j gray's blog

New Year

Happy New Years all. Cold here in Fla. Dropped down to the mid 70's. LOL! Anyway been really nice here. Been to the beach a couple of times, water was cold but the beach really great. 

On the way to the beach

Traffic is really bad here right now. Football Bowl game and all. Still beats being back in the snow and ice. Two more weeks here before I head back home for two weeks. Not really looking forward to that. So that about it for. CU Later

Fla.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Down in Fla.  for 4 weeks. Weather is just right. Upper 70's in the day and mid to low 60's at night. Christmas day was 80+. Loved it. Every one here had a good time and we had a a great dinner. I got a brand new Cross Gold fountain pen. Love it. Used almost one cartridge already writing in my T.N. So I would have to say my trip to Fla. has been good. And I sure don't miss the cold back home.

Skiing and Fla.

I've been enjoying my new Travelers notebook. Even though the inserts are the ones that I made I still find it a pleasure to write in every day. So enough of that. It's been cold here. We've had snow rain wind then warm weather then back to cold. It's been cold enough that the local ski area that I patrol was able to make enough snow that they opened before Thanksgiving. Now thats very early for this region. So I have been skiing and ski patrolling. 

Ski Season2008

So far it been a good season. But now its time to get warm. I'M going to Florida. I figure 4 weeks of cold is enough. Now 3-4 weeks of warm then come back and ski some more. Thats not bad ski some then beach some. Too bad I don't live where I could ski in the morning and the beach in the afternoon. Now that would be ideal. Hopefully I can get some good pictures of the beach and of Clearwater to add to my flickr. Next post will be from there. See you later

It's HERE

Today my real Travelers Notebook arrived!!! :))) The people at Miado was great and quite fast on shipping. I had it sent by regular mail so it took a week but it made it. I am very happy with it and look forward to many years of use. If any one in the states would like one of these books I would highly recommend Miado. I will not hesitate to do more business with them again.

Travelers Notebook

Quick note. I EMailed Miado...

Quick note. I EMailed Miado Stationary the other night about a Travelers Notebook. They responded back the next day. Quite nice I thought, that quick. Got the info and placed an order, which they "called" back confirming the price and shipping and about how long it should take. I think it will be shipped either today, Sat. or Mon. Will let everyone know when it gets here. If the ret of the transaction is as pleasant and fast as it has been so far I will be very pleased and would not hesitate to do more  business with them. 

Fake Travelers Notebook

Ever since seeing the travelers notebook I wanted one. But it seems very hard to get them here in the states. So until I can find one here I decided to try to make my own. I started to do so the other day and wound up making two covers for my Moleskines. So last night I set down and made a TN.

My version of the "Traverlers Notebook"

 It really didn't take long at all. I still need to put a book marker in it and the closer strap around it. I also made the insert for the book too. I want to thank TJ Book arts for the instructional on how to make them. I did alter the way they made theirs. I went ahead and cut it down the the TN size book. In doing so I found that the piece that was left made a really nice little jotting pad.

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So there was a two for one deal here. From what little I have used it or played with it, I really do like it. Maybe some day soon I can get a real one but until then this one will do me just fine.

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Fountain Pens

I like FP!!! Even though at times they can be messy, stubborn, or even a royal pain in the a**. I still love them. But I found myself neglecting mine at times. I clean them from time to time but not near enough. Often I have let the ink dry up in one or more pens. Thats the big problem I found with having several. That and trying to decide which one to use at any given time. So any way I had three that ran out of ink the other day. Cleaned them out good and got them ready to be refilled again. Then I realized that I had not done a complete job. Now I know that many out there knew this and know more about FP than I do so this will be nothing new to you. But there just may be a couple that didn't know so may I will help just a little. One of the pens was a Lamy Safari Clear. When I finished cleaning it real good, and was putting it back together I noticed that the cap still had some ink in it. I was using purple ink so it showed up very well in the cap. Thats when I realized that not only do you need to clean the nib and barrel out but the cap also. I never thought about how much ink will drip into the cap. Maybe not so much to run out but enough to need cleaning. I had never cleaned out the caps on my pens so when I went back to some of the more used pens that I cleaned I found that it took almost as much time to clean the cap as it did to clean the nib. Now I know and wont forget the next time. So if anyone who uses FP's, if you didn't know, when you clean you pen, clean the cap too. You may be surprised just how much ink is inside the cap. If you already knew that then don't pay attention to my ramblings. 

Moleskine Covers

Hi all. First post. I've been a Moleskine fan for about 3-4 years now. I like the cahier and volant. But they needed a better cover so when putting them in the jeans pocket and taking it out a lot it dont ruin the paper covers. I found one from Levengers that with some cutting to the cahier back covet worked.

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But I really didn't like to cut the covers. So I went to my local leather shop and got a piece of scrap leather and made my own cover. Very simple and plain. Actually made two one for the large cahier and one for the small one.

Leather covers

Not bad for the first try. I will try to improve on them and keep you posted on the outcome and maybe how I did them. Though that part wasn't as hard as finding the leather shop.

Thanks Jim