Editing The Pen Addict 53/transcript (section)

== First Pen Purchases ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I think Josh is new. New to the show and new to pens, as he's asked. I'm about to buy my first pen slash paper on JetPens for writing. Any suggestions? I just read the next question. Pens and paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Pens and paper. So, paper, you should probably look, if it's your first, look at a Rodia journal. A web notebook would be a good thing because it has all of the hipness factor of a moleskin. But much better paper. So, I'll put those in the show notes for you. So, Joshua, what about a pen, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think if you're just going to go, if this is going to be your first purchase and you just want to try a couple things out, I would choose one of the Pentel Energel Euro needles, either the .35 or the .5, if you like fine tips. That's a really good first pen. It's a good writer, good ink, very comfortable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Uniball Sino DX, of course. I'd probably try a .5 millimeter on that one. And then I'd toss in just a Uniball Jetstream, probably a .7 millimeter, and just see if you like it. You know, those three pens are all, I think, less than $3 each. It's just something to try and see what you like, you know, without having more specifics on, you know, what you're trying to do with your pens. You know, are you just using them for work? Are you trying to accomplish something specific? Are you a student? You know, we can get more specific, and I'd be happy to help you more if you want to send me an email. But those are three that are really good starter type pens to kind of get your feet wet and see maybe what you like and then go from there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You said the Jetstream, the Energel, and what?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The DX, the Uniball Sino DX.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those are three real good consistent riders, really good performing pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okey-dokey. At ISMH, which is Stephen Hackett, wants to know, Brad, how you got to be so handsome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I use Myke Hurley's hair tips. I don't know if you've seen Myke's wonderful hair. You know, I try to follow your lead, Myke, in your hair care regimen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do. With, you know, the shampooing and conditioner and, you know, the little extra spa treatments that you get. And then I mix that in. I mix that in with girly drinks. And that's kind of a good regimen I have. And, you know, it keeps the skin looking good, looking healthy, and the hair looking good. So, yeah. You know, I really follow Myke's lead. I mean, he is my style muse, if you will. And, yeah, that's why I look so good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Muse, general inspiration, all of those things, really. If everybody followed my tips, you know, the world would be a different place. That's right. Mary Collis, MS Collis, would like to know, do you find your pen acquisitions are becoming more focused, more collector-ish, or are you still dabbling to find focus, if at all? I added if at all in myself. I don't know why.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm still dabbling. I would say that I don't have any focus yet. And, you know what? I don't know that I ever will, just because I like so many different things. You know, if there's some new ballpoint pen, you know, I'm going to try it. And if there's some new fountain pen, I'm going to try it. So I don't know that I might – I guess my focus is never going to get – I'm never going to have, like, a laser focus in my pen purchasing. It's going to be more of a looking at everything kind of thing. So I don't know that I'll ever get that focused. And, you know, I might have some offshoots, like, you know, if there's a specific pen that I want to collect more of specifically, then, yeah, I think, you know, in that case I will. But I think in general, I think I won't have any focus. It's too much – I could never be in a monogamous type pen relationship, I don't think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm very similar. I mean, I'm still meandering through. Any listeners will know that I am still clearly finding my feet as my obsessions change very, very frequently. We have an email question here. This is quite a long one, but I'll read it through and we'll see. There's a lot of question marks in here, so I'm concerned. Hello, I'm in the market for my first fountain pen in years and I've got my eye on the Twisby 580 EF nib. Given that this will be my only fountain pen and I'm not sure how much I'm going to write with it, my question is ink regarded. Is the refill system easy enough for a novice? I'm going to answer yes. Does that kind of system make sense in my case? Yes, it does. I just want one ink and to go with it. I'm not going to change the colour once a week. I've never bought a bottle of ink before. Is the refill a clean procedure with the Twisby? Yes, it is. Very clean. Does bottled ink make sense if I'm using it with just one pen? Yep, that's fine. That's what I'm doing at the moment too. Or will it dry out? Nope, you'll be fine. The ink will last for a very long time in the bottle. Keep it out of direct sunlight. Would that be correct, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah, that's... Keep it in a cool, dry place. As long as you take general care needs, yeah, you'll be fine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is the Twisby even a good single pen or is it better as a secondary pen? No, I use it as my primary pen at the moment. You see, I don't have a clue at all, just that I want a smooth EF nib and that the Twisby spoke to me. Perhaps you have a better recommendation. I want to stay in the sub-50 euro range. I need an EF nib and I can't use small pens like the Cuico Sport because my hands are pretty huge. Thanks for a great show. Kind regards from Berlin, Germany, Sebastian. Sebastian, I hope that that made sense. Go for the Twisby. Find yourself a nice ink. Pay a bit of money and maybe get one of the Pilot Hiroshizuku inks. Brad, would you agree with that? Or a J-Herban?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I like, especially with the Twisby's and most of their models are the demonstrator type where you can see the ink in them. So you don't want to stain. You don't want to get any ink that's going to stain that window. So yeah, I would stick with a primary vendor, like a pen vendor's ink, like Pilot or even J-Herban, who makes a few pens. But it's a very tame ink, Diamine, things like that. But just in general, the overarching question is, should I be worried, one, about the Twisby and the filling system? And is it a good enough pen to be my only pen? And if I buy one ink to go with that, is that a good enough setup to be my one and only? And without question, it is. Don't be scared of the ink filling system in the Twisby. It's really easier. It's probably almost easier.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's probably right after cartridges in the next filling system. It's easier to fill than most converters, I think, this piston filler that the Twisby 580s have. It's super easy to clean. It's a very easy pen to maintain. And if you pick out a Twisby EF and one ink, you're going to be set for a long, long time if that's your goal here. And that should work out very, very well for you, Sebastian.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Friend of the show, JJ L. Setter. What would you consider your other or another obsession? And what draws you to it that, for me, does not count podcasting, which is a problem. So I think it's the only other thing that I think about. Brad, what about you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've always been a baseball nerd. I used to, you know, my first forays into blogging back probably in the early 2000s. You know, I wrote a baseball blog. And I was one of those real statistical guys, you know, that followed, you know, all the minutiae and the statistics. And I would keep my own spreadsheets and calculate my own statistics. And, you know, I don't do it as hardcore as I used to. But I'm a really, really deep into baseball. You know, I don't have any other, you know, like obsessions, you know, with, you know, I'm not into like movies or I'm not into necessarily electronics, you know, like home theater type stuff. But I'm pretty hardcore into baseball and the statistics that go around that. And that's a pretty nerdy passion on its own. And it costs way less than pens, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mine would probably be comic books and comic book related things, movies, cartoons, that sort of stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Patrick Grone, Brad would like to know if he can have all of your pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, no. Patrick, you cannot have all my pens. But if I do come up to your house one day, I will definitely be rating your vintage pen collection. And this might go the other way than you would expect. So, yeah, I'm going to steal Patrick's pens, not the other way around.

'''Myke Hurley:''' J.L. Abbott would like to know, how much do you and Myke communicate during the week and how difficult is it to adjust to a third shift schedule? Last part, we've got a favorite pocket knife. We'll come to that in a minute. The interesting thing is parts one and two of that question actually go hand in hand. Because Brad is on a third shift schedule, we talk more than I do with some of the other hosts because we're typically awake at the same time. We sleep at the same time. Not just like, oh, we have some overlap. It's practically the same.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that time shift actually works in our favor with my weird schedule.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, we talk. I mean, not over the phone, but we probably talk every day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd say we probably talk every day. We're bouncing something off each other every day or just having just general conversations, you know, or hey, look at this or whatever. But we talk pretty close to every day, just like Myke says, because, you know, the way our schedule overlaps. But, yeah, it works out pretty good. And just I don't know if you're just asking in general, Joe, how difficult is it to adjust to a third shift schedule? It's pretty tough. The hardest. I mean, if I'm going on it, you know, not having like vacation and not messing up my schedule, you know, to where I'm working five days on and two days off. Like it's not an issue for me at night. You know, you get pretty used to that part. But what's hard is when you do have days off, even just like my two day weekends, it's hard to sometimes adjust and do, you know, what your family's doing and things like that. So the hardest part about a third shift schedule is you're never really off because you still kind of keep your same sleep schedule through like your two day weekend that you have off. Right. So or else you'll really be messed up. So, oh, and do I have a favorite pocket knife? Yeah, I do. I carry you. Right now I'm using a little small Swiss Army A-locks. It's just a single blade pocket knife with a bottle opener screwdriver, other blade. It's one of the thinnest, smallest knives that I've ever found. And I've been carrying this one for years. And sometimes I'll switch out to us. I have a Spyderco Delica that I use otherwise. So I do like pocket knives. So that's one rabbit hole I could see going down one of these days.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Where are we? Anna, at Anna, A-N-A, friend of the show. Daily carry, pens, paper, other tools for both of us. For me, probably paper. I typically have Moleskines just because I have loads of them. So I'm still kind of trying to get through those before I move to more sophisticated paperware. I have used other products in the past. But rather than buying more rodeo journals or whatever, I want to get rid of the Moleskines that I have, which I've amassed over some time. So I buy sort of crazy editions and stuff. Field notes, I'd use more and more and more. Because I have more and more and more of them. At the moment, my daily carry is typically the Twisby 540 and obviously a Retro 51.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I'm trying to get mine down to as small as possible. So right now, last night, for example, I carried one pen case that had five fountain pens. And then maybe, you know, like a high-tech C, I always have. Usually my Render K.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's most of the pens I try to carry around with me, like going to and from work, things like that, and that I use at work. And then I'll carry with me either a field notes notebook or a Dome utility journal. I alternate. I have so many of each that I'll fill up one. Like I'll fill up a Dome paper. Then I'll go to a field notes and then fill that up and go back to a Dome paper just so I'm getting to use them all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then, you know, I just carry, you know, outside of that, I carry, you know, like a small, like a mini flashlight and a mini pocket knife. And that's pretty much it. I try to keep my carry pretty small so I don't have too many extraneous tools. But I do keep, you know, a small high-powered flashlight and a small pocket knife along with my pens and paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. How did both of you get to share your addiction? Ever wonder about that uncommon transatlantic relationship? I don't, especially in my life, transatlantic relationships aren't uncommon anymore. I seem to, well, I talk to more people every day, I think, and have maybe even more friends, I think, that live all over the world than I ever have before. I think mine and Brad's relationship, if you want to call it that, I like to, began on an episode of another podcast on 70 decibels, soon to be on 5x5s, all of our shows will be, called Enough with Patrick Rowe. And we had Brad on because we were both a fan of the pen addict. And I thought Brad was great behind the mic and started to pressure him to create a show with us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's right. I got peer pressured into this podcast, but it couldn't have worked out any better. But that's right. That's how we, I mean, I guess we had kind of, I don't know if we'd really talked. We certainly knew of each other before we got on board with Patrick and did the Enough episode where y'all were, where y'all had me on. And then it just kind of snowballed from there. You know, I was hesitant at first to commit to doing my own show. But through your pressuring and, but really it was more the vision you had that, you know, that you felt that this would be a good idea. I finally came around to that. And it's been wonderful ever since. This is one of the most fun things I do every week. So I very much enjoy it. So, and, and I've never even considered our uncommon transatlantic relationship. I think that's just the nature of the beast now. I mean, that's, that's the world that we live in. And I've never thought, I've never thought anything about that just because it's almost, it just feels normal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Star Wars, Zachary, Star Wars. He says Star Wars to Star Trek. I assume he means Star Wars or Star Trek.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's what I would assume.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Star Wars. I've never been a Trekkie.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Star Wars, never been a Trekkie.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like the movies. I like the most recent movies, but there we go. So I want to take a quick moment to thank our second sponsor for today. How about that, Brad? The second sponsor on today's episode. I know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's awesome. I'm pumped. I'm pumped.