A couple of months ago at Pen Night we received a tutorial on converting fountain pens to become “eyedropper pens,” where the entire barrel of the pen is used to hold the ink, rather than a cartridge or converter. The benefit of this conversion is a pen that can hold much more ink; good for Antarctic expedition journalling, etc.

This conversion obviously requires the barrel to be watertight, and, to this end, I acquired an O-ring from the Bookmark ($1 plus tax; an excellent value).

What I neglected to note, however, is that the J. Herbin pen I selected to convert has a tiny hole in the bottom of the barrel. And so, when I syringed in the Sunshine Yellow ink, it immediately drained out (fortunately I was able to slurp most of it back up).

I got in touch with PenChalet, where I’d purchased the pen, and they confirmed it’s not a defect.

So now I’ll have to figure out a way to seal it up.

Stay tuned.

One of the fringe benefits of relocating my office to the basement of St. Paul’s Anglican Church Parish Hall is that I have a front row seat to the workings of the church; it’s not quite a back-stage pass, but it’s a deeper look behind the curtain than living across the street for 18 years provided.

This week’s big event is a meeting of the Anglican Church of Canada’s House of Bishops, a gathering that brings the bishops of the 30 Canadian dioceses of the church to Charlottetown. The most obvious manifestation of this gathering, from where I sit typing, is the smell of supper cooking in the kitchen upstairs, supper that will be served to the bishops at tonight’s “House of Bishops Dinner.”

Prince Edward Island, in case you were wondering, falls in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, led by Rt. Rev’d Ron Cutler from Halifax. Within the diocese, the Anglican Church in Prince Edward Island is supported administratively by Regional Dean The Rev’d Father David Garrett, from St. Peter’s Cathedral in Charlottetown, and spiritually by Archdeacon John W.G. Clarke, who is also rector here at St. Paul’s.

When brother Johnny left for the west he left his vacuum cleaner with us. After a few years of solid service, it’s stopped sucking in things to the extent that it’s no longer helpful to our family (that it also weights a ton also doesn’t help in this regard). But it may still be useful to someone else, especially someone else who’s handy. So after the rain stopped this afternoon I put it out on the front sidewalk with hopes that it will find a new home.

Also: it is autumn.

My friend Sandy started working with Lady Baker’s Tea this autumn and we had a chance to chat about her new job last night.

Apparently the staff start each workday with a decision about what type of tea to brew for the morning.

I’m jealous: as I sit alone in my church basement office, thirstily typing away, my fellow-church-basement-dwelling mates across town are starting the day in a considerably more civilized, warming and social fashion.

Perhaps I should make a field trip to join them some morning; we are, after all, both active members of the Underground Business Society.

Friend of the blog Ray asked me to increase the intensity of the links in the daily email digest (sign up here).

And so I did.

And I took the opportunity to swap out the photo that appears in the head. And to make a few other tweaks to improve things for Ray’s aging eyes (because my eyes are aging too!).

Thanks to Ray for the prompt.

During our visit to Malmö in August I received the generous gift of some fountain pen ink sample bottles from my friend Nene. To that point, I must admit, my knowledge of fountain pen inks was limited to a general notion that there was blue ink and there was black ink, with the occasional red ink thrown in for effect. The notion that there was Morning Star ink–one of Nene’s gifts–and innumerable other inks covering the entire spectrum, was an unexpected delight to discover.

And so I dove in, following the URL on Nene’s sample bottle to PenChalet.com and acquiring four samples–Supernova, Adzukiiro, Kitano Ijinkan Red, Yellow Sunset, all pictured below (the similarity of fountain pen ink names to cannabis variety names is duly noted).

I’m so looking forward to trying all of these out.

I hosted the monthly Pen Night, for fountain pen aficionados, here at the Reinventorium tonight, and provided members with a cook’s tour of my letterpress shop. This was followed by a wide-ranging general discussion of everything from how to clean fountain pens to the ins and outs of vintage mechanical pencils. We meet again on November 25th at The Bookmark at 7:00 p.m.; if you are fountain pen crazed or simply fountain pen curious, you are welcome to join us.

This was my first go at hosting an event here in the shop, and it worked well: it helps to be housed in the Parish Hall where there are folding tables and chairs handy-by.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac webcam has been a longtime and surprisingly popular feature of Almanac.com, to the point where readers passing through rural Dublin, NH will often stop in the parking lot and set themselves up in front of the webcam for a special guest-starring role.

To enhance this experience, we’ve developed a system that allows visitors to text their email address to a special mobile number to start a the recording of a 10-second video clip by the webcam; this clip is then emailed to them for posterity.

Here’s an example; if you look carefully you can see the five members of our web team on the roof waving hello.

Here’s my colleague Lou coaching some visiting Finnish tourists, geocaching in the area, how to use the new system.

On the third floor of the Sagendorph Building here at Yankee Publishing, at the end of the hall near where my temporary office sits, is a room called, internally, the “crow’s nest.” Many of my meetings this week have been hosted there, and in previous years I’ve set up temporary office there; in an earlier incarnation it was the office of my friend and colleague the late John Pierce.

I can walk out of the Crow’s Nest and unto the roof of the building and appear on The Old Farmer’s Almanac webcam; here’s me doing just that (the image is tilted because the camera got tilted by construction workers):

I noticed this morning that the phone in the room is labelled “Crows Nst,” which takes its unofficial name into officialdom. I love this.

Anne Gibson writes, in To whom does the burden fall?, about accessibility:

When is it the responsibility of someone with a disability to use unnamed tools to somehow make your content accessible, when your organization has not done so yourself?

Never. It is never their responsibility.

Read the entire post: it’s a well-worded call to arms.