As you may know, I’m an engineer in my “day job” profession. I’ve been doing it for a while now, but I remember way back in my undergraduate studies learning that there is actual engineering paper. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s basically really fancy graph paper. It’s only grid-ruled on the back side, although when you write on a pad of it you can see the grids through to the front; but when you scan or copy it, they aren’t visible. It’s usually tinted green or yellow, and it has boxes at the top so you can write whatever header info you want. It’s drilled into undergrads’ heads that you absolutely positively do all hand-written work on this paper, no matter what. Even if that sounds ridiculous — and even if the cost of a pad of the stuff is even more ridiculous — it’s still somehow ingrained in my psyche, years later.

When I saw the Rifle Paper Co. Graph Notepad out of the corner of my eye at Metro Cooks a while back, you know damn well I impulse-bought the hell out of it. It’s like engineering paper…in tiny notepad form! What better scribble pad for my desk? A few months have passed, but I have finally decided to unwrap the pad and take it for a spin. Here’s my take on it…