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Transcript
Yeah, there's a thing on there called Hemingway Kits, and they handle high quality balls. It's a brand called Hemingway Kits.
Hello, and welcome to episode 124 of the erasable Podcast. I'm Andy Welfle, and joining me tonight, as always, are Johnny Gamber and Tim Wasem. Hey, guys.
Hey, Andy.
Hey.
Also with us, we have a special guest. Live from the far off dining room in Johnny's apartment, we're excited to be joined by Jacob Cecil, who's going to talk with us tonight about Bullet Journaling in pencil. Hey, Jacob.
Hi.
Good to see you all.
Yeah, we're happy to have you on. Can you tell us just a kind of a brief little bit about yourself? Sure.
So I'm a high school art teacher. I teach art and photography in Howard County, Maryland, and I live, you know, just a block or so away from Johnny here in Baltimore City.
Oh, wow.
I'm originally from Maryland, born and raised in Frederick, about an hour west of Baltimore, and spent a lot of time in the south and then came back to Baltimore for college where I went to mica as a sculpture major and got my master's in teaching. And I've been teaching for 13 years now at the same school. Nice. And so as an artist, always, you know, obsessed with tools and materials, and it really wasn't, I think 2017 was in New York for the National Art Ed Conference and had followed CW Pencils on Instagram, I think just because it was. They have such a great feedback.
Oh, yeah.
And a fellow art teacher was like, hey, we should go down to the pencil store because we got to see that place and, you know, got my little collection of things that I was checking out with and said I was from Baltimore. And they're like, oh, do you know Johnny Gamber? I was like, no, of what? He's like, of Erasable Podcast. So that's where I started listening and seeing Johnny in the neighborhood every once in a while. Our kids similar age.
Yeah.
And then it was, you know, all downhill from there. Right.
Canceled all the way and the rest
is history as it happens. Yeah.
Yeah.
We just had an enormous play date. The kids are all gone.
Gotcha.
I think they were all disappointed.
Well, welcome.
They wanted to talk about.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
Cool. So before we dig into the main topic where Jacob's going to kind of tell us about his book, Bullet Journaling, Bullet Journaling Method and Philosophy, let's do our tools of the trade and our fresh points. So Jacob is our guest. Can you tell us what you are consuming and writing with. And writing on.
Sure.
Well, I've been through the many episodes, you know, have that list at the back of my head as you guys are reciting yours. So I packed it full. I have a. About a 40 minute to an hour commute each way in the morning and in the afternoon, so I get lots of podcasting and audiobooks in. So I've been the last, I don't know, month or so, finished up Moonglow by Michael Chabon. That audiobook, which I read years ago, Cavalier and Clay, and it's still one of the best books that I've ever read.
Love that.
Yes. And then Moonglow audiobook is really well done. I listen to that as well.
He does a really good job. And it's because it's him, right?
I'm pretty sure. No, well, the one I had was an actor now was a voice actor of some kind because he has such a distinct voice. I think I would have recognized it. But whoever it was, I thought did a great job.
Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think I listened to his. What is it, like notes on Fatherhood? Yeah, I think that one maybe is.
Oh, no, I know. I listened to the. Yeah, he reads Manhood for amateurs.
Yeah, that's what it is. That's what I listen to. So, yeah, that one. And then I just finished Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward. And that audiobook, it's a. It takes place in Mississippi and it's this young, kind of coming of age story of this African American boy dealing with his kind of raised by his grandparents. And there are kind of three narrators that are telling their part of the story. And so each part is read by a different voice actor. And so the experience of the audiobook was really incredible. And then I just finished 13 minutes of the moon podcast. I've been kind of obsessed with the moon landing since the 50th anniversary and, you know, that kind of history. And it chronicles like the last 13 minutes of the actual moon lander making its way separating from the command module down to the surface of the moon. And over like 12 episodes breaks down. What went into that? Over the history of, you know, the decade in the 60s and just so cool.
Yeah. Jacob, did you see the USPS stamps for the moon landing?
I don't know. I don't think I have.
There's. For the anniversary. Yeah. I used them in our. To send out the plumbago order recently. There's this really beautiful metallic paper and there's one of the Moon. And there's one with like an astronaut in a spacesuit. They're really beautiful. Crap.
I still have my sheets of unused eclipse stamps.
Oh, those are activated. So good too. Oh, yeah, yeah. Anyhow, sorry, didn't mean.
No, that's all right. That's right. And then, Tim, you actually got me back into some window berry. And so I picked up the Summer the World Ending Fire collection. It's timely. Slowly making my way through that. And that's kind of a personal, I think, growing up on a farm and a lot of. I've been working on this photo project for the last few years of my own work about that farm and kind of its connection to where I live now in Baltimore, that it's, you know, almost on the same road that I. I'm just a few miles from where that road ends in. In Baltimore City. And so I think a lot of his.
His.
His words and his thinking about the land and history resonates with me.
Very cool. I haven't read that collection yet. I have it on. I got on Kindle. It was like a daily deal or something on Kindle, which was a little bit of a weird find, but I've been eager to read it.
And then I guess writing with and on is my bullet journal, which is the kind of classic Lectrum 1917 with one of the little elastic pencil holders.
Gotta have one of those.
Yeah. My Blackwing Volume 10. And then my pocket notebook is a field notes Yosemite from the National Parks with a CW pencil, Futura. That's still one of my favorites that I constantly find. I'm going back to that pencil.
Nice.
Nice.
All right, Tim, how about you? What are you doing?
I have been reading and listening to a lot of different things, but the main ones, the main thing I've been reading is a book called so We Read on by Maureen Corrigan, who does the book reviews for Fresh Air. You probably heard her name or heard her talk if you ever watched Fresh Air when they have the book reviews. But it's called so we Read on How the Great Gatsby Came To Be and why It Endures. So this is recommended by another teacher at my school and picked it up. And it is just kind of
for
anybody who is just a fan of books. I think you'd enjoy it. But I mean, of course, if you are a fan at all of Gatsby, it's like. I mean, it's like crack. It's pretty amazing. It is this long memoir behind the scenes look at how the book came to be written and what was happening in his life throughout. And it. Like, when I first heard it described, I thought it sounded kind of like those boring literary. What do you call them? Like, the Norton Literary Anthology, Things that have. Like the. They have a book and then all the. The texts that come with them, like all the different essays and things that were written for stupid literary things that nobody reads. And. And so I was, like, a little worried. But it's actually written. It's a really accessible book, and it's really entertaining. And I was going to read you guys a passage, and I think we've. We've thrown enough junk around about Hemingway, but I've got. I've got another. Another swing at Papa here. So let me read you this passage. This is one paragraph, so the. The only context you need is that this is before. I believe this is before. No, this is 1936. He called it his nightmare year, and he was suffering from some pretty severe, like, failures and depression. Hemingway, in particular was appalled by such a public display of weakness from the writer who had once been his famous contemporary. A great believer in toughing out depression with ridicule, Hemingway responded to a glum letter he'd received from Fitzgerald by playfully suggesting that he, Hemingway, could arrange to have Fitzgerald murdered in Cuba so that Scotty and Zelda could collect the life insurance on a roll. Hemingway further proposed scattering the dead Fitzgerald's innards around significant landmarks of his life, donating, quote your liver to Princeton Museum, your heart to the Plaza Hotel, and if we can still find your balls, I'll take them via the Ile de France to Paris and have them cast into the Sea of Eden Rock. And then he said, Hemingway must have really gotten a kick out of the last image because he concluded this nasty letter with an even nastier poem he'd made up in the punning modernist style of T.S. eliot and James Joyce. The poem is entitled Lines to be the casting of Scott Fitzgerald's balls into the sea from Eden Rock.
I've read this before. I've read this out loud while drinking.
Yeah, the quote from the poem that she points out is, no ripple make a sinking, sanking, sonking, sunk, sinking, sanking, sunking. So pretty savage stuff from Hemingway there. But it's a really great book. It's a really great book about Gatsby and about Fitzgerald's life. I'd highly recommend it. I have also just started reading Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
Oh, nice.
So I just picked that up from the bookstore last week because I had read or actually listened to him read a chapter on the New Yorker fiction podcast. He read one of the chapters as a short or I guess had published it as a short story in the New Yorker at some point. And so I heard him read that and I was like, okay, I got to get it. And so I got it and haven't gotten too far into it, but I'm really excited. And I've been listening to a podcast called the Working Songwriter by Joe Pug, who's a songwriter from. He lives in Chicago now. I think he's originally from the D.C. area, I believe, kind of in your neck of the woods sort of. But he's been a Chicago guy for quite a while now. But he has this podcast where he talks to some really amazing songwriters, especially from the Americana music world, and just has these long conversations about what do they think about art and writing songs and the life on the road and all that stuff, and really, really love it. And lastly, some music I've been listening. I've been obsessed with this Neil Young album called on the Beach. And I strongly encourage you guys to Google on the beach by Neil Young. So you can see the horrific cover art. One of the worst album covers I've ever seen, especially for an album that's so good. I'm convinced it would have been a classic album if it wouldn't have had this cover.
Oh, I like it. Except for the car.
Well, yeah.
Well, even that.
So. So the COVID for those of you who are listening, that's all of you. Because this is a podcast. Those of you listening at home who aren't the four of us. So it is a scene where Neil Young is in a, like, canary yellow suit in the background, staring out into the ocean with this, like, really sort of very 70s lawn furniture, sort of half sunk or kind of sort of sinking into the. Into the sand in the foreground. And then there's the tail. What do you call that? The tail light of what? I don't know what. That would be a gold Cadillac or something like an old.
Yeah.
Sticking out of the ground. And it just makes me cringe every time I look at it.
Is it some sort of a play on, like, a Beach Boys cover? Because like, that on the beach title that's at the top kind of reminds me of like a Beach Boys or a Carpenter's album or something like that.
That could be. That could be. And that's when I saw. And like, I've. I've thought about it. He surely knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it for some reason.
Yeah.
But at the same time, I'm like, dude, this would have been a classic album if it wouldn't have had that cover. I think it's just like, too. I don't know, it's too groundy looking. But the album's awesome, so I really, really highly recommend it. This is. This came out. I've talked about the Last Waltz with the band on here several times before and, like, a really famous Scorsese documentary about it. This is the album that he had come out with right around the last waltz. So, like 1975. Really good stuff. And I am writing with a Blackwing one gasp in my Graduate Hotels field notes that I got recently. So I'm using the one that's got, like, all the books piled up on the front still.
I like that.
I really love it. I used it for a while and then put it away and then picked it back up and. Yeah, so I'm enjoying that. And we'll talk about them. I was going to give kind of my. I. I did. I didn't have my 42s in hand last time we recorded, but in waiting for the 42 and picking up some pearls and other balanced cores, I had a sort of identity crisis a little bit because I. I just fell in love with that core. And so I've been using it, like, almost exclusively lately, besides my natural Blackwing natural. But I really have been loving the balanced core as of late.
Yeah. I think my first experience with the balanced core came after listening to this podcast a lot. And already, you know, Johnny, I think your disdain for it maybe turned me off ahead of time, and so I was prepared to not like it. And then I think, you know, like a blind. Yeah, blind taste test.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel a little ashamed, and I'd like to publicly apologize for my disparaging remarks about the Blackwing Pearl. The Balance score.
Do you want to write an apology note in your notes app and then just post a picture of it on Twitter?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But what do you think about the volume one now? Oh, wait, that's.
Johnny, is that you?
Which one?
Who called it the sausage casing?
Oh, that was Tim.
That would be me. That would be me. I still think it's ugly.
Oh, I love that one.
I think it's very ugly, but it's round and it's a balanced core, and so I love it. As long as I don't look at it too much.
Just writing with your eyes closed, that's fine.
Yes.
Yeah. Getting used to it. It's horrible for my handwriting, but So
I had to pull up a high res photo of that on the beach album cover.
Those chairs are great.
And as a photographer, I'm really interested in, like, underneath the ugly yellow table is a newspaper that says, like, Senator Buckley calls for Nixon to resign. And then like, Neil Young has got his boots off next to him. And I don't know, there's a lot of interesting symbolism.
There's a.
That's.
That is true. You're convincing me. Damn it.
Okay.
Yeah.
That is the balanced core of the album covers for Neil Young.
Okay, fair enough. On the Pearl. Yeah. And so maybe. Yeah, so he's looking out, looking out longingly towards the ocean as Nixon's finally being taken out of office or something. Or he's getting ready to like just walk out into the ocean and he's had enough. Come back. Yeah, I don't know. It's a dark ending for that conversation, but. But that's all I've got. So I. Johnny? Johnny, what about you?
Whence from these gray heights un jockstrapped. Holy stewed. He flung himself.
No.
Some waiter. Yes. Push tenderly, O green shoots of grass, tickle not our Fitz's nostrils. Past the gray moving, unbefinied sea depths Deeper than our debt to Elliot fling flang them flung his own 2. Finally his one spherical colloid, interstitial uprising, lost to sight and fright. Natural, not artificial. No ripples make us sinking, sinking, sunking, sunk.
There it is.
Yeah.
Casting balls.
There you go.
So, speaking of. I'm sorry, I'm distracted by Hemingway, Colson, Whitehead. I just finally read the Underground Railroad, which apparently everyone in the world has read but me. So now I'm in the cool club. And I didn't know this Amazon is doing a limited series of it, like this year. Yeah, so that'll be really cool. And I tried to pick a couple books afterward, and it took me three books to find something that could follow that book because it was so delightful. And before that, I read the Bell Jar, which is another book that everyone's read but me, which was.
You never Bell Jar before?
No. My only exposure to Sylvia Plath was that really horrible film from. Yeah, but like, okay, the film was horrible, but I really liked it because I really like Jared Harris. And I'll watch anything that has Jared Harris in it. Which brings me to my last thing, which is Carnival Row, that really bizarre new series that's on Amazon. Have you guys seen this? Like, it's hard to describe. There's like an alternative world in a sort of Victorian era, and there's a. A race of people called. Well, they call them. What do they call them? They call them a picts as sort of like a racial slur. But they're fairies. And then there's a murderer. I'm gonna give this all away. And there's one of the chief characters is a human police officer played by Orlando Bloom, who is aging well without his unibrow and blonde wig. But like, I mean, it's. It's weird. You'll have really weird dreams, but it's really, really good. Frankie did not like it, but Frankie hates Hemingway, so take that with a grain of salt. And I've started and stopped a couple of books. So I've just started Call Me by youy Name, which has the movie cover, which is kind of crap, but it's still a really good book so far. And I'm sitting here, I just realized that Jacob and I match. I have a black Leuchtturm, but mine is the. What do they call it? The stealth version that came with the book. It's got like black gilding on the edges. I have also a field notes, but mine is the Smoky Mountains one because it looks like autumn and bear. And I'm writing with a Blackwing natural and a general's calendar, which is fitting for a bullet journal, I think. And it doesn't smear.
Yeah.
How about you, Andy?
Well, my media consumption as of late is much lower brow than most of you. Katie and I have been on a kind of an HDTV home improvement kick. So there's a bunch of new HGTV shows or newly on Hulu that is. There's one called Good Bones, which is a kind of a house tear down and refit show that is set in Indianapolis, Indiana. And if ever you want a good feeling for somebody who is the most Indiana person ever, the daughter and the mother.
Who are those?
Like the two hosts and main characters of the show. Like, they're very, very Indiana. So, uh, check out Good Bones. They. They. They do a lot of like gentrification in the Fountain Square neighborhood, which is, if it can be said, is the Hampton of. Of Indianapolis. So that's.
That's interesting that like, I mean, just all of those. I get so annoyed with all those shows because it's like all of them happen in la.
Yeah. Yeah.
Why do I.
This one's.
Let's see. Another, like formerly awesome house, now made awesome again in like. That's great. Yeah, that's cool. That's in Indiana.
This one's in Indiana. What's great is it Just comes with Indiana housing prices. So there's like a tear down house that they get for. They spend $4,000 for it and they put in like $150,000 worth of renovation and they sell it for like 200,000 or something like that, which is high for Indiana but pretty low for much of the country. That's pretty good. There's another one called Hometown, which takes place in Laurel, Mississippi. And these two people buy and renovate homes there, just like kind of restore them. And they do a lot of like restoration rather than renovating when they can. So there's always some really interesting history that goes into these kind of like old Southern houses. And besides that, I've been watching the new episodes of Good Eats on the Food Network because Elton Brown is back and making new episodes. I think he's done like eight episodes so far. They've been doing two for every Sunday for the last month or so. So if you were like a Good Eats fan like I was from the beginning, be sure to check that out. I've been reading, I just finished a really, really good book that's been on kind of the bestseller like new sellers shelf at a lot of bookstores lately. It's called Washington Black. It's by Esi Edud. I'm going to say her name wrong. It's kind like Dickensian tale about a young slave boy in Barbados who is kind of like chosen as a manservant of his of the master's brother, who's like an, like a science, like a naturalist and explorer. And it kind of turns into the story of that boy's education and kind of like, you know, abolition. And then like he goes and lives in different places. It's really good. It's very, it's. It's a very like Charles Dickens style tale with a little tiny bit of steampunk thrown in because part of one of the, one of the scenes has them flying in like this, this dirigible. So it's a really good book. And also I stopped or once I finished that, I started reading a book called Because Internet, which is about the kind of like modern linguistics of the Internet, how people talk and how language has evolved like on social media and on the Internet. So that's really interesting to me. And I am writing with a blue palomino HB with an eraser in my field notes. Mild marker. Mild marker today.
Which one?
That blue and red and white one that looks like an interstate sign.
Did you just put a twang on that and say interstate?
Interstate. Stein on Purpose. Get on down to Roy. You tell you what, man, I'm going to write my interstate sign to get dang old, dang old pal.
Hb
it's my, my boom hour.
Yeah,
all right. That boy, right. I tell you what, let's move on to fresh points. Jacob, would you care to talk to us about your fresh points?
Sure.
I don't have much for me as a teacher and new school year starting trying to get, you know, everything organized. I. I think I posted in the group about my pencil case because I'm kind like I also something I kind of skipped over. I realized my wife and I as we met in art school, she was a photo major and a printmaker. And we together own a company called Almanac Industries that makes does letterpress printing, but we also do handmade leather and cloth accessories, wallets and bags. So we make pencil cases and we've made Dopp kits. And so I'm, you know, always have an abundance of little bags and things like that. But I think because of that I'm always searching for the most perfect one or trying to make the perfect one or. And between pencil cases and dongles and cords and things as a photographer and I finally, at least so far have kind of my perfect bag that's by this company, Peak Design, that makes camera bags. And I got their tech pouch, which is this beautiful kind of it's big, but it zips on three sides and opens up kind of like a clamshell on the table. So it sits open and it has this kind of like origami set of little pockets so I can have pencils on one side separated from all my nice clean white apple cords and zippered things and pockets for stuff. And it's just perfect. And you know, I move classrooms between classes. One's the art room, one's the photo room. So I have to always gather all my things and take it with me. And so I just love it as a way of keeping everything organized. And it fits an unsharpened blackwing, which was important point before I ordered it. And then the other thing was my ever expanding pencil and field notes collection. IKEA this year at some point started selling again their Mape wood drawers. And they had them years ago and then I could never find them. And they're just like a set of six birch drawers in three different sizes for 20 bucks. And I bought two and had them for my kids above their little art table. And then I bought another one and then I bought a fourth one. And so that's how I have all my stuff organized. So they're a really great cheap way that looks nice and clean and they fit field notes perfectly in some of their drawers. And then lastly is. Because my son started pre K this year and we had to supply jumbo pencils. So of course I went out and got some golden bear jumbos for him in orange to the school. And yeah, so I, I was very excited to be able to. I mean, we'll see. We have back to school night tomorrow, so I'll see if I can spot them. But I saw that CW pencils collaborated with Moon for a Big Dipper jumbo in. What is it their foil or iridescent red? Yeah.
Is it wrapped or is it painted?
I think, I mean, I think it would have to be wrapped.
It. I can't like, I can't tell offhand, but it does. It looks like it's wrapped, but maybe it's a little bit thinner or like more close to the barrel. Like it doesn't look. It doesn't quite look wrapped. I haven't seen it in person for sure.
Yeah. And I don't know how you would get, I mean, I guess wrapped in foil through a heat process. Yeah, I don't know enough about.
Yeah, I know like generally how they do that. Yeah, they. They wrap like a very clear like acetate wrap over the pencil before they put the eraser on. But it doesn't quite look like that because it looks like it's then like foil stamped above the wrap, which isn't usually what they do on that. So I don't have, I haven't, I haven't had one in person, so I
know what I'm buying.
Yeah, I think maybe they did people say they were in there. Oh no, that was their other new pencil.
No, they did come in the box
and it came in the box and the. Anybody's camel things.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll have to follow up with Nicole from Musgrave about that to see how the process goes because that would be A, a really good Instagram video for them and B, really good follow up for us.
Oh yeah.
Cool.
Any other fresh points, Jacob?
No, that's it for me. I tried to rack my brain but I'm. Yeah, all mine are photo related. I could let you know what photo books just came out, but that's a whole other podcast.
It's Monday. Tim, how about you?
Mine will be quick. The first one, which I alluded to earlier, the Blackwing Volume 42, I finally got mine and I got it since we had Recorded last. And I've already gone over my begrudging new admiration for the. For the. For the balance score, which I actually, I think I had texted you guys at some point that I had written a letter with a balanced core on a dot grad, A dot grid notepad. And it was like I didn't know who I was. Who are you?
Radical graph?
No, no. God, no. It threw up my mouth a little bit. No, I just. I. Yeah, so. And this 42 is really. I'm reiterating things you already said, but I just wanted to confirm, like, how gorgeous they are. And I think it was. I. Like what. I totally agree with what Johnny had said about how nice it was that they didn't just reuse the kind of pearlescent cover or finish or whatever that is just that really striking flat white color. I just think they're definitely one of the best. And I'm. I'm. As ever, I'm holding back, trying not to order 15 boxes of them or something, but the baseball connection is not helping that cause. But now if they would have come out with, like a Blackwing 108, and it was for the 108 years since the Cubs won the World Series, I would have just, like, driven there and backed my car up against the place. Load them up, boys.
They would have been pandering, like, directly to you if that was the case.
Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
I would. Yeah, I would admire it if they had done that. And then, like, if I found out that it was all, like, an elaborate ruse just because I had said something bad about the balanced core or something.
Never mind.
So the only other thing I was going to bring up is that I haven't bought a pencil sharpener in a really long time. And, like, I just. I've been using the same ones, and so I just ordered. Finally. I've been meaning to get one of the Ooni crank sharpeners, and that's the one that doesn't put the teeth marks, right?
Yeah, you better hope so.
Yeah.
What color did you get? I never saw this blue one before. And this blue one is gorgeous.
I got the blue one. Yeah. So I got a. I got a blue one. It's supposed to come in a couple days and I can't wait. So I'm gonna have that in my classroom and bring my. Retire the doll 133 from its duties in my classroom for a while and bring it home. I had one of my kids break my classroom friendly sharpener.
They do to it.
They knocked it off a high shelf and just kind of like faceplate kind of broke. So. But I have had that sharpener in my classroom for five years, so. And it could have gone like 25 more if it hadn't just had this kind of freak accident. So I had replaced the blade once I bought a replacement blade from Classroom Friendly because it was just worn out. But yeah, that's that and yeah, that's all I got. How about you, Johnny?
So this fits really well with tonight's episode by a happy accident. But I think Tim, you also got the new Clear Habit Journal from Baron Fig. That's the size of their like really, really big books.
Yes, I did.
So did you have the other one?
No, I'd never had the Clear Habit. I'd had the big books before, but I've never had the Clear Habit Journal.
Yeah, I think it's the first big book with an elastic they've done.
Yeah, yeah, I was thinking about that and I didn't have a chance to look into it, but I think, I think that's true. Unless they're starting to do the standard ones now, which would be great.
Yeah, it would be cool.
They're not yet, but I can't wait for them to start putting that on the standard.
Yeah.
So for folks that don't know, I haven't read the book. Apparently there's also a book by James Clear where it's sort of like a bullet journaling method but it focuses on tracking your habits. So this book has like a line of day for the year in the front and then most of the book is just dot grid and then at the back it has habit trackers and directions on how to use a few different methods. So like, you know, it's not like I thought it was going to be sort of like a lot of the books they put out recently where they're, you know, pre format it, but most of it's just dot grid paper with blue dots, which is cool. And they put little hash marks marking off like the quarter and thirds or something of the pages, which is a really nice touch.
Yeah, that is really nice.
I didn't notice that Les pointed it out when we were talking about it
last week and it's the like line of day is kind of like a daily reflection I'm assuming. Yeah.
I mean looking at this, I don't know how you could fill this out in the other size because this looks like the perfect amount of space. But is this out yet? I haven't heard people talking about it. Well, are we Busting a street date.
Hopefully. Hopefully it'll come out before we publish it.
Yeah, I mean, I've had this for over a week.
Yeah, I've had it for a week. I imagine you usually only send stuff out shortly before, so.
Yeah, people just. People tend to talk about their pens a lot more than their books, which is a shame because I really like their books. And speaking of books, I. I don't think the Black wing slate number 42 was out last time we recorded. Was it? Yes, it was.
Okay.
Yeah, so I remember you talking about it. Yeah, Yeah, I got one in hand, so it sure costs a lot of money for one notebook. Like, I love Blackwing, but, you know, the slates are like 22 bucks and you can get them on Amazon, I think, for like just a couple bucks more and get them prime, which is really reasonable considering how nice they are. This one was like almost 40 bucks delivered and it showed up a little beat up, which is, you know, fine, I'm gonna write it anyway. But I thought it was just gonna have like a little bit of a stamp on it. And I was like, oh, this is stupid. Why is this so expensive? And why am I buying it? But it's like huge. The COVID I don't have it in front of me. The COVID is like this enormous true color number 42 label and stuff. It's actually really cool. But I think no one talked about it because they were supposed to come out when the pencils did, but there was a delay for some reason, so it just kind of floated by. Yeah, I mean, it's disappointing because the opposite of Baron. I mean that help me. It's Monday night, just like Baron.
Fig.
People don't talk about their books that much, but they're a pencil company, so that makes sense. But Black Wing's books are really nice. They're well designed. Paper is really good. I'm not just saying that because I've not paid for most of mine, but, you know, they're awesome. I've given them as gifts to make up for all the three ones we've gotten. So, yeah, if you really like the 42, check out the book. Especially if you already use them and you can pick your insides. Which is cool because if it were me, I would just offer one option. But I don't remember if they had two or three options. I got the dot grid. And my next fresh point is that I spent a very long time talking about pens on the Internet. Last Friday night with less from RSVP podcast. Yeah, like super fun because I've never podcasted but pens before, and also, I've never. Is that good.
Johnny's been stepping out on us, is what you're saying.
I've never been on anyone else's podcast. I was, like, really nervous, so all week I used pens so I could.
Johnny, weren't you on the Dot Grid podcast?
Oh, yeah.
I was like, that's what I thought.
That was years ago.
Yeah.
Guys, I'm just down the street if we need to shuffle things up.
You know, we're gonna settle this Baltimore style.
Click, click as the sirens go in the background.
Yeah, Run a busy thoroughfare, but. Okay, I'm gonna pretend that I didn't say any of that. So, speaking of back to school, Henry really, really likes red. Like, he used to, like, bloop. So I let him go on the pencil store's website, and I was like, just, you know, pick what you want and we'll order them and you get them. So he picked the. The tri rex, like, the regular size just because of the color. So we put him in his little pencil case for the first day of school, and I gave him an orange golden bear. And he's like, daddy, I love this pencil because his nickname is Bear. He's very cuddly. So I asked him, henry, why, like, what have you been using at school? He's like, oh, my golden bear is getting really small. Like, oh, that's good news. I like to buy you pencils.
That's like dinner table conversation at your house.
So I told him they were in blue, and his jaw dropped, and he was like, what? So he has a dozen of both come into him, and he's very happy. He doesn't know they're only $4.
Don't tell him.
But I was like, hey, you know what? My podcast co host and friend Andy, like, loves the bear, the golden bear. And he's like, oh, yeah. No, I'm lying.
Yes.
No, he's in good company. I did offer him a jumbo one. He's like, no, I don't like that because it was random. Like, brown pencil pencils, apparently.
We should get him a Musgrave test scoring 100 and see what he thinks about that, and then we'll know if we're, like, truly, like, pencil spirit pals.
So I tried to give him one, and I told him that it was a fast pencil because of the silver paint, and he did not like it. Well, yeah, he's. He's like, really? He's really picky. Like, he likes cheetahs and lions.
Currently.
And Mustangs and Camaros and Chargers, but not Corvettes. Lamborghinis, but not Ferraris. He's not interested in German cars except for Porsches.
That is very specific.
He's got lots of opinions. Yeah.
He really knows what he likes.
Yeah.
Good friend.
This golden bear that you have sitting here, Johnny, is this a newer one? I feel like I have golden bears that are blue that don't have as nice of a finish.
We don't know what's up with this. They have these ones on the website right now that are 2.99 a dozen and they're made in Turkey or Taiwan. Thailand.
Thailand, yeah.
Yeah.
And they have a little th on them and like the finish is really nice. I haven't bought golden bears in a really long time.
Yeah.
So I don't know.
So the ones that were made pre 20, I want to say like 13 were the ones that are made in the US before that they were made there. And I wonder if maybe they just like uncovered a bunch of extra stock of those old ones because I thought for sure they stopped selling like the old ones for a while. Yeah.
It's weird, but these have the feral that's similar to the American one. And they don't say California Republic stationers.
Yeah.
Okay.
And they, they have a weird little logo after the Thailand. It just says th and then I guess that's a lotus. And then it has the bear and says golden bear too.
Yeah.
Because I noticed even when I bought from pencils.com the Jumbo golden bears, I think it was, sorry or no, I was looking for even getting some for my class and like you could get some made in the US but others weren't made in the us Maybe it was depending on whether you were buying a dozen or a gross or something.
Yeah. I don't know what's up with that.
Yeah, they're a dollar cheaper than the US ones.
Yeah.
And it's come up in the group and nobody from pesos.com has said anything. And you know, usually they fill in. I wonder if they were just waiting to see if anyone would notice. Maybe we'll get a prize there.
And generally, correct me if I'm wrong, Johnny, they're. They're generally a little bit softer of a hex than the US Ones. Right?
Yeah, yeah. The last US ones I bought were like full like.
Yeah.
But I haven't bought them since they first came out.
Well, and that's the thing. Yeah. They definitely, you know, you get those just blank colored Musgrave pencils You can feel the hex and the kind of the way the paint is a little thicker at the hex.
This is sharp.
Yeah.
My last fresh point is that this is the closest that I've ever podcasted to a Mac computer next to me. And he has his Mac and I have my Chromebook.
Are you getting a rash, Johnny?
No. Something's buzzing my foot. Getting shocked by something. I want to point out that my little Chromebook is powering a double conversation, though. It's holding its own. And it, being a Chromebook, will hold its own for the next, like, 13 hours. That's true. Yeah. So, you know, going back to the.
Your slate number 42, and maybe you've mentioned this, but I'm curious with the next volume, whether that'll be a regular thing that they do.
I mean, like, I hope not for the sake of my wallet, but
Alex,
when he was on the podcast, he mentioned that they were doing something that was like his baby. So I hope that's it, because otherwise I'm gonna have a lot of point protectors and slates floating around. Yeah, I haven't used it yet. It looks like it'd be good for NaNoWriMo. That paper is really sweet.
Well, and I wonder, I mean, I don't, you know, this. That people that stop subscribing or they, I have enough pencils or, you know, that kind of thing. Whether, like, oh, a point protector or, oh, a notebook entices them back in or, you know, it expands the brand
and what's nice, getting it for free with their subscriber pack.
Yeah.
Or.
Yeah, and that's the thing. I think there's not as much of an incentive if you can, you know, like, oh, I don't like that volume. I'll skip out on that one. And then you save yourself the money. But if you're getting some extras in
there, skip a volume. What are you talking about,
Jenny? Any other fresh points? Nope.
I want to hear about your first one here.
So I'm going to talk about a pen. Sorry, everybody.
The color.
Yeah, it's really amazing. So somebody in the Baron Fig fanatics group, which I highly recommend checking out if you want people to ask to buy your Baron Fig experiment Squire every day of your life. No, it's also a very good group, except it also has, like, some really hardcore collectors in there. So somebody posted a picture of their little collection of Squier pens. And Squire, of course, being the little rollerball pen that Baron Fig makes. And there was this bright blue one in there, and it Said in big letters on the side, Error 404. And all of a sudden people were like, oh, what's that? That's really cool. And so somebody else goes, oh, look what happens when I go to a 404 page in the Baron Fig website and they posted a link to some fake broken link. Sure enough, when you got an arrow like a 404 on the Baron Fig website, you get this little bright blue screen with words that say something like, let me type it in and see how it goes. Baronfig.com blah blah blah. It says error 404 page not found. You're in the wrong place. But wrong isn't always bad. We created a limited edition Squire rollerball pen with an Error 404 theme and you'll only find it here. Get yours while supplies last. Then it goes into bullet points. Yes, this is real. No, you don't get to see it until it shows up. When they're gone, they're gone forever. So that's pretty fun. That's really fun. Bear and Fig.
Yeah, I do have really well played.
Yeah. I guess if I were to nitpick that a little bit, is that as our friend Toffer pointed out, the blue screen of death does not necessarily equate to arrow 404. One is like a computer processing error and one is a website kind of response not found.
Oh man.
But that being said, it's still really fun. Mine came in the mail. It is bright, bright blue, kind of richer than like a blue Palomino hb, but but also lighter than like a navy blue. And it writes with blue ink, which is something that no Squire has done yet, so.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, I really love when you, when you're on the 404 page and you add it to your cart, how it immediately generates like 10 little confirmation windows. It's like. And like opens all the way up and so it's like added to cart. You successfully added Squire and you can like, you can actually click OK and close all of them or you can view your cart. That's a good touch.
Yeah, yeah, they did a. They did a really good job on that. So, yeah, fantastic addition. My Squire collection is a little bit out of control. How many do you have? Five. I have one. I have one of each ink color. So I have the Mysterium, which is black, and the editor which is, which is red and the experiment which is green, and then this one which is blue. And then I also have the, the key which is that brass one that came with the. The lock, the confidant that they did. And I usually don't use that one because it is. It's pretty. It's pretty heavy. But I need to find a way to display all my little squires, which I'm. I feel so ashamed because, like, this is a. I'm a pencil guy, but it's very unique.
Yeah, go ahead.
I was gonna say, like you, Tim, with your dot grid and your balance core. I feel like I'm crisis every time. I delight from Squires.
This is where you need to, like, go up onto the roof and shine the Dudek modern goods light up into the sky. And he will custom make you an awesome stand to display all those on.
I've been waiting for him to open his orders back up or to like, do a. Do a run, but I haven't seen. I haven't seen him do that for months. Months. So, yeah, the. The other thing I'll mention. Oh, sorry.
I'm sorry one more time. When you showed us that, when you sent us that picture in text and I said, how did you get them all to stay in place? Like, that was like a really. And you were like, on a level table. That was like a really poor reference to that funny tweet from the guys at Take Note that said, hey, if you need me, I'll be over here. Trying to get. Trying to keep my squire to stay on my desk or whatever. Trying to keep my. Trying to keep my squire from rolling off my desk. So that's what I was referring to.
But Les Harper made a really, really great 3D printed pencil, like, pocket clip for her squire. I think we should. I think she should sell those. I would buy. I would buy a couple of those. It's super, super ugly, but you can, like. I think it's really utilitarian and ugly. Which is what she goes. Which is. Which is what she goes for.
Do you need a, you know, Draw Squad from when we were kids? This guy, he was like, black hair. He looked kind of like Mario. He had like a big black mustache and a commander jacket.
Yeah.
Was that Mark Kistler?
Yes.
And he had the jacket with the, like, slots in it. What?
Yeah.
To hold his markers.
Yeah, Dream it, draw it, do it.
So he. He. I wonder if it was before this, before Draw Squad, or maybe after Draw Squad, he had that thing called Imagination Station where he drew like, a lot of, like, space themed things and they called him Commander Mark.
That's some kind of mustache.
Oh, I'm looking at his. The Draw Squad, like, book Right now. And it's like a bandolier, but of crayons.
Yes.
My God, I want to rock the world set. That's so cool.
I think I still have that book on my shelf at home.
What was his name? What's the name?
Draw Squad. Mark Kistler's Draw Squad.
Draw Squad. Okay.
It's a picture of him with an Ewok. That's weird. Looks like he's gonna eat the ewok in this picture.
We've got plenty of options for our artwork for the episode.
Oh, yeah. I hope he doesn't.
Yes. Oh, my God. Commander Mark, if you are listening to this episode, we really, really want to have you on as a guest. Really, really, really, really, really.
He's got an Emmy.
He's awesome. I loved him as a kid. All right, moving on. I do want to give a plug to a really great indie bag, like, pencil holder company called Bolsa Bags. It is run by. Oh, shoot. Who is that? That's Paul Smith. He's in the Erasable group. He is like an ems. He like works in an ambulance, but in his spare time he has a sewing kit, like a big ass sewing machine. And he makes these really great nylon zippered bags, balsa bags, and they are really great. I have a large one and a small one. That's the small one. Fits like a couple like, earbuds and maybe like a little eraser or pencil sharpener. He calls it the nugget. And then a bigger bag that's kind of like pencil pouch sized. Super good. He's selling them, I think, just through Instagram and the group right now. So if you're in the Facebook message, message Chris, Excuse me, Paul Smith for that. And I think it's balsa bags. B U L S A on. On Instagram. Balsa, by the way, is the. The tagalog word for. For bag. So it's bag bags. Yeah, those look great. Yeah, he. He does a bunch of different colors and he does a bunch of different linings. He has like a army laundry sack lining and then also like a silk lining and he'll do different, like little, little handles on the side. He did a really good like, like nylon record lining or like handle for me. And that small one has been so handy. I keep a bunch of like little, like earpods, like earbuds in it and then, then an eraser and then my masterpiece. I keep that in that little bag. So, yeah, fantastic. Definitely wanted to give a plug for Paul. He's like super small time with his manufacturing but he's been getting a bunch of orders lately because he's been really good in the group. And while we're thanking people. Thank you. Micah Thomas and Brit Hoover, both of whom have sent me some pencils lately. Micah sent me some golden bears. Actually we're talking about golden bears that she had on her desk that she has been using. So those are awesome. And then Brit sent me some actually this palomino HB that I'm using and a few other just kind of miscellaneous pencils. So both of them sent that unbidden. I really appreciate it. Let's move on to the main topic. Are you all ready? Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah.
So we were just talking about bullet journaling at one point and Johnny mentioned that his friend Jacob, who like was in the group and a listener and also just kind of like a neighborhood friend, had a really kind of interesting method for bullet journaling and pencil. Most of the, most of the bujo stuff out there is very pen driven markers and. Yeah, markers, tape. Yeah. And which is, which is awesome. I've seen some really amazing kind of like bullet journaling spreads and setups. But we kind of wanted to get back to back to basics. And so I guess the first question in this list, Jacob, was something we already kind of did at the beginning. So people in the erasable group know you, Johnny Gamber, and you are kind of practically neighbors, but maybe tell the rest of the folks out there a little bit about how you got started with bullet journaling and maybe just the kind of like hundred like 50,000 foot overview of what it entails and kind of how you arrive there. Yeah. So love to hear a little bit about that.
Sure. I think the first instance of actually hearing about it might have been Johnny. When you read the book and started and did not sell it very well, you were like, I'm doing this thing and I hate it and I'm not going to do it anymore. And I was like, okay, that's bullet journaling. Interesting.
All right.
And it was a kind of anecdotal commentary on it. And then I don't remember when that was, but maybe soon after my wife followed somebody else because my wife sews a lot. So another sewist who's a pretty hardcore bullet journal lure had been posting a bunch and somehow got encouraged or was thinking about trying it and was then explaining a little bit more what it entailed. And I think it was something about
how,
I don't know, the sort of tracking of things daily or something with indexing Things I forget exactly what it was that kind of caught my ear. And I was like, hey, that actually might sounds like something that I could find value in. And so she explained a little bit more and started looking on Instagram or looking on the Internet at kind of what it entailed. And yeah, there is a lot of various kind of sketchbooky scrapbooky stuff to it that I kind of was drawn to visually but then also kind of the practical nature of it and of course any excuse to like acquire more tools for a thing I'm game for. So we, you know, went to our old college art supply store.
Yeah.
And Baltimore, you know, has such great resources. So we went to the mica store where we went to college, which is now in a new space and just incredible. And got all of our markers and got our bullet journals and kind of dove in from there. And so really I never read the book. And so kind of piecing together from his website as well as. And I didn't see, I don't even remember the guy's name. The writer method, you know, kind of the structure and it's sort of set up like trims 1917 is set up sort of with an index at the front where you would have all of your pages are numbered. And so as you fill it out, you can put those pages in the index, which was really valuable to me. And then I started with sort of a year kind of listing out every month, three on a page and what are the big events or dates for that month. And then you go into that month. And so a lot of people like to make these elaborate kind of here's my September intro page that has some decorative thing. And then you list all of the tasks or dates or things for September and then you start the more specific journaling for those days. And some people do, you know, a page a day or a page has a whole week on it. And then as things come up, you can put long term planning or habit tracking or other kinds of lists into the bullet journal and then use that index to go back and reference them. That's my understanding. Then the day to day you're listing things and there's this system of a dot for a task, an open circle for an event. Then as you go you can take the dot and make it into an X for a completed task. You can make the dot into a forward arrow to move it to the next day. You can move it to your long term. If you find you're moving in a task constantly from day to day, you can then move that to long term tasks. Yeah. So I think. Feel like that's maybe the boiled down version of how I use it. I think some people can make it much more elaborate and more decorative.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's interesting to hear you talk about it because, I mean, every time I hear someone talk about bullet journaling, I'm always like, okay, okay, all right. Yeah, maybe, you know, but. But also, I think when we decided to do this episode and we're like, we should do something about bullet journaling in pencil, it was kind of like a nose goes like, no, I don't want to talk about it. Because none of us tend to do it. And I think. I don't know. I think probably for different reasons. I know, I know. For my. I think my perspective on it that, like, I had trouble with is that it felt like a little too controlling for me. We've talked about this before, but it just kind of felt like I was being nagged by my notebook a little bit. Just because I tend to be like, I. I could be wrong on this, but I tend to improvise a good bit. Like, I just kind of like light on my feet as far as how I'm getting things done throughout the day. And I never feel like just big chunks of time are wasted or anything. And so I ended up like, sort of like hurting my own feelings by not like adhering to my own bullet journal or something.
And that's. That's the advantage of a blank notebook.
Right.
Is like, you don't have to fall into some structured way of doing something like the Clear Habit journal or like a weekly calendar or something. And I feel like. I feel like I like sort of that open structure and the. Often if I were to stick kind of like true to your writer Carol's form, it would be like the super rigid structure, which I just sort of like have an immediate kind of like visceral reaction against. So I. I definitely have like, used little bits and pieces from the bullet journal method over. Over time. But he definitely. I think. I can't remember. It was. I think when Les was on, she was talking about how, you know, it's. It's like writer Carol has it as like this lifestyle. It's like the GTD method that David. David Allen did years ago. And it's just like something you can go really, really, really deep into. And some people do, and I myself do not. So for sure. That's really interesting though.
I've picked mine back up for the third time this year recently. So that's what, like, last week I was like, hey, why don't we see if Jacob wants to talk about bullet journaling? Because I'm selfish, and I want to talk about this thing that I'm into again. But I don't use pencil in mine. I use microns for no good reason. I think the Leuchturn paper is crappy, and it likes microns.
Yeah.
So I. I guess I. I don't know. I. Somebody that's. Likes to be consistent. When I've, like, made a decision, I'm like, I'm a pencil person now, you know, that I found, you know, when I. When I got. I wanted a notebook that had page numbers. And look, trim is one of the few that I could get in person that did. I was a little disappointed by how thin the paper was, but actually found pencil is really great for it because it doesn't show through as much as, like, my wife has been keeping hers with pen, and it does show through quite a bit. And then I really only use the Tombow dual brush markers in some pretty pale colors I could wear at the store I went to. You could buy them individually. And so I picked up a dozen or so colors that were pretty light, that would basically work as highlighters and that I could kind of color code things. And so I find actually pencil is really perfect because I can erase it if I need to. I can also not worry about stuff bleeding through. And, you know, I have two blotter pages that I move around the book, and I don't really have any issues with it, you know, smudging. I do find that the Leuchtturm paper actually prefers a softer pencil. So, you know, any of the black wings I think work really well, even sometimes a.
Like a.
Just a firm core. You know, the 602 is a really good pencil for it.
So we. We've really answered a lot of this. But can you talk just for a second about your interest in pencils in general and how they fit into your life and your work?
Sure, yeah. I've always. I, like. I was a sculpture major in college, but really thought for a long time about actually being a drawing major. You know, drawing was really my passion, and so I think always appreciated and, you know, had a collection of. Of, like, grades of pencils, but really wasn't aware of maybe brands as much. And then just, you know, visiting CW and getting into the world of pencils and the variety of them, as well as, you know, like, the Blackwing volumes, that was such a beautiful kind of art. To it, you know, of how they were crafted as these like little mini sculptures I loved. And I'm. I think I'm just naturally a collector of things. I've. I teach mostly photography classes and photography has sort of become my art outlet. Much, much more than sculpture. And so I'm a camera hoarder. I shoot a lot of film. And so I'm really into different camera models and how that changes the experience of photographing. And so I think for pencils it became this way of differentiating tasks or this pencil for this task, or this pencil for this task, or, you know, the experience of writing with the different finish or, you know, loving like Jason Patterson and what he's doing with hack wings. And then, I don't know, I also feel like that it makes the process a little more analog. You know, that pencils are kind of the film version where pens are maybe the digital version in the sort of analog writing way, maybe.
So, Jacob, what are some of the like performance characteristics of a pencil that is perfect or optimized for bullet journaling? And what are some. Maybe what are then also are some warnings science for pencils that are not good for your bujo?
Yeah, because right now I'm still. I've been keeping one since January of this year, so I'm not a, by any means a long time bullet journaler. But I've been keeping it pretty consistently since then. And for the Lectrum paper, I do find a little bit softer core works well. One that does keep a good point. So that I can not be slowed down by having to sharpen it too much. You know, sometimes being able to write kind of small throughout to be able to fit everything or, you know. So like right Now I've got volume 10, which is the extra firm core, which I really like. The Blackwing erasers are actually really nice. To be able to go in, erase in, you know, more precisely is actually kind of handy. And because the paper is pretty slick, the Blackwing erasers do a good job because they're not really the best erasers. Yeah. I don't know.
Cool.
You know, every once in a while I. There's some sketching that happens inside of them, but that is mostly in other sketchbooks that I keep. So it's mostly just writing.
Yeah. Cool.
So you mentioned your wife uses ink. You know, fountain pens bleed, they leak. Especially I found on the Sluchturm paper that gel pens seem like they never dry. And you know, if you walk a Sharpie past this book, it disintegrates. So what are some of the. You mentioned using blotter sheets. What are some of the pitfalls of using. Using graphite in a bullet journal? Because, you know, this is a book that gets handled a lot throughout the day. And how do you account for these pitfalls?
Yeah, blotters, definitely. And that's, you know, sometimes it's a little, like, clunky or cumbersome to, like, find the blotter, move it. And because you're constantly flipping the book back and forth from page to page or moving tasks from one page to the next page, sometimes it's a little tedious of find the blotter and move it over. I also sometimes will keep a binder clip to keep that blotter page in place, because sometimes it'll shift around. I think having the elastic band to keep the book closed helps a lot so that you're not getting pages shifting and smudging. Because, honestly, very little smudging as I flip back through it at all. I really like. I think some people get pretty elaborate in what they're doing in bullet journals. Mine is really just those Tombow markers, which highlights the graphite really nicely. I also don't have to worry about it, like, smudging ink, which is always that. That's one advantage of using pencil. I don't have to worry about it being too wet on the page with ink. And then I also, you know, I'll. I keep a little metal tin with sharpeners so that I can refine a point as I'm working.
So I was just talking about a new sharpener and just thinking about bullet journaling being something on the road like you're taking with you everywhere you go. And it's not a micron or it's not these specialty pens or whatever. What sharpeners do you carry with you to use? And you can even get into any sort of gear that you take with you or that has to come with you in order to do this throughout your day.
Yeah.
So I replaced all of the sharpeners in all the classrooms, the three art rooms, with a. I'd have to look at the model, actually. I forget now. It's a red. I mean, it comes in a bunch of colors. I think it was, like $18 on Amazon. But it's. It has a single push button that you pull out the little collet. And I remember when I was first getting into it, everybody talks about the classroom. Friendly. But then all the talk of the teeth marks. I was like, why does anybody use this one? So I found somebody said it Was basically the same blade as the classroom Friendly. Created the same point but had kind of rubber teeth in it.
Is that the Carl angel? The Carl Angel 5?
Maybe that's what it is.
Is that the one I put a picture of in the bottom of the dock? See that?
Hopefully also.
Okay, that was made.
Not The Carl Angel 5.
No, that one Amazon cart. The one I put in the. The bottom of the. That I'm referring to is actually a real Mitsubishi sharpener that I found. That's a crank like looks amazing. Pulls out. Made by Mitsubishi. But it is. It has Mario characters all over it. So
Yoshi's on this one.
There's a hello Kitty one too.
So I would totally get the hello Kitty one.
So I always have one of those within arm's reach at my desk at school. And that puts a really great point. That's really. That's a nice long point. And then I have a little tin with my masterpiece as well as my new favorite is the Kum single hole long point Johnny that you recommended a while ago. And I think I bought like three or four of them from CW because they were only two bucks. And then if I'm out I have like a bullet pencil and then my keychain sharpener if I have to to just put another. A finer point on it.
Nice. So Jacob, there are a bunch of folks who use a lot of like colors and washi tape. We talked about this a little bit before. And then people who are sort of like traditionalists or originalists. Where do you fall in this world? Are you adapting for your style? Are you adding colors or flair to it? Or are you just like kind of sticking close to the writer Carol Vision?
Yeah. And I think maybe that that's originally I kind of liked the decorative idea of it and all of those little, I don't know, those kind of elements. But from a practical point of view of how are they going to help me in organizing this and really just sort of fell into just. Just using pencil and then color as a way of either highlighting things on the page or designating things in the index. So I sort of made a little color chart of like, you know, green is photo stuff like photo class related or blue is other work things or you know, yellow is personal things. And that's really as far as I go. I even have sort of stopped doing. I did some of the like little month title pages that were a little bit more decorative. And and I think that that's. I've settled into this is purely a something to organize my Work at school and a little, and a little bit of personal stuff, you know, like I have my shared family calendar that we coordinate family things. And I have my reminders app if I need to, you know, remember something at a specific time or on the way home. But you know, the way I really use it is, you know, here's my things this month. And then I break that down into, you know, I over a two page spread. I have the days of the week, each day is a quarter page. I have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday, Sunday is one box. And then I'm left with two other boxes that are my to do's for this week and long term things. And you know, I start either the night before writing out like, like on Sunday night I might write out the whole week with things that I know are happening. And then the night before each day I'll check what I need to do for the next day. And then throughout the day I just have it open on my desk and I'm adding stuff or moving stuff or crossing stuff off and then at the end of the school day moving it to the next day. And I just, you know, sometimes I, you know, I have three classes of say, art one, sometimes I need to coordinate, okay, I did it with this class, but I didn't do it yet with this class or I need to do this for tomorrow or prep this thing. And I think, I think really it's being a teacher that is made it a necessary part of my day. And I think it really is important for the success of it, you know, to see whether it does fit into your life. That if you sort of force bullet journaling on yourself and it doesn't make sense, then I think that that's why maybe people aren't as successful with it or don't stick it, stick to it. Because I have a sketchbook for sketching and you know, sort of an art outlet and that's where that takes place. And then I also have a pocket journal that I write down random notes in. I, you know, I have for a specific photo project, its own book, its own journal. And so I think if I try to make it do everything in my life, that's maybe where isn't as successful.
Yeah, it can be whatever you want it to be, but it can't be everything.
Yeah.
And I also, you know, I think there's, there's even a little bit of awareness by people that do bullet journaling that sometimes it's the decorative part of it becomes what you spend your time on. Anyway, instead of it actually serving a purpose in your day.
Yeah.
Yes. So you've had a lot of success in keeping up that I envy myself and I'm sure other people envy. So you've sort of answered this question, but what specific advice would you have for prospective bullet journalists who want to, you know, be successful bullet journalists?
Yeah, I guess something that I've been thinking about my is and I, again, it's something that I've only heard people talk about is the Gretchen Rubin's four tendencies that sort of a. Like, you know, what is your personality and what is your tendency and trying to, instead of transforming your person, yourself into someone that you're not trying to identify what your tendencies are and make that work for you. And so I, I think I found that it was there I needed a kind of organization or a way to be able to reference things long term. And that's where it was valuable to me. I think the most valuable thing is, you know, I, what, what I was finding I was doing was keeping a sketchbook that was things I would demonstrate to students or writing down notes or notes from a meeting or ideas for units that I would do with classes. And I would just move through that sketchbook and then I get to the end of it and I move on to a new empty sketchbook. And then I would be like, oh, I had this great idea for a unit I wanted to do or you know, I'm planning a unit across multiple sketchbooks or multiple pages and trying to of kind flip through and find things. And so I think the most valuable thing for me is, you know, I have a, like photo one long term is page 14 and 15. And so anything that's related to that class goes on those pages. And then if I need another set of pages, I'll put that somewhere and then put it in index. And so for me it's about cataloging ideas and knowing where they live. That is so valuable.
Yeah, my general, my general purpose notebooks, I feel like, are only like, you know, within a certain date range. So I have to remember sort of the date of the, the time I had that idea in order to try to find it, which I think is flawed. Yeah.
And I think that also comes from, you know, I'm a, as an obsessive photo taker and shooting like lots of film. I have years of film that's sitting in a binder, very organized, numbered, cataloged and waiting to be scanned. You know, so I'm very good at the organization, but I was finding a lot of other Areas of my life that the ability to cross reference or pull from that in a very specific way was challenging. And so bullet journaling felt like the perfect way to kind of mine that, you know, all of that data in an analog way, you know, because I could probably type these things and then just search my computer for the word photo or search for something and it could find it. But I still wanted an analog way of doing that. You know, I love to pull up my phone and search, you know, a location for photographs or. I know I was in New York at this time, and I can do it instantly, but there, you know, I needed kind of an analog way of doing that. And I felt like bullet journaling was sort of the closest I could get to. Yeah, that kind of machine learning or whatever.
Yeah. All right. Before we button it up, Jacob, is there anything we did not cover that you kind of wanted to mention or talk about?
No, I think, you know, I think for me it was really,
you know,
and I don't know, Tim, you've every once in a while kind of hint at the way you organize your week as a teacher. And, you know, I'm sure it's. It's very similar. And I think the biggest thing, you know, to take away from bullet journaling is like, is it the tool that fits your need? And as an art teacher, I write my own curriculum, essentially, and so there was a need to be organized. And at the same time, I think, like, there's. How many pages in these? 250, about. Yeah, 250. And I'm only maybe a halfway or a third of the way. There's. And so I don't know if I get to the end of it. And suddenly I'm finding that now it's across two books that might be hard or filling up the index or something like that, but I think just finding a natural fit to it and not trying to live up to an expectation of what it should be or what social media portrays bullet journaling to be.
Yeah,
yeah. I think that's excellent advice, and I think that's something that would appeal to somebody like me, who just doesn't. Who kind of bristles at the idea of something having to be one way. And just like anything, any sort of thing you're creating.
Right.
You don't want to be told it has to be one way. You want it to be your version of it. So, yeah, so it's been great hearing you talk about that and for the. Because I think that's. That's given me a kind of A different way of approaching it or at least thinking about it. Thinking about thinking about it. I'll leave it at that.
Yeah. Get a little extra meta. Nice. Well, Jacob, thank you so much for taking your time, taking some time and coming and joining Johnny. I know that probably you don't really want to hang out with Johnny too much, but we appreciate you making this.
It's expensive.
Yeah, yeah.
That's what happened to me last time. I'll send you the bill.
Yeah. Jacob, where can people find you on the Internet?
So I have my personal work is@jacobacil.com and then on Instagram. My personal account is aphototeacher and my teacher account is Cecil R H H S and I think those both live on Twitter, but they're literally just Instagram posted to Twitter. So there's really not a need.
Understand? Awesome. Well, thank you so much again. This has been really fun.
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
Johnny, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can find me@pencil revolution.com and on social media ensolution.
And Tim, you can follow me on Instagram imathewasom. And I'm on Twitter imwassum.
Nice.
And I'm Andy. I'm on the Internet@andy WTF and woodclinch.com and then on Twitter and Instagram is Wealthley. So this, all of us collectively is the Erasable podcast. We are on the Internet@ erasable us. This episode, the recording and the show notes are at erasable US124. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook raceablepodcast and then find our Facebook group, which is 4,000, 4,000, 3,000. A bunch of members@facebook.com groups erasable. Thank you very much and we will see you next time in two weeks. Do you like our podcast?
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