2020 year end final haul

Greetings and salutations. What a year it has been. A challenging year to say the least. For some it was a year that took them from strength to strength. Others not so much. To submit up it was not the year of the Rat. It was the year of COVID 19. 

I think Metallica said it best in No Leaf Clover (1999) - 

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel. 

Is just a freight train coming your way  

Some businesses thrived, some closed shop. But it thought the human spirit to perceiver and overcome adversity. To triumph over darkness. 

Congratulations! It’s long overdue, to everyone.

As the year closes and we open the book to the next chapter, I share my year end final haul.

I must say that this haul was rather unplanned or more accurately was in the planning for quite some time. Strike when the iron is hot or the price is right.

Faber Castell e-motion wood dark brown, medium nib. It’s the same nib used by Loom. 

The infamous Montblanc Meisterstuck 145. 

How I began looking up to Montblanc pens in general is due to one of my ex bosses that I still hold dear and in high regards up to this day. He is a Montblanc purist. A collector and Montblanc connoisseur even back in the day, when we were busy whipping out our Stabilo pen to write reports, he just unleashes his Meisterstuck and jaws dropped and we were just at awe.      

This is the 145. I initially intended to purchase the 146 but the sales person offered me a price that I could not resist, so be it. Janji Montblanc. Right.

A word of caution. Always have the attitude of buyer beware. Done assume that a sales person knows his stuff. They are just interested in sales. I was initially told that this was a 146 but luckily I had enough basic knowledge to know that the difference between the 145 and 146 is vast. Although the model varies by a single digit but its like night and day, 146 is bigger in size, piston filling system and transparent ink window. The 145 uses a cartridge or converter. The model number : 1056613 was a dead giveaway that it was a 145 and not 146. 

So express caution when listening to “sales man talk”. 

One thing to note is that the size of the montblanc snow cap logo is always the same, no matter how big the pen is.

Beautiful crisp engraving. The cigar shape is indeed classic and has been copied by countless pens, Sailor, Platinum and tons others

The converter

The first fountain pen on the first attempt the converter was fully filled to the brink. I have many other fountain pens that even on multiple attempts the converter does not fill to top

Beautiful nib but a bit scratchy 

My piss poor writing sample 

The Faber Castell is a real beauty. It may look big and bulky but trust me its not. Just nice to hold, especially for people with smaller hands. 

There’s something about wood that amplifies the serenity and beauty of nature

The spring loaded clip is elegant and super easy to use

The nib is indeed a beauty. My crappy camera or the cameraman (me) fails to highlight its beauty

The nib writes effortlessly. Sorry bad choice for writing sample but I used this to cordon off a area in my house that needs some maintenance  

My purchase with the sales person was rewarded by this rare 20 year old pen casing from Germany. The casing nowadays provided are a simple grey lackluster dull made in China case.

Morale of the story, be nice to everyone. 

See what I mean. Isn’t this a beautiful and unique casing?

It even has a booklet included. The China ones don’t. 

Traveller’s Company Regular Camel notebook. That is the standard clip and I tired so many pens to fit in. Unfortunately I could not get a comfortable and snug fit with most of my pens. I thought the Kaweco Brass pen or fountain pen would be a lovely pair but it just would not fit. My Lamy 2000 failed as well. I guess the clip is most suited for Traveller’s Company pen, which I do not won at the moment.

My Montblanc Rouge Et Noir or 145, fits it well but I doubt I would be carrying those pens that way attached to a Traveller’s Notebook. Finally I ended up with Faber Castell Black Writink. 

The back. As you see it is bare at the moment. No charms and etc. Will add them soon. 

This is the standard notebook provided

Will start writing this day or next

I purchased the watercolor paper. It is a bit more solid and denser compared to the normal writing paper

I also added dot print paper

As Brian Goulet said, 3 is just nice and probably the max the notebook can take without looking a mess. It feels sturdy now and like a sandwich just begging for a bite

On our recent family trip fully sponsored by my lovely wife, we stayed at Datai Langkawi. Our room had this lovely leather bounded resort booklet. Datai was kind enough to provide the creators contact details. However, on our final few days in Langkawi we shifted stay to Kunang Kunang and guess what they had it for sale. Albeit a smaller version. So I purchased it. Soft subtle beautifully smelling leather. Inside are brass clips   

Purchased separately are also 2 sets of A4 size watercolor papers for my kids cmco and creative side endeavors 

The watercolor paper is very different from the traveller’s notebook water color paper. This is more suited for watercolor

Also purchased ceramic water color pallet. You can check on th internet the difference between plastic, metal, enamel and ceramic water color pallets. In a nutshell the ceramic pallet is used mainly by watercolor artist as it the color does not bead, it holds the color well and easy to wash clean without leaving stains 

And finally to share are the Faber Castell watercolor and graphite cleaning brush. I use it to clean the work table from dust and rubber shavings. It does a good job 

To complete the set are Princeton watercolor brush set of various sizes and other art related tools. Neatly packed into a Navy Green nylon case

The case wraps up beautifully for convenient storage and portability 

All in all a very satisfying haul. Unexpected but pleasant never the less.

God bless and Wishing everyone a Happy New Year with abundance of wealth, health and prosperity

Alternative saucer to hold your bath soap

I have been using the original glass soap saucer for more than 10 years but sometime this year my daughter accidentally dropped it whilst taking a shower. She is only 8 so nothing much can be done. Just glad she was not injured in any way.

I subsequently got a replacement from a outlet in Empire Subang selling ceramic pottery. I thing the small causer caused me RM5.00. 

Needless to say, one day whilst taking a shower I grabbed the soap and it was stuck to the ceramic saucer and behold whilst lifting the soap the saucer followed as well and without any hint of warning, it suddenly decided to release its grip and as you can foresee gravity took over and the saucer fell and shattered all over the bathroom floor. 

Anyhow, I was never pleased with the original glass and replacement ceramic saucer. One fitted perfectly and was transparent and elegant, the other was flamboyant and had beautiful colors but neither served me well as it tend to hold water and spoil the soap. I use mainly handmade soaps and you know how they disintegrate with water. Now imagine the soap left in a pool of water overnight. Yup, that’s was my experience with both sauces. I had to diligently ensure, I drain the water from the saucer after each bath. Failing to do so, disintegrated soap. Not failing to do so, possibility of the soap sticking to the saucer.

Finally, after the second incident of breaking saucers, I thought why not use a Selangor Pewter bowl my son made years ago during our visit to their foundry. We had one with a small hole in the middle due to a mistake of hammering his name too hard into the soft pewter. 

It turned out to be a perfect choice. With the hole, the bowl is always dry and if the bowl drops, I merely shape it back by hand as pewter is soft enough

 

The almost perfect burger

This was dinner yesterday for the family, 2 December 2020. Preheated the oven for 200 degrees celsius. Then toasted the brioche bun laden with lurpak butter and mozzarella slices for 200 degrees celsius for 4 minutes. Slides in the bullseye egg which is watery in the middle and medium cooked pure angus beef patty rubbed with herb butter, salt, pepper and all spice. Topped off with grilled beef strips.

The secret sauce was herb mayonnaise and a tad mustard. If this does not make your day, I do not know what will. Enjoy   

My ECD travel pouch

This is a travel pouch which is place in my bag, It’s easy as all my tools and gadgets are stored neatly and systematically in one place.

So if I change bags I just upload the cary case into the other bag.

And if the need arises to change the contents in the bag, I will just do so. Hence, now all my tools and necessities are in one bag. Neatly packed and easily assessable. There is no need to have my pocket knife in one pocket, pen in another and etc. It eliminates the fumbling process when I need to reach for a tool. But this only works if you are carrying a bag, due to the size of the cary case.

Neatly organized are my brass pencil box containing a Kaweco brass mechanical pencil, 0.7 brass pencil led holder, eraser and brass ruler, hidden in the zipper area are also 1 victorinox traveler, 1 hand sanitizer bottle and 1 bottle hand soap. Other items clearly visible are jabra hands free earpiece, corded apple headphone, apple charger, copper olight I5T EOS CU, kaweco brass ballpoint pen, powerbank and ice blue mobile phone stand. At the back of the case I placed a travel size notebook for easy notes taking.      

  

Simple power packed brunch

Made this for my kids 24 November 2020. They loved it. Simple and super easy to make. If you have all the ingredients on standby it only takes about 1 minute to slice the croissant and assemble its filling and 8 minutes cooking time in the oven.

This is my first time making it so I have not perfected the temperature and grilling time in the oven. 

All items were purchased from Jaya Grocer, Empire Subang Jaya, the day before.

You will need butter croissant, gourmessa chicken roll (or any other cold cuts of your preference) and emborg mozzarella natural slices cheese. Some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

That’s about it. Now lets begin. Slice the croissant and assemble one layer of mozzarella cheese, then a layer of chicken cold cuts and followed up with another layer of mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle a little of salt and pepper. That’s it you’re done.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius for 10 minutes. Then set the oven to 140 Celsius for 8 minutes. I was more cautious as I did not want to burn the “buns”, hence, the longer grilling time at a lower temperature.

Enjoy 😊 

 

My Home Workstation during MCO and CMCO

Greetings fellow internet readers. Today, 23 November 2020, 11.30am, I intend to share my family’s workstation at home in the study room during the MCO and CMCO.

For today’s blog, I will only share the workstation. The entire study room, I will share in a subsequent blog.

This workstation is used by me, my wife and kids. The setup for me and my kids are the same. Only my wife differs as she will be using her company’s laptop and not the ipad. 

Without further ado, let’s have a look at the current set up.

On the desk are 2 Ikea Orange Mojlighet Headphone stand. One housing a Jabra Elite 45H (on the left) and Bose QuietComfort 35 II noise cancellation (on the left). On the table beside the Traveller’s Notebook are also 2 IT glasses with blue tint for the kids whenever they use their IT devises. Unfortunately, the chair is teakwood and leather which is not conducive and hurts over prolong use.

Lego stationary holder

The work setup. iPad, Magic Mouse 2, wireless keyboard and x mini xoundbar

My daughter’s mobile phone in the event both kids have classes at the same time 

I also have an additional extension USB cable to extend the length of the charging cable. Unfortunately with the extended cable the charging is rather slow and does not have enough juice for charging the ipad 

New plant added for something green and more oxygen

Pilot E95S Fountain Pen

This is a long overdue gift for my lovely wife. When I started on my fountain pen journey, I started with Faber - Castell WRITink black fountain pen and pink ink purchased from their outlet in Sunway Pyramid. It was a nice, simple and elegant starter fountain pen. 

In time when my collection expended, my daughter and son wanted their own fountain pen. So I got them their own, however, my wife was left out as she found it complicated and cumbersome to write, refill and maintain a fountain pen. 

She preferred a normal pen. Mush for simpler to use with no sweet spots. 

To get her started on her journey and not left out, I got her this Pilot E95S. I have been eying this pen for a long time. It was not available in Malaysia at time and most online sellers were charging a lot excluding shipping cost to Malaysia. 

I found the nib of this pen mesmerizing which was what drew me to this pen. It was utterly unique and the color combination of pearl ivory and burgundy made the pen stand out.

Figboot on pens, goulet pen company and many others were singing praise for it, making it even more desirable to me.

One fine day, I had noticed that Pengallery has advertised their latest acumen and they had a pen which looked a lot like the E95S. Upon checking their website, I had realized that it was indeed the pen I wanted. 

Unfortunately, my wife still has not used this fountain pen due to her preference towards ballpoint pens. Who knows, in due time she may.

This pen truly stands out due to the color combination, exposed nib and petite size.

This would be my first Pilot pen purchased. 14K gold nib. It has a vintage astatic look and charm. Written on the nib Pilot (M) Japan. M standing for medium size nib. Sorry not my best picture

The pen came in this elegant case

As you can see, it is a small pen indeed, perfect for my wife

Printed at the back of the cap, Pilot Japan 

On the front is the letter E, Elite

On the clip is Pilot, prominently written 

Included was a really tiny converter. To me it’s great as I viewed it as enabling me to change the color of my ink more often. Changing ink color makes your writing experience, day, art work and journals or articles more pleasurable. Same pen, different inks. It is like you. Same person, different hair style or clothes or make up. 

Size comparison with a Montblanc Rouge Et Noir Coral. This Montblanc is by nature a smaller one compared to the others in their staple. 

This is how small the pen is. Small in nature but huge in personality and a delightful writer. You could post it but I found there was no need to, since I have small hands in general. Due to its pocket size nature, it is becoming one of my more used fountain pens. Don’t be fooled by the size. Is has some weight to it and a very robust feeling