The setting of the sun. After a long day of pouring rain, the sun peeked out just as it was to set. What a gorgeous way to end the day. We all have brightness and darkness in our lives and our hearts. The darkness might be different for each of us. But the light of our souls shines bright. On days of tremendous darkness. When all seems bleak. Remember there is light in you… ready to dispatch the gloominess that tends to follow us like shadows. You are amazing. We all are. Simply stunning in so many ways. Don’t ever forget the light. Shine on & extinguish the darkness. Good night – Withoutink
The Miami Pen Show 2010 in Review
This past weekend was rather interesting, for me anyway. The Miami Pen show was in town, and I decided I would attend, since it is not very far from my home. This was my first pen show I have ever attended, and while it was rather small. I enjoyed it immensely. The event was held at the Marriott on Biscayne Blvd, and was held for three days.
I am a member of FPN, and as such I met up with a few of the other FPN members that were in attendance. I hung out with “Speckled & Spotted”, “Okami”, “OcalaFLGuy”, “pb2”, “sumgaikid”, Bert from Bertrams Inkwell and various other FPN members.
I visited all the vendors, chatted pens and inks. I bought some Noodler’s VMail Midway Blue, Noodler’s Year of the Pig highlighter ink and a Stipula LTD Miami Sunset pen. While I was there I brought an old Watermans Ideal FP to Mike Masuyama (Mike-It-Work) to check the nib. I also spent time with Chuck Swisher & Susan Wirth. Susan spent a nice amount of time with me explaining some of the finer points of fountain pens. While at her booth, I looked at Flex, Italics and some Broad nibbed pens. At pb2’s booth, I took some video as Pendleton opened a vintage NOS Esterbrook from the UK.
I drooled over the new Visconti Homo Sapiens fountain pen. Which looked and felt awesome, but at $600 was “slightly” out of my price range. I looked at many of the vintage pens that were available for sale. I actually prefer mostly the older stuff since, I find much of the newer FPs a bit gaudy. Plus, there is just something about writing with a vintage pen… they sing to you.
The one gripe I had was parking. I read on the website that parking was $10. Not for me, I was told to park in the lot directly across the street. Come to find out that was a $30 lot. I would have much rather spent the $30 on some more ink. 😉
After the show, OcalaFLGuy, Speckled & Spotted, Sumgaikid and I spent the evening at Bayside… eating chatting and relaxing. I had a great time with them, and hope that we can all get together again soon.