pen is very well put together it's very well built as you would expect from Koika um it's nicely balanced it's very small it is so small that it has to have the cap on really to fit in my hand um but it is weighted in such a way that that is not necessarily a problem for me you know sometimes there are some pens that work like that this is one of them um it is very nice to look at the anodized aluminium the brush finish is quite nice I like that a lot too um I again I also haven't had as much time to use this as I would have wanted to um so that's another reason why I want to to be able to to give it a little bit longer before giving a full review there was one thing that I wanted to mention about this pen so so all in all it is really nice and if people have been holding off to see what our thoughts were before they bought one I would say if you trust my opinion on these things then you're going to like this because it's it's kind of everything you would expect and want from a product of this type it's very well put together it's extremely well valued for money um it looks great works great I mean because you you don't need to be concerned about the Koika nibs for example you know because you know that they're good because you've used them before or we have and we know that they are so you know I know that Brad would say that that's fine I mean because they are the same nibs they are Koika nibs yep um so I had asked for a medium nib and um our friend Greg um he said well at cold pants he's like why don't I send you a couple I send you a few I was like okay go for it so he sent me a medium a fine and a broad nib so I tried the medium out and that was okay I mean you know it was perfectly fine it was what I've used in Koikos in the past but a little too a little on the fine side of the medium for me um and one of the reasons that I never really liked the Koika is in a daily user like I've always liked the pen but I've never really fell in love with it because the medium was not really medium enough um for me so I thought look on that because of that I'll try the bold um so I tried tried the the bold nib and didn't like it really yeah um it gave the right line but it felt like there was some issues with the flow for me um I just wasn't a big fan of the of it I mean it worked fine it just wasn't blowing my mind like it okay like it wasn't laying down as much ink as I usually expect from a bold and I found this from Japanese pens really in general that that bold bold nibs don't give me what I want from a bold and medium they give me what I want from a medium personally except these are German nibs oh you were waiting weren't you how long were you gonna allow me to continue it on that road okay well just no no no you just said it you were do you want to finish because I do have a comment on that no no please go what I know I'm I'm collecting my thoughts okay what you're saying about Koiko's nibs I agree with 100% and I found two companies and someone a listener can maybe tell me if there is similarities in the manufacture of these nibs because Koiko does not make their own nibs Koiko nibs and Twisbee nibs which Twisbee sources their nibs from Germany Bach nibs I guess or Joe Woe I don't know which one they're using today they're they've gone back and forth I wonder if Koiko and Twisbee use the same manufacturer because I find in comparison to other German pens to other German nibs that the Koiko nibs and the Twisbee nibs are finer than their other German counterparts say Lami Pelican something like that so if you take a Koiko extra fine and a Twisbee extra fine they're gonna be much finer than a Lami extra fine or a Pelican extra fine despite the fact that they're all German air quote nibs and I think that's what you're running into so that's just that's not you know scientific data that's just from using all these nibs that's why I rave about the Koiko EF nibs and the Twisbee EF nibs because they're a tighter and a finer line than a Lami EF nib then you know then like if you were categorizing in the big bucket of German nibs versus Japanese nibs there's some variants right not every nibs created the same and I find that Koiko and Twisbee nibs right identical to each other which I think is why I love them but that's why I think you're running into you know like the medium which would be if you went into the store Mike Hurley goes in to buy a fountain pen he buys a German medium nib that would be his expectation of what you would like where this Koiko one is probably a little bit finer for you than what your expectation would be so that would make sense why I expected that they were Japanese star because they're finer so but saying what you did about the comparison to the Twisbee it's very interesting to me because the nib that I've fallen in love with is the fine mmm which is the same to the Twisbee so I really really like the fine nib it's not scratchy it's very smooth because the good distribution of ink it's a nice legible line and it works really really well for me and I've been enjoying the fine a lot with this cool the colt pens mini fountain pen with a fine nib that is my recommendation so that's you that's your so okay cool so hopefully I will get mine this week and we can kind of we'll go through head to toe when uh when I get it and we'll have some conversation around it and um you know expand on it a little bit more so I look for hopefully I would wager I will get it in time to um be ready for next week's episode hope so yep cool all right so we've got a little bit of a follow-up slash main topic so you want to uh get into that after we do uh here from our good friends at Squarespace sounds like a plan to me sir all right let's give you two seconds here he says this is he's just bringing up the document to do such a thing so this this uh episode is brought to you by Squarespace the only one platform that makes it easy to create you're on website for a free trial and ten percent off go to squarespace.com and use the offer code tally hoe 8. Squarespace are constantly updating their platform adding new features having new templates new designs and just making the platform even more irresistible they have beautiful designs for you to work with tons of style options that allow you to adjust and create your own space online Squarespace give you all of the tools that you need to create your own website with it that's like a portfolio a business site a blog whatever you want to make Squarespace do it all they take care of the hosting SEO and make sure your site looks automatically great on any device as they feature responsive web design out of the box so your site's gonna look fantastic on any device they allow you to connect your social media accounts like Twitter Facebook Pinterest Instagram and many more so you can post automatically and share content with the sites you can set up a commerce platform so they've recently added ecommerce to Squarespace so if you want to set up a shop and sell things you can do so in just a few minutes this can be integrated into any Squarespace site go over to squarespace.com you can sign up for a free trial there and check out their videos they've got some great videos that show how different people are using Squarespace to create their own sites online and it would help give you some great inspiration for how they could be and should be the home for your next web project while you're there sign up for free trial no credit card required if you decide to purchase Squarespace plans start at eight dollars a month and include a free domain name if you sign up for a one year and make sure you get 10% off and support the show by using the offer code TALIHO8 that's T-A-L-L-Y-H-O and the number eight so go check out Squarespace everything you need to create an exceptional website. Slats T-A-L-L-Y-H-O-Y-H-O-8. Eight okay I had to write that down so I might need that I might need that in the near future just saying just saying oh was that not on me we weren't on our private channel no that was that was fully on the shows sneaky dality oh you might have to edit that out there's no editing on the show no editing on this show yeah TALIHO8 all right that's written down just saying written down noted very intriguing all right so we have a we have a topic that a listener um sent in that I thought was excellent excellent idea and I'm totally going to get the listener wrong who sent this in because I didn't write it down oh I'm I'm pretty sure I'm 99% sure it's Tony Gionta who on app.net is why not the letter Y N-O-T he is a new pin addict listener he is a new fountain pin addict who has gone from you know 0 to 60 in 3.1 seconds in his fountain pin addiction and he asked and I thought it was a great thing because he was going back through a bunch of the old episodes he ran across episode 36 which had our stationary resolutions for the new year so we did that right after the new year in 2013 this year earlier in January episode episode is actually called would you like to try sample um so good episode name that was a good episode name I like that that was a good one that was a good one so Mike and I in that episode I went back and listened to it Tony said that we talked about our stationary resolutions for 2013 so he wanted to hear a follow-up on how that's going for our resolutions and I'm like oh this is not what I need listeners for I don't need them to call me out and say hey you did this what's now but I'm joking totally because I thought that was an awesome idea so I went back and listened to it and I I jotted down the the things that we talked about so I think we did pretty good Mike um I I was like oh man what did I say in that and I went back and listen my I had two main resolutions I wanted to make one I was having a problem with my notes handwritten digital notes being spread out over gobs of paper notebooks digital note keeping apps like envy y'all simple note everywhere so I was gonna consolidate my notebooks into at the time I said um erode a web notebook um and just kind of have the one notebook where everything goes into no it didn't matter what that sort of worked for me I have definitely consolidated notebooks but it's actually I'm not down to just one notebook I do use a field notes notebook to keep just kind of random ideas I am still using the rodeo web notebook for bigger ideas planning um you know just bigger lists bigger notes bigger writing things to do and I'm digitally capturing some notes in Vesper the Vesper app because I can what I like about that app is that I can keep these lists and then I can take a picture like if I draw a sketch or draw a note and I can take a picture of what's in my web notebook and attach it to the note in Vesper so I have consolidated greatly from what I have used before I'm not a single notebook one notebook to rule them all guy but I have consolidated greatly so um I think I would chalk that up as a success just because I'm more sane now that I've gone to kind of this this setup and try it instead of trying everything and having notes spread out over all of creation and um I can find the notes that I need quicker um you know I only have to go to you know either my field notes dash which usually if anything important comes out of a field notes book um it'll go into the rodeo web notebook or into Vesper just to keep the notes um what I do when I get to the if I haven't already consolidated out of my field notes what I do when I fill up a book I'll go back through it page by page one more time to see if I've missed anything that I want to transfer out and then go follow away that field notes notebook so I'd say my notebook consolidation resolution um worked good worked for me I have a better setup now yeah it might not be down to zero but it's not better it's definitely better I can keep up with what I'm trying to do and what I need to do and what I need the information they need to find much better um my second one was get into fountain pin inks I don't think that one's been a problem um I've uh I've blown that resolution out of the water um I have a serious fountain pin ink problem what should you tell me you have yeah goodness gracious a lot so yeah to say I've gotten into fountain pin inks is an understatement so um I have I have an ink problem um which is is part of the reason that goes hand in hand with the consolidating fountain pens is you know consolidating the inks goes hand in hand with that you know it's limiting it's forcing me to focus on a specific ink not fill up an ink dump it back in and load up another ink you know three times a week which honestly I was doing sometimes it was it was getting a little bit out of hand um so I've gotten into fountain pin inks and I thoroughly enjoy it I I still get grief and and yeah I welcome it and I should get it about you know my old stance you know a couple years ago was like oh why would anyone use a fountain pen so you're someone I forget who said it someone said I needed to make a t-shirt like that and just you know kind of um kind of own my own my my past uh transgressions so um yeah getting into fountain pin inks that is not a problem that is a resolution I have handled swimmingly yeah you are swimming swimming in ink there is no doubt no doubt at all so those were those were my two uh two resolutions and uh I put down yours did you have a chance to listen to the episode you probably not your busy you're a busy man I put down I did your um I got your resolutions written down and um I thought they were pretty good too yeah I was pretty sure that Brad was trolling me he was like can you go back and listen to this episode we're gonna talk about resolutions and I was like oh and he's like well I've written them down anyway he was like well just send him to me then I knew that was coming I shouldn't I shouldn't have uh led you down that path I was like ah see I would have had to have listened yep you got me there but I'm just a nice guy though I try to help you out I know how busy you are you're very kind to me very kind to me so uh yeah so my I have more resolutions than you so more fountain pens check Twisbees um I mean I got the cold pens in my hand now um mainly the Twisbees though I think I've bought some ones to try out I think like so I've I remember I had the AJ at A.G. Spalding I got right yeah the the wood um yeah the wood one the uh the failed platinum platinum platinum yeah um I'll put I'll put a couple of those in the in the notes for people I had already I'd already forgotten about this so yeah you did you did come through on that pretty well so I got a few I've probably got more lying around somewhere but yeah definitely the Twisbee the Twisbees for sure um they're ones that I've tried out um a bunch and two of two of my favorites you know the ROC in the mini yep fly for the ROC in the mini um inks now I maybe haven't been as it got into inks as much as you um my my resolution was more fountain pen inks I have one more so that's more mm-hmm I guess which is the pilot Eroshizuku and that's because I just I personally still don't don't really feel the need to change the uh to change my inks to too frequently in all honesty yeah that's uh um that's the type of restraint I just don't understand I found one that works for me yeah and I'm happy with that in all honesty that's great I sometimes I wish I could do that and I don't know but I always feel like I'm missing out on something so maybe that's maybe that's how it just how it's coming to be you know with the blog you know I'm always learning about and other things that that that pique my interest in um and remembering like you can't help myself as I am uh as I'm using my sorry just like one pen really um changing the inks would be quite quite a pain I think yes yeah yeah if you're you know stick them with one pen that you know that's just kind of doing all your tasks yeah just switching that around constantly would would be painful so that question for you do you use is your con the con pechie the ruschezuku con pechie that's your pretty much go to ink like you know at work at home carrying with you whatever fountain pen you have that's the ink you're going with yeah awesome awesome choice and I still haven't gotten a bottle of that I've got to do that because I I love that ink so very good um my last two go hand in hand as if some sort of magic has occurred they were used more notebooks and subscribed to field notes colors so I subscribed to field notes color edition has started using more notebooks basically that's the way that that one's a resounding yes yes most definitely um I've I since subscribing to the field notes have become even more involved in them than before I'm really happy that I did and because I've now got them appearing all the time I've actually started using them more as you know from listening to previous episodes and I'm flying through and I love having this notebook in my pocket all the time I take a lot more notes than I did before I'm mixing them all up and you know it's it's working out really well for me I'm really really happy that I did it good that's awesome I like to hear that and you know I like even I may not be as prolific as some people going through their field notes notebooks using them I love to see the notebooks being used um I think they I mean they look even better after they've been used then when they look new you know people take take the shot take the pictures of yeah I love them getting all beaten up yeah I mean that's that's part of the deal right I mean that's what that's what they're for I mean I know we talk about the collecting aspect and how expensive you know some of these old issues of getting people are collecting them and believe me I'm right there you know from a completionist standpoint you know wanted to get you know something from each edition but the actual use of them in completion and the wear and the the fullness of the notebook that's what I enjoy the most that's what I enjoy seeing those more than anything more than seeing you know the rare colors editions coming up for sale on eBay which they all of a sudden are now that this field group field notes group is active the eBay market it's gone berserk again but that's uh we'll save that for another episode um but yeah that's that's awesome I think that's uh it sounds like we did pretty good on our resolutions yeah we do actually I mean I've maybe didn't succeed on one of them but in full maybe as much as I thought that I would but um I'm not I'm not unhappy with that actually yeah really I mean that you you figured out what works for you right I mean that's that's part of the deal you know you you looked at it and you decided you made a decision and it's working I mean no one can argue with that right I don't think so yeah and um I I was uh I couldn't remember what I'd said in this episode and when I remembered the the whole notebook diatribe that I went into um you know I was I think I have improved in in that aspect I'm pretty happy with that and um I think it's only gonna get better I'm getting more and more organized you know forcibly so I'm just you know busy busy busy and um you know that's why I had to reach out and get some help with the blog and things like that there's lots going on so getting that notebook consolidation helped and uh even just me know my my day-to-day life and and things like that so very happy with how our resolutions ended up so thank you Tony I hope it was you who sent that Mike's gonna get mad at me if it's not but I'm pretty certain it is so um if you are actually the actual owner of this topic who sent it to me you can you can uh how can they get in touch with us Mike and and yell at me saying hey that was my idea you can get in touch of us um over twitter and app.net I am i Mike i-m-y-k-e brad is at dowdy d-o-w-d-y app.net and dowdy ism d-o-w-d-y-s-m on twitter also you can get brad um at the pan addict at gmail.com and he also writes at pan addict dot com and you found your apprentice I did I did so that uh boy that was that was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination it was so so hard I got I got lots of emails thank you everyone who sent in um your emails to to my help one and post the the quality of emails that I got was astounding I I don't I want to say I got probably close to 75 people 75 emails wow I don't I don't think there was a single email that I could dismiss immediately that's how quality everyone was so that makes my decision really hard because you know I could only pick one person and I had to figure out a way to you know will it will it down to that one person I got it down it took me several days to get it down to maybe like eight or ten I felt pretty good with and then you know I had some conversations with those people and narrowed it down to one and it was a near impossible task because there were so many good um so many good responses but yes I have it narrowed down um so hopefully we will get everything finalized and we'll see uh see a new name posting on the uh on the pan act here in the coming weeks um alongside myself nothing's gonna change for me I should be able to keep my same schedule the same kind of the same path that I'm going down right now where I do about two reviews a week um the podcast and the ink links and so I'm hoping to add in I'm not I don't think I'm gonna replace the one the second review that I do with this new person's review I think it'll be in addition to which I think will be great very good question you can confirm or deny do we know this person that has been accepted to be your apprentice we do not interesting that was a huge challenge for me that was that weighed on me a lot because I had lots of online friends applying and people that I talk with all during the day people that have done things for the blog in the past and having to tell them no or not you're not necessarily no but that I'm choosing someone else that's hard that was hard for me I had real struggles I didn't realize how hard it was gonna be you know I've got all this you know community and it wasn't it wasn't a conscious decision but I was like well do I pick someone that everyone knows already or to pick someone that no one knows and have just kind of a whole new lifeblood and I didn't make my decision based on that I'm based on who I did it based on who I thought was going to be the best person regardless of whether I had a standing relationship with them you know online or not so that didn't play into the final decision but it was harder to tell the people that I knew and who have done nice things for me in the past that I was choosing someone else that was that really really weighed on me a lot and that was a difficult thing so I don't look forward to doing that again hopefully this you won't have to and this person will be perfect yeah hope so hope so I'm looking I'm excited about it I'm looking forward to it so it'll be all good good stuff yep I think we're done I think we got it man I think it's a wrap thanks so much listening to this week's episode of the Panahabic podcast until next time I'm Mike and he's Brad and thanks so much all right bye bye bye