Hello and welcome to the Panatic podcast episode 66. This is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Curly and I'm joined by a man if he was a Kickstarter project, he'd break all known records as Mr. Brett Daugherty. Yeah, I would like to think so, that's on the radar, that's on the bucket list, break all Kickstarter records, so I gotta come up with the project first, that's kind of the hindrance, right? The Panatic Pen. Yeah. I know. You could source all of your parts from China, imagine that. You're gonna get me right off the gate, huh? Uh-huh. We're just gonna go there. Okay. Straight for it. Let's go there. So, I said last week that I was done talking about the visionary. It's too big a story, man. I know. It is. I'm just tired of talking about it and because I don't think anything is gonna change and Morgan emailed me last week, I don't know, it was a couple of days after the podcast. I don't even know what day. So, Morgan is the project founder on Kickstarter for the Vision Air Fountain Pen and if you've listened to this show, you know all about this story that I'm gonna go with the dealing with. It's, I'm kind of over it, but Morgan to his credit sent me an email. Unfortunately, the email is pretty standard issue to the way he's been answering all the other questions. You know, it's everything's lumped in together and it's just one big generic pile of stuff. You just kind of gotta read between the lines and pick out some of the pieces. So, I mean, it's an epic length email. I have, I'm on a, I'm on a 15 inch MacBook Pro in my Gmail account and the text, the body of the text does not fit on a single full screen. So that's, that's the email he sent me, but to, to recap, the first, the first episode we talked about it, I'd sent Morgan an email with a list of questions. So he, he says, you know, he's in his email to me recently. He says, you know, he apologizes about the day and the, the delay and he's getting lots of emails and trying to keep up and then he goes into answering my questions. Let me recap a couple of the questions because they're, they're really short. I tried to keep them short for him and just so it, you know, I, I didn't want it to be, you know, I didn't want to try to kill the guy and have all kinds of deep detailed posts, detailed questions. So he lumped, I answered, asked him five questions. He lumped the answers to one, two and three and the one answer. So let me read those questions real quick. So my question one was, you talk about designing the vision air, but you also talk about not having much fountain experience, how much of the actual design is yours and how much is pre-made parts. Second question is, did you fit your specs into an existing design or is this 100% original design? The third question is, are any new tools or dies being made to produce these pins or will existing tooling be used for the manufacturing? So that's all kind of around design and three, like pretty important, pretty sort of technical but high level questions. Yes. Yeah. And those are all around the design and building of the pen, right? I mean, they all kind of sort of go together. So his answer, his reply, it says one through three, the answer says, it's true. I'm not a pen expert. I really like fountain pens as I learned to write with one of these, to write with one and use them for quite many years at school since it was compulsory at the time. And then right there, he goes straight into side story. When I was a kid, there were some plumes, a stick with a nib that you dip into ink at my grandparents' house and this goes on for several sentences. I'm not going to. So that's what I'm dealing with here, okay? So he does what he does best. This is how he answers lots of his questions. So then when he gets down to it, he goes, I have imagined and designed what would be my perfect pen, not from the technical aspect, but more from the emotional side of it. What I mean is more look feel here. So I wanted a simple slick look, the weight in your hand when you hold it or write with it, the sound of the nib on the paper, of the end of the cap when you close it. To me, these are the most important features. So I did send a design of the pen with these specs and he puts specs and quotes, which are all the touchy feely stuff he's talking about. I'm guessing to the chosen manufacturer and ask them if this could be done. They said yes, they could make a pen like this and sent me a prototype after a few weeks. I do know they took some standard parts to make it, but believe the body cap, details on the clip were done for me since it matches my design. Really, I did not think about asking what percentage of exclusive manufacturing is done on specific tools since the pen came out the way I wanted. If I can stop you. Yeah, so that's the stopping point, so go. All of that is perfectly valid. Yes. It would have just been so much better if that was the way he wrote it. Yes. Because that is a perfectly, in my opinion, that is perfectly fine. So unfortunately, I don't know how to make this stuff. I know exactly what I want. These are the things that I want. I send them to a manufacturer, they sent me a prototype and it matches all that stuff. This is stuff you want. We've got the pen for you. The problem is you say you design it and you show CAD images. So we'll show that you designed it. You. Right. You. Bob Smith. Opened AutoCAD and created a pen. That's the problem. Right. Yep. We're on the same page. But those reasons that he gave and that that explanation, I find that perfectly acceptable. I did too. But it just wasn't presented that way. Exactly. Not at all. Right. Let's continue. No. I don't know that there's much to continue on. The questions four and five were, you know, it was about the, you know, it'd be in a Chinese pen and watched it someone buy this instead of a hero. And then, you know, my question five was mentioned that the margins are low for the product. But he increased the early bird backers and let's see what he says about this. This answer wasn't as interesting as the first one I thought. Right. Um, let me just, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm rereading this part real quick, but yeah, he was just talking about, you know, wanting to create something meaningful and manufacturing expenses are going down because the quantities are going up and that's all, that's all good. And that was what we established previously anyway, you know. Yeah. So then, yeah. And that's, yeah. And the answer is the question four and fives really aren't a, it's just nothing really interesting out of there. And he just said, you know, Brad, I hope it. I hope this answers your questions and you'll be able to understand them a little bit better what vision is about. So he sent me this three days ago and then yesterday on the visionary project page, you got an update, right, Mike? So you know, the updates, even if you're not a backer, you can click on updates and see. And to Morgan's credit, he did what pretty much everyone had been asking him to do one get in front of the camera and show me you're a real person and to some people had some questions about the, um, the filling mechanism. So he did two videos and you know what, just like everything else he's done for this project, he does really, he does a really nice job. Yep. I mean, you watch him do the, do the updates and it's like, I don't want to talk bad about this guy because he seems like a totally likable guy. I mean, either we get, either we're getting epically trolled or he's as genuine as can be. And I think it's probably the latter. I mean, he seems pretty genuine. Yeah. What do you think of videos? I mean, the, the one where he's talking to camera, doesn't really anything to say about that. But what about the filling video? What do you think? Um, he didn't really seem like he knew what he was doing. He doesn't because he uses, um, drawing ink for one of his samples. Um, in the video, you know what I'm talking about, huh? Is that the one in the pink ball? Yeah. That's not fountain pen ink. That's like, uh, dip pen ink that you wouldn't, no one would put enough putting in a fountain pen. At least I think that's what it is. I've never, I mean, it was so thick looking and it comes in a bottle. It did look strange, didn't it? Yeah. Weird. I was like, look at that. I was like, you Americans have weird ink balls. No, that's not a fountain pen ink. What is this? So little in there. You know what? I just did a search for it. It's called Higgins fountain pen ink. Um, and I think it's for, but I think it's really for, yeah, it says excellent for use with airbrushes. Uh, it does, you know what, it's credit. It does call itself, no, okay, this site's calling it fountain pen ink, but the packaging says waterproof drawing ink. What this really is is like something you'd use with a dip pen or something like that. No one would ever put this in a fountain pen and a converter and run it through an nib. I was pretty, I was cringing while he was doing that. I was like, oh no, but, you know, yeah, whatever that was, that was kind of funny. But he did have over, he did have one regular bottle of fountain pen ink, then he had some fountain pen ink cartridges. Um, he does a good job on the video that you could barely hear him sometimes for the music overlay, which was very strange. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, I don't think that that part was very good at the video, like him talking wasn't very good, but yeah, but that's, I mean, that's really irrelevant to the, what the thing is, but that was just a little weird. He did, he did a nice job on the video. But when I saw those ink bottles, like, oh man, I've got to watch this and see what he does and sure as heck, he dipped that fountain pen right in there and sucked up that ink. But if you did that more than, you know, pulling it into the ink cartridge and drawing and cleaning it right out, you're going to, you're going to have a bad time. So I don't recommend using the, um, his ink choice there for the, uh, the pink ink. That was pretty scary. Yeah. And again, you know, it goes back to what, what I was saying previously, but, you know, people saying he's a bick or whatever, he clearly isn't a panetic, you know, he, he is a guy who wanted to make a nice pen for himself and thought that other people might like it. That's kind of where he comes from, like, just hearing him try to explain ink cartridges was painful. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think, I think we can put a bow on this one. I mean, I think, I don't think so, man. You know, you think I'm going to be talking about it next week too? I don't think next week, but it's going to come back, especially when I get mine in. But I know, no, this is a big story in all, in all the world, I think the guy has raised a quarter of a million dollars. I know. Is it the biggest pen Kickstarter now? Uh, no, but I think it's going to be by the time it's done. I think pen type A was like in the two nineties, I'd have to look, I'd have to double check. It's got to be second and it's got 20 more days. I imagine it'll be first by the time it's done. Pen type A was $281,990. So, yeah, I don't think any of them have been bigger than that. It will be, weren't it? Yep. And he explained, you know, why he was. He was, did the 60 days, which makes perfect sense, you know, he didn't think anyone would, he didn't know if anyone would want to buy it. Yeah. So he's, I mean, yeah, $276,000 he's made 20 days to go. He's going to, he's going to get, probably get to 300. Yeah. I think he's going to make, he's going to make way more money than the pen type A folks did. Yeah. Yeah. They, if they made anything by the time they were done, I'd be shocked. They made very little. So, whoa, I've just checked if you've seen what Cara's customs are up to. Uh, no. There's 69 hours to go as of time of recording, that's $109,000. Whoa. That's awesome. That is incredible. I'm so happy for them. I'm really happy for those guys. $13,900. Backers. Yeah. And let's have a quick, quick public service announcement. If you're an international buyer of the retract pen, they were able to get lower international shipping, so you need to go and change your pledge amount and you can, you can save a few bucks. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure they'll get in touch and say that, but they've got it on the site now and it says international shipping is only $10. And $10 international shipping is pretty standard for Kickstarter projects. Seems like everything that I've ever backed has been $10 for international shipping. Okay. So, that's great though. I'm really, I'm really, really happy for Cara's customs. Yeah. It's nice to see it across that, that magical arbitrary threshold of $100,000. That's a, that's a pretty big deal and this is my, I'm excited to get this pen. I'm, I'm really looking forward to it. And Dan and Bill Carras, they, they crack me up with their, with their marketing stuff, their promotions. They do it hilarious. They're hilarious. Like, you know, the, they've added pocket protectors on there, which is like the easiest thing in the world. I am so in love with those things. I am just dying. Dan showed them to me beforehand and I was just crying. I was like, you've got to be kidding me that you're even considering do this. And it's genius. I'll see if I can find an image or something for those. Yeah. They're on the Kickstarter page. Yeah. There we go. It's in one of the, one of the updates. So I can link directly to the update. If you want to find the show notes to this week's episode, go to five by five.tv/panadact/66. And you will find the links there. You're doing the vision error, vision error update, you'll find, and you'll find the retract update with the, with the pocket protector too. And then I got to say, politically correct or not, they went and did another update where they were trying to get a backer for the, the day in the life thing where you get to go visit, visit the shop and, you know, have lunch and get your pin made right there. And they did, they took this picture that's in their, in their workshop, you know, based around the famous last supper image and I, they just, they just kill me. It's hilarious. Right. So they do a good, they do a super good job at their, their updates. They keep it fun. And that's, that's important. So if I lived locally, I would, I would totally, that's a fair price too, it's like $250, you know, it's a good, yeah, go spend the day with the, with the gang there. So yeah. It's like them 69 hours to go. So I know they're excited. I talked to Dan last week. He's pretty pumped. So, and I'll be talking to him as the production goes on. So, um, have you seen Bill, Bill's going to shave his beard if they reach 150,000? Yup. Yup. I don't know if they will. That's been 69 hours. I doubt it in that amount of time, but that was, that was pretty cool. Like I said, they, they make it fun and funny and just, you know, do cool stuff like that. So can't you just put some of that panetic money behind this and get it up to 150? I know. I know. So y'all have six 69 hours left by the time we're done recording and, and, um, get this posted. You'll have 68 hours left. So get on it. Cool. All right. Um, can I just say very quickly, yeah, you didn't think you can have much to talk about today. Yeah. 16 minutes. Yeah, Mike, Mike has to listen to me up usually, usually on Sunday or Monday before we were on Tuesday. Oh, Mike. I don't know what I'm going to talk about. Do you have anything and I always ask Mike, Hey, Mike, you have anything? No. I'm like, Oh, I guess I got to come up with something. So, um, yeah, good. I know we talked about it all the time. Sometimes it just flows and, uh, it always does sometimes every week. I know. Because like Karis Customs, we have fun doing it. So we're able to just chat about it and we're good at what we do, Brad. We try. We try. I certainly try. We're the best pen related to podcasting the internet. Oh, there's no doubt we're number one with a bullet. So I did a, I made a little list last night. Um, I was getting ready to, I was wrapping up a single field notes notebook and starting a new one. And when I get down to like one or two pages left in a field notes notebook, I generally don't know what to write. I want to, if I'm going to write anything new or that I need to remember, I want it to go in a new one. So it's not stuck in a, in an old one, then I'm going to go file away. So I decided, I don't know what made me think to do it. And I've kind of talked about it before, but I just made a big list of my, of all the colors, field notes, colors, additions. And I just went through the list and ordered them in my favorite, um, my favorite field notes, limited additions, I ranked them based on how much I enjoy looking at them, using them, the design of them. They're not ranked by, you know, rarity or collectability or anything like that. Just how much fun I've, I've been, or how much I've enjoyed those additions. I'm not going to go through the whole list. There's 19 of them so far, but just to, just to hit it and we'll have a link to my list in the show notes because I just did it. I wrote it in the last second to last page of my field notes, um, and just took a photo of it and put it up on Instagram. So we'll have the list, but number one, and it's really, it's number one. And then there's a huge gap to number two for me. And number one is grass stain green. And it's really not even close to what number two is. I like that addition so much that it's, it's just far and away beyond any other, any other issue. You sent me one. Yeah. I mean, I wanted you to have one. So, cause I, cause I like it that much. I want to share those things that, that I like that much and, you know, want to share it with other people. So I really surprises me that you put night sky so far down night sky is at number nine. Yeah. I think just maybe because it's fresh and you know, when I look at all these other ones, how much I've enjoyed, like I've been able to spend time with a lot of these other additions, you know, and night sky is still fresh in my mind, I guess, if you will. So we'll, we'll do the top, top 10 real quick. So one is grass stain green and that's really covers about the top five for me. Two is Raven's wing, which is just an all time classic. Three is butcher orange just because I love the orange craft paper cover on that. I think it's really striking and, and that was their first. So it's kind of got that, got that little extra cache to it. Four is kind of a surprise, but it's one I've enjoyed using as much as any of them is the American tradesman edition. Five is just below zero, which is an older edition, but that was, that was one of the, I don't think it was the first three color books they did, it might have been Mackinac autumn, but where they did three individual colors in the three pack of the three individual color covers. So I'm going to include your field notes page on your site so people can follow along with the edges, you can see pictures of them and stuff six is national crop. That one grows on me as the days go by. I think that's one of the best editions ever. It's got that history aspect and I think the designs are killer and I like the, the specificity, you know, where they made each, each book, you know, had its own name, like cotton and soybean and corn and things like that seven is butcher blue. Um, again, that's just a classic, classic, simple design, but it's still one of the best. Um, eight is day game. Um, the, we've talked about the white with red. This was one of the first dot editions, um, did I say that's what I'm using now after I finished my first night sky, I went on to a day game that's what I've been using for my daily field notes. Do you know, I'm using two field notes books concurrently now. Okay. Cool. Um, so I broke out the, uh, an XOXO, cool, which has not held up very well. Purple's just coming off, man. Yeah. They can tell that they, I mean, naturally they don't put the same amount of effort into the, these ones as they do, the ones that they sell, but, um, it's kind of got a bit beaten up on their back and, and, uh, it's like the, the purple's just wearing away. Yeah. Yeah. Because I love it. I know. It's cool. Cause I have in my pocket, right? So I'm standing up sitting down fronting it around and I love how they feel when they're beaten up. Yep. And the, they wear perfectly. I don't know. It, it's just put together properly and, um, it, you know, when you're, when you're done with it, it looks as it should, you know, and it's, it's all together and it looks like, you know, you have a piece of your, um, your little history there. So yeah, that's cool. Um, yeah. So day games eight, night's guys nine and Mackinac autumn is 10. And I like the, I like the three different color books, like, um, just below zero day game. Mackinac autumn where you get three separate in the three pack. They're each covers a different color. So I'm a big fan of those and just, uh, I'm not going to read the whole list, but just the last one on the list is balsam for I hate that edition. Well, I guess I'm not an olive green guy. It's the call. It's the color. It's the colors of it and the colors of the grid and the colors of the, of the cover and the colors of the, um, printing and things like that. I don't know. Just, it doesn't appeal to me at all. I even put expedition edition above it once, but just one step above, but those are the bottom two expedition and balsam for. So it's good. I've had some good conversation around this list and it's funny. You know, people say, you know, balsam for is my favorite or, you know, it's just like pins, you know, everyone's got their own favorites and their own reasons for having it. And that's why that's what makes this so town of stuff so fun, right? Mm hmm. Yeah. And, um, I've been last week, we mentioned that new field notes group on Facebook. Yeah. Apparently they are in love and I didn't realize this with that yellow capsule edition that I sent you. That's like some of the people's on there's very, very favorite. So I still have a set of those and since you ones of those have been super popular. I didn't count any of the alternate editions like that. Just these are just the, the, the basic field notes released color subscription edition. So anyway, I've been enjoying that group, but I've been enjoying that group, the Facebook group. It's, it's so much fun. I've, I've learned a lot. I've seen some new stuff, um, it's a great conversation. Um, I think since that group, the started, the eBay market has picked back up again, um, like I still watch that pretty regularly just to see if anything crops up. I'm not really shopping for anything right now, but I still like to watch it just to see what's going on. And it's been kind of, kind of down just with the like basic additions and a standard edition that anyone can get from, you know, if they're shopping at the right stores and things like that, um, but it's picked back up and got some more rare stuff up there now. And I think that group has played no small part into it. I have to stay away, man. Yeah. Ravens wing on their national crop on their traveling salesman day game. There's a Levi's on there. Yeah. Mm hmm. That one seems to be that's kind of a holy grail one for a lot of people. It seems like it. Do you have those? I don't have those. I'm not going to pay that much for that. The store posts at one went for like $200. Yeah. These are already like one 77. So there it is yet $177 and 50 cents for the 15 hours left. Yup. Crazy. Along the road. Yeah. Yeah. I just think I like, I think one of the reasons why I like the American tradesman so much is I like the whole red, white and blue kind of layout and context around the notebooks. And again, that's a three color three pack where each coat each covers a different color one, red, one, white, one blue. So it's really well done and you know using those primary colors that just appeals to everyone and especially when they weren't easily available like a lot of other additions. So, I put up a new post on the Panatic today and I just wanted to talk about it really quick. I just want to say you've changed the site again, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm a fidgeter and we're going to talk about that and kind of our main topic today. How about how much of a fidgeter I am? I was getting really tired of that banner. I was getting tired of not reading being able to read it. I was getting tired of the size of it. I thought it was too wide. It pushed the text of the, pushed the content of the page too far down the page. So I just changed it to a basic text until I can figure out I'll eventually have some type of image or logo image up there again. So I just changed it. I found like a font that I like that I thought made a good title, a good header. So I've put that up there. So it's just very simplistic, but I think it looks good. It's gotten me off the ledge a little bit about that image because it was starting to wear on me. I was starting to not like how it looked. I didn't care for it that much when I did it and then I'd just never done anything with it. So I wanted to take it down and just make it simple. So look okay to you. I like it. I really like the font you've chosen. Yeah. I've really seen that font and I'll have to go look it up again and get the name of it. But I was very pleased with this font and I said, okay, I think that'll fit for what I'm trying to do. Just kind of have a simple header. So we'll see. It'll change again. There's no doubt. But yeah, if you look on the top post on my page right now, because it was the post I did this morning, I did a post titled Help Wanted. And I've always done like some kind of, I've always had kind of an open door policy for guest posts. It hasn't been wide open where anyone can post anything that they want at any time. It's just been, if I've had someone's interested in reviewing some pens and we have a good conversation and I think it's going to be a good fit, we do some guest posting. Well, I want to get someone who can do something on a more regular schedule, a more defined schedule. Because I don't, any of the guest posters that I've used have been fantastic. And you know, I just, you know, when they get a post done and then they want to post it, you know, they'll send it to me and no set schedule, no time constraints or anything. But now I want to do something where I can get someone to do at least one review where you can, I'll put all the details in the post. We'll have the link in the show notes, but you can go to pinag.com and you'll see it. So I just wanted to throw that out there to anyone who might be interested in writing for the pen addict. The details are on the page. And I made a fatal error this morning when I launched the post and I'm like, I'm not talking to you. So the issue, I forgot and I knew it when I was writing it and I said, okay, I need to put this in there. And then for some reason I hit publish and left and went and ran some errands and I wasn't around to change it, I need this person to be US based. And the reason I need that is because shipping everyone else, that's the problem. Yeah. Yep. I, yeah, I just, I really don't like you, Mike. I didn't want you applying and just do it. Yeah. But I just, I don't have that much money to allocate to this position and shipping will eat into that very, very much. So that's the only reason why I'm doing it. Um, you know, the, the shipping costs of products will be too high for what I have available to allocate to this person who will be hopefully writing and writing very well for pen addict. So that was, that was my reasoning behind it. So, um, US base is really going to help me out a lot. So that's all. But does that, um, does that get you off the ledge a little bit, Mike? Mm hmm. So basically they are the, like the pen addict's apprentice, I'll, that'd be great. I didn't think about that way, but yeah, I, yeah, I would just love to have something firm and regular and scheduled and just that I can count on. Sorry. Hey, Mike, who is our sponsor today? We are joined today, of course, by the fine folks over at Squarespace, Mr. Dowdy. Awesome. They make changing the banner of my site very easy. Yeah. You're able to, the reason Brad can change his site design so fast and so quickly and so often is because he has Squarespace's amazing design tools to do that. So Squarespace is the only one platform that makes it easy to create your own website. Sign up for a free trial when you cause I get 10% off. Go to squarespace.com. That's S-Q-U-A-R-S. A R S O A R E O blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue in there as well so we can make you site look and read fantastic Squarespace take care of all of the hosting SEO and they even make sure that your great design looks fantastic on any device. It's so easy to use but if you need any help they have an amazing support team that worked 24/7 to get that done. Go over to squarespace.com now and you can sign up for a free trial no credit card needed. There are some great videos in the site as well which show you how different people are using Squarespace for their business, for their band, for their love, whatever. If you've got a restaurant you want to start a blog. Squarespace has like all of the tools that you need. For me personally my own website mikeherly.net is on Squarespace. I would never put a website anywhere else other than Squarespace now. It just makes it so easy for me. I've been a customer of theirs for about three years. There's nowhere else that I would go. Squarespace give me everything that I need. Their plans start at $8 a month and they include a free domain name if you sign up for a year. Don't forget you get 10% off and you'll support this show if you use the offer code tallyhoe8 so go check out Squarespace everything that you need to create an exceptional website. I've got another couple of examples. We mentioned this previously that we had you know I wanted you to send in and to tweet me and Brad or just me and @imike, I-M-Y-K-E and @squarespace if you have set up a site so we can see some examples. I've got one. Eastlandoil.com, Eastlandoil company which is a very interesting one. They're based in Texas and they've set up their website on Squarespace so you'll find that in the show notes so you can see an example there. It's a very cool one. Nice, nice full bleed imagery. I like that one a lot and I have also ionsomnia.com which is I-O-N-S-O-M-N-I-A.com. Ions blog is really interesting. He's used a really cool template which shows images and they like zoom in when you scroll over them which is really cool and he's got a bunch of pen reviews and pen images here as well so it's really cool. He's got a Twisbee ROC I can see there. He's obviously must have posted some images of a Twisbee ROC edition which we're big fans of so yeah you can see those over in the show notes as well so that's at 5by5.tv/penadic/6d6. Thanks to everyone for sending those in. If you have a Squarespace site just tweet me @imike and throw @squarespace in there as well. If you set up a site and you are a penadic listener send it in because we'd love to feature it on the show. Alright yeah those sites look great and Squarespace makes it so easy so thank you Squarespace for continuing to sponsor us. We're very very pleased and very happy customers ourselves. Indeed we are. So I talked before about how I think it's a known known thing that I have issues as far as fidgeting and messing with stuff and kind of having too much of a good thing and then having to rip it all down because I get frustrated because I've got so much going on and things like that so my latest venture into the complete pen addiction problem that I'll need an intervention or at least a meeting or two on is I'm having an issue with how many fountain pens I have inked up. I know this is not something you necessarily, you're very very much more calm and tame compared to me as far as how many pens you know have inked up or using at a time kind of in a rotation that you're taking with you and using to you know I'm not talking about the like the stocks of pens you have at home or things like that but like things you're actively using you know taking to work or using at your desk and things like that so you don't, you're a big fountain pen fan you have lots of fountain pens and but you don't necessarily keep too many inked up at once right like how many, we've talked about this before, we've talked about it several times but like what, how many do you keep, I'm thinking it's only like two, yeah I mean I only really use like two at a time max, I mean I have some that have ink in them like I was sort of just playing around some stuff here a couple of days ago and I've got a bunch of pens lying around like the coaker so if it's still got a cartridge in I may be not that OCD that I removed the cartridges and clean them out sure I don't really do that but they still work so I get into this cycle of where I try to keep just the few pens inked that you know I want to use at work or carry with me in my backpack and want to have inked up and available to use because I enjoy using them and then I end up either trying new things or making changes or get a new ink and I'll ink up a different pen and the next thing you know I've got somewhere between 10 or 15 pens inked at one time well in my situation I'm not going to say no human being can use all those inks because there's certainly people that can but in my situation that ends up just being a waste and fountain pens just sit, it starts to bother me when I've inked a pen and then it sits there for weeks at a time and I've never used it but you know I inked it up for a reason to test something out or try something out or to use it for a day and filed it back and didn't like it as much of my other pens and set it back down so I got into that cycle again where I'd gotten myself down to using just a handful of pens and all of a sudden I was back up to a dozen so I've tried to make a hard line this time to where I'm limiting myself to 5,000 pens and 5 inks obviously to have inked at one time and I can I'm trying to not have more than that like if I need to change something or have a new pen or new ink one of the 5 that I currently have to have inked gets cleaned put a what stored and then I get to use a different pen so I decided that this weekend when I had some spare time that 5 was my number one because it's I think it's a good amount and two because it fits in my in my pen case really good the roll pen case that I use has five slots and I just think it's a good amount it gives me a good amount of variety and things like that so there were two kind of two phases to putting this list of five pens together and I had a hard time with it and I actually picked out the pens didn't ink them and slept on it overnight just to make sure that these were actually the pins that I wanted to commit to for you know a good period of time I'm not setting a period of time that I have to use these pens for but I just set more of a number to be more manageable so how crazy do I sound so far my little little crazy just a tad okay and the real crazy part is that I could like talk about this passionately for like an hour on how I decided to pick what pins and inks I'm using but anyway I digress that might be a follow up yeah definitely need a pintervention yeah I think maybe what do you think maybe next week talking about the five and why okay because yeah that's not they're not necessarily that especially when I saw that image it depends they weren't the five that I expected right and there's a there's a definite reason for that so we're gonna we're gonna tease that you think next week there's a clear reason for that so you can see the five the image will be in the show notes I just I've been really active on Instagram I've been really having fun since I I didn't think I'd miss Instagram so much but I've been really having fun lots of good conversation on there and seeing some good stuff so you can see the five pins that I picked they're all really great great pins so I picked them out like on a Saturday night or something slept on it and woke up look at the pins again look at the pins I didn't have chosen I said yeah okay this is a good group of pins and then I had to pick inks for each of those pins and that's equally as challenging in my situation because I have I don't know 15 bottles of ink and who knows how many sample vials of ink just crazy amount of ink heavily leaning towards the blue black color that's my favorite fountain pen ink color by far so that took me a little while and I had the pins laid out of my desk and I knew like for the for the namiki falcon which is a flex nib pen I'm on a brighter ink so I picked out the Edelstein topaz which is a real bright blue turquoise you look in ink so that was easy so I'd set the bottle in front of the pin and say okay that one's committed to it and then I would just I did that for all the all the pins and I'd have all these bottles of ink sitting on my desk and I'd take the bottle and I'd like look at this color okay lami blue black and I'd sit it down in front of this one oh no that's just not right and I'd pull it off and back and forth with ink sample vials and bottles I mean this was like an ordeal deal for me but I finally I finally got the ink smashed up into the pins so I got them all inked up on Sunday night took them to work with me the first night and I had problems with two of the pens or or one pen and one ink so after one day I've already swapped out one of the pens and swapped out one of the inks that the pen uses and you can see kind of this trail through my Instagram through my Instagram feed of the issues that I'm having but you know what after I made those first changes I'm pretty content like I'm not like panicking or shaking I don't have like the shakes that I need to go clean a fountain pen and use something else um so I think I'm I might can make it through the end of the week Mike I think that's a I think that's a big that's a goal I have wow I'm not going to change any or ink up any fountain pens more than the five I have or swap any inks at least at least through Friday woohoo so do you know what's coming around soon what 6th of October London Pen Show oh nice thinking about thinking about going down you have to man I'm thinking about it that'll be cool yes yeah speaking of which not to totally hijack your your thought process the biggest pin show in the US is next weekend no this weekend this week in the 8th yeah this is this weekend is the Washington DC pin show it's the biggest in the country over here and you'll see all of our our pin friends um going to that and having so we'll we'll see some good posts on that I know Aziza from Gourmet Pins is going um Ray from Fountain Pin Quest is going my friend Tom who loans me all the pins is flying in for a day to go to that show um you know the glaze you're going to be there you're going to be from Edison you're going to be at the Panatic booth right I wish I wish what's the what's the five by five travel kitty looking like can we get me a can be a ticket in our hotel room well it costs you ten dollars um little more than that little more man than than we can't help you no okay so yeah we need we can get you there but can you afford it when you're there no you just mistake right getting there is only about a tenth of the battle it's the can you afford it once you walk in the door and the answer is definitely no I'm still recovering from the Atlanta pin show you know I I took care of business there pretty pretty well and I last thing I need without the fountain pin and ink problems that I'm having right now is to add more to the arsenal but I keep doing that so um so we need to get you prepped for this London pin show yep and uh still got a little while yeah you get a still got a little while and you think about some things you want to look for and yeah so interesting to you and come up with a list in a in a game plan that's pretty awesome I think you should definitely go because you you haven't been to like a pin show like that before right now I'm good I'm definitely going to go it's on the 6th of October so leading up to this listeners we need to start getting things we need to work out how we're going to do this we need to coordinate me we need to get me some things to look for and some prices that I should be haggling for so we're going to do this guys together we've got two months two months today to get Mike ready for the London pin show I like it going in I think we can do it surely some panetic listeners would be there as well I hope so we've got a beef if the UK based must be surely so maybe yes maybe if there's anyone around we can we can say hi we can we can get a drink or something yeah that'd be good lots lots of UK readers and listeners exactly so they've got to be so yeah surely cool make a make an event out of it mm-hmm awesome you should come down to the London show I would love to one of these one of these millennia I'll get over there you should definitely make it coincide with a with a pension yeah I think I'm on vacation that week as a matter of fact perfect I see you there mm-hmm booked booked I'm there stay with William and Kate they have an extra room do you mean the due conductors of Cambridge I'm sure that's what you mean I don't think I have an extra room anymore now that they've got old old Prince George I think I could find a closet like at least his biggest my house yeah probably roll up on the floor so yeah I'd be covered I think I'll just go knock on the door well what's up all right I think I think I've lost it now yeah I lost it I told you I was tired before so before we started recording so I think now I'm just getting into loopy so we should probably before I really get off track we should probably wrap this up so you can find Brad's ever-changing website at pen addict calm he is at Dowdism on Twitter D O W D Y I S M I M I M I M Y K E thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of the penic podcast if you enjoy the show think about leaving us a review in iTunes as well that would be swell and we'd be very happy with you very happy indeed so we'll be back next week thanks again for listening until next time say goodbye Bradley goodbye Bradley with no e bye [BLANK_AUDIO]
