Editing The Pen Addict 76/transcript (section)

== Pen Loop ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's true, that's true. I'll give you that. So, how are you, sir?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm very well, mate. How are you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good, good. Hanging in there, fresh off a little extended long weekend vacation, so I've been out of the pen loop for a few days. It's always challenging coming back and, you know, writing a blog post and getting back, answering emails, following up on tweets, and putting together a podcast episode. It's challenging sometimes, but I'm refreshed and ready to go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Excellent. Good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, sorry. I just hit the mic. So excited you punched the microphone. Yes. Goodness gracious. So, yeah. I'm back, better than ever. And, you know, watched the NotCo pen case Kickstarter project continue to slowly ramp up, which is going great. It's almost $60,000. I was hoping to be at $60,000 by the time we recorded the podcast today, but maybe by the time people are listening to the podcast, we will have ticked over to $60,000 from $59,672. Incredible.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, incredible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is incredible. It is incredible. And it's really exciting. And just like, you know, pretty much like I talked about last week, you know, Jeffrey and I went through like panic mode like the first few days when it was just going gangbusters going, oh, my goodness. But, you know, once you can get past that initial little shock and kind of step back, realize that, hey, you actually planned for this in the beginning. It's not unexpected and you can handle this. It's all good. So, it's been all good from there. So, and we talked a little bit about it last week and I alluded to the fact that we're going to start, you know, pre-ordering some machinery, pre-ordering some fabric and everything to start manufacturing early. And I said I would give an update on that once everything started coming in. And it has started coming in. So, we got one of our main pieces of equipment is this Bartak sewing machine. And I'll put a link to the picture of it in the show notes. That just came in today, I think, either yesterday or today. And it's a really big gold Singer machine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's kind of huge. I didn't know what to expect. And what it does, it's going to allow for us to really tighten up the seams and the pockets and the pin slots. So, it's really, really nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Basically, it's going to finish the cases really nice. That was something we had to have for this project and something we were counting on. So, we have already got that in. And we hope to have fabric and all the other pieces, fabric binding, padding, zippers, all that stuff should be trickling in through the rest of the week. So, I'm going to do a project update today or tomorrow on the Kickstarter project for those people who don't happen to listen to the podcast with these updates. I've got a picture of the machine and things like that. So, we're ramping up, getting ready to roll.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's exciting times. Exciting times. So, 14 more days. It seems like it's been going on for like six months at this point. And it's only been two weeks. So, two more weeks to go. And we're hopefully, we should be manufacturing before the project actually closes. So, that'll be good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's probably needed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think so. So, but yeah. It's going great. Had some continued good feedback. And everything's looking good. So, I am happy, happy about that. So, that's great. One other follow-up topic I had was about this fountain pen that we talked about on a previous episode of the podcast. And I can't come up with the previous episode number for the life of me. It was just kind of a side mention where you and I, I mentioned it to you saying, hey, check out this cool-looking fountain pen that just came out. It's this company called Franklin Kristoff. And they made, I was familiar with the brand. I'd seen them at the Atlanta Pen Show. But they didn't have this particular model. It's called the Model 40 Pocket. And they've had that style for a while. But they came out with a new model, a new acrylic model that's called Smoke and Ice. And it's a pocketable fountain pen. So, it's kind of short. Think of it like a Kaweco Classic or Kaweco Classic or AL Sport. How did I do?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well done.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And so, it's, you know, it's that smaller pen. But it's got this, I don't even know how to explain the looks of it. It's just a really cool-looking acrylic pen. And I'd said a few months ago when we talked about it that I was absolutely ordering this pen when I got the opportunity and the money. And I did have both. So, I went and ordered it yesterday. And I actually just got the shipping notification a little bit before the podcast. So, I hope to have it. They're only one state away from me in North Carolina. So, hopefully, I should have it by the end of the week. And maybe I can talk about it a little bit next week. But it just really, the design really caught my eye.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's nothing like I had seen before. Are you looking at it now?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh-huh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, it's the one called Smoke and Ice. There's, I don't know, there's probably eight different colors you can get it in. There's a Fire and Ice. And those are the, it's hard to explain. It's kind of got the clear acrylic with like a ice interior. I don't know. It's going to be pretty cool looking. It's like frosted glass. Yeah. There you go. Like frosted glass. That's a good way to put it. And one of the cool features that Franklin Kristoff as a company provides is my buddy Myke Masuyama, who I always praise every chance I get. They actually have stock nibs that he has already done for them. So, he does their needlepoint nibs, which are like extra, extra fine. And then he does their cursive italic and stub nibs for their pens. So, that's actually a purchasing option when you go to buy one of these pens. You can buy like the stock steel, you know, extra fine, fine, medium, broad, et cetera, et cetera. Or you can buy the steel needlepoint or any of the stubs that Myke Masuyama has ground himself. And so, I got the Masuyama medium cursive italic in steel.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. So. That was, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What was that, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, dear. Are we still recording this podcast? I just had a moment. Brad, I think I might want this. Free worldwide shipping.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, totally. I actually didn't notice that when I ordered it. And I went through the PayPal screen and the shipping didn't come on. So, I was like, oh, maybe this has free shipping even better. So, yeah. The total price of the combination that I got was $134.50.