The Grey Nato - Episode 02 - Origin Stories

Published on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 08:50:32 -0500

Synopsis

This podcast episode discusses Jason and James' origin stories and how they got into watches and adventuring. They talk about specific watches that sparked their interests like Seiko dive watches, the influence of movies/TV ads, and transitioning from digital watches as kids to automatics as adults. They recommend affordable watches good for adventures like the Seiko SKX007 or Marine Master 300m. They discuss beating up watches through real-world use and adventures to give them stories and character. For book/video recommendations, they mention works by authors like Robert Kurson, Jon Krakauer, Tom Wolfe, and adventurers featured in TED Talks without reproducing full copyrighted text. The overarching theme is balancing a passion for watches with an adventurous outdoor lifestyle.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Welcome to episode 2 of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. I'm Jason Heaton, a Minneapolis-based freelance writer for a number of gear, travel, and timepiece publications, including Gear Patrol, Hodinkee, Revolution, and Men's Journal.
James Stacey And I'm James Stacy. Based in Vancouver, I call myself a professional enthusiast. I write about watches, cars, and almost anything that catches my eye for a blog to watch.com, nouveau magazine, and more. Today, our main topic is origin stories. Uh, we're basically going to discuss where we got our start in watches. It's kind of the common thing that comes up at a cocktail party or, or, you know, a get together with other watch guys and gals. And, uh, I think it's something that is probably best covered in an early episode of the gray NATO. So. Jason, where did you, where did you kind of get into watches? What led you to watches? And how long has this been, you know, essentially some sort of a problem in your life as far as your love of watches?
Jason Heaton Yeah, this feels like a therapy session. No doubt. You know, I always wore a watch. I'm sort of a, I was a teenager in the 1980s. And I always had sort of cheaper watches, Timex Ironmans and, and Casio's and things like that. But there was one point in the mid-80s when my friends and I used to as teenagers or want to hang out at the mall and I remember walking by a jewelry store there and there was there was this big steel dive watch in the window and it was a Pepsi bezel you know the red and blue bezel it was it was a Seiko and I'm not sure exactly which reference it was it might have been one of the 7002 references but Um, at that time it was just so different from anything I'd seen or it wasn't, you know, something like that wasn't even on my radar. And when I saw it, I just had to have that watch. And I remember going into the store and, and trying it on and I had this big, beefy, long rubber strap. And, um, it was an automatic, you know, so the secondhand swept smoothly and, you know, it was 80 bucks or something like that at the time, which, um, was way more money than I had. And so I remember I worked all summer. cutting grass painting houses and I raised enough money to buy it and I wore that watch for years and I just I loved it I felt like you know I felt like James Bond or something when I was wearing it. It was just like it immediately sort of set me on the course of not only watches but it's sort of it also tied into sort of a more adventurous lifestyle it was sort of the tail end of my high school years and I was kind of trying to figure out what to do with my life and and you know I can't I don't want to overplay it, but it sort of set me on the path that I took for the rest of my life, you know, sort of mingling diving and adventure and watches all in sort of one package. And, you know, I don't have that watch anymore. I've got a good handful of Seiko diving watches, but, you know, I can distinctly remember that episode sort of setting me on this course. How about you? How'd you get into watches?
James Stacey For me, you know, I grew up Essentially, as soon as I could read, I was reading about cars and military aircraft, really just anything kind of mechanical and interesting and kind of out of the normal. So I've loved that a long time. And then my other favorite thing when I was really young, like a little, little kid was anything that glowed in the dark. So I remember watching TV and there was an ad for the very first generation Timex Indiglo.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacey I want to say I was about six or seven years old. And we went to, uh, for my birthday, we went to a movie and before we went to the movie, you know, we stopped at the bay and, uh, and got one of these, uh, Timex Ironmans. And I don't think I saw like two or three full minutes of the movie, which I think was Beethoven. That the Beethoven with a dog.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Because I just sat there, you know, pressing the Indiglo button for two and a half hours straight. I think that first battery lasted like three months. From there, uh, you know, I pretty much just kind of stuck with digital watches. And then as I got older, I got pretty deep into loving tech and, uh, and that sort of thing. That's certainly my, my earliest roots in podcasts are some of the really old tech podcasts that are still around this week in tech, Dignation, stuff like that. And, uh, and then towards the tail end of university. I realized I wanted a watch because I had one that someone had given me for a gift and then the battery died and I didn't know that you just put a battery in it and that sort of thing. So I started googling watches and it's been a long term problem of mine that I start googling something and then I wake up 10 years later and I've essentially found the end of whatever Google's got. But with watches you don't find the end, there's no end. Right. So I think that's pretty much what brought me to here. But yeah, I bought I bought, you know, I'm only casually ashamed to admit in my early days, I bought a couple Invictas.
Jason Heaton I haven't had the pleasure.
James Stacey Two months later, I realized, you know, I found out what a Rolex really was. And the fact that I was basically just wearing the worst of the worst clones.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey I very quickly went to an SKX007, which I still have. I wore it at my wedding, although it's not appropriate to wear with a suit. I wore it for sentimental reasons. And that's a watch that I love. I still have, I won't get rid of. And I think it's essentially a perfect sport watch. There's better sport watches, but they cost so much more that I think it diminishes their sportiness in some ways. There's a level of accessibility to the SKX or and and you know the 7002s in your case that almost encourage you to use them as they were designed to be used. Yeah that's a good point. And in in a worst case scenario it floods you smash it whatever you you know strap breaks and you lose it on a hike a climb a dive whatever you get another one. Yeah. When I moved out to Vancouver a few years ago I finally was in that situation where I could explore that and I got my dive certifications and I started diving and I found a whole new appreciation for the idea of a sport watch, both through diving and hiking. Kind of renewed my love of digital watches to a certain extent. Hiking is really nice to have the Altimeter Barometer Compass sort of watches as a nice backup to have with you. And I think that's pretty much where it brought me to now. I started reading, I realized nobody in my immediate group wanted to talk to me about watches. They were all bored with the concept. So you lean really hard on the internet and in my case I leaned hard enough that I ended up writing stuff and a few years ago started with a blog to watch and it's just basically been a blast since then.
Jason Heaton That's great. I mean it's funny how diving gets woven in with the love of watches and I think you know for some people the watch bug comes in an entirely different way. They maybe saw their father wearing an old Omega Constellation or something. I didn't have that. You know, my dad, I think I remember when I was a kid, he had, um, he had an Accutron, um, with the tuning fork movement. And I remember hearing that on his dresser in the, in the bedroom. And that was kind of my first, my, probably my earliest watch memory, but I didn't grow up around, you know, watches or dress watches, or there wasn't this sort of concept in our family of, you know, watches being anything significant. Um, so it wasn't until that experience with my first Seiko that I really was awakened to this notion of watches. And then years later, you know, after wearing that for a number of years and getting rid of it, getting rid of it, I also got into the digital side of things. I was working at a mountaineering shop here in Minneapolis called Midwest Mountaineering, which is ironic since we don't really have any mountains here. And you know, everybody there, everybody else that worked there was, was wearing, uh, like Suntos, you know, the vector at the time, which was kind of their original mountaineering watch. And, uh, you know, I bought, I bought a couple of Suntos. I had, um, The X6, which was their first one that you could actually connect to a computer and download your data. Sure. I had a vector, um, and I still have that vector. Nice big yellow. That's the yellow one. Yeah. Yeah. I know that one.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton So I was kind of into that for a while. I was, I was really sort of geeked out on the, on the ABC watch, the altimeter barometer compass watches. And, um, then, you know, I was wearing those for years. And then at some point, um, it was mid two thousands. It was when the, the planet ocean came out, the Omega, the Seamaster planet ocean. Okay. It's sort of seeing that watch sort of rekindled my interest in a big diving style watch with a rubber strap. And I, um, again, I, I went to like one of these mall jewelers, it's sort of almost like a cyclical thing in my life. I went to a mall jeweler and I saw this watch in the window and I thought, you know, how can I get this watch? And I remember I like, I think I opened like a credit account at the store or something, and I bought this watch and It was, it was the coolest thing. I mean, I still think the Planet Ocean is just one of the great modern classic, uh, sport watches. And so I bought that watch and suddenly I realized if I'm going to wear this watch, um, the 600 meter water resistant diving watch, I need to learn how to dive. I need to be a diver. And so my, my interest in adventure had been there, but my interest in diving was sort of dormant. Um, to be honest, it was sort of a scary prospect to, to get into that sport. Um, but I had this watch and I thought, you know, I can't be a pretender. I've got to wear this. If I'm going to wear this watch, I got to do something with it. I got to go diving. So that was around the time I got certified to dive and, and you know, one thing led to another and now it's become sort of a minor obsession in my life. And the overlap with, with diving watches is taken on, you know, it's, it's virtually become a career. And, and so it's, it's just so interesting to see how my lifestyle and watches have overlapped so much in my life that You know, that whole saying about, you know, follow your passion in your work. And it's true. And sort of watches and diving and adventure have always sort of mingled and crossed paths at various points in my life.
James Stacey Yeah, for me, it was mostly, we'll say, academic. My love of adventure, you know, I like to read books about adventures and, you know, great feats of mountain climbing and diving and such. And I think we'll get to kind of a nice list of those a little later in the episode. But once I came to Vancouver, I realized, like, the accessibility was so high that you could just try anything. If I wanted to try getting to the top of my first peak, you know, they're not huge mountains right next to Vancouver, but they're like a half hour from where I live.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey I did that once or twice. And then next weekend I was really upset and like ornery just sitting on the couch. And I didn't, it took me a little while to realize like, Oh, I just, I want to go hiking again.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And then the same thing happens with diving. Obviously the diving around Vancouver, and you can attest to this with your experience in, uh, even worse conditions in the Great Lakes, it's a real chore to go diving in these situations. You're not just kind of pulling your gear off a hook and walking off a dock. Even though I might be on the couch a lot through the wintry months in Vancouver, it's fun because you can pick up a dive watch or something similar and kind of feel connected to that passion.
Jason Heaton I understand the interest that a lot of people have in vintage watches, but for me, what really is exciting about a watch is if you can get a modern watch and you can actually make it your own and sort of use it as a companion on your adventures. And I feel like, especially with a diving watch, it's one of those pieces that it becomes part of you, it becomes part of your life. It's a, it's, it becomes a favorite piece of gear. If you take it along on some of these adventures, you know, I've got, you know, a handful of, of diving watches and I look at each one of them and I can recall specific adventures that I had with But those watches, I've got a Bremont Supermarine 2000 that was, um, one of the earliest ones that they made. And I, I took it, uh, ice diving and you know, I, uh, that memory of that experience, that adventure was so it's still so vivid in my head. And every time I put on that watch, I remember that, that experience about it. And, you know, that's kind of the case with, I climbed Mount Rainier. I was wearing my Rolex Submariner that, you know, my wife gave me on my 40th birthday. And, you know, these, these watches, I think this is what people like about vintage watches is the stories that they have in them, but a lot of times you don't know which stories they were because you weren't the one that created those. And that's what I really like about, you know, what you were saying earlier about, you know, Seikos actually sort of encourage you to use them as they were designed. And I think I encourage that. I mean, I always tell people, you know, take these watches. I don't care if it's a Rolex or whatever. I mean, check the spring bars, put it on a NATO strap if you're worried about losing it and whatever, but just use these things. They were designed decades ago for adventures that are probably a lot rougher than, than you'll ever put them through.
James Stacey Yeah. And to that, to that point, I mean, you live that you've, you've put your sub through some real tough scenarios. You pop, you know, smack the bezel right off it on a, on a sailboat, didn't you?
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. That, yeah, it's another thing. I mean, that, that watch is just so it has so many stories. I was, I was a crewing on a sailboat in the Rolex big boat series out in San Francisco and, and, uh, I was, I had the role of what they call jumping halyards, which means you're up front, uh, doing sale changes. And, you know, that required, you know, by hand pulling on the, on the lines to, to raise sales. And I had my watch on, I had it on a NATO strap. Um, but I remember at one point I felt my wrist sort of snag, but I was in such a frenzy at the moment that I didn't really realize what had happened. And I was just yanking on the lines. And then before I knew it, I sat down on the, uh, you know, hiking out when we were tacking. And I looked at my wrist and the, and the bezel was missing and yeah, I kind of shrugged. I thought, okay, you know, I can get another bezel and it kind of looks cool without the bezel. But then this other guy who coincidentally is a sea dweller owner, um, he wasn't wearing it at the time, but he was, he crawled over on the deck towards me and he said, I found this over on the deck and it looks familiar. I'm guessing it's yours. And he added it to me and miraculously my bezel had not washed into the sea and he had it back to me. I tucked it in my pocket and when I got back home, I popped it back on without the the click spring so that it just turns friction, you know, left and right. And I want to keep it that way because, again, there's that memory that I think of when I see that watch now.
James Stacey That's a very Rolex memory. I like it a lot. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I would encourage, you know, like if you're buying watches and you're, I mean, if you're listening to this, I assume that you're interested in some level on sport watches, adventuring, things like that. Don't baby your watches, especially the ones that you plan to keep, the ones that are yours. Beat them up. You can always fix them. You could do some real damage to a watch and they're almost always still saveable. Whether it's a Seiko or a Rolex, I don't think that necessarily matters. That's going to be a personal decision, but one or two scratches can be a bit of a bummer on a watch, but like a hundred or a thousand, that's a watch. That's what makes it a watch. Crystals are replaceable. steel scratches that's life that's that's the life of a watch yeah if you're not into sport watches but you like the idea pick up an skx whichever one use new i don't think it makes any difference throw it on a nato strap and then take it with you for a while let it bear some scars from your adventures i mean your body will bear those scars too so i think it's uh i think it's a good fit and it's what the watch is meant for yeah one last question for you is i'm hearing that the xkx skx come up a few times and and i wanted to ask you if you
Jason Heaton if you had to kind of go forward with one watch only, which is the, the, the great unicorn, you know, it's the, it's the question that, that a lot of watch nerds get asked or ask themselves, um, given the types of activities you do and your penchant for sports watches, what, which one watch would you choose? Would it be an SKX or would you stick with your Explorer 2?
James Stacey Um, I mean, it's tough. I mean, cause if you're going with one watch for it, I guess I've given up on being like a watch enthusiast to a certain extent. Yeah. I think I can guess your answer and I would agree with it as well. a Seiko, maybe something a little bit more refined than an SKX if it was going to be my only one. And they make some fantastic watches if you push up into the very low four figures, around $1,000, maybe maximum $2,000. And you can get a watch that I guarantee will outlive you.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I agree. I think Seiko is the brand I would pick. And I think at this point, I'd probably say something like the Marine Master, the 300 meter version. It's one of those pieces that if you're And again, this is entirely hypothetical because it won't happen. Um, if you were to go with one watch or if I were to go with one watch, I would take everything into consideration before I made that decision. So things like, am I traveling to parts of the world where a Rolex makes me a target for theft or, um, you know, if I break a spring bar and lose it, or if I damage it, um, how easily can I have it fixed or can I replace it? Um, as well as just pure ruggedness and also, you know, what do I want to look at on my wrist? you know, over an extended period. I was in Sri Lanka this winter, and I wore the Marine Master 300. And frankly, I didn't miss anything else that I own. And that's, that says something, there's something to be said for just kind of keeping things simple.
James Stacey And does a dive watch cover all of your functional needs?
Jason Heaton Definitely. You know, there's, there's just almost nothing a dive watch can't do. I mean, I'm not a big chronograph collector, I guess, I only own one. And I I get chronographs, I get why they're cool and I admire them, but for me, just the simpler the better, and a dive watch will pretty much do everything for me.
James Stacey Yeah, I have my SKX modded with a Yaboki's 12-hour bezel, which I think is the single best non-complication complication for a watch. Guys in our situation, and I think in a lot of people's modern work lives, they deal with other time zones, and a GMT watch is great Sometimes they're a real pain to set whether it's it's an Explorer or something based on a 7750 or something based on a 2892 Yeah, but a 12-hour bezel you can still use it to say time a pizza I would be a little concerned about timing a dive with it simply because let's say you're narked. Mm-hmm I don't think I could do that math narked but in the day-to-day use The SKX with a 12-hour bezel is great because you can simply, as long as your time zone's no more than 12 hours in one direction from you, you can very quickly get a read on a second time zone. But it's something you see more commonly on vintage watches, so I think it was a thing at one time. And I really hope that it's included in more designs. Like, you know, the Tudor Heritage Chrono has a 12-hour bezel, which I think is awesome, and I'd like to see it on more watches.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I agree. If not a GMT diver, um, with the GMT complication on a dive watch, I think the, uh, the 12 hour bezel is a great thing. And, and, you know, the one that pops into my head is the Mark II Paradive, which is sort of a homage to the Ben Ruess, the, the, the dive watches that, uh, Ben Ruess was making for, uh, uh, special forces divers during the Vietnam war era. Definitely bulletproof too.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah, I agree. All right, and we're back. We're going to talk new business. So these are, you know, things we're working on, things we're excited about, maybe new watch, maybe a different product that we'd like to recommend, something we've enjoyed recently. You know, recently I've been hunting a leather strap for my Explorer. There's a gap problem with the Explorers or I think with a lot of the modern Rolex cases where you can't actually get that much leather between the spring bar and the inside edge of the case. Right. And because the finishing, the inside edge is actually quite sharp. So if you put a leather strap on there, it seems to fit. And then as it kind of rotates, the inside of the case just kind of chews up the center of the strap. Yeah. So that's something I'm dealing with. I'm still kind of eyeballing it. If you, listeners, if you have any recommendations, please tag hashtag the gray NATO on Instagram, Twitter, or email the gray NATO at gmail.com. I'm still eyeballing. for a strap that's kind of more or less designed for that low tolerance. Other than that, I have a Bremont Alt-1 ZT in for review. So I've had this watch for a while and I've just been kind of dragging my heels as I develop kind of a different video platform for the reviews. But it's a really great watch. It's one they announced last year at Basel. So it's a GMT chronograph, so 24-hour GMT. and it also uses their rotoclick bezel, so it kind of replaces the Alt-1Z, or augments the Alt-1Z, and it's the one that has the black dial with the kind of triangular markers, so it has a little bit of the same aesthetic appeal as the JLC Deep Sea Diver Chrono. It's a cool piece. I'm sure, Jason, you saw it at Basel last year.
Jason Heaton I did, and I have to admit, I think I'm in the minority of people that saw that watch. The Alt-1ZT was actually my least favorite novelty that Bremont introduced. I used to have an Alt-1Z, if that's what the previous edition was called, and I liked that one, but the ZT, it hasn't really done much for me. I mean, in terms of, you know, I love Bremont as a brand and I love, like, the MB3 and a lot of their other pieces, but for some reason the ZT hasn't grabbed me like it has a lot of other people.
James Stacey Yeah, fair enough. I've really enjoyed having it in. It works great on a grey NATO. of course. You know, I think they have a knack for pilot, obviously for pilot chronographs, but also for kind of the GMT pilot chronograph. So this is one is very similar in functionality to the Alt-1 WT, which is another favorite of mine from them. As far as their chronographs go, I think you and I aren't really chronograph guys deep down. Yeah. You know, I have a Solo, you have a Supermarine, So definitely Bremont fans overall. So I'm enjoying having a chance to kind of try out this. It's kind of an outlier from their normal design, which I like, you know, I'm a fan of things that are kind of strange or kind of set out on their own from a family design. And I've enjoyed having it. So that review should go up sometime in the next month, certainly before Basel. And then as far as products, I had a Tudor Pelagos in for review a while ago. And in preparation for that, you know, they have a reputation online for being very difficult to remove the, uh, bracelet with, uh, you know, a single sided, just a regular spring bar tool like you'd use for a strap.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure.
James Stacey Uh, so I bought a pair of proper spring bar pliers. So these aren't cheap, although this is the cheapest of the options. If you want a direct recommendation, the one I bought is from a company called Horofix, H O R O fix. Um, and it's just called a spring bar plier, you know, Google it. I bought it from Esslinger.com. No affiliation with them. I don't get any kickbacks. It's just where I bought it.
Jason Heaton These pliers, um, they, so you actually, they actually pinched both sides of the spring bar at once. Is that how it works?
James Stacey Yeah. So you're not digging around and the tolerance on the back of a Rolex or a Tudor, they have a very like small window to actually access the spring bar.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And so the Rolex one's even smaller so that the tools come with kind of two types of spring bar tips and you very carefully pinch and then you actually don't move the strap, you move the watch head. And I can actually now like change the strap on the Explorer like in one try without ever scratching a lug. It's a great tool. They're 90 bucks for the Horofix, which is largely the no-name version. I want to say the Bergeron is like 200 almost 200 bucks i'm not surprised yeah that brand you pick which one you're comfortable with but if you have a tutor or rolex or it works really nicely on watches like uh that have a fairly tight tolerance for the bracelet like uh my halios tropic it was a real savior for the lugs and it works beautifully on the back of uh you know like my omega c master which also has those kind of semi-circular elongated openings yeah that have just enough room so now instead of getting one tool side in there and applying pressure to keep the bar from going back in and then getting to the other side and having it kind of shoot out. Right. Now you're literally just holding the watch case, pinching the spring bars and then pulling the case away. And when you put the strap back on, it's even easier. Huh. Or the, sorry, the bracelet back on the end link just slides into place. And, uh, certainly when you're, when you get into watches that you're borrowing from people and you don't want to return them covered in scratches. Mm. But I wanted to, you know, the Tudor, the Pelagos is amazing on both the bracelet and the rubber, and it includes both. So I think to do a review, you have to experience both. Yeah. So I bought that so I didn't have to mess around with damaging the, you know, the titanium, the already soft titanium. And it's been a godsend. It's a really cool tool. Rolex also makes like a specific one that's quite a bit more simple in its design, but apparently, you know, very much specifically designed for their case. And I think that's even more expensive. You know, I've, I've seen rumors of $400 on forums. I really didn't track that down because it was specifically for Rolex cases. So, you know, it probably doesn't expand much more than 20 millimeters. Yeah. Um, whereas these, the Horofix and the Bergeron will expand using a little, um, built in screw system. So it's actually a pretty cool tool and one that I like quite a bit. The other thing I would recommend, and I don't know if you have this problem, Jason, I don't see you wearing a lot of watches on rubber straps in your Instagram.
Unknown Mm hmm.
James Stacey But I've got a few. Yeah, I have a real love hate with rubber straps. So like, user wise and ergonomically, they're generally fantastic. But the you know, brand made OEM rubber straps are often huge, like just ridiculously expensive. Yeah, like you want to go back and buy the proper rubber strap for my 2254 from Omega. It's hundreds of dollars right for a simple rubber strap. Yeah. And I have the Temple Island, the blue Temple Island strap from Bremont for my solo. Amazing strap. Really comfortable. I love that it's blue. It looks great with the white dial, but it's very expensive. And I think for some people who just want a rubber strap occasionally, you don't want to spend three, $400 on it.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So over the Christmas break, I ordered one of these Hirsch Pure. So Hirsch is obviously like a well-known watch strap manufacturer and they make these, um, they're just called the Pure. waterproof dive watch band and they don't have any patterning or design. They're like a simple piece of rubber. It's very soft. It's a straight lug and I've worn it a few times. I wore it for a week straight on my Zinn 144. It's great on the Omega. It's a really nice rubber strap and it costs, they're about $70 all in. So you can certainly buy cheaper ones. if you're hearing $70 and you think, well, that's ludicrous, go on eBay, buy a few of the cheaper ones. And you'll know, you'll, you'll experience. This is kind of that, that nice mix of value and performance. Yeah. As far as the strap, it comes in a few different colors and that's one that I would throw out there as just being like the nicest one I've tried. That's not an OEM option and they come in a black and orange and blue. So there's a few options. A buddy of mine, Paul bought a, uh, an orange one. And then I loaned him my, uh, squalor 50 Atmos with the blue dial and the orange hand. Oh, nice. And that combo together is just, it's just so much color. It's really, really, really fun. A combo. I think you can find that on, uh, on Instagram as well under, uh, Paul Hubbard. And, uh, there's some great, some great stuff with, uh, with the different colors and certainly on a dive watch. I think rubber is great.
Jason Heaton I, uh, I'm a bit picky about rubber straps. I like, uh, I like a lot of the OEM stuff, but like you said, they're so expensive. And in terms of aftermarket rubber, uh, The isoframe brand straps that are sort of the reissue of the famous dive watch straps or ladder style rubber straps from the 70s are great. But those are also upwards of $100. And quite thick. And quite thick. And two things that I have problems with rubber straps in general are the sort of tackiness or lack of breathability. If you're wearing them in a hot climate, they can tend to chafe or rub. Especially if they're particularly stiff and that's my other pet peeve is a lot of them You know, it seems to be the trend nowadays, especially with some of the OEM stuff that that they're just such they make them so thick and Unpliable if that's a word that they they tend to cut into the sides of my wrist and then you sort of get this this chafing or sort of a rash if you wear them for any amount of time I do find that an OEM strap that is a good and be Inexpensive are again going back to Seiko. Oh, yeah, Seiko dive straps are just fantastic and they're super long So they're actually usable with a wetsuit or even a drysuit So and you can get those through I I know I've seen them on SIEA Japan.
James Stacey Oh, yeah And that's easily the best way to buy them. Yeah, definitely definitely and Other than that, my free recommendation is a video. It's on Vimeo really easy to find just type in 55 hours in Mexico And this is a video made by a couple of guys who essentially wanted to show that you don't need a lot of time to have a big adventure. So they go from, uh, it was either Denver, like somewhere in Colorado or somewhere in California to Mexico. They climb a big mountain and then they ski down and they get back in time for Monday morning for work Monday morning. I don't want to oversell it or, or, or, you know, go too long on it. Just, uh, if any of that sounds interesting to you, Google, you know, 55 hours in Mexico, click the Vimeo link. It's fantastic. And I think it gives you that nice kind of perspective that like, Oh, maybe I don't need two weeks to do something. Maybe I just need to very carefully plan or consider what I actually want from an adventure and then package it. And I think that's what these guys did. They wanted to, they wanted some altitude and they wanted to ski down. They picked a spot and they made it possible in a weekend, which is awesome.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's a good one. I've, I've seen that as well. And it's, uh,
James Stacey It's it's entertaining to watch because it's it's really a proper adventure I mean the stuff these guys had to deal with you know muddy roads and altitude sickness and whatever else and they ended up I think they end up in like a front-wheel drive like a Jeep Liberty or something Yeah, so that you know, they run into every problem that you would have on an adventure But it is all sandwiched and then yeah a lot of altitude sickness It's a it's a great video and it's the kind of thing that would take a lot of words Yeah to spell out but you can watch it and the videos nicely produced highly recommended. Yeah, and how about you? How's uh, how's your new business looking?
Jason Heaton Good. I mean, in terms of acquisitions, since we spoke last, I acquired what many would consider sort of a grail watch. And that was, it's a 1967 Speedmaster Pro Omega that has the caliber 321 movement in it, which, you know, as we discussed earlier, I'm not a chronograph guy. I'm definitely a dive watch guy. And this is a piece that really wasn't on my radar. It came up, we had a local watch enthusiast get together and there was a retailer, not a retailer, but he's a collector and dealer of vintage watches and he's retiring, he's like in his late 70s and he's liquidating his collection and he had a great price on this 67 Speedmaster Pro and I thought, now's the time. I got it on my wrist right now, it's a great piece, it's such a classic.
James Stacey No doubt. And you've got pictures of that on Instagram, I think front and back too. I do.
Jason Heaton And going back to your little tool recommendation with the spring bar pliers, I've got a case back removal tool from a company called JAXA, J-A-X-A. This was quite cheap actually. And I'm sure there are much better ones out there, but it has little dials that you can dial in the proper distance. This is for case backs that have the little... Indents? indents around the perimeter so you can sort of fine-tune the tool so that it fits in these indents. And it comes with different sized tips that you can take out and put in to accommodate the depth of those indents. And, you know, if it's... I don't crank it down too much when I'm taking it off or putting the case back on because, you know, you can slip and scratch. But I delicately tried it with the Speedmaster this morning and The back came off pretty nicely, and then it has this dust cover that I popped off, and I was able to look at the great movement inside. So, you know, I'm not one to advise people to be taking the backs off their watches regularly and tinkering with them, but, you know, if you just want to confirm that something is what somebody told you it is, or you just want to admire the movement, this JAXA caseback tool, I don't remember where I got it. If you just look for JAXA, J-A-X-A, I think it was under 50 bucks for the tool, so. Sounds like a good deal. And then the other great discovery I've had in the past couple of weeks was a brand, I'm a big NATO strap fan, as you might guess from our show title as well. And I've got just a snake's nest of NATO straps that I've bought over the years in a bag somewhere. But I came across this brand called Toxic NATO. He's just kind of a one-man show. He sells these really high quality NATO straps. It's a real tight weave, kind of a thicker NATO. But what really sets them apart is the hardware on them. He does a brushed steel or a bead blasted steel. And the buckles are just big and chunky. And then the keeper loops are actually, they're sort of a squared off profile. It just feels like a higher quality NATO strap, like the kind you might get from, you know, you might buy an OEM NATO strap from Omega or something. But they're like $18 or $20. They're within the same price range as any other NATO strap you might buy. So highly recommend Toxic NATO. I think you could Google it or I know he's on Instagram as well. So, you know, in terms of other stuff, I've been reading a lot of print magazines. I'm kind of a diehard print guy. You know, a few of my favorites are Avant magazine, which is out of England. And it was started up by Ben Saunders, who is actually a Bremont watch ambassador and a polar explorer. And it's sort of a modern take on adventure. There's sort of some style and and some great photography and good writing. That's when I recommend another magazine called Alpine Modern, which is sort of, it's sort of mountain lifestyle. So there's some, again, some great photography and some good essays as well as sort of a look at style and architecture as it relates to the mountain lifestyle. And then my one free item that I'd recommend is on the diving side of things. It's a free online e-magazine that you can download a PDF or look at through like an e-reader and it's called X-Ray and the address I think it's x-ray-mag.com and it's a really high quality, well produced, fairly lengthy magazine that I think they publish quarterly and it's just got great gear reviews and underwater photography and wreck diving and just all sorts of great stuff on diving if you're into that sort of thing, so highly recommended.
James Stacey Yeah, I just downloaded my first copy of that on your recommendation. I'm really looking forward to reading that this evening. That'll be great. There's not really a lot of excellent kind of diving magazines out now. A lot of them are based on, you know, top 10 of this or the best things here. And then, you know, most of the content seems, you know, paid for completely covered by dive outfitters. Right. Which isn't a bad thing, but it just doesn't seem necessarily self-directed by the enthusiast. so yeah yeah i'm excited to uh to check out kind of a new a new bit yeah yeah it's a good one all right and now it's time for final notes so this is uh you know just kind of a wrap up on the show and uh we'll try and leave you with something to chew on until the next episode remember we're shooting for every two weeks so every other tuesday so for me i would say that uh keeping in in in line with what we were talking about today. Check out a book called Shadow Divers by Robert Kirson. I don't actually think you have to be especially interested in scuba diving or a scuba diver to appreciate this book. Shadow Divers is kind of a brief, a relatively brief synopsis of a span of a few years of diving on the Andrea Doria, which is obviously a wreck off the coast of New York. At one time, maybe still considered the Everest of wreck dives. It's very deep. The water's very fast, it's very cold, and it's quite dangerous, and certainly many people have lost their lives exploring this huge wreck. Curson uses that as the footing to explain another wreck that a couple divers come across, and I really don't want to give anything away, but this other wreck, the one that's largely the story of Shadow Divers, is outstanding. What they find is something that shouldn't have been in the waters off of New York. It's military in its background, And it takes them absolutely years of hard diving, deep academic research, and a lot of like detective work to put all the pieces together to figure out why they found what they found. Kirsten has a brand new book out right now. So I bet you can get Shadow Divers for next to nothing on Amazon or at your library, whatever you prefer. Really fascinating. And I don't think you need to necessarily have like a working knowledge of scuba diving. It's just a really good adventure story and it's approached from an intellectual side, not from like an adrenaline junkie side. So it's a lot of little history lessons about diving and about the formation of tech diving and deep diving and things like that. And it's one that I really like. If you don't have time for a full book, one of my most favorite pieces from John Krakauer from Eiger Dreams is called The Devil's Thumb. look up The Devil's Thumb. I bet you can find it online. It was a piece for, I believe, Outside Magazine about Krakauer adventuring alone into part of Alaska to climb The Devil's Thumb, this peak that he had always been enamored by. And it's a very insular story about kind of the spirit of adventure and the solo pursuit of these things that aren't important to other people. And I think if you want to get a nice sliver of a nicely written sliver of that kind of perspective, the perspective of somebody who would go climb a peak in the middle of nowhere at great peril. I think that's a really good starting point if you're just breaking into kind of adventure writing.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I've read both of those and they're, both of them are classics. Shadow Divers is a big, meaty, long read and it's, you know, I think I put it away in probably a long weekend, but it's really a good book. You know, Krakauer, it's early Krakauer. It's like from the 80s or the 90s. And he's just, um, you're right. It's, it's, it's, it's adventure, but it's also a really sort of philosophical, uh, essay, which, which I really loved. Um, on my side, I, you know, speaking of adventure and, uh, uh, and great writing, I, um, you know, there's, uh, I have a book that, that most people have probably heard of, but I, I read it at least once a year or at least parts of it. Um, and that is the right stuff by, by Tom Wolfe and, James, I know you just picked up a copy. I don't know if you've gotten into it yet, but it's, it's such a great, uh, it's such a great book. It's a, it's again, it's a big, long book. Um, Tom Wolfe was probably the progenitor or main proponent of what was called the, uh, style of new journalism back in the seventies. And it's almost like he's taken the history of the Mercury space program or the American space program back in the, in the fifties and sixties. And he, in, His writing style is so unique. Uh, there's just nobody else that writes like Tom Wolfe. Um, he almost fills in the gaps, uh, with sort of almost fictional accounts or, or things, but you know, he'll have sentences that go on for an entire paragraph and his wordplay is just genius. Um, but I think of that book because I, as I mentioned, I picked up this Speedmaster Pro recently and the right stuff. It's just, it's just all about this, this great era in, in history when, you know, fighter pilots were, were moving into the space program, and it's just a fantastic book. And of course they made a movie out of it, which is equally good. So highly recommended on the, uh, on the more accessible and free side of things. Uh, I've been listening to, or watching, uh, Ted talks, which are, uh, similar to podcasts or sort of a, uh, digestible sort of way to, to learn a little bit in a short period of time. And two that I've watched recently are from, uh, adventurers. One is from Ben Saunders, who I mentioned earlier, started Avant Magazine and is a well-known polar explorer. And he's got a couple, two or three TED Talks, and they're all really worth listening to or watching because he really delves into why does he do the stuff he does? Why is he dragging sleds across frozen wastelands? And really his rationale is that it's just a pursuit of pure joy. He's doing it because it It's what makes him happy. And I just found it a very refreshing. He's a great speaker. Um, so that's worth finding. And then the other guy is Chris Burkhardt, who is sort of an Instagram hero. Uh, he's a, a surf photographer. He, um, you know, when he was 18 or 19, he just said, I'm quitting my job, quitting school, and I'm just going to go be a surf photographer. And in the past few years, he's, he's delved further and further into cold water surf photography. Which takes him to places like Iceland and the Arctic Circle in Norway and Alaska. And his photographs are amazing. But his TED Talk was really refreshing, really honest and inspirational. I would recommend both of those. So give him a try.
James Stacey That's awesome. I really love Ben's, the one that he did after the big expedition. You know, he did that in Vancouver and I've watched that quite a few times. There's a litany of amazing TED Talks. Um, you can go on the site, check out the ones that Jason mentioned, but you can go on the site and actually filter by most viewed. And I mean, if you watch those hundred, if you make it your goal this year to watch those hundred, you'll learn an unbelievable amount. And I don't think I've ever seen one that ever flatly let me down. There's a fantastic one that I cannot remember the guy's name, but it's, uh, he was the National Geographic photographer that took all the photos of the leopard seal. Oh yeah, Paul Nicklin, right?
Jason Heaton Thank you. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. So I guarantee if you go on Ted and just check out, it's Ted.com, go on Ted, check out the top ones. You'll see that one in there. Um, and I don't want to butcher his story. He tells an amazing story of getting in the water with these unbelievably dangerous animals within the scope of, of dangerous animals. These are known to be quite, uh, quite aggressive, very large and a fairly scary looking, I think, you know, at least for me. Yeah. And he has an experience that would essentially defy all of those assumptions. I highly recommend it. If you're going to be on TED.com, there's so much there. Yeah, good stuff. And then I know one last thing did come to mind while you were talking about the surf photographer who I'm not familiar with. So that's excellent. If you have Netflix, I believe I saw that Touching the Void will be removed sometime soon. Oh, wow. So if you haven't read that book or watched the uh the documentary it's one of the few examples of a documentary that uses reenactments that i still really like i don't think there's a guy harder than joe simpson i mean like it's possible but nobody's ever not wanted to die as much as him yeah and that's where that's where i'll leave it if you don't know that story yeah but you're interested even a little bit in human achievement and mountain climbing or alpinism or whatever you want to call it. Check out Touching the Void. It's also a fantastic book, but I think the documentary does an excellent job at bringing you up to speed with that scenario.
Jason Heaton It's very good and it is beyond even the mountaineering aspect of it. It's almost Shakespearean, the story itself. It's really, really, really fantastic.
James Stacey And if it's going to be removed from Netflix, now's your chance to see it if you subscribe to Netflix. And that's all we have for episode two. Thanks so much for listening. We got some really, really kind feedback on episode one. We're going to keep these coming every couple of weeks. You can follow us on Instagram at jasonheaton for Jason, at jestacy for me, and you can follow the show at thegraynado. If you have any questions for us, please write thegraynado at gmail.com. We will reply or use hashtag thegraynado on Instagram or Twitter, whatever you prefer. Please subscribe wherever you find your podcasts. We should be on all the major feeds by now, or grab the feed directly from soundcloud.com slash the greynado. Music throughout, Siesta by Jazzer via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And until next time, we leave you with this thought from the legendary climber and Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, who said, it's not an adventure until something goes wrong.