Editing The Pen Addict 114/transcript (section)

== Field Notes Notebook ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, okay then. What is your initial thoughts when I say, I took out a Butcher Orange and wrote a grocery list in it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, good on you, for one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's kind of crazy. Like, it's kind of crazy a thing to do. But, and I can imagine there were a lot of very, very upset people. Because you posted it in the field notes group, right? Yeah. I'm trying to get a public share link for this page to put in the show notes, but I'm not having a lot of luck. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the link, oh, that's right. It's a private group. I didn't think about that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I will put a link to it in case you're part of the group, but I'll also, I'll grab the image. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And you can put a link to the field nuts group on Facebook. And, you know, you just got to click join this group and they'll approve or whatever. They do keep it private, but it's open to anyone.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I'm, I say more, more power to you. But it is kind of crazy when you, you know, you know how much you could get for that. Right. You're effectively writing on $10 bills every time you turn a page.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. So I took this picture, I took out the notebook and wrote in it. And I, I didn't really have any consternation doing that. I was kind of excited to use it because honestly, I've never used one. I've, and not many people have. So I took a picture. Is this your only one, by the way? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, so I took it out and I wanted to share it with the field nuts group. So I said, started a new book today. Can you guess which one? So I just took like an inside cover shot because they've used the butcher orange cover for lots of, um, what do you call it? Promotional notebooks. Right. So a lot of people were guessing, you know, simple bracket, his glass works, whatever ones they've seen floating around. Um, and so I spilled the beans, you know, a few comments later. And that's when like all the whoa and you're crazy and good for you. It was the full range. You know, I wasn't expecting a reaction like this necessarily. I mean, I certainly didn't do it, you know, on purpose or to get, you know, you know, magic internet points or something. Um, but it ended up, it ended up, uh, getting right now it's got 82 comments on this post because it ended up starting a fight. Not really, you know, a faux internet fight between a couple of guys and the thing. And I'm not going to refer to them by name because they're, they weren't, I mean, they're not, you know, being dead serious or malicious or anything. They're, they're just, there's two opposing sides. One is, you know, you just lit a hundred dollar bill on fire.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And the other, and the other is it's a $3 notebook. Do whatever you want with it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which I subscribe more to the letter really.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But even, even though it's a hundred dollar notebook, do what you want with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So I'm not going to sell these notebooks. I don't think I've ever sold any field notes, notebooks. I've traded plenty, you know, back and forth.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that's different though, isn't it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's totally different. So actually I got this one in a trade and actually the lady I traded with, she actually said, uh, this looks kind of familiar. And I said, yep, that's it. And she said, good for you. And so I just felt like, I just felt like using it, Myke. I mean, what am I going to do? I'm not going to sell it. Why don't I, why don't I use it and share it with the community? And pictures and usage and, you know, talk about my experience with it and just have fun with it. You know, I'm, you know, I'm, there's no shot that this book that I had sitting in the closet in a plastic bin, um, under lock and key in a nuclear grade safe with eyeball recognition to get in to my field notes stash. Um, there's no way I'm ever going to sell it. So why not use it? I, you know, that, that was my thought process behind it. Really nothing more than that. I mean, I, I'm not going to put this book on eBay and try to sell it for any reason. So I might as well use it, have fun with it, um, share it with the community. And that was, that was pretty much it. But, uh, let me read you some of the comments that I got. Um, one of them is, wow, that's crazy. I couldn't bring myself to write in a hundred dollar notebook just for the sake of it. When there's cheaper alternatives that are just as good. For example, simple black bracket, his glass works. That's what the ones I've talked about this for. Then someone actually replied to that comment. Just think of it this way. Brad just raised the value of the rest of them. I never think of it like that, right? This is, I didn't pay anything for this notebook. I traded for it. I've never, I guess I've bought a few field notes when I was trying to complete my collection. Um, but I've never really, you know, I've just been fortunate to be along for the ride for a long time. Um, so I had some, um, someone else says, oh hell they're meant for writing in. I've used all but one pack of my traveling salesmen for writing and have given more away to friends than I can count. They're meant to be enjoyed in any way the owner sees fit. And that's kind of the way I see it. Like I've sent, I sent, um, one of my grass stained green notebooks to someone who didn't have one was looking for it. They said, Hey, you know, I need this to complete my, my collection. I just sent it to them. You know, that's, that's what I do. I, I'm not going to put them on eBay and sell them. I had another friend that, uh, was missing the Mackinac autumn set. I had an extra set of them. I sent it to him the whole set of Mackinac autumn. Wow. I don't care.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're like, um, the Robin hood of field notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I don't, I don't want to see it that way. It's just that, you know, I've been fortunate to have been around this for a long time and have some extra things. And I'm not going to go out and charge people hundreds of dollars for something that didn't cost me anything. Um, so I'm happy to give them to someone, you know, like a lot of them I got given to me. So I'm returning the favor. Um, I don't, you know, necessarily see it as doing something like super gracious or anything. I'm just more returning the favor that I've been lucky enough to have lots of people do favors for me. So I want to return the favor kind of thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like that way of living. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, someone else said their notebooks were writing in. Why wouldn't someone write in them? Ultimately, I think I'll end up writing or giving away all my, that's kind of where I'm at. Um, and then the older books are becoming out of reach for newer nuts. So it makes me a little sad that some value the price of the book more than its utility. I think that's kind of the main point in a nutshell. Um, I don't value the book, the price of the book more than its utility. I value the utility and joy of using it more than the price of the book.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And someone replied back to that and said, I'd be sadder that people are using them up. I don't value the price more. I'm just aware of it. That's all. And I'm certainly aware of the price. But if my philosophy is that I'm not going to sell any of these notebooks and I'm never going to say never, if for some reason I need money for some catastrophe, I'm absolutely selling all my field notes, notebooks. You can guarantee it. Um, but I have no need to sell them right now. So why not use them and have fun with it? And, you know, a lot of people haven't had the opportunity to see the butcher orange or butcher blue or grass stain green or just below zero or Mackinac autumn, all these early, early sets. So I've got them. I'm going to use them. I'm going to write them in them. And this isn't going to be the last one. So how about that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I'm proud of you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like I said, I didn't do it to like make a statement. It just kind of morphed into this thing, which, I mean, I knew it would cause a stir, but I thought it would be more of a, whoa, that's crazy. Whoa, that's crazy. Not, you know, you're shredding a hundred dollar bills or, you know, no one said that or no one's called me an idiot or anything like that. But, you know, it's, we all value things differently. For me, the value I get out of this notebook that's sitting right here that I'm writing show notes in today is that I have this record of my brain at the time that I'm using it to write in. So that's what I get out of it. And it's fun. And yeah, it will not be the last one. And I'll probably cause more of a stir with the next one. So you can pretty much book that. And it's pretty easy if you're playing along chronologically in your head.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it became interesting. This is kind of what I was referring out about to what happened during the week. Like I had no intention of talking about this on the podcast. And it wasn't meant for a podcast topic, but it became a podcast topic really quickly. Actually, someone wrote in the comments, Richard Ashley wrote what he said with 62 comments. I know what Brad Dowdy is going to talk about on his next podcast episode. And I said, yep, I guess I'm going to have to at this point. So it was pretty good. So anyway, if you're not on Facebook or if you are on Facebook and you are a Field Nuts fan, definitely check out the Field Nuts group. It's a good group of people. It was a good conversation. I mean, no one was getting, you know, outraged or too pissy with anyone else. They were just, you know, having a conversation. They're on different sides of the track and we can all have this conversation. And it was good to have. It was pretty cool. So anywho, there will be, this will not be the last Field Nuts I use.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That made no sense whatsoever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, but I think everybody gets what you mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Are you telling me to shut up?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. Please continue. What else do we have?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So one more thing that came out of this past week, just out of the blue. So I was on vacation and we've talked about it in podcast episodes past. Whenever I go on vacation, I rarely use pens. It's just not a super functional thing for me to do. I did bring them this time, you know, to show, you know, my sister and my dad and my family some of the pens, but I just don't use, I don't have the situation to write very much on my vacations. So when I got back from vacation, I carry my Notco Brasstown, which holds six pens. And I had five of those slots loaded up. And I said, well, I've had these pens inked up for a while, probably three to four weeks, if not more in some cases. And I haven't used any of them hardly at all for a week, maybe bordering two weeks for some of them. So I think I need to just kind of get a refresh of what I'm carrying. So I wanted to take out all the pens I currently had loaded and inked, clean them all and put in, do a hundred percent change out, put in all new pens and inks into my loadout. Sometimes you need that mental reboot, Myke. Like sometimes it's just using the same pen, but, you know, really changing up the ink color. It gives you kind of this new motivation to use the pen, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So what I did, I took a picture of all the pens I was cleaning out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And Joe Lebo, who I mentioned earlier, who's like, will you talk about this on the podcast and tell me why you're doing this and what you're doing and why you're taking these pens out and cleaning them and what you're putting in new? And I was like, okay, that'll be a pretty good podcast topic. So you can see how this show just kind of came together through our online community and friends, which is awesome. Makes my life easier. So the five pens I had inked up, I had one slot empty for whatever reason in my Brasstown. It holds six. I had five inked up. I had the Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a stub nib. It had the Ackerman No. 8 ink in it, the dark blue. I had the Pilot Falcon with the Sailor Yamadori ink. I had the TWSBI 580 RB with my special Roaring King Klingner Scabix mix, which is Scabiosa and Salix. I had my world-famous Edison Menlo with Roaring King Klingner Blau Schwartz, which is that limited edition blue-black ink that I like so much. And I had a Pelican Pura, which I bought from Pen Chalet, with the Pelican Edelstein Topaz ink cartridge. So those pens have literally been in that case and in use regularly. I use one a day. And, you know, for the past month, I'll use one. That'll be my pen for the day. Then the next day, I'll switch to a different one. So that way, all the pens that I have, I make sure that if I actually have a pen inked, I use them. The two you won't see on the list, which did not get cleaned out, are my two Nakias. Those pretty much stay inked and in use all the time. So discounting those.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Took all those out, cleaned them up, and filed them away. So I'll replace them with the Pelican M215, the blue stripe, which you also own, from our friend Thomas Hall, which is such a great pen. Love it so much. Oh, man. I have a steel EF nib in that one. It's really, really good. So let me backtrack a little bit. Two things make me want to clean out a pen that I have in use. One, I want to use a different pen barrel, pen body. You know, I don't need 12 pens inked. Six is a good number, or eight, counting the Nakias. So I don't need 15 pens inked all of a sudden just because I have just some bug.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But for me, more importantly, I want to use different inks. That almost causes me to change and clean out a pen more so than wanting to use a pen itself. I don't know how you feel about that, Myke. Like, if you ever want to get a change up, you know, in whatever pen you're using, are you more likely to say, let's move on to a new pen? Or does, like, well, I'm ready to use a new ink. Is that the impetus for you to switch?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's always new pen for me. Really? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, I think that's fair. And there were a couple of pens that I haven't been using that I was dying to use. But I swear it was almost more about the ink for me, which is interesting. As I was going through this, I was like, I really want to use these specific inks. What pen is going to go best with these inks that I want to use?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's something I wanted to throw out there. I'd be interested to know what other people think. You know, are they dying to get a pen and a nib in the rotation? Or are they dying to get this really neat ink that they haven't used in a while in the rotation? So for me, it's honestly a little bit more about the ink. Now, that's not a hard, fast statement. But it's true a lot of times that the ink is almost more important. So anyway, I haven't had Pelican Blue Black ink in use in a long time. So I wanted to get that in use. So I used the Pelican. I almost did it backwards. I chose the ink I want. Then I found a pen I wanted to use that I think would do it well. And a lot of times I use the same brand. Like I went with the Pelican M215 Blue Stripe. It's a great pen for the Pelican Blue Black ink. And it's lovely. It's lovely to write with. It's lovely to use. That's a great pen. The second one, I said, well, I haven't used the Lamy Blue Black ink in a while. That's another one of my favorites. Let me go with the Lamy 2000. So you see what I did there. Using the same brand, same ink. I'm not steadfast about that. That's just something that I know that I enjoy and I know it's going to work.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.