For the past two weeks I've been housesitting for a coworker, and have been back to my house only twice. We're the same distance away from work, but in opposite directions, so it takes a good 40 minutes or so to go back and forth between the houses. It's certainly been fun living at his place out in the woods in the hilly area of central Indiana, instead of the flat part I normally reside in. But I'm definitely ready to be back home again.

I decided not to take any FPs with me because I didn't want to chance it getting broken while moving stuff back and forth or because of the dog. So I've been using cheapie ballpoints from some of our vendors, and they're really reinforcing my decision to switch to FPs last year. The things are simply maddening, constantly skipping like crazy.

Seeing the posts about Baystate Blue and Dragon's Napalm made me want to drag mine out and play around with them. Or use my Tulipe Noire sitting at home in my Bexley BX701. Hmph!

Luckily I'll be heading back to my usual home tomorrow after my girlfriend and I get in a bike ride in the hills. I have a motorcycle patiently waiting for some engine work and a room full of junk needing to be cleaned. And of course some pretty bottles of ink to play with!

Have a great weekend everyone,
Brian

Hah, I can sympathize. The further I progress into my experience with fountain pens, the less desirable ballpoints become. Good luck with your cleaning. ;]

I exclusively use FP's, both at home and at the office. I could never go back to ballpoints, good rollerballs are somewhat ok both I would miss the expressiveness of a good nib.

I've tried using my fountain pens at work and as long as I am sitting,
it's fine. Walking around one night, writing on a vertical surface, I dropped one
of them and bent the nib.

Now it's ball points if I am doing anything but sitting.

I don't like it much but I like it better than ruining one of my nibs.

I have yet to get my Ici to write properly.

Two weeks without a FP?

Never.

I'm in the exact same boat. I just bought a Pelikan M600, and to my very picky eye, it had a cosmetic defect. So I sent the barrel to Chartpak (downtime, approx 1.5 weeks). I get the replacement yesterday, and although it doesn't have any cosmetic defects, the piston knob was out of alignment. (Turns to the sky and screams "Whhhhyyy!!").

So now I'm probably looking at another 1.5 to 2 weeks until I have my pen back in writing order (fingers crossed). What makes my situation even worse is the fact that I have the nib and cap sitting right here on my desk, taunting me every time I use a ballpoint. I've gotten into the habit of using a Rotring mechanical pencil, which is very smooth, but is nothing like a fountain pen.