A blog about all the good things in life.
while I’m relearning how to do video I’ve tried a new thing I call mini vlogs. Super short vlogs without sound that mostly create a feeling of the day. The goal now is to be able to do them really fast and learn how to edit with presets and such. Here are the two first:
Episode 1 - A Cigar on the Balcony
Episode 2 - After Rain Comes Sunshine
Maybe I should create an intro and outro? So they have something in common.
Do you like suits and using accessories like pocket squares, ties and lapel pins to spice them up a bit? Here is a quick tip, you don’t need to buy special lapel pins, you can use whatever pin you want. This may seem obvious, but I don’t see many people use “ordinary” pins on their suit jackets. It may be because they want to look classy, but if you want to be more relaxed and maybe a bit geeky, why not use something that stands out? I for one have a couple of Nintendo pins and a couple of cat pins that I often use, and they usually get more positive response with them then with a nice flower.
But then again, I do socialize with some pretty geeky people.
I'm not that good at cooking, at least not as good as I want to be. I am however quite the gadget geek so that hasn't stopped me from buying a bunch of nice kitchen utensils I have no idea how to use. Because at least they look good!
One of my favorite things in the kitchen that I actually can use, at least a bit, is my Skeppshult cast iron grill pan. Even if I usually suck at cooking meat this pan makes it so easy that even I can't fail. And maybe as important, it makes the meat look good. How to use it? Turn up the stove to super hot, let the pan get hotter than you think is good, add a steak, wait, turn and done!
A while back I found out for one of my favorite fashion brands (As long as you skip the monogram things) Louis Vuitton, Actually had ink for fountain pens. I was quite surprised, but of course I just needed to get a hold of a bottle of their ink. Especially as the bottles looked amazing.
There was however a problem, the inks seemed impossible to find. I looked in a physical store and also in different online stores (different countries have different offerings), but to no avail. I even called the Swedish branch, but they couldn't get a hold of any ink either. Then I remembered that my brother's girlfriend actually worked at their head office in Paris, so of course I also asked her. The answer I got was however once again a no.
The thing was however but that's what's all the rouse, Instead she and my brother got a hold of a couple of bottles of ink and brought them to Sweden as a gift the next time they visited. I must say that this may have been the best gift ever.
The two inks I got were Bleu Rêveur (Dreamy Blue) and Or Audacieux (Audacious Gold) and even if I won’t do a review of them here I must say that Bleu Rêveur went up to one of my top blue inks ever, and I have a lot of blue inks! Both inks are wet, well behaved and the blue has really nice shading.
Yesterday was a very hectic day with so much to do that I didn’t even have the time to eat properly. First I did my hours at the office with way to many meetings. I actually think there should be a limit on how much time one can spend in meetings in one day, don’t you agree?
After work I hurried home for more work, as I had a photo shoot booked just an hour later. Then, when the shoot was finished, I went into town for a small event where Huawei showed of their latest phone, Mate 20 Pro.
For you who wants to know how the shoot went, and my thoughts about the phone I also recorded a vlog so check it out!
The other week I went to Genoa, Italy, to do a bunch of different stuff. I went there to stream a very geeky event where over a 100 people from all over the world got together to play a collectible card game from 1993. That was however not the only thing I did there, I also tried to film a short documentary (probably failed though) and of course this vlog.
This is part 1 of two and in this part you get to follow me on the trip there, and see the beautiful city.
Ever since I started using fountain pens I have been searching for the perfect “standard ink”. A beautiful, yet subtle everyday ink that I never get tired of even if filled a whole notebook with only that ink. For me that ink is without a doubt a blue black ink, I’ve always hated blue pens and instead bought pens with black ink, but to be fair, black is quite boring. That’s is why I love blue black inks, they are almost like using a black ink, but with some character!
I really can't say exactly what a perfect blue black ink would look like, but I know that I haven't found it yet. The closest I've come to finding one is the fairly new Aurora blue black, but it isn't perfect. It has an amazing color and it’s neither too bright or too blue, which is the case for most blue blacks. The Aurora ink also has some great shading and some red sheen, which is something I love and absolutely want in my everyday ink. The one thing that could be better for me is if it was a bit darker, maybe not as dark as another favorite, Diamine 1864 Blue Black, but almost. I would love a mix between does two inks, A little brighter 1864 with the sheen from the Aurora ink would be my perfect blue black. That brings me to today’s real topic, mixing my own ink.
As one does, I started to google the topic and one thing became clear straight away, the safest way to mix inks was to use only inks from the same brand, and preferably also the same series. Of course it is possible mix inks from differents brands, but the consensus seemed to be that things could go wrong if one were unlucky, so the safe bet was to use ink from the same brand.
As I'm just starting out I decided to use Diamine inks, as the small 30 ml bottles are so cheap that you can buy a lot of different colors to mix with. Here you can see some my first tests where I decided to use Sargasso Sea as the blue component because of the sheening properties of the ink. Sorry to say that the sheen seem to disappear when I mix it though. I've also tried to mix some Sailor inks as I love the properties of those inks. The first test with a 50/50 mix of Sailor Yama-Dori and Sailor Shigure actually became super nice and I use it regularly now. All I can say that it has been fun so far and that I’m far from finished with this project. I'll update you when I found the perfect blue black, but until then, why not try it yourself?
I really (I mean really!) hate ironing button up shirts, so much that I actually rather use an unironed shirt than spend the time ironing it. At least for an ordinary day at the office.
This is of course a bit of a problem as I do love wearing button up shirts, a lot! I actually use a button up shirt almost every day. So how do I manage you might ask, the reason is because I have come up with the best life hack I know of.
After every time I’ve washed my shirts I hang them in my small bathroom, place my humidifier in there, set it to max and close the door. After a couple of hours I turn of the humidifier and usually let the shirts hang there to dry until the next morning. Essentially I’ve built my own “steam closet” and even if ironing still does a better job, this makes the shirts perfectly fine for everyday use. I still iron my shirts for more special occasions, if I have the time that is. Otherwise I actually think the result from the steam closet is good enough even for those occasions.
If you don’t have a humidifier you can instead take a long and very hot shower with the door closed to build up steam. I would however recommend a humidifier as I have never gotten as good results that way.
