Editing The Pen Addict 311/transcript (section)

== Ink Properties ==


'''Myke Madison:''' But, and so you might get more thoughtful answers in the Q and a, but also it doesn't mean my hot take is wrong. Right. And a lot of times I'm perfectly comfortable saying, I don't know. I, that's a, um, in my profession, that's a thing that I just kind of got used to doing. Like, I don't know what that is. I'll check it out. Try to figure something out for you. But that's, uh, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Speaking of your profession, man, you're, you're good at this podcasting thing. You led me right into, right into another question. So, um, like I, being around you as I am, I know you are, you're a big fan of bags. So I'm always commenting on whichever bag you're carrying at a time. And I think you actually probably have a worse than me in the bag realm. And we got an ass TPA along these lines, combining your bag and your work. So this is from a pen addict reader, Lisa. She says, I also teach at a university. I'm interested in his being you, your EDC for work. What do you bring to school? Notebooks and pens. What do you carry it in? Do you use fountain pens for grading? Is everything on a computer? Do you use a paper planner? So let's, uh, let's talk about your profession, uh, and how you integrate analog tools and everyday carry items into it or not into it at all.

'''Myke Madison:''' Yeah, totally. No problem. One of the things I've actually gotten asked for as a video is for like a bag dump sort of thing after you and Myke were talking about on a previous episode and I keep forgetting to do it, but I'm good. I'm definitely going to, I'll give you the voice version here and then I'll do a video sometime later. But, uh, yeah, I have a lot of bags and that's kind of exploded here recently. Uh, but, um, and I, it gives me the ability to match my bag to what I need to carry. So my, my carry to school depends upon the day. It depends on my course load. For those who don't know, I'm an ethics instructor at university. Uh, and so that means I'm in classrooms, but I may be teaching different kinds of classes. They may require different kinds of things. So, um, I, I've been really, I started out with Osprey bags a while ago. I really liked my Osprey comet. It's a pretty big bag. It's like 35 or 40 liters, I think. Um, and so if I have a lot of stuff to carry, that sucker will swallow everything, uh, which is awesome. Uh, but if I don't need that much stuff, I'll use like a, a Rickshaw, uh, zero, uh, or I don't know, some other sort of thing. I just got a peak design. I'm pretty psyched about. Um, so here's, here's what's in my, my carry on a pretty average day. Uh, firstly, my MacBook pro I've got a 15 inch MacBook, um, generally an iPad of some kind, either a mini or a pro, uh, a bunch of things to go along with those like, you know, laser pointers and dongles and cords and that kind of stuff. Um, so that's my, that's my digital side and then everything else pretty well is analog. So, uh, I usually carry a planner. I do totally use a paper planner. It's, it's so much better for me than a digital planner for some reason. I think just, just the, the writing it down aspect really helps me. Uh, so I carry a, uh, Kokyo Jibun Techo, which is an awesome planner. I love that thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, yeah, I might have to do that one next year. That one's, uh, definitely on the hype train. I'm, I'm, I think I might go, uh, go for that next year.

'''Myke Madison:''' Yeah. I need the week and a day, like the, not the week and a day, the week at a glance sort of things. I need to just open it up to that, that, that ribbon marker and boom, I've got my week there and it's got it broken down by hour. It's fantastic. So I totally recommend that one. And it's also skinny. It's much smaller than the old one I used to use, uh, which is kind of nice since I've only begun my bag dump here. So that, um, oftentimes I'll carry a Franklin Christophe Vagabond, which is like their traveler sized, um, wax canvas, you know, notebook and cover sort of thing, uh, for taking to meetings and notes and all that kind of jazz. I've also got a Franklin Christophe Padfolio and a five, a five. Yeah. A five. Um, and I have a Fabriano Ecaqua in there and that's just for course notes. Um, so that's, uh, I don't know, like three different paper products. Uh, then I've got, you know, stuff that, uh, like if I have, if I'm teaching a new class and I need to have my notes with me, I'll have some other notebook with me. So lately that's been Morimon or it's been, um, uh, Lloyd's term or something like that. So I've got one of those in there. Uh, I've got, uh, just the stuff that teachers need to have. So dry erase markers, um, pens of some kind, at least a two or three fountain pens, usually in the two or three regular pens, I'll have paper clips, a tiny stapler binder clips, you know, all that kind of jazz. Um, that's, that's sort of my normal carry. And then if I have to do video stuff, I've got other video things that I'll bring. So sometimes I add a tripod and, uh, this little robot thing called a swivel. There's all kinds of stuff that, you know, you need to pack in there. Hand sanitizer. Yeah, for sure. You better believe it. Uh, and so do I use fountain pens for grading? Um, yeah. If I have paper stuff that I'm probably using a fountain pen to grade, uh, I didn't this last semester have any paper grading that I needed to do. So fountain pens are just for class prep mostly, but, um, so a lot of it's digital, but if I have class stuff, you know, paper things, yeah, definitely. I use fountain pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' When you were grading, did you have a specific, uh, uh, pen nib ink combo that worked better than others because you weren't necessarily getting to choose your paper?

'''Myke Madison:''' Yeah, no, you don't choose your paper and you can assume that it's going to be the worst possible paper. Um, it's not always sometimes students will have a good paper. Like this is really good paper. Like, yeah, I know I picked it. I'm like, awesome. You are a good student. But, uh, as far as the other thing, no, I'm my, uh, my ADHD, I think kicks in and I can't stick with one particular pen nib ink thing for very long. So I'll usually switch like every paper or two. So, um, yeah, it just depends on, you know, if I find one that just isn't working on that paper, I'll just kind of set that one aside and not try not to use it or just use it for big X's and not small notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, that's, that's a good way to use all your pens and ink anyway, right?

'''Myke Madison:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. It gives me an excuse to ink up more pens. Yeah. Well, cool. Um, so wrapping up on the, on the whole ink dependence thing, what do you, what do you want to do? Like, what do you see yourself, you know, doing over the next couple of years just with the blog, anything you want to change, you know, you want to do more on YouTube, less on the blog, what types of things do you want to, do you want to keep working on?

'''Myke Madison:''' Um, yeah, I don't know. That's a tough question. Um, uh, I, I think I feel like I've done less on the regular blog than I have on YouTube lately, just because I've been doing more paper and more pens and those seem to work better on the, uh, on the YouTube than they do on their static blog. So I don't know, like it might be that the blog gets less use and it becomes more of a front page for YouTube, but I'm not ready to give up photography yet. I really like doing that part too. So, um, hopefully I'll keep both going, but we'll just see how the works, the workload goes. Um, as far as things I want to do in the future, man, I, I don't know, I kind of stumble into these things and I find a thing that I really enjoy that the viewers really like, and then I'll add that to the repertoire and that's, that's how it went with the live streams. And that's now become a fixture. Um, but it's not something I planned on becoming a fixture. I didn't like do market research or figure out, are people going to like this thing? It's like, I don't know, people might like this. Let's see how it goes and they do. And so I'll keep it up. So that's probably how I'll continue stumbling through, uh, this hobby.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, uh, I think that's the best way, man. You let the audience tell you, it's not like we have some magic formula behind the scenes that we're all, you know, sitting there with spreadsheets and calculations. Okay. I know which, I know which review is going to do the best next. We just do what we like, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's fun. Like, you know, and, and keeping it fun and getting feedback and going down those paths. It's, uh, it's always the best way to go, I think.

'''Myke Madison:''' Yeah. The thing I'd like to improve for myself is consistency. So my, my posting schedule is just all over the place. And that's one thing that Audrey keeps telling me, you got to be consistent. I'm like, yeah, I know. But sometimes I get busy on a Tuesday and I can't do a post or what have you. Um, and you know, if my, if my real work that I actually get paid for, you know, ramps up and I'm too busy, maybe I'll only post one thing a week during the summer. Like now I might post, you know, three or four things a week. It just depends. And so that's, uh, that's, that's just kind of a necessity given my workload. I can't, I can't, you know, keep a schedule of every, you know, post every day or post every two days or something. It's just not really viable. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And that's okay. I think it's, uh, you, you've built up really good following and everyone loves when you, you post stuff anyway. So there'll be, there'll be ready for you no matter how many times per week it is.