I write about current events and popular entertainment and other things, and sometimes post haiku. But this blog apparently wants to be about fountain pens and accessories. I dare not defy the will of the blog, so writing samples and pen and ink photos abound.
Anyone who also follows me on Twitter/Facebook probably when I posted a picture of the letter and card confirming my status as a Gold member of Starbucks Rewards. Not something I deliberately set out to do, but something that happened, and I must admit to enjoying it a bit. The gold card itself is magnificently sparkly and looks nicer in my wallet than the Starbucks gift card I was using before.
In case anyone is curious about what it looks like when the gold card comes in the mail, check after the jump. Continue reading →
This pen was released as part of Pilot’s 95th Anniversary celebration in 2013. It’s a pocket pen–that is, when capped it’s far too small to use, but when you pull the cap and post it on the back of the pen it becomes full sized. It’s designed for unobtrusive carrying in a shallow shirt pocket, and meets that goal in a stylish and beautiful package. For a great review of the pen, look here: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/248085-pilot-elite-95s/
Mine’s a bit unique. I wanted a medium nib and that’s what I ordered. The nib is stamped M for medium. However, after some testing, it turns out it writes nearly-exactly (I can’t tell a difference with my naked eye) like a Pilot Broad (B) nib. It’s also glassy smooth.
Aside from the part of me annoyed the engraving on the nib is not indicative of what it actually is, this actually works out well. I already had a medium-nib Pilot, and didn’t have a broad-nib. Now I’ve got them in fine, medium, and broad, so I can do a full comparison if I want to.
Compared several Japanese and European nib sizes I’ve got to get a baseline and comparison to determine what line width the pen actually writes.
I may or may not expand re: my thoughts on the pen itself. If I do I’ll probably do it in a separate post. I’ve attached two images: the first is my standard writing sample, and the second was my attempt to get a handle on exactly what size line the nib actually writes in. The second page is what led me to conclude it’s a mis-labeled B nib. The sample labeled “Nib #2” in the bottom right is a Pilot Elite 95S with medium nib I borrowed from a friend of mine for comparison. It’s clearly a thinner line.
Your CLE compliance deadline is a couple of weeks, or even days, away, and you’re short just a few hours of required CLE credit. Either you don’t need enough to justify the hundreds of dollars to purchase a bundle or seminar, or the bundles you’ve found that you can justify the expense for do not have content that fits your interests/needs.* When I looked around in late 2012, there weren’t a whole lot of options for free accredited CLE. Pretty much only a couple of “try one class for free when you sign up” kind of deals, and one 0.75 hour credit for the Texas Bar’s introduction to its complimentary research system. Which is excellent, but it’s not a very efficient if you need more than a few hours.
The situation has changed in the last year, at least from my point of view as I’ve raced to top up my CLE credits to maintain my College of the State Bar of Texas membership. There seems to be a lot more quality free CLE out there, and not just of the “free trial” variety–though there’s noticeably more of that, too, and that’s a good thing. I’ve listed some resources to get you started below. If I list something, I used it, and it was free.
4FreeCLE: This blog is magnificent. It doesn’t actually provide any free CLE. What it does provide are state-by-state indexes of free CLE programs, both online and live on-location events in various locations. This is a fantastic resource. It appears to be frequently updated and lists CLEs from a variety of sources covering a variety of topics. Start here.
LexVid Continuing Professional Education: This is an interesting service. It’s still in beta (I think), but already up and running and offering CLE. It covers a variety of topics, and offers a full five free hours of CLE when you sign up. After that, it’s $99/year for unlimited CLE programs after that. I think this is a great deal: $99.00 for as much CLE as you want, picking the presentations you want and not just getting a random bundle. I already used my five free hours to close out this year, trying four different programs. The presentations were law-focused and informative. Video and speaker quality, of course, varied from presentation to presentation, but since they’re all being done in different locations by different people, that’s to be expected. Overall the presentations were very satisfying. The user interface feels newer and more advanced than some of the other sites I’ve used, as well. The only drawback is that every five minutes you’re required to click a “Yes, I’m still here” button to keep going. I’m pretty sure some states require this, but I don’t think Texas does–I’ve never seen it before. You’ll have to stay close to whatever’s playing the video–no going across the room to lounge on the couch and take notes. 😛 I also wish presentation slides were more consistently available for download, but I’m hoping that improves as the service matures. Finally, customer service is excellent. I had a tech support question this morning and sent an email, and had a response within two hours. It’s the day before Christmas Eve, so I was impressed.
MCLEz: This site offers state-approved bundles in various subject areas, as well as frequent sales on low-budget compliance bundles (e.g.: $50 for a random grab bag of CLE that will be enough to satisfy your state’s requirements). They offer one free CLE program on sign-up, chosen from a list. MCLEz also does a good job of making all PPT slides and handouts downloadable–LexVid always includes handouts but not always slides. Since some of these free programs are 2 hours or more long, it’s worth getting a free account to try out, even if you don’t anticipate buying a bundle any time soon.
Your State Bar: Check your state bar’s website for free CLE programs as well.
TexasBarCLE Free Programs: Only one of these gives CLE credit (0.75 hours at this writing), but they’re all interesting, especially for new attorneys.
If your state has an e-filing system or your state bar provides a complementary research system (something like CaseMaker or FastCase), there may also be CLEs on how to use these. ProDoc (Texas CLE only) and CaseFileXpress are e-filing services that both offer accredited CLE training in using their systems. I’ve only done the ProDoc training so far, but I’m planning to check out the CaseFileXpress materials soon.
Pro Bono/Legal Aid CLEs: Organizations that provide pro bono legal services will sometimes offer free CLE programs (programs that otherwise might cost hundreds of dollars) in exchange for your agreement to take on a pro-bono case under the supervision of a mentor attorney, within the next six months to a year. I’ve done this and it was a great experience: I learned a lot and got to do some very satisfying public service in the process. I went through the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program, which provides live CLE programs, usually at the Belo Mansion in Dallas, where the Dallas Bar is located. (If you’re interested in these CLE programs but aren’t able to volunteer right now, usually you can take the class for a fee.)
Google: More free CLE programs are coming online all the time. If you’re not finding what you need, just stick your state and the phrase “free CLE” into Google and start going down the list. I try this every once in a while and am usually surprised by what pops up.
Good luck, and Merry Christmas.
* This is a major reason I try to avoid CLE bundles if I can. Yes, you can save money (and in some cases, get some really great deals), but you’re stuck with whatever you’re given. Half of those CLEs (or more) may be completely irrelevant to your practice, and lecturer quality may be hit or miss. And you’ve got to listen to them all, because otherwise you’ve wasted money. All that said, if you’re just trying to get hours and need a lot of them, and don’t care about the topics, the budget bundles can’t be beat.
Not much to say here. From time to time (hopefully once a week, but whenever I commit to anything like that I tend to fail utterly, so I shall promise nothing), I’ll post a collection of links to interesting articles I’ve read in the last 7 days. Links are not endorsements of the opinions/content unless expressly noted. In fact, I might well disagree with some editorials I link to. But I think they’re worth reading, because they’re about issues worth discussing.Enjoy.
Fountain Pens
A Field Guide to Japanese Nibs: Dr Dutcher explains the various types of Japanese nibs available, all of which can be dated back to the original wide assortment engineered by Pilot back in the 1920s to give users transitioning from brush pens maximum options to suit their differing writing styles. Based on an old cache of Pilot Times, the in-house publication Pilot used/uses (?) to educate their salespersons. Focuses especially on vintage nibs and pens, with discussion of modern analogues.
Design Features: The Flighter: Ever heard a fountain pen described as a “flighter?” I have, frequently, and for a long while I didn’t quite know what it meant. This article answers that question with some fun fountain pen/corporate history and some great photos. Richard Binder’s site in general is a treasure trove of information for fountain pen enthusiasts. Every FP user should have the reference pages bookmarked.
Current Events
Coca-Cola Donates Ad Budget to Yolanda Survivors: I’m a little late to the party on linking to this, but I think it’s awesome enough that I should still link to it anyway. In the wake of Typhoon Yolanda savaging Visayas, Coca-Cola announced on November 19 that it has stopped all advertising in the Philippines and redirected the ad budget to benefiting the survivors of the typhoon. Oddly, I had to dig a little before I could find an article about this that wasn’t on an arguably partisan-leaning website (HuffPo or TheBlaze). Now that I think about it, coverage of Yolanda itself seemed a little thin. Then again, I’m not watching as much TV as I used to…
Economics/Business/Finance
29 Dumb Things Finance People Say:It deeply amuses me that this is being published by Business Week, though it does have The Motley Fool‘s imprint on it, so I imagine that explains things. It’s a quite amusing dissection of some common buzzwords (buzz-phrases?) we hear on TV and read in analyst reports. I’m not giving any opinion on whether or not I agree with any of these, but I think the underlying message is clear: financial prognostication is just as chancy as predicting the weather–both are based on highly complex computer models and statistics and other systemic complex metrics, all of which reality seems to ignore half the time.
Misc./Other News
ROMULUS: City Officials, Residents Celebrates [sic] Grand Opening of Taco Bell: No, I very much doubt this news is important to anyone who doesn’t live in Romulus, Oklahoma. But, two things are important: there is a town called Romulus, Oklahoma. Thing two: this is a real quote from the article. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Freitag said. “This is a great day for Romulus.” Sometimes, the world is just awesome. On the other hand, the amount of sheer excitement they’ve got because they’re opening a Taco Bell is more than a little sad.
Sailor’s Murals Give USS Theodore Roosevelt a Splash of Color: This is an awesome, short story about a Seaman aboard the Roosevelt with tremendous artistic talent who’s been authorized and asked to paint several murals all over her ship. The one of Popeye is amazing.
Science
Mars Lake “Much Like Early Earth”: Excerpt: “The ancient lake environment found in Mars’ Gale Crater could have supported microbes called chemolithoautotrophs – if they had been present.”
Yellowstone Supervolcano Eruption “Would Affect the World”: Excerpt: “Scientists are reporting that the supervolcano lying beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US is far bigger than was previously thought, stretching for more than 90km (55 miles).”
Kepler Team: Universe “Crowded” with Earth-Like Planets: New analysis suggests there may be as many as tens of billions of planets in habitable zones of other star systems in the Milky Way galaxy. I find the idea that we’re not alone in the universe incredibly comforting. As I’ve said before, the idea that we’re the sole beacon of life in the entire cosmos is too terrifying to contemplate. I’m thrilled we’re finally starting to get the hard science to back up the idea that there must be something else somewhere.
I’m selling a fountain pen on eBay. The auction can be found here. Flickr slideshow embedded below.
This is a used, excellent condition Sheaffer Balance II in the brown marble/tortoise shell finish. The colors are beautiful and almost glow in the light as the pen moves; the photos really don’t do it justice.
I used it rarely when it was new and then stored it away for about 15 years. Within the first year of my owning it, the original cap snapped in two at the band, and was replaced with another cap under warranty that has remained in excellent condition ever since.
After removing it from storage had it checked over to make sure it’s in working order and used it a little bit for daily writing before deciding to sell it. It has a modern Sheaffer converter bought in 2012.
The nib is an 18K (750) gold Sheaffer Feather Touch. It is very springy, but not designed to be used as a semi-flex nib. The pen is inked with blue ink in these photos, hence the blue smudges on the nib.
Condition: There are a few pin-point sized scratches/dings on the body (normal wear for normal use) that cannot be easily seen unless you’re specifically looking for them and know exactly where they are. I can neither see nor feel any cracks in the barrel or the cap, and the cap threads and section threads appear in perfect condition. The white dot on the cap is probably slightly discolored, but still a bright, solid white. Aside from this the few marks visible on close examination, the pen looks virtually brand new, at least to my eye.
Approximate Measurements (According to Online Sources) Length posted: 164 mm Length capped: 146 mm Length uncapped: 126 mm Barrel length: 105 mm Barrel diameter at threads: 11.8 mm Barrel diameter at middle: 12.5 mm Note: One of the photos shows the Sheaffer next to a Pilot Custom 823, which is about the same size as a Pelikan M800 or Montblanc 146.
If you have any questions about the photos or would like a look at a specific part of the pen not pictured here, please let me know.
I’ve used one converter’s worth of Delta Blue ink in the pen since having it checked, and it appears to be in perfect working order and fully functional.
What is Included:
Sheaffer Balance II
Sheaffer Piston-style (Green) Converter
Used Sheaffer ink cartridge with end cut off (useful for flushing ink out of the pen with an ink syringe).
Pilot Pen Co. pen box (will be used to protect the pen during shipping)
What is NOT Included:
Ink
Original packaging, manual, and other materials–unfortunately these disappeared about 10 years ago.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this pen. Thanks!
So, I’m going to try something new here. There are some great speeches–be they by warriors, presidents, kings, farmers, saintly little children, or even the occasional elf–in movies and television. Many of them come from mainstream movies we’ve all seen to the point they’re in our shared collective consciousness. President Whitmore’s speech on the eve of Earth’s counter-offensive in Independence Day comes to mind.
But there are so many wonderful speeches with equal or greater verve and punch and emotional impact, that come from non-blockbuster sci-fi and fantasy (Hey, not everything can be Lord of the Rings and its three prequels (What.)). But within the fandoms that love these shows and movies, these speeches are cherished as some of the best writing and acting around.
So now I’d like to start a collection of the ones I personally think are pretty great. I speak only for myself and my subjective tastes, so if I ever link to something you think of as unworthy, keep that in mind. At the same time, if anyone has any suggestions for great clips, let me know.
Alright, so two people talking to each other isn’t so much a speech as a conversation, but where that conversation takes the form of a allegory or metaphor or socratic exchange (that is, one character asking another guided questions to force them to think things through and reach a conclusion about some important matter), you can get the same sort of neat emotional impact or clever, grin-inducing dialogue I’m trying to highlight in these entries.
This week I’d like to highlight one such exchange from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. It’s wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and comedic on the surface, but it does a great job of summing up in just a few sentences everything great (and from a certain point of view, not so great) about Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision of the future represented by the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet. Its cleverness exists on two levels. The first has a lot to do with who’s talking:
Quark’s species, the Ferengi, is so focused on raw, pure capitalism and survival of the fittest that they would frighten Gordon Gecko, but they are never presented as evil so much as very, very different–their hyper-misogynistic treatment of Ferengi women being the big exception, and that’s something the culture grapples with over the course of the seven year DS9 series. The Federation, which is (and has always been) economically socialist–there are varying levels of wealth, private business ownership is the standard, and ability and ambition is rewarded, but the state makes sure no one ever goes hungry or homeless or without education or medical care–has always looked down on the avarice-driven, “unenlightened” Ferengi.
Elim Garak, on the other hand, is an exiled Cardassian, a member of a species who has been in and out of war with the Federation for decades, and whose government is a hyper-fascist, military dictatorship that we are first introduced to as having just come off a decades long series of small scale but brutal and bloody wars with the Federation, and whose military has a standing policy of taking the particularly attractive female prisoners from captured planets and ships and turning them into “comfort women.” All to the glory of the Cardassian state, motivated by a drive for order and a collective, non-genocidal feeling of racial superiority over pretty much everyone. (It’s pretty much Cardassian doctrine that you don’t kill an enemy, you make them love you instead–after you conquer them.) Deep Space Nine is centered on a space station orbiting the planet Bajor following the end of the Cardassians’ invasion, conquest, and decades-long and horrific occupation of the planet, which only ended after years upon years of brutal guerilla tactics on the part of the agrarian, technologically less advanced Bajorians that scarred their entire culture and civilization in ways we never quite see them recover from. By season 3, the Cardassians have allied with another major antagonistic power and plunged the galaxy into a terrible war the likes of which hasn’t been seen in 100 years or more. It should be no surprise that Garak, a former member of the Cardassian secret police, isn’t exactly the most popular of exiles, for all that he is an ally of the Federation and actively working with Starfleet to defeat his own people in the war. He knows his people have lost a great deal of their culture and the things that made them great as the fascist military gradually took over more and more of society, and wants to see his people redeemed and returned to their former glory as a compassionate, enlightened species–even if that means helping the Federation blast the more aggressive, morally bankrupt elements of his society into gravel. Needless to say, he’s a very complex character.
I could go on for pages and pages about both of these characters, but the point is that they’re both non-Federation outsiders who come from very different cultures and are able and more than willing to see the flaws and merits of Federation society with a clarity that those having lived in it all their lives cannot. This is one of the reasons they’re both considered among the most interesting characters in the entire series–and arguably the franchise.
The second big element working here that I love, aside from the characters, is the metaphor they use to critique (and in the end, grudgingly complement) the Federation. Out of all the possible metaphors you could imagine coming up between a grumpy, likable-in-spite-of-himself super-capitalist and a former high level member of the space Stasi who got kicked out after finding his conscience, what do they choose?
Root beer.
And it works so wonderfully well to explain the ethos of the Federation and Starfleet because as much as it tries to be insulting, it can’t help but be complementary. Yeah, the Federation isn’t perfect, but you can’t help but like it and want it to succeed because it aims so high.
Conklin Crescent 1.1 mm factory stub faux-flex sample. Let me stress that I’m not so egotistical that I think people need to spell my name with a “the;” that just sort of happened that way.
Confession time: I’ve never been entirely thrilled with how my handwriting looks with a stub nib. Most people love them for the line variation–and I certainly love looking at other people’s gorgeous writing samples using stubs–but unless I’m doing outright horizontal and vertical strokes, I’ve always felt like I’m not accomplishing much more than I would with a bold/double bold regular nib. I’ve always wondered if it was because I was left handed or just because I was doing something wrong, but suffice it to say I’ve been quietly experimenting for a while with my Pendleton Point to try to get better results.
After watching hours of Stephen Brown‘s fountain pen videos (most all of which include examples of his amazing handwriting and nib flexing technique), I decided to try to emulate the way he did his capital “H.” It’s super classy and a lot nicer than the way I’ve done mine for almost 20 years, and as a bonus can be done without lifting the pen from the paper, which makes for a nicer looking result overall.
(That is to say, the way I’ve been making my H’s up to now has been inconsistent, and, well, hideous.)
You can see my attempt at Mr Brown’s H in the sample to the right–among other things.
It’s often said that you make your most interesting discoveries while you’re looking for something else. After staring at Mr Brown’s for a while, I realized the only way to do it with a stub nib would be the following. My apologies if this is a bit muddled. I had some trouble putting in words exactly what I was doing.
On the initial downstroke, Angle the nib fully perpendicular to the top edge of the paper on the downstroke (that is, the nib tip should point straight at the paper’s top edge at all times) to get the widest line;
Without lifting the pen from the paper or stopping, move through any cross-stroke with nib shifted to position (1), and then, without stopping, quickly rotate my grip on the pen on the upstroke so that I’m writing on the edge of the stub nib, thus getting a much thinner line;
Without stopping, at the peak of an upstroke rotate the pen back to position (1) for the next downstroke or cross-stroke; and
Repeat.
(The easiest way to figure out if you’re doing this right is to attempt a series of interconnected lower-case L’s. If they look like they were made with a flex nib, you’ve got it.)
Once I’d pulled off an H doing this, I noticed the line variation was extreme enough that it looked like flexible nib writing. That got me interested enough to keep practicing, eventually resulting in the writing sample to the right. Of course, I went through 3-4 sheets to get the technique down to something that looked like that. I’m extremely pleased with the results you get using the pen this way, though there are some caveats.
Occasionally, you’ll need to lift the pen from the paper to get the thinnest possible line/cleanest line going forward. I found this necessary on m’s and n’s after each downstroke, for example.
You’ve got to be very careful not to press down on the nib during the upstroke, when the nib is effectively on its side. This seems like a great way to misalign the tines if you screw up. Seriously, if someone is reading this and thinks I’m doing something horribly stupid to my pen, please let me know in the comments.
You’ve got to maintain a pretty good speed when you do this. Move too slow and not only will the writing look shaky (since you’re writing with only part of the nib), but you’re likely to run out of ink on long upstrokes, since the nib isn’t in full contact and thus the capillary action keeping the nib wet is momentarily stopped. You’re just writing with whatever you had on the nib when the upstroke started. I think. I’m not entirely sure that’s what’s happening, but I do know you’ll run out of ink if you move too slow.
Since the line variation depends on how much you rotate the pen, it takes some practice to consistently rotate the nib every time. If you look close at the sample above, you’ll surely notice some inconsistency.
All these instructions are based on left-handed writing. If you’re right handed you might have to tweak it a bit. I’m not sure. I can’t write with my right hand at all, so I can’t really experiment.
I tried this with a 0.9 mm Pendleton Point Stub Italic as well (actually the pen I was using when I figured out how to do this). The stub-italic has sharper corners than a regular stub (for crisper writing). That means the edges are sharper and while you can thus get even thinner lines on the upstroke, it’s also harder to do–there’s less residual ink on the nib when you rotate it, and the sharp edge is more likely to scratch the paper as opposed to, y’know, writing.
So my recommendation if you want to try this would be to use a regular no-frills stub, the bigger the better–but not so big you can’t control it. A bigger stub will put more ink in play, which means you’ll have more to work with on the upstroke, and it’ll be more forgiving than an italic/quasi-italic nib about being rotated.
Not much to say here. From time to time (hopefully once a week, but whenever I commit to anything like that I tend to fail utterly, so I shall promise nothing), I’ll post a collection of links to interesting articles I’ve read in the last 7 days. Links are not endorsements of the opinions/content unless expressly noted. In fact, I might well disagree with some editorials I link to. But I think they’re worth reading, because they’re about issues worth discussing.
Enjoy.
Fountain Pens
Ink Nouveau: Apica Premium CD Notebooks: Brian Goulet over at The Goulet Pen Company/Ink Nouveau did a great in depth video/text review of the Apica Premium CD notebook line. If you’re at all into pens and paper, this one will be fun to watch. I always enjoy seeing the writing samples and ink tests in the notebooks they review.
Fountain Pen Day Review: Mont Blanc 344: Great review and writing sample using this vintage Mont Blanc with a classic flexible gold nib. Watching things like this inspires me to improve my own handwriting by reminding me how mediocre it really is. 😉
Law Practice
The Futility of Bar Ethics Opinions: Interesting editorial over at Avvo’s Lawyernomics discussing the usefulness (or lack thereof) in seeking state bar ethics opinions about new/cutting edge advertising initiatives that the existing ethics rules (and the bar’s conservative interpretation of them) don’t necessarily anticipate. I’m particularly interested in the interplay between the ethics rules and the advertising attorney’s First Amendment free speech rights, and would be interested in reading more on the subject. I haven’t had any real experience with law firm advertising yet, so I don’t have much to compare the author’s thesis to, but it’s a very interesting read, nonetheless.
The Tyranny of the Billable Hour & Why the Billable Hour Endures: Whatever your feelings about the billable hour system for lawyer/law firm client billing, this New York Times opinion piece and followup provide an interesting, concise critique. Hourly billing vs. other models is a huge, ongoing debate in the legal profession right now, and if this is a topic you’re at all interested in these articles are a nice way to get an introduction to the debate.
Other
Do it, Rockapella!: A short, entertaining, PGish post written by Shiwani Srivastava about her time as a contestant on PBS’ Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. I have fond memories of this show, so this was fun to read.
As a writer of things fictional and nonfictional, I often find it interesting and useful to pose theoretical questions about, let’s say, esoteric topics. Okay, let’s be less fanciful: ridiculous topics that have no bearing on the real world. Not only does this get me thinking creatively when I might be otherwise blocked up (in that sense, such questions are jumper cables for the mind), but it usually gives me an interesting insight into my own thought process. So I shall, from time to time, pose such questions and my own answers. I’d love to see your answers, too, either in the comments or as posts on your own blogs. If you answer in your own post, please share a link in the comments. My pet rock and I would love to read them.
I don’t plan these answers (or these questions). They might as well be stream of consciousness exercises.
I also decided to experiment by adding a poll to this post.
The Question: Are female werewolves capable of carrying children to term? That is, what effects would the transformation have on the baby? Does it matter if the lycantrophy is magical or pathological in origin?
My Short Answer: It depends. In the case of pathological/biological lycanthropy (i.e.: lycanthropy as communicable disease with its primary vector as saliva in open wounds), infected females are almost certainly effectively unable to carry children. In the case of magical lycanthropy (i.e.: lycanthropy as curse), there’s a bit more wiggle room, but the answer remains an almost certain no.
My Long Answer: Recognizing that this is a extremely strange topic, my longer answer, where I show my work, is after the jump. Read More if you’re curious. Continue reading →
This is what they look like coming out of the package.
Socks Arrive Clipped Together
More of the “Blue Tubes” Design
Envelope Full of Chivaz Stickers
Large Chivaz Sticker
Welcome Postcard Side 1
Welcome Postcard Side 2
My set of Chivaz Wear Street Socks I got from backing their Kickstarter arrived last week. These socks are not only designed to be the best, most comfortable knee-high socks you’ve ever worn (specially designed to stay up and in place all day), but also be a full-on, highly visible part of your wardrobe. I wanted to do a quick unboxing so y’all could see what the Kickstarter packaging looked like. Save for the receipt/packing slip and one other personally-identifying bit I didn’t photograph, this is literally everything.
I’m pretty tired so I’ll let the photos and the website speak for themselves, but a few quick things that stuck out for me while I was opening this:
The socks are shipped in a sturdy package envelope, not a box. I appreciated this as it saves both space and packaging material. Environmentally friendly and more convenient.
The socks are held together by these little metal clip things (I’m not sure what they’re called). It’s a really classy looking bit of packaging that keeps the socks looking smooth and unwrinkled in transit, and really adds to the premium fit-and-finish look of the product.
My pair of socks is numbered, part of a limited edition run. As I understand it, once they’re gone, they’re gone, so if you like the look of them (or anything else on the Chivaz site), get them while they’re hot.
Well, that’s all for now. These socks are awesome. Check them out.
(Does anyone else get paranoid posting pictures of their desks? I know there’s nothing in these pictures that I wouldn’t want anyone else to see, but still…)
John's Blotting Paper Pad 