So... Who Got There Noodlers Flex Pens Today?

[JonSzanto]

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - U.S. packaging suppliers, all up and down the East coast, have been inundated with large quantity orders for bubble wrap and blue plastic film. The source of all of these orders is a small independent vendor who has experienced a rush of orders for a hitherto obscure item. Suppliers are asking team members to put in overtime hours to meet the demand.

 

Further updates as the situation warrants.

[USMCMom]

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - U.S. packaging suppliers, all up and down the East coast, have been inundated with large quantity orders for bubble wrap and blue plastic film. The source of all of these orders is a small independent vendor who has experienced a rush of orders for a hitherto obscure item. Suppliers are asking team members to put in overtime hours to meet the demand.

 

Further updates as the situation warrants.

 

LOL ... I don't think any of us would be surprised.

[Lince]

:roflmho:

 

The Lapis and Clear are out of stock, three more colors to go.

Edited June 6, 2011 by Lince

[dww970]

I had my heart set on a Lapis Inferno & a demonstrator. well maybe some other time.

[Zenadier]

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - U.S. packaging suppliers, all up and down the East coast, have been inundated with large quantity orders for bubble wrap and blue plastic film. The source of all of these orders is a small independent vendor who has experienced a rush of orders for a hitherto obscure item. Suppliers are asking team members to put in overtime hours to meet the demand.

 

Further updates as the situation warrants.

 

Something tells me the shipping times may bit a little longer than I had previously suspected... :hmm1:

[framebaer]

I got a demonstrator. Excited to get my first flex pen.

 

Well, no doubt there is some flex but I would point out that achieving flex by slitting the tines almost to the back of the nib is FAR DIFFERENT in feel to a vintage flex that has been achieved by metallurgically tuning the actual metal to make it springy. "Noodles"" maybe but "Wet Noodles" these pens definitely are not.

 

I'm not trying to rain on everyones' parade here and I understand that for $14 or whatever it is a very cheap way to try a pen that gives line variation by tine spreading as opposed to italics (shaping) but don't be too disappointed when it doesn't feel like that Waterman 52 your friend might have!

[WanderingAuthor]

I ordered the orange and got the confirmation. I have to say surprised about the situation I experienced today. I had my browser set to refresh every thirty seconds. When 1300 rolled around the page for the pens still showed them to be OOS. I would think in this age of the internet that things would be good to go at the appointed time. The pen actually didn't show up as being in stock until around about five minutes after one. After that the to be expected bog down of the browser kicked in. Don't get me wrong, I understand in this internet age (have I used that buzzword already?) about sites getting slammed with traffic. Anyone that has bought concert tix or sporting event have had this happen. The thing I am less tolerant about is the punctuality thing. Since a script can be set up in the system as to when to unlock the item it wouldn't require any human input to have the computer open the item for business so to speak. Well <rant off> looking forward to the flex experience.

 

I think you're being very unfair to the Goulets, without realising it. You're obviously forgetting to factor something in. You weren't the only one who was sitting there with your browser set to refresh. So, before 1300 hours rolled around, the server was already creaking and groaning and slowing down. Any script set up to unlock the item would have been impacted as well. (I don't know how the Goulets handle their backend, so I don't know if they used a script or some other method - but it doesn't matter.) There is no inexpensive way to set up a website so things will happen on time, even with a manic horde of people all hovering at one time. Big corporations with huge budgets can't even do it most of the time, so how do you expect the Goulets to pull it off?

 

I admit, their hosting company doesn't impress me - but that isn't the Goulets' fault. I presume there is some good reason they are using that hosting service; they obviously do what they feel they can to offer good customer service. A better hosting company might have reduced some of the issues - but with all those people checking in to the site at once, and periodically refreshing their browsers, I don't know of a single hosting company on earth that offers an affordable package capable of handling the situation. My hosting company - which is not for the technically faint of heart - is pretty good, and I can guarantee you there'd be a few minutes of lag in that situation. Maybe three and not five; but I don't think any of us would want the Goulets to hike their prices enough to hire an IT manager with some serious chops just to pare two minutes off that delay. And I'm not sure even my hosting service would respond that quickly in every instance, anyway.

 

Sure, paying for a dedicated server with dedicated bandwidth at capacities far above peak load would eliminate that five minute delay. But do you have any idea what that would cost, month in and month out? That's a cost that would have to be passed on. And I, for one, would much rather get a decent price and wait five minutes than pay a huge premium just for some theoretical ideal of punctuality. As for the other glitches - if you had any idea how a server environment behaves under the kind of load put on that site today, you'd be praising the Goulets for setting up a site that didn't make things a lot worse. Since that site is running on a server that is a bit creaky at the best of times - again, not the Goulets' fault, although I do hope they're getting a good deal on their hosting package, or they're getting ripped off - I think the fact anyone got their order in at all is a credit to how well thought out their site is, and their planning.

 

For those who don't understand what happened, it is really very simple. The site freezes, you click a button, you don't think the click went through, so you click again... and wind up with 245 items in your cart when the thread containing your personal link to the server is processed. And with the kinds of delays, feverish input, and so on, scripts go crazy, processes freeze up or fail to run, the entire site operation goes haywire. I wasn't on there today - I'm still saving up to get my Onoto fixed. But from everything I've read here, the Goulets deserve a medal for making things work as well as they did.

[mcg1355]

I got 2x lapis inferno, black swan in English roses, Navajo turquoise, apache sunset, and a pack of o-ring piston conversions. Hopefully the Goulets can keep up with the demand and my order will be shipped out as promptly as in the past.

[meowmda]

I think it's pretty cool that there is enough interest to result in the web issues. You know, for fountain pens!

[Gobblecup]

I have a Demonstrator already, and I ordered a Poltergeist Pumpkin today from Goulet Pens. This colour looks very interesting. I am hoping the next batch will include browns and greens (Please Nathan )! the blues and reds are not really my cuppa resin...

 

 

I find it funny that Mr. Bear's comments are often negative when discussing pens not made by: Bexley, Pilot, Aurora, Gate City Pens, or Pelikan. Of course they are not the traditional gold flex nib. But they do resemble the designs of many 19th century steel dip pens, in fact I have several dip nibs that have very deep slits and even side vents to achieve their great degree of flexibility. The process (to achieve line variation) is much different, but the results are much the same in capable hands. Although, yes, Noodler's standard flex nib is not a "Wet Noodle".

[JonSzanto]

But from everything I've read here, the Goulets deserve a medal for making things work as well as they did.

Stack up one or two complaints about tech/commerce issues in a one-off scenario (after weeks of anticipation) against the long-history and continuing stream of posts regarding what a great service Brian and Rachel Goulet offer to the writing enthusiast.

 

It isn't even close, and a glitch isn't going to change the fact that they are a fine resource for us all.

[CatBookMom]

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - U.S. packaging suppliers, all up and down the East coast, have been inundated with large quantity orders for bubble wrap and blue plastic film. The source of all of these orders is a small independent vendor who has experienced a rush of orders for a hitherto obscure item. Suppliers are asking team members to put in overtime hours to meet the demand.

 

Further updates as the situation warrants.

 

 

:ltcapd: :roflmho: :ltcapd:

Edited June 6, 2011 by CatBookMom

[kintaroll]

...and when i finally managed to open the cart, there were 16 of them in it...

 

heheh. Looks like I had the opposite problem. Somewhere in my checkout process I lost my clear demonstrator. Unfortunately, I didn't notice till after the rest of the demonstrators sold out.

 

I still got the Lapis Inferno though (which I originally bought for my brother... but It's mine now ), so I went back and bought a pumpkin one instead.

[USMCMom]

I have no idea how many of the new pens Brian and Rachel started with and I don't know how many people there were on the site creating the traffic jam, but ... I think they've done an excellent job. Was it slow, yes. Kind of like Christmas with hoards of people waiting to rush the door as soon as it's unlocked. That was expected. Its happened before and most likely will happen again. Did most people get to order the pen(s) they wanted. I think so. No, I didn't get the demonstrator I wanted, but that wasn't Brian and Rachel's fault. It was mine ... I was too slow. All in all, I think that everyone is happy with the way it turned out, even if it was slower than some people obviously wanted ... that's the way it is, unless you have, from what I understand, very deep pockets. Brian and Rachel take very good care of their customers, even with all of us rushing the doors, so-to-speak. As for my demonstrator ... I'll grab one when more are in stock.

 

Uh, Brian and Rachel ... they will be in stock again, right??? <G>

[dcpritch]

I received three today, red, orange and blue - looking forward to trying them out.

[fpn00b]

Author don't get me wrong, the Goulet's are a class bunch to deal with. I have done satisfied business with them in the past and that is why I dealt with them now. That being said I was expecting the site to be smashed today at release. That is why I had my cart preloaded with what I wanted to go along with the pen when it came up. I was also pre-signed in to be able to check out ASAP. What frustrated me most was that when I went to check out I was not logged in and had to jump this additional hurdle. This never has happened to me when ordering any other time so that disappointed me. If this had something to do with server load that seems odd but many times computers can perform oddly when the programmers have not anticipated or designed the system to deal with the situation. All this being said I got what I wanted which was the Pumpkin with some ink and sundries and was not surprised by the lag in page loading but was by the odd hiccup of the login thing.

[TheGreatImber]

Those that are really hurting for a demonstrator, the standard demonstrator is back in stock. Just order that one! (As I did...) The nib replacement is hardly a challenge.

If only i could have gotten my hands on the Lapis Inferno(the blue one)

[Hangglidernerd]

TheGreatImber is right about just swapping nibs.Brian posted that the clears sold out in 3 minutes...so those mystery disappearing pens in some folks carts were just the folks who had a clear or two who got checked out ahead of you...the cart doesn't save it-it's first checked out,not first in cart.

The blue ones are still available at a couple other sites and Nathan will make more in more colors.Plus,some people will find they don't enjoy flex or it won't flex enough to suit them or they will find the resin isn't precious enough for their liking and they will sell em...keep your eyes on the classifieds.

And remember to have fun.

Thanks to the Goulets for a fun insane Monday and hope they don't look older than me next time I see them on writetime@nine from premature aging caused by trying to keep up and get everything shipped.

 

 

P.S....I ordered the blue

Edited June 7, 2011 by Hangglidernerd

[Messmer]

Just ordered a Cardinal Darkness. First flex, but I got to limit my self. I also have to pay for my wedding. Just got to the court for requesting a date in July or August. Also ordered last week a TWSBI Diamond 530.

[danthemann5]

I just ordered the orange flex pen. It will be filled with Dragon's Napalm immediately after initial cleaning. I'm very excited about my first flex pen.