I'm Barry Dean Milligan, a 33 year old judicial clerk from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I graduated last spring from Louisiana State University Law School. I discovered fountain pens when I set out to learn calligraphy about 10 years ago. The insatiable desire to acquire is a recent, but powerful phenomenon in my life.
My mind is, and has always been, like an untrained Labrador, running hither and yon enthusiastically, but not fetching many sticks, if you know what I mean.
One of the reasons that I think I like this pen-crowd so much is that I lack much daily contact with people who, like myself, are passionate and intensely interested in the things that they love. Also, I enjoy learning from the more-knowledgeable, as well as the patience and helpfulness with which they instruct.
Some of my interests other than fountain pens are: chess (an abominable game that ate several years of my life, and still threatens random days and weeks on occasion) tennis (on a good day I might be able to beat my mother) (but my mother is pretty good) reading (which I do in frenzied binges) movies (I really dig movies) and airplane crashes (a macabre obsession of mine, don't know what I think about it sometimes) I also have free-floating interests that crop up chronically. I'll spare you.
I'm more of a user than a collector of fountain pens, although they are beginning to add up. Maybe after I have a few dozen more, I'll start to see a pattern to my "collection." In the meantime, I have many new worlds to explore, like vintage, flexible nibs, and the like. Hanging out with these guys hips you to desires you never knew you had.
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