Hiya Everyone

January 5, 2005

I am not sure if I properly introduced myself. I go by the name The Noble Savage, and I have been a member of the group since October of 2004 but I dont think I have introduced myself. I have found a new addiction, Fountain Pens. I have to blame my Dad for that!! He has always been a fountain pen lover, he has about 14 pens in his collection and he loves Montblanc pens. He first got me started on fountain pens earlier in 2004 when I went down to San Francisco with him and my Wife. We went into a medium sized mall and then we walked into a pen store. I had the chance to use my Dad's fountain pens but I was a bit intimidated by the nib. I thought it was a calligraphy pen; I had no Idea how to use them. Anyways, I couldn’t believe the selection of pens that they had, it really blew my mind!!

The Namiki is what really caught my eye. I am still a newbie, but the hand painted ones really made me love the art and craftsmanship. My Dad urged my to buy a cheaper pen, it was a Gunmetal Silver Northpoint fountain pen that was about 30 bucks. From then on, I was hooked!! Unfortunately, there are no pen stores where I live, the closest place for me to get ink is in Santa Barbara, and then the selection is very limited. I mostly have to order through the internet or have a buddy of mine go down to the Fountain Pen Shop in Monrovia CA. I live in a small town in Guadalupe that has a population of 5,000 people and I am about 2 miles for the beach. I am in between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara.

I am starting to collect large amounts of fountain pens. Most of them are Pelikan & Parker pens. I tend to use my Pelikan 800, 400 white tortoise shell and 400nn (I think) brown tortoise shell, Pelikan 250 and 250 demonstrator, Parker 51 Vac and Vacumatics. Due to the fact that I am Civil Service, I have to use blue of black ink for official paperwork. My main choices for work ink are Aurora Black, Private Reserve DC super show Blue & Midnight Blues, Parker Quink Black & Blue Black, Waterman Florida Blue, Lamy Legal Blue Black. Outside of work, I use PR Tanzanite, Plum Waterman Havana, Purple, Havana South Seas Blue, and Pelikan Turquoise & Brilliant Brown. I am open to most inks.

As far as nibs, I am a medium to broad kind of guy. 90% of the time I love a Very Wet pen, in fact, I like a garden hose of a nib flowing ink out of my pens!!! Flex for me is not very important, probably because my handwriting really sucks!! The other 10% of the time, I need a fine point to do some of my writing at work especially when it comes to evaluations and duplicate and triplicate forms.

A little bit more about myself, I am a Scientific & Technical Photographer for the Department of the Air Force as a civilian. I am a Gulf War Veteran 1.0 and served in the United States Air Force. I was a Law Enforcement Officer for the Department of Justice for 6 years before I transferred to the Air Force. Photography is my hobby and I had a calling to do it as a living. I wanted to continue serving the people of the United States as a Civil Servant.

Most of all, I am happy to be a member here so I can meet people with similar interests and discuss Pens, Inks and other things. So far, this group has been very informative and I have learned a lot about pens. I am also a member of the Zoss group, that’s another great place for information and market for pens. By the way, I am a huge Coffee Drinker and I roast all of my beans. So I have that as a hobby too, so if anybody else is also into roasting coffee beans, let me know! UMMM I love me some coffee!! I think I might be the youngest member in this group, but then maybe not, who knows.

http://members.shaw.ca/feynn/ · January 5, 2005

Welcome to FPN, where the pens are plentiful and the ink flows freely..

It seems we have a little in comon with some of our choices in ink (Pelikan Brilliant Brown rules!) and I too am just a wee bit addicted to my coffee as you can see when you look at my Avatar. I don't roast my own beans but do make it a point to grind freshly roasted beans as often as possible. I don;t go in for those utra fancy coffee beverages but will walk an extra mile to find a decent cup of coffee when I am out and about.

You aren't going to go wrong buying Parker and Pelikan pens and if you hang around here long enoough, you might find there are many other pens that are worthy of consideration. It would seem that Sheaffer and Esterbrook pens are fan favourites around here in addition to Pels and Parkers.

Finally... to be the youngest member I think you would need to be 14.

Cheers!

Keith

January 5, 2005

NS -

Welcome! First off, congratulations on your new additiction. It will never go away you realize. MIne is 4 years old now and 30 pens later it shows no signs of subsiding.

2nd, thank you for your service to our country. It is much appreciated.

3rd. if it's hand painted maki-e (Japanese lacquer) you're interested in then you should look up some of hte picture posts by our resident Dani-Trio dealer Kev (goes by "winedoc") Have paper towel handy to clean up the drool.

Thanks for coming out of hte shadows and posting!

Kendall -

January 5, 2005

Greetings NS!

Welcome to FPN. seems we have a few coffee addicts here. I used to be - drinking several "co-pilots" a day. Some things happened to kill that buzz though. Still love the smell of the stuff and often wish I could still really enjoy a good cup of coffee. I bought from Montana Coffee Traders - Costa Rican coffees supposedly made in a "co-op" sort of way. It's been a while so all I remember was the incredible smoothness of those beverages.

For the most part, i'm a Pelikan nut. though I recently bought a Namiki VP and received an Estie lever filler and have become very enamored of both brands. I've always loved the look of the vintage tortoise pels.

A big Thank You from me as well, for your contribution to our country.

January 5, 2005

Wow, 14, that must be your nephew? That is so cool because all kids these days do is communicate by computer. I think the schools have lost touch with handwritten communication.

As for pens, I have several different kinds like Hero, Waterman and Pilot to name a few. But for some reason I tend to lean towards my Pelikans and Parkers. Like said, I am open to most anything as long as it is a smooth writer!!

I usually drink a pot of coffee a day. I dont use creamer or sugar, I like mine black and robust There is no way I can go to a Starbuck and drink their $5.50 cup of over roasted garbage. Im sorry, I have to call it Foo Foo coffee!!! Once I started roasting my own coffee, there was no turning back. it is as fresh as can be. I am partial to African Coffee such as Ethiopian Sidamo, Horse Harrar and Yirgacheffe. Kenya AA, Karintina and Kimabarra and also Uganda Sipi Falls.

If you ever get the chance to try them, I am sure you will be completely hooked on African coffee!!

Check this place out, they sell the best green beans in the world, I buy from them all of the time ]Sweet Maria's

Have a Good Day

January 5, 2005

Thanks for all of the kind words Eventhough my days in the service are long gone and I serve my country in a different capaicity, I love working around the GI's. They are wonderful selfless people.

Getting back to pen stuff, I was really contemplating getting a Namiki VP, but I passed on it, but I will get one soon, at least I hope so, it depends on my off duty supervisor (MY WIFE) I take it that the VP writes very nice? I understand that there is no difference between the Namiki VP and the Pilot VP, just the name? I saw a few VP for under $90.00 a couple of days ago.

Well thanks for the warm welcome!!!

January 5, 2005

Going a bit OT - you coffee (or cola) fiends should check out the latest issue of National Geographic. A good article on caffeine. Hubby was happy to find out that it is less a diuretic than purported and also less toxic than some claim. He's loves Diet Coke (well, he *loves* Dr. Pepper but he can't drink all that sugar.) So he was relieved to find out that he gets much less caffeine than most coffee drinkers.

I discovered the hard way just how much caffeine is in a Starbucks Frappacino. this was years ago and probably added to my breakaway form coffee. I bought one then went shopping with my mum. About 1/3 of the way through the drink and wandering around an Office Depot, my head started swimming, my pulse racing, hands trembling. Not to mention a strange sense that my insides were moving faster than my outsides! I later heard on a t.v. show that those things can have about 350 mgs of caffeine! over twice that of 8 oz of coffee. yeeehaaaaaaww!

never again.

now, because I so rarely imbibe it takes all of 3-4 oz of diet vanilla coke to get me wired and a bit nauseated. I only do that when i have a migraine to speed the meds into my blood stream. i can't fathom the amount of coffee i used to drink.

babble-kcat.

January 5, 2005

That’s pretty funny. I know many Starbuckaholics and they MUST have Starbucks all of the time. It is very expensive for the type of beans they use, mostly inferior and they over roast them, Big time. I have come to the conclusion that they add Crack cocaine to their coffee. Why else would people have withdrawals from not having Starbucks coffee?

January 5, 2005

Getting back to pen stuff, I was really contemplating getting a Namiki VP, but I passed on it, but I will get one soon, at least I hope so, it depends on my off duty supervisor (MY WIFE)

check out Pam's prices on the VP. Sorry to enable but they're the best prices I've seen.

I've heard all good about the VP but someone I know is having trouble with the flow on hers right now - maybe she'll comment. Mine has been flawless, even starting up when I forgot and left it with the nib out for an hour. (taking pics)

so... as with so many pens these days, YMMV but in general this pen is solidly built, and oooh so convenient.

Yes, the Pilot and Namiki are the same thing. The nibs are replaceable ($14 from Pam) though I've not done that yet and in fact was going to ask on the repair board how to just in case.)

The nibs are typical of Japanese pens - the F is more an EF. I was surprised how such a very fine nib is so smooth for me. Somewhere on the pictures board I think I had posted a quick sample of the writiing from my VP to show how fine it is. Of course, with no other lines next to it, it's hard to tell. I'll do a comparison shot sometime soon.

January 5, 2005

Great, thanks for the info. Ill check her prices out. Like I said earlier, I am gonna have to talk to my off duty supervisor (wife). Maybe for my birthday, next month.

January 5, 2005

Welcome, Noble Savage!

I too am a coffee drinker and a Pelikan fan (although my favourite is still Sheaffer).

I have a Pelikan 800, a 200, a 150 (with a nice cursive italic nib), a 140 (vintage), a 75 (the Pelikan "Go!" pen) and a couple of Pelikan "Culture" school pens. They all write well... from the more expensive 800 to the lowly cartridge pens. You can't go wrong with a Pelikan!

My husband and I have started to drink "better quality" coffee in the past few months or so, thanks to the influence of people we know who are in the "coffee biz". We buy coffee beans from JJBean (a local company) and grind them just before we prepare our coffee. We attended a big coffee convention here in Vancouver last May, and my husband won a door prize!

I was reading somewhere that instant coffee can have as much caffeine in it than espresso---I was surprised---but I haven't had instant coffee since my parents stopped buying it ages ago (it was popular in the 1970s, along with Coffee Mate----remember that product? )

Anyway, nice to have you on board! I checked out your photography on your webpage.....Very nice! Those infrared shots are very, very cool.....

January 5, 2005

Oh, thanks for the complement, it really means alot!! I have yet to update my webpage , it has been soooo long, its tough when you have twin 2 year olds running around the house. There is a bunch of new pictures I need to put up and and bunch to take down. It is more of a collage of some of my earlier work (my first year of photography)

Ill tell ya what, whole bean roasted are great, but roasing yourself is sooooo much better. My first roaster burned out, it was the Fresh Roast Roaster, it lasted about a year, then kaput!!! I spent about 100.00 American and I bought a Zach and Danni roaster Zach and Dani Roaster and it was a great investment. It roasts more and virtually no smoke. It has a digital readout and it comes with a VHS video on how to roast. It winds up being cheaper for me than going to the store and buying beans. On average Coffee in the stores go for about 6.00 a pound (sorry not metric system illiterate) depending on the coffee. Unroasted green beans gor for around 3.00 USD on up. So you wind up saving some cash along with getting the best tasting coffee around, hands down!! A small investment on the machine and a larger selection of coffee. Check out Sweet Marias Coffee Roasting Supplies I know there are companies in Canada that do the same thing as them.

I know this is way off topic but I just got carried away, sorry

BTW thanks for the warm welcome

January 8, 2005

Welcome to the group!

I've got a Namiki VP and I love it... it's the one pen I do carry daily.

As for the coffee, being in EMS I drink the stuff 24 hours a day while on duty, but I do enjoy the finer blends when I'm off duty. So... my mailing address is...

January 9, 2005

Maybe we can make a trade!! I got some really good Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans that I have been roasting lately. It is some of the best coffee I have had in a very long time!!!