Tuesday Toolset, It’s A Lake Edition

With all of the moving and shaking in my daily carry, there has been one consistent product in my lineup in 2019. And, because of that product, two more products. Confused yet? Read on ...

1. Nock Co. Seed A5 Iris/Electric Blue. While it may not leave the house every day with me like a pocket notebook does, it is ready when called upon. It could be at my desk, on the road, or in my lap at any hour of the day. But with this case, it’s only as useful as the products inside, and I have two good ones.
2. Soumkine A5 Weekly Planner. I took a flyer on a brand I had never heard of before and won. Why choose this planner? It’s all in the layout. The two page per week format with defined days on the left and blank space on the right has fit my style since I first saw Midori do it with the Traveler’s Notebook. Luckily, it plays nice with fountain pens, too. JetPens, where mine came from, only has the B5 model left in stock, but Soumkine does have the A5 model available directly.
3. Nock Co. A5 DotDash Notebook. One of the other features I like about the Soumkine planner is that it comes in two volumes - one for the first six months of the year, and one for the second. This allows me to slide the Nock soft cover A5 notebook between them in my Seed case, Midori-style. I’m a big fan of this setup.
4. Sailor Pro Gear Ocean Fountain Pen. I covered this on Monday, and see it being regularly featured in my Tuesday Toolset posts. I like it that much.
5. Ryan Krusac Legend in Antler, Damascus Steel grip section. This is one of those “Oh my, insta-buy.” pens for me. Nabbed at last years Baltimore pen show, and still one of my favorites. I’m not sure I want to see what Ryan has in store in a couple of weeks.

Tuesday Toolset, Scratch Notebook Edition

Last week was a large carry week for me. I packed up the bag and hit the road for a Spoke Pen meeting, and loaded up the bag again with envelopes to address, and subsequently mail.

This week, I’ve pulled a 180, with one pen getting my attention, inked with a sample I’ve been waiting to test out.

1. ystudio Portable Fountain Pen. I love this pen as much as Barry and Levon love pudding. And that’s a lot of pudding. I swapped the stock Schmidt nib with a Franklin-Christoph #5 steel broad cursive italic, and I never looked back. One of my favorite pens I own.
2. Akkerman Delfts Blue. A reader kindly sent me a sample of Akkerman Delfts Blue, which I’m super thankful for. Why? Because now I know I don’t need a bottle of it. It’s a perfectly fine, basic blue, and I enjoy it. But it’s not special enough that I need it. I almost let the fomo get me on this one.
3. The Paper Cuts A5 Notebook. I’ve had a couple of these over the years and they are great quality. Somehow, this one turned into my scratch notebook, where I just let loose with the testing, scribbles, and randomness. Everyone needs a notebook of destruction outside of their main notebooks. This is mine.

Tuesday Toolset, Buffalo Edition

Not every Tuesday Toolset will be the same. Sometimes it will be pocket carry focused, sometimes it might be a new item or two I’m beginning to use, sometimes it will be guest toolsets, and sometimes, like this one, it will be a bag dump.

I took a road trip on Monday to work with Brian on the Spoke Pen launch, and this is what I carried:

1. The Brown Buffalo Conceal Backpack. If you make a product in Cordura Black Multicam, there is a high likelihood I will buy it. This bag is a prime example, because I wasn’t completely sure I would like it. Boxy, stand-up backpacks aren’t usually my jam, and it took months of using this one to really come around on it. It holds a crazy amount of stuff. This gear had it a bit over half capacity, which is the sweet spot.

2. Early-2015 13” MacBook Pro. Bought refurbished the minute the new Touch ID models were launched that same year, which also brought the new, not as good keyboards. Good move by me.

3. 11” iPad Pro. I buy a new laptop every 5 years or so, and a new iPad every 2-3. I love this device for almost everything but editing and inserting pictures for the blog. It’s mostly an entertainment device and I didn’t need it yesterday at all. It fits so well in this bag it lives there when not in use.
4. One too many pen cases. The Nock Co. Brasstown is perfect for this bag. It fits vertically or horizontally, depending on what else is loaded. The Seed A5 case is where all my notes went for this meeting, and the Superior Labor case was hidden in an internal pocket and I didn’t even realize it was there. I wouldn’t normally carry both pen cases.
5. Accessories and snacks. I use my AirPods a ton, but just picked up these Bose QC 20 headphones for travel. I’ll report back once I get a few trips under my belt. One charging cable and two RXBARs round out the kit.

I promise I am going to get that submission form completed soon! I can’t wait to see what’s in your toolset.