This time, the Mead Five-Star Spiral Quadrille Pad, product number 06187. Checking the Mead site today I don’t find this product, but it’s still listed on Office Depot.
It’s 100 pages of 20 pound paper. That’s better paper than in most such products. The front cover is plastic, which gets ratty much more slowly and has few drawbacks (it’s harder to write on; I mostly don’t want to write on it). The paper feels less smooth than most, perhaps a bit rough. It might work very well with pencil, as well as pens.
The heavy paper, though, isn’t heavy enough to use both sides of. My broad gel pens show throw quite clearly, especially the black, but even the red does.
Also, the backing cardboard isn’t stiff enough. It’s not so floppy it seems to have no board at all, the way some of the cheap ones I still have at home are, but it’s definitely sub-optimal, and not nearly as nice as the Cambridge planning pad ones that emphasize their stiff backing.
The ruling is in light gray. I prefer blue, but that’s probably mostly for traditional reasons. One side is 4 to the inch, one 5. I only use the front side anyway, and don’t really care much about size (I think I prefer 4 slightly, but I don’t think I’ve ever had 5).
I don’t like lined pads. I never really have. And blank pads (which I haven’t used, and probably wouldn’t like that much) and graph pads are hard to come by and expensive. I got spoiled by the real lab notebooks in the supply cabinet at Network Systems.
The notebook is oversize, and the pages are micro-perforated. The part that comes out is letter size, and is three-hole punched. For my main use for such notebooks I don’t need either.
Much of the part of life that isn’t the search for the right luggage is the search for the right notebook.
I picked up a liking for quad-ruled paper when I was in Germany in high school, and the Cambridge pads are the best ones I’ve found over here. Which is not to say that I think you should use them–this is a completely personal liking for them, which I’m relating because your post brought it to mind.
I hadn’t tried these Mead ones before, and I was ordering from a catalog for work, I didn’t get to fondle them first. Also I definitely wanted bound, not tear-off; I should have been using “notebook” (though pads were most of what the search turned up; probably why it’s in my head).
I’ve got some Cambridge side-bound spiral graph notebooks (also a Mead label) that have better stiff backing. They’re a too-dark yellowy-brown paper, though.
I’m doing more and more of my long-term notes directly online; it’s great to be able to grep my notes! (or Google desktop search).
Levenger just popped up with a new product.
Spiral notebook with substantial Levenger paper
Levenger paper is heralded for its quality, and our 60-lb. text stock—traditionally populating our Circa notebooks—is now available in wirebound format to fulfill the demands of our customers’ various note-taking styles.
Each cover indicates a different page layout inside
* Red: Storyboard—use the right-hand rules for writing and the left-hand boxes for sketching
* Midnight blue: Multicolored Ruled—full-page ruled pages
* Blue: Annotation Grid—use the grid pattern for precision drawing and the annotation margin for notes
* Dark green: Annotation Ruled—use the annotation margin for calling out key points, compatible with the Cornell method of note-taking
85 pages per notebook
8 7/8W x 1/2D x 11H
Irene can show you the paper sometime if you’re curious. Maybe at the Minn-StF meeting tomorrow?
Ah, that’s potentially useful (as long as the “annotation margin” isn’t too big). Looks like they also have smaller sewn-binding notebooks in graph paper. The paper quality sounds like it’s miles above what the others have, which would be nice.
I’ll be at the meeting tomorrow at some point, by current plans.