Scribe

Hey everybody, and welcome to episode 44 of the erasable podcast. Today we are covering part four of our just freshpoint series. So it should be a pretty short show. We're making making room to have a really awesome show for episode 45. I'm hosting tonight. I am Andy Welfle from Wood Clinched. And although we all like a natural wood finish on our pencils, sometimes I just want to get lacquered up with these two guys, Tim Wasem and Johnny Gamber. Hey, guys.

Getting lacquered up.

I feel like for the first time in a long time, we are sticking to our bi weekly schedule. It's been two weeks today since we recorded last.

I feel like a nerd sticking to deadlines.

Front row.

So we. We have our Mixler livestream going. So we have a bunch of people in the chat room talking about this. So I apologize. So I'm actually finding out the hard way that when I create an event for this in the group, it does not convert it to Eastern time for those who are in eastern and like Central time for those who are in central. So it says 5:30, but a lot of people might not read that. That's 5:30 Pacific.

Yes. Sorry, everybody. Yeah, so I actually wrote down a note to talk to the events team about that at work because it seems like it would be great to convert that time zone anyhow.

Yeah, I'll just go ahead and bang some code out and push it. We should probably talk about the tools of the trade. Tim, what are you drinking and writing with today?

I'm going to church.

I just take a shot of absinthe if I want that.

Liquor.

Oh, yeah. So that baseball documentary, is that something that you would recommend to somebody who is interested in the idea of baseball but is pretty ambivalent toward baseball in real life?

Well, thank you, Tim.

All 22 hours for the next month. Kids.

I like base. Like, out of all the sports, I like baseball aesthetically and sort of the idea of baseball the most. But also, I'm just. I don't want to invest. This sounds awful. I just don't want to invest in, like, the. The stats and the players and, like, the. I don't have the think space for it, I guess.

But I. I wrote a thing. I think you saw it, Tim. My. My, like, 10 reasons why I've Decided to Become an Ace Fan for All the Wrong Reasons.

There's a. There's a guy at work who. He works. He's like a line chef at the cafeteria. And he. I just noticed the other day he has a Fort Wayne tin Caps hat.

And it's like the minor league team from my hometown, which has a super cute little, like, angry apple on it. But, yeah, I was just like, holy crap, are you from Fort Wayne? He's like, well, my mom is. That's where he got.

A Railcat. That's awesome. There's also The Lansing lug nuts from Lansing, Michigan.

Yeah, sorry.

Apparently. This is the.

This is the Andy and Tim podcast. Baseball podcast.

I feel like I've gotten better about not treating like notebooks like they're precious and not using them, but I just, I just can't bring myself to use these, these bright pads because they're so beautiful.

Yeah, that's what I should do. I just, I should just buy it for my own damn self.

Yeah, that's true.

I think they're so gorgeous.

We all live in Baltimore. I just use Pacific Time for Johnny.

What are you drinking and writing with?

Yeah, Chicago is beautiful. Or that Chicago notebook.

Oh, they're not.

Okay.

What?

Why?

Oh, man.

I am drinking a monk's blood dark ale, Belgian style dark ale. Have either of you ever had this?

It is intense. I bought it a while ago and just sort of forgot about it. And I. I broke into it today. It is a Belgian style dark ale brewed with cinnamon, vanilla oak chips and dried figs. It's pretty intense. It is not made with real monk's blood, at least that I can taste. Asks to respond to Harry Marks.

Yeah, good question, Harry. As far as I know. Yeah, it's really good. But it's funny because, like, it's definitely not as cold here as I'm sure where it is where you guys are. Pleasure, baby. Yeah, but it is cold for the area here right now.

Oh, man, then it was colder. It's like. It's like in the 50s today, man. I didn't.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this is. This is what I'm drinking and I'm writing with. Actually, I just found my Midori brass bullet pencil. It's been lost for months and it's actually, I thought that maybe I left it in Indiana somehow, like in. It fell behind, like fell behind something when we moved. So I was just going through something and I found it. So I'm so excited. And I also sort of didn't really remember how kind of crappy this pencil is that comes with it.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna. I have a palomino HB that's kind of ending its. It's passing the. Surpassing the Steinbeck stage. So I think I'm gonna saw it down and put it in there soon.

Anything before we move on to fresh points?

Gotcha. It's a. It's the 9852. Ew.

I don't think I've used that one.

oh, what's this nice little surprise? That's cool. Yeah, we. I'm sure that. I'm sure that everybody in the group has some ideas of how you can. Can use that.

Yeah, we should. First, we should crowdfund it so you can get extra money in order.

Tim, do you want to. Do you want to transition us into fresh points?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So did I see that it's still using the 50 pound paper inside?

Okay.

There's a really great episode of 99% invisible, that design podcast where they talk about flag design.

Yeah. It's flag. They. It's. Oh, man. What is it? What is it called? Vex. Vexillionaire is the name of the episode.

But, yeah, they're ranked by vexillologists as

Yeah. Which is pretty awesome. Yeah, it's. I like the Chicago flag. It's actually one of the few, like, city flags that I've ever actually, like, paid attention to before.

Michael. Sorry, go on.

I love that.

Michael says the practical applications in that one are on point. Do you feel like reading this? A few. Tim?

In the back.

Oh, you don't have it with you?

I definitely.

Like the barrel. Like the wooden barrel.

What?

That's super weird.

see if it, like, broke along, like, the sandwich lines?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim's a little bit lacquered up.

Yeah, I did that.

Yeah.

This episode brought to you by Bright Notepad.

Do you think they're going to do custom editions like their regular notepads?

Oh, we're all school together. Here's the notebooks.

Cool. How about you, Johnny?

I did.

I have to admit, this is shameful to admit, but I am one of the ones who jumped the gun on it, on the ordering.

So do you want me to describe he. Yeah, do you mean to describe how it unfolded or do you want to do that, Johnny? So, yeah, if you were just hanging out kind of early yesterday, at least early west coast time, Draplin posted in the group. He was like, hey, I have a bunch of the dead prints left. I'm going to put them up for sale sometime today. I will post back here when it's ready and then you can start ordering. And then two perhuman. So people were refreshing and refreshing and I was just kind of monitoring the thread and all of a sudden on the old Dead Prince page, which is. Well, the. The old DDC054 page, which is where he put like, his factory floor stuff, there was still a, like sold out image for the 2015 dead prints. Excuse me, not factory floor. It's not dead prints. And there was an active buy link at the bottom that said dead prints on it. And the first person who spotted it posted in the fieldnuts group and was like, ooh, hey, this works. I was like, oh, I should go do this. So I went and I purchased two of them. Everything went through and then we were like, oh, crap. Draplin did not give the go ahead and say that it was live. Like he was going to, uh, so this is going to be interesting. Uh, so I sort of waited around to see if he was going to be refunding people their money who jumped the gun on it, and then like reopened it back up to ordering because pretty soon that link disappeared. So I guess there were Enough, like, it was small enough in volume where he just decided to let those. Let it go. So he was like, hey, people, jump the gun. But there's still enough time to. There's still enough orders like stock to allow those orders because there were a few other people who ordered again after that. Just once the legit product page came up. But I'd be interested to know just how many people just sat there refreshing, refreshing, refreshing their browsers, waiting for that to happen. I was not one of those, but I did jump the gun. So, yeah, I'm excited to see what happens. Oh, and then once that sold out, he relisted all the people who sort of did a double order who jumped the gun and then did it like a legitimate order. So he put those back on. And yeah, then that was kind of like a second rush. But, yeah, I sold out an hour, which is pretty great. Johnny, did you. Did you score a pack?

Hey, no, I. But I did, too. That's what the. That's what it's allowed.

I'll be. I'll be interested to see. There's a. There's a thread going on Field Nuts right now that I'm interested in, in how many states are being represented in the dead prints. Because so far I have not seen an Indiana state dead print. And my guess is that, you know, he does all these posters at different printers. I think Indiana was one that's done at the half and half in South Carolina. So I'm guessing that they just haven't given him dead prints for it. So if anybody sees an Indiana one, I will be more than happy to trade you because I would like one of those.

Did he do a Maryland one? Yeah.

Where'd you hear that?

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out. Yeah. Which states he does have. He has a lot of California ones and he has a lot of. Oh, what's the other one that I've seen Las Vegas ones. And he has all those shuttle poster ones, which I just love. I think the shuttle ones is gorgeous. I do want to say real quick that, you know, Field Nuts is intense and there's a lot of, like, bickering and stuff that happens there, but it is sometimes fun to just like, get caught up in the excitement that happens there because everybody is just genuinely super excited for field notes.

There's a lot of super intense, super serious people on there who will get every member of their family to make a purchase when things happen. There was somebody bragging about how he had, like four family members standing by, which is like. Like, if they're just going to give it to him, then that's not really cheating, I guess. But whatever. Nuts will be nuts, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah. I totally know what you mean.

Yeah. So our group has never bickered over silly stationary things. So never ever happened.

Right. All right, moving on.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Smooth coal.

Yeah.

Well, I've always wondered about that, because, you know, pure graphite is actually used as a lubricant, right?

And so our SO pencils is not pulverized. It's just, like, how big are the actual chunks of pure graphite?

Oh, it's interesting.

Yeah.

Can we use graphite as sort of like a pencil graffiti? Like, like, go tag a building with graphite spray.

The erasable podcast is not condonal.

Oh, man. Well, I feel like over the last year, most of my freshpoints involved, so I've gone to this new city and I've checked out this pencil scene there. And I guess it's true because I have been traveling more than I have before, which is awesome. And I really, honestly don't mean it as, like, a humble brag, but I definitely genuinely enjoy, like, checking out the stationary and pencil scene in new cities when I visit there for work. So I did go to Seattle for the first time ever last week. Actually, a week ago today. I was only there for 36 hours, but it was lots of fun. So, yeah, I went to the Starbucks Roastery. Of course I went there and bought a crapload of the Starbucks Roastery notebooks. Which, by the way, if anybody here has been wondering, which I did, they still have a full stock of all three of the editions.

I think that probably it was just a limited run, but they probably had to make so many that they still have a bunch left over.

Yeah, they're really great. So, yeah, if you are going to Seattle, if you have friends in Seattle or doing the usual, like, thing where you beg Seattleites to buy you notebooks, yeah, they're fantastic. I picked up a pack of the wood ones for Johnny and a couple other friends. I didn't want to open it up with everybody because I just didn't have room in my luggage to come back with all that. And they definitely had a smaller stock in the store of the two older ones. They had a bunch of the Capitol Hill ones, but the lady told me that they have a bunch in the back. And she was like, yeah, I hear that there's just groups of people who just collect these field notes. And there was one guy who came in here and bought $100 worth of them. I was like, oh, yes.

Yeah, it was. No, it was a super cool experience. Like, Starbucks is not my favorite of the coffee chains out there, but it's, like, solid, and it's like a coffee theme park. It's so cool in there. They have, like. You can get your Starbucks coffee made in many different ways, like drip or pour over or aeropressed or that thing where they siphon it, you know, up and down. What is that called? Siphoning?

No, no, that's the clover, but they do that too.

Okay, they do that too. But then they also have. It looks like a, like a laboratory setup.

Yeah, I have.

Yeah. They also do like seasonal like coffee cocktails almost.

You can get like there's one called a mole mocha.

Yeah, you can get it non alcoholic but it's. It's just unusual coffee drinks. You can get like a mole mocha which is espresso and whole milk flavored with smoked chocolate sauce, sesame and chilies, which is interesting. They have one called a undertow which is Madagascar vanilla syrup and cold half and a half with a shot of espresso floating on top. Just like unusual coffee drinks.

And if you wondered why that first roastery notebook is like copper and wood colored, it's because that's what the roastery is. Everything's in wood. And the big giant like coffee roasting tanks are copper.

So yeah, it's gorgeous in there. If ever any you get to Seattle, like check that out. I also want to mention that Wendy, Wendy Lu, who is a member of the group. Is she in the chat? Yes, she is. Yay, Wendy. She put together a glossary of graphite. This is super cool. We've been talking about this for a while, having some sort of a glossary of like terms that either we've invented from the group or, or that exist in the pencil world in general. Things like tooth or things like the Steinbeck stage. She has compiled a lot of these into a glossary using wiki software that she's hosting on Dropbox. Super cool.

Yeah, it's right. Right now the link is in show notes but it is at tiny cc a glossary of graphite, all one word. And then you can drop her a line through the group and if you want to become a submitter, I guess a taxonomist and she can add you as an editor and yeah, edit some of this. So yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Oh, yeah, they definitely. Like, I'm glad that somebody has kind of taken this on. Like, I felt like it'd be cool to have, like, some official erasable glossary, but I think it's all the richer when there's, like, independent initiatives to do this.

There's a couple shows. There's one called. Actually one that I think you're familiar with, Tim, called Roderick on the Line. Yeah, it's a John Rodrick and Merlin Mann. Somebody has come up with a cross reference of all of the recurring themes in all of the episodes.

Which is pretty awesome. So no pressure, Wendy, to keep it up. But it's great because we formed all these terms and definitions kind of organically, and it's just nice that there's a place to put it now rather than just kind of in disparate Facebook posts. So, yeah, let's do that. I also want to mention, kind of related to that, you know, we've been talking about the Steinbeck stage and the bullet pencil stage, and we sort of had to come up with like an unsharpened pencil. What do you. What do we call that? And then like, so. So first it starts off as an unsharpened pencil, and then you wear it down until it reaches your. The palm of your hand, which is what the Steinbach stage is. Kind of between that and then past that, it can fit in a bullet pencil. So we call it the bullet pencil stage. Well, what do we call the really long, kind of freshly sharpened stage? So my suggestion in the group was to name it after this writer named Robert Brault. I've never really heard of any of the things that he's written, but he has a lot of, like, little quotables. Do you know Robert Brolt? Tim?

Yeah, not familiar. I've never really heard much about him, but yeah, he has a quote that says the Average pencil is 7 inches long with just a half inch eraser, in case you thought optimism was dead. Which is a pretty great quote and one that I've definitely heard before. I've just never heard of him.

What I like about it is it kind of cites the length of a brand new pencil with a brand new eraser. So I propose the Braalt stage for that first stage where it's freshly sharpened.

Yeah, I like that option. Cool. So I'm gonna go ahead and go with that. Maybe we'll put it in the dictionary in the glossary. And I want to do some Sort of a cool little, like, illustration or something with all of the various stages I should talk to do like TJ

Yes. I like it.

Last thing I wanted to mention. I think anybody who's part of the group probably saw this, but Charles barrelsheimer says that pencils.com will be carrying the Kum masterpiece soon.

Yay.

I don't even know. Um, I. I assume that he has a little bit more buying power than maybe Gary does for well note guys anymore, but the paper nary pop up shop. So, you know, and Gary, he's gotten several, like a couple runs of it in and he sold out within hours, which is awesome. But then maybe pencils.com can, like, get a regular stock and just get that in. So I'll feel a little bit less exclusive and special, but I think that's fine.

I think.

Yeah.

You all are a bunch of nerds. That's.

You're our nerds. Our kind of nerds.

No, no.

Oh, no, I don't.

I think. I think we all can find brotherhood within our abnormalcy.

The brotherhood of the abnormals. Pencil Abnormal. See?

Yes, the fellowship of the traveling Sharpen. Traveling Steinbeck trio. Did you guys see. Who was it? Who took a picture?

That was so great. So there's the stone. The Steinbeck trio. All three of the pencils that Steinbeck is. Is quoted to have used is currently on tour and is traveling the country and eventually the world. These three pencils. Was it Stephen Watts who sent it out originally? Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm like, fourth on the. Like, next on the list, so that's awesome. Richard Hoffpauer went to the George Bush Presidential Library, where they have a George W. Bush Presidential Library where they have a replica of the Oval Office, and he set the John Steinbeck business card. And the three pencils and a little pencil dish there.

It's super awesome.

It's so great.

Maybe I'll try to use a, an image of that. Oh, man. So I don't live too far away from the, I think from the Reagan Presidential Library. Isn't that in Sacramento? No, that's not.

I'll have to check it out. Maybe I'll go to, to a different presidential library and do that.

Michael Metz, you're in the Chicagoland area. We'll have to send it back to you. So you can go to the Obama Presidential Library to put that on display. Oh, and he says in the chat that the Reagan Library is in la, just north of la, so a little

Yeah, cool.

A friend of mine asked me if just. I don't know why they didn't just Google it, but they were like, how far are you from LA? And I'm like, well, 10 hour drive. It's kind of. California is kind of a long state.

This is related to nothing. But like I completely didn't. I just don't know west coast geography because I had never been out here before. I lived out here and I figured Seattle was maybe, oh like, you know, three, four hours drive north of San Francisco. No, it's like 650 miles away. It's like a two hour flight, so. I had no idea. The west coast is a really long state.

Yeah. It's not as curvy as the east coast is.

Anything else to add before we wrap up?

Cool. Johnny.

I don't know why.

So yeah, we've kept this right about 45 minutes or so.

So on that note, Tim, if they wanted to find you on the Internet in order to give you a recommendation, where would they find you?

Tim, did you. Did you know that you are also on Twitter as Timwasam?

Okay.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I am. I'm the one who went to great lengths to email somebody in Cebu in the Philippines to get wood clinched on Twitter.

I'll enjoy hearing that. Johnny, where can people find you on the Internet?

Gotcha.

I am on Twitter at a Wealthley A W E L F as IN Field Notes le.com or not.com It's Twitter. How does Twitter work? Or @woodclinched if you're interested in following just pencil talk. I am on instagram@a as a wealthley and my website is woodclinch.com this is the Erasable podcast. We are on Twitter raceablepodcast or just on the web at erasable us. This episode can be found at erasable us44. For episode 44 come be a part of our group. Our really amazing, rich, incredibly time consuming group that is@facebook.com groups erasable we are almost 900 strong. It's also the best place to go if you want to find out about the livestream which we do during episodes. If you want to listen to us live with some behind the scenes commentary,

Yes, if I put it in it will probably be on Pacific time. Or you can find out about it if you go to mixlrmixlr.com erasable and subscribe to our events. As soon as I put it in there, the event reservation, I think you get notified about it. Erasable podcast is on instagram@instagram raceablepodcast. And please, if you're listening to us via the iTunes directory, please give us ratings and reviews. Recommend us on Overcast or whatever podcatcher app you use that helps us become visible to more people so we can grow our listenership, so we can spread the good word about pencils. Have you heard the good word, Brother Tim?

Has this ever happened to you? You want to talk to somebody about pencils, but you don't know where to start? All right, everybody, thanks for listening in and we will catch you in two weeks.

This has happened before. Oh, I said.