The Grey NATO – 215 – Our Favorite Straps

Published on Thu, 10 Nov 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

The podcast discusses various types of watch straps and gives recommendations on different options available. They cover NATO straps, leather straps, metal bracelets, rubber straps, and canvas/sailcloth straps from various brands and manufacturers. They provide their personal preferences and experiences with different straps, and mention that they will add a dedicated Straps channel to their Slack community for further discussion.

They also briefly talk about Jason's upcoming novel and the show "Alone" they have been watching. At the end, they mention Jason's recommendation to read a story called "Paddle of the Century" from the CBC about a father-son canoe trip, and Blake's recommendation to watch the latest Top Gear episode featuring the Rimac Nivera electric car.

Transcript

Speaker
Blake Buettner Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 215. And it's proudly brought to you by the ever growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. Jason, how we doing?
Jason Heaton I'm doing just fine. I'm hunkered here at home waiting for a rainy week to start. You're somewhere else again this week. It seems like every time we talk, you're either coming or going or somewhere else.
Blake Buettner I think this might be the last that we do in such a fashion, but I am currently live from New York. It's early morning and I am in my hotel room before kicking off for a full day of stuff with Hodinkee. We did an event with Leica in DC on Thursday. an Amtrak, my first Amtrak experience from DC to NYC. I was kind of looking forward to that. I don't know if you're an Amtrak guy, Jason, or like it's something that hits your life very often. There's no AC in my car. And if you're from this area, it's weirdly hot right now. Oh, and, uh, it had to have been a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the car. Wow. So first my phone wouldn't charge cause it was overheating. Jeez. Like it was that hot ambient. And then if you walked light, just to the neck, like to the next car, which was like a, um, uh, an eating car. And the one after that is where you actually got the food. It was like maybe 60. I'm trying to do Fahrenheit to help you guys out, but like, but we made it to New York and, uh, and have been here for a little while. We went to storm King on the weekend, which was awesome. If you, if you're coming to the New York area and you enjoy art and it looks like it's going to be a good weekend, like nice weather. Yeah. Uh, you can take the train. And then you take a shuttle right to Storm King. Okay.
Jason Heaton It's an outdoor sculpture garden.
Blake Buettner Yeah. We had a nice day. It was very warm, like I mentioned, and it was nice to get out for a walk. And it was kind of always been on my list since watching, I don't know, Jason, if you got into Master of None, Aziz Ansari show. No. But in the second season of that, he and a friend go to Storm King and I was kind of like, what, what is that? And it's nice to kind of check it off the list. I had a good time. Sunday we hung out with some friends, did a little bit of driving. Now we're into the week and it's been a mix of dinners and trying to decide what we can film, what we can't, what we've got time to do, what needs to be recorded, meetings that should happen in person for the next, you know, for the rest of the year, that sort of thing. So we're doing that. And then we've got a magazine launch party coming up. So this will all be over by the time the episode comes out. But you know, the new magazine for Hodinkee is out. So they're doing a little event. And since I'm here, I'll Go to that and say hi to some folks. And then after that, we've got a Blancpain event on Wednesday night. And and for that one, I'm hosting it with a couple folks from the world of ocean conservation and ocean photography. So that should be fun. I'm not sure if they end up airing it or recording it for YouTube or something. I'll include the show notes in the future. Then we shoot a whole day of video and I'll go right from that shoot to the airport to come home just in time for Remembrance Day.
Jason Heaton Wow, straight to airport as our friend Robert Spangle would say.
Blake Buettner STA for sure, yeah. I will start an early day and lug my bags around my broken away suitcase.
Jason Heaton Is there ever a trip to New York that's just like sedate and sort of calm and you can take your time with stuff? It feels like, you know, I think because you kind of wait to do so many things when you get there that it just becomes packed. That's how I remember all my trips there. It's like, okay, I haven't been here in like six months. I'm just going to pack it full of things.
Blake Buettner I feel like back in the day, man, like we used to come to New York and like it was chill. Like we would come for a Bramont thing for two nights and like we would have time to walk around Soho and go to a couple of cool stores, maybe check out something that we'd always wanted to check out. Yeah. And so, yeah, I do feel this kind of burden, especially with Hodinkee, you know, footing the bill, of course, like to grind and get as much as we can done. And it's November. Yeah. So the more I get done in November, kind of like, let's be honest, the less I have to do in December, ideally. Yeah. And December is a nice month to slow down a bit, right? Yeah. So it's a good month to push. And obviously we we've been doing a little bit of extra. We just had our collective episode go live. Yeah, that was a blast. That was so fun. Yeah. And I've been rambling for a few minutes now. Why don't you explain to people kind of the concept behind these, what we think will be TGN specials moving forward.
Jason Heaton Yeah. The concept is that, you know, we have never really been comfortable reading ads during episodes in order to, you know, make a little bit of income from TGN on the side of what we're making from our subscriber base. And with that in mind, we, we were looking for a way to, to do some kind of a, an episode that could be sponsored without feeling like one big long ad read. And the result is, if you listened, what we did, um, this week on Tuesday on November 8th with collective horology. And that is, you know, an hour long bonus episode that gets added to our regular feed of podcasts, um, separate from our standard Thursday episodes that are usually around or they will be around kind of a themed topic. Um, and, and done in collaboration with and supported by a partner. And in this case it was collective horology. Um, they were introducing, their new collaboration, the PO3 with Armin Strom, really cool watch. And it just kind of made sense to do this, this topic around adventurous minded high-end watches and do a fun draft. And Asher was kind enough and fun enough to take part in that with us. And I think it came off really well. I hope people really liked it.
Blake Buettner Yeah. I'll be interested to see what the feedback is. Obviously we were very like set in our ways about the fact that like we've switched to listener supported for the, for the normal episodes. in the some sort of an expert or a different perspective than the normal TGN vibe. So that's live on the feed. I'm guessing most of you at least gave it a shot, obviously. And if you'd like to give us some feedback and let us know, you can either leave a comment on the episode. Comments are open and absolutely encouraged. Or you can send us an email to TheGreatNado at gmail.com for sure. Jason, what else you've been doing to stay busy?
Jason Heaton Yeah, well, a couple things. I mean, very different sorts of things. For one thing, I've been editing my, uh, my next novel, Sweetwater, which I finished writing a few weeks ago. And I've been working with some, some, uh, friends, contacts who are subject matter experts in various, uh, very arcane fields that, that, uh, kind of make up big or small parts of the plot of the book. And, uh, you know, I want to get those details, right. So I've sent a few sections out and chapters and things for, for people to review and those have come back. So I'm, I'm working on editing that. And, um, I guess bigger news is I might've mentioned this before, but I'm working with an agent to hopefully get a publishing deal for this book. So I self published depth charge, but this time around I'm going to see if I can go the traditional route of publishing, maybe have it see a wider audience. Um, and I'm, I'm pretty excited about that. So we'll see, we'll see where that goes. Um, but in addition to that, I've been, um, and this is on a very different note, Kishani and I got hooked on this show and, Look, we're very late to the game. I think there are eight seasons in. Okay. Have you ever watched Alone?
Blake Buettner I mean, back in the day. Yeah. When they used to do it on, or it might still be. Back in the day. Like did they still do it at the top end of Vancouver Island?
Jason Heaton Apparently they did like three of the first four seasons on Vancouver Island. But we got in late and we have a Netflix subscription. So that's where we started. Netflix only has, as far as I know, season eight. So we just decided, let's give this a try. We watched season eight. which is set on, I think it's called Chilkoot Lake, which is up, um, uh, it's in British Columbia, um, kind of on the Pacific coast, but far enough North that they get some like seriously, you know, Arctic style weather along with, you know, on this big, very remote Lake. And they take, you know, 10, at least in this case, like survival experts, like people that have lived off the land and like really know how to do a number of very specific kind of Dick Prenike-esque tasks, you know, building houses, making tools, you know, snaring animals, fishing. And, uh, it's just been a blast. I mean, we kind of binged season eight, which was excellent. Now I think we're going to go back and kind of watch, you know, work our way through the other seven seasons, but I don't know. It's, it's funny how, when I watch shows like this, it almost like, even though it's, it's at an extreme end of kind of being outdoors, it makes me want to do more outdoors. It makes me want to like split wood, build a fire, go camping, go for a hike. And, and I don't know, it's, it's a refreshing show because it's like, it certainly fits in the genre of a reality series, but it's not, there's no narrator, no voiceover, no overdramatic editing, you know, to kind of build the hype. It's just, you know, following these, these 10 people and kind of what they're doing and they're doing all the filming themselves. And I don't know, it's, it was, it was really kind of a refreshing kind of fun change of pace from watching, you know, Nordic noir murder series, um, you know, on Brit box or something all the time. So, Yeah, that's what we've been up to.
Blake Buettner Well, I can add, I can add one to that because I, there's a season, a new season of a show that my wife and I really enjoy, uh, not on Netflix. They've done several past seasons on Netflix, but this is just on their website. And so that's a meat eater, uh, which I know I've talked about in the past and Steve Rinella show kind of about the ethics of hunting and, and a variety of hunting around the world. It's a reality show, uh, like an actual reality show. And so it's season 11 is back by now, when you're listening to this, there'll be two or three episodes. I watched the first one and just really enjoyed it. it's, it's a nice bit of outsideness, not probably not in like alone. Um, I do remember watching alone, but I feel like I watched a bunch of it one day when I was like very ill or a week when I was like very ill and just kind of like was in and out the whole time. And I'm not saying, I don't know that it's a calm show, but it has a certain calmness to it. There's a kind of a background noise of dread for some of these people who like hurt themselves or really devote a lot of time to a, an environment where they think their home will work and then it doesn't, for whatever reason, they kind of start off at, yeah, at ground base, at base ground again, which is tough. Uh, but the show, when it works, when you really see somebody like come into their element and kind of seem like, Oh, they may never need to leave. Like if we give this person enough time or like if you gave them two or three more tools, they'd go full Perennicky. You, you know, they'd invite you in for flapjacks by the time the plane showed up in a few months.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And it's interesting to see what, what, um, you know, Going from season eight, we, we watched like the first episode of season one and clearly by season eight, they, they had honed their style for sure. Participant and the people in the later seasons, uh, clearly are more. Adept at, at all these different tasks, but even among those people in season eight, really accomplished outdoors people. It's interesting to watch over the course of the season and the episodes to see where they start to break down what small decision was the wrong one. There's a real cerebral aspect to it that, that we enjoyed. So yeah. Really, really fun. So good time of year to kind of get into that stuff too. It's the weather's turning a bit, a bit foul here. And so we've been enjoying that.
Blake Buettner Yeah, that's great. Super fun. Well, hey, you want to get into some risk check then?
Jason Heaton Yeah.
Blake Buettner What, what have you got on? What'd you bring to New York? I brought a handful of stuff, but the main thing is, is cause we're going to, we're going to be shooting the video for it. I'm still working my way through like the, the outline for the big story about the Pelagos 39. Oh, sure. Just when wearing it, it's on, it's on the bracelet. It's kind of become like, like one of my favorite modern watches I've ever come across. Yeah. I just really like it.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner It's not perfect. We talked about it on a past episode. It's flaws are not slowing down its appeal for me. And in some ways they're almost not tangible after a certain point, but that that'll be covered more, more accurately in the review. But it's, it's the Pelagos 39. I, uh, I got some watches, um, in just before I left for this trip, but I want to turn that story into like an entire episode. Yeah. So I don't want to give away necessarily that. I've kept it off Instagram so far. I'm just trying to line up the details for that. So stay tuned in the future for what I hope to be a very interesting story about some watches that I haven't had in some time. But Jason, what have you got in?
Jason Heaton Yeah, big surprise. A new watch. It arrived yesterday. This is the Seiko 5, the Rowing Blazers Limited Edition.
Blake Buettner I've seen two of those around the Hodinkee office already. They're neat.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So I picked up the orange dial version. Um, which immediately kind of caught my fancy when I saw pictures of it, it's a really vibrant orange. And, um, kind of the backstory of this is, uh, this, this company rowing blazers, that's kind of a lifestyle company that, that does some kind of clothing, um, inspired by kind of preppy rowing clubs of the past. Um, which I don't connect with at all, by the way, the owner of that company, Jack Carlson. has this vintage Seiko 5 from I believe the 60s or 70s with the same dial same markers etc and an orange dial and so he wanted to recreate that along with a few other dial types and so he hooked up with an old friend Eric Wind who uh now runs Wind Vintage used to be a kind of OG Hodinkee guy um I knew him back in the day and and he worked with them to kind of make this happen with Seiko and I'm really pleasantly surprised with this watch I had like I said I have no connection with rolling blazers I could completely do without the rowing blazers logo on the bottom of the dial. But when I look at it, my eyesight's not good enough anyway that like, it looks like it might just say automatic hundred meter water resistant for all I care. You know, it's like just small black text at the bottom of the dial. But I just love the way it sits on the wrist and it's fun to have an affordable new Seiko again. I know you've had an experience with the GMT, the Seiko 5, the SSK, and I got a chance to handle yours and kind of like, it's like, This is impressive. You know, I've been kind of pulling out my old SKX lately and this obviously wears the same. I mean, it's got the four o'clock crown, the kind of the same case shape, but no dive bezel. And then I'm, I'm pretty impressed with this, with this bracelet. I imagine it's the same bracelet that's on, that's on your SSK or something similar. It's a, you know, three link kind of oyster style with a fold over clasp. It could be that different. Yeah. Yeah.
Blake Buettner Um, it's a lot of fun. Definitely the same as what I have in like my SARB baby alpinist. Yeah. Super comfy, good loom. fun watch. And and looks like they sold out immediately like a big congrats to the wrong Blazers guys You know, I've crossed paths with them in New York in the past and then Eric wins an absolute sweetheart I mean, he's always been super supportive and great and he's obviously a deep watch nerd and a fantastic vintage dealer So yeah, I think it's nice when nice people put together something that is cool and you want to wear it Yeah, right. Very cool. Well speaking of wearing it You want to get into some straps?
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, we kind of debated what to talk about today. And, and I mentioned straps and I, you know, we've, we've done episodes about straps, but I'm surprised that it's been such a long time. I think the last one was what episode 79.
Blake Buettner Episode 79 was the last time we did a strap specific episode. And I think since then straps obviously come up every episode, every couple of episodes, but we haven't really done like a state of the strap scenario for us for 2022. So that'll be episode 215. Uh, strap straps to call it what you like, but, uh, yeah, we've, we've got a bunch of categories here. Uh, Jason, you figure the, the normal place to start here would be with NATOs.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, it's, it's our namesake, um, and you know, probably our, our favorite style of strap and where, where's the best place to kick off with, uh, probably ute or, or what formerly known as toxic.
Blake Buettner Utah toxic you. Yeah. I mean, you can get a gray one from us, but it'll cost you. Uh, it's one of the more expensive NATOs on the list. If, if you're really buying, uh, an annual supporter plan just for a NATO, the cool thing is, is like, uh, Hodinkee often has stock of several other iterations, um, which on their site, they call the Sumba or the Sam Bolo and the Sam Bolo is a, is the same material as a, a normal UTA NATO. but it's a two piece design. So it's not a real NATO, but it, if you really don't like having the material under your watch and you're not concerned about the spring bar safety of a NATO strap, then that's a great option. And that's, they range between 24 and 35 bucks, which like we have a bunch of other NATOs on this list. The one that I have on all my watches and is the reason that I don't actually have a ton of picks necessarily in every other element of this kind of chat is because I really just like I have tan and green, which I like a lot, but hey, casual guy. I like NATOs. We like NATOs. And, uh, that that's the one that I would point to immediately. Obviously we have a, have a vested interest in, in that product as well as we like it enough to have made it our sort of official NATO, but there's also a lot of other good options, right?
Jason Heaton Right. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I'm, I'm a bit of kind of a promiscuous NATO wearer. I have, I go, all over the place. I've got quite a few what I would call favorites. One that I wear a lot is the Matte Supreme from Crown & Buckle. Really nice. Really cool strap. It has this, as the name might suggest, it's a matte strap so it's not like a shiny seat belt style. In fact, and it has kind of a woven almost perlon-esque look from a distance and it just it's soft but it's like has enough body to it that it wears well, the buckle's good. Totally. They've got a number of different, you know, great colors. They've got one called, uh, I believe it's called grayish. So it's kind of a gray beige mix. They have all sorts of cool colors. They've got sort of this vanilla. I'm not sure of their exact name for it, but almost like a custard, sort of a tan color. Um, I've got one of those and I just move those from, from watch to watch. I really like those. And then I also like, I like the kind of the stiffer. I think we talked about this just a couple of episodes ago, so I don't have to go into a lot of detail, but the, Formerly known as cheapest NATO straps, ribbed straps are great. They're quite stiff. So when you get them, you've got to break them in and wear them a bit, but they stand up well when they're wet. Cheapest NATO straps has now had to rebrand to CNS and watch bands, which is unfortunate, but still the same company run by Sophie over in Sweden and a great customer service, incredible pricing. So I like their ribbed straps. Yeah. Great pricing. Also in the ribbed category is the strap that came with my Tornek Rayville TR-660. They call it Nitex and they sell it separately and it's a fantastic strap. So it's a one-piece strap. It's actually not a, you know, true NATO with the extra piece. Underkeeper, yeah. It has this, like, it's ribbed but it's soft and it has this really nice Uh, kind of body to it. It's just the right length. It's got a beefy buckle and it just looks really good on the watch. And it came with actually two versions of the strap that, and then you can buy them separately. And it's, uh, it's, it's one of my favorites as well. I'd move that from watch to watch. And I highly recommend that one. If you can pick that one up separately.
Blake Buettner And that one I'm looking at their website. So yeah, you can buy them separately in black or khaki. Is it 20 mil? It doesn't say on their website.
Jason Heaton Oh, it doesn't say, yeah, it's 20 mil. Yeah. I guess because their watches come with kind of 20 mil.
Blake Buettner That makes sense. Spacing. And so that looks great. But yeah, that's a good one. Probably going to need the green one. Yeah, it's very good. It's very, very good. Says the guy who has like a 10 strap order from CNS currently in the mail. Yeah. The strap thing. Yeah. It's a bit of a sickness and crown and buckle. That's not even like their only option. Cause we've talked about the Chevron in the past. Yeah. which I have a couple of these and I think I was hot for them for a while. But if you're not really a NATO guy or you want a strap, that's a lot, but basically their version of the really excellent fabric strap from Tudor. It's the same sort of format. It's not made at the same place. The Tudor ones are made in France at the special company, et cetera, et cetera. These are a little bit more consumer grade, normal, accessible, well-priced, that sort of thing. But it does give you that ability to change the actual length of the strap. with an internal, like with a looping sort of adjustment, like a cinching adjustment. Right. Which is pretty handy. I do like those quite a bit. And then I don't know if I've actually tried any other purlons, but the crown and buckle purlons are great. And they're not technically a NATO, but they are a single pastel strap. So I put them in this part of the list. Yeah. I have a handful of those, you know, Hallios back in the day kind of turned me onto the existence of the purlon. And I think I'd only seen people wear them on like, you know, Abercrombie seafares and stuff like that and kind of rolled my eyes right. It's kind of silly looking or whatever. And then once they're on your wrist, like they're the killer, like infinitely adjustable, basically really light and on the right watch a watch that's not too bulky. You got to try pro on for sure. Yeah.
Jason Heaton My, my, my one concern with the Chevron, the tutor ones and Perlon is they've always been slightly too short for me. I don't have huge wrists, but, and I've lost weight. So maybe I should try them again. Cause my wrists have shrunk a little bit, Um, I've always found them just slightly too short, even at their longest setting. So I wish someone made a longer one. So if anyone knows about like a slightly longer version of that style strap, let me know because I'd love to try it.
Blake Buettner Yeah. And then the other one that we like, and we've talked about a ton, um, I debated whether it goes here or in rubber straps.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner So I put it here just cause again, it's a single pass strap, um, is the Zulu diver 328. It's a Bonetto Centorini product, but I've bought mine in the past from Watch Gecko. and that'll be the link in the show notes. We're not affiliated with them. They do nice business. I've bought lots of straps from them in the past. Uh, it's, it's a great strap. Like if you want a rubber NATO and in the summer I really do enjoy them on certain watches. It's worth every penny. They're a little bit on the expensive side, especially compared to like a CNS or even an UTA 25 bucks. Like these are, these will cost you more once you, once you get them in.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I remember liking, I had, one of them or a couple of them and somehow mysteriously they disappeared. And I really need to get a different one. I remember, you know, we talked about taking off that extra piece and how it fits a little better. Um, yeah, good, good summer option for sure. There's another one. I mean, I I've talked about Haviston in the past and Haviston is just, they just make great products. I mean, it's a UK based company. They make everything from, um, some beautiful, uh, kind of rubber coasters with watch dials. They do packs of cards. But the Haviston straps, I think it's kind of where he started are really a superior product. They're a thick, soft NATO. I'm talking specifically about their service strap. And I guess my only, if you can even call it a quibble, it's more of just a aesthetic taste is most of them are striped or have some kind of a pattern to them, which isn't always my thing. I mean, they have a few more muted ones or subtle ones that, that work, but just in terms of the quality of them, the buckles are, I would almost say it's, it's the best, best buckle on a, on a NATO strap and, packaging is always good. The pricing isn't too bad. So yeah, check out Haviston as well. And then also from the UK is from our friends at CWC. It's, it's kind of a under, under reported or unsung strap. This is their stretch NATO. This, this strap is incredibly comfortable. It's, it has just the right amount of elastic to it. Almost like what you get on like an Erica's. I know we're going to talk about that shortly here, but like, but it's, it's a NATO strap. And, and like if you're between holes on a NATO, like you can pick the slightly smaller one and it just kind of stretches to your wrist without being like tight and uncomfortable. Really, really, um, great, great pick from CWC. Nice.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I've seen these before and actually not unlike the Haviston and not unlike the Erica's I'm not much for the strike. Um, I would actually go as far as say like it's a deal breaker for me. I have an Erica's in gray and I think they are probably the most comfortable strap I've ever come across. especially once you figure out how you're actually supposed to wear them. They're a closed loop that you slide over your hand and then you adjust the length of that. Sorry, I pulled my mic away cause I was miming that. And then you adjust the length of the strap with a little slider and then it hooks in. And basically not only can you lightly adjust it just by pulling on that slider while it's on your wrist, but then when you add in the elastic, which is the element of this NATO stretch from CWC, I mean, it's just so comfortable. And I have a gray one with an orange stripe that works really well on the SPB and on the Doxa, the Sea Rambler. But other than that, I do wish that I could just go on the site and buy like a gray one, a dark gray. She offers so many different colorways. If you dig a stripe, I think you need to have an Erica's strap. And the other thing I'll say is, and Jason, maybe you're the same, I've tried to buy like The Erica stuff starts around 80 euros, which is not a cheap strap, but it's like a nice small business. And she's lovely. We've met her in the past. And I have tried to find like what the budget version of this is. Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe it's the same type of strap layout, but in a cheaper fabric with worse buckles or hardware or whatever, just, just out of interest. And I have a few of those coming from CNS. So maybe this will check the box, but the ones I bought in the past aren't even the same. Like they look identical. but they don't do that, that fit in cinch sort of thing that makes it like perfect on your wrist. Right. So I would say like, be careful that what you're getting, you actually get what we just talked about and it might, I would suggest trying an Erica's. Um, but look at, look at the pictures, watch the video on Erica's on like how to put it on and size it and that kind of thing. And you'll get an understanding for what I mean. We, I'm, I'm not a, not a huge stripe guy. I've got a lot of natives with stripes. Yeah. The bond one I tried to get into back when I was wearing my sea master a bunch. And I know that's a little sacrilege because of course in the, The Bond one where he had the Bond stripe NATO, he of course was also wearing a Rolex and it was the wrong size and all this kind of fun stuff. But I remember giving it a try and at the time maybe I was, it aligned a little bit more with my taste, but I feel like I've become even more casual where it's like it's gray, green or tan pretty much for me and I don't need the stripe. And that held me back from a bunch of the CNS stuff as well because the gray, the green, the tans without a stripe were all purchased. So I'm trying to remember what I bought, but I'm not sure I got like exactly You'll have to keep watching for when they restock. But yeah, there's definitely some good options in that. And I think that pretty much rounds out the non... Oh, we've got the triple out design quantum on there, of course, which Jason, you've talked about in the past. And I've only seen in person once or twice.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely a splurge pick. And every time I post a picture of it, people are like, what? That is more expensive than my Seiko. And it's like, yes, I know. I know. Sure. You know, it's definitely on the high end. Yeah, worth mentioning.
Blake Buettner Yeah, I definitely think it's worth mentioning. And then you look at like, compare that to what you pay for an Omega NATO, which is a perfectly fine NATO, but it's hundreds of dollars also. Right. And then look at what you might pay for. I don't know, let's take it like if you take a guess what what Blancpain wants for the NATO for a 50 fathoms bathyscaphe, you know, ceramic, right, which came with a beautiful NATO and a really nice sailcloth strap with the special hardware, the rest of it all, you know, in the same finish. Um, that's gotta be, yeah, I don't want to say a grand, but it's probably close, right? Like why wouldn't it be? That's a $28,000 watch or whatever. Right. True. So I think that depending on what, what watch you're putting it on and, and if you just want one NATO, like if I, if I look at my box of NATOs, I've got more in a bunch of straps that I don't wear a bunch of $10 straps that I don't wear than one $250 strap. Yeah. It's just a question of what you need from the strap. Me about 25 bucks or let's call it a hundred if you want to support TGN for a year, but I don't, I don't think that the, that the quantum is like out of line. It's just, it's the premium option for something that's genuinely, generally quite inexpensive. Yeah. Yeah. And beyond that we can do, you want to do leathernadoes or do you want to do that in leather, which we could just get to?
Jason Heaton Uh, good segue. Why don't you do the leathernado and then we'll slide into leather.
Blake Buettner So I have two leathernadoes that I like. The first is the tan kangaroo single piece from Hodinkee. Good one. So this is 90 bucks. It's good enough that I've not bothered buying any others. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Kangaroo is amazing, isn't it? It's like a little stretch to it, super durable.
Blake Buettner Yeah. It defies being leather. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It takes sweat really well. I've always figured like, cause it's so thin, thin, like thinner than a fabric NATO. Right. And you put it on and you think like, well, this is, this looks incredible. Really kind of is a little bit less casual than a nylon. And it works on a dressier watch. It works on a vintage watch really well. They're super thin. So it's easy to slide in and not scratch the leather, trying to draw it through the spring bar gap. And I always just kind of figured like, oh, I'll sweat in this a few times. It'll get enough sunlight that it'll just fall apart. Disintegrate? The stuff's indestructible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, these are great straps. And like I said, they're good enough that like I've never gone and thought, oh, I need another. Right. And I will say apart from my next mention here with David Lane designs, Pretty much all my leather's Hodinkee at this point. Yeah. Um, obviously there's, there's, there's, uh, the option of a discount if, if I want to deal with still sending it over the border and paying the taxes and the rest of it. But for me, like I, I don't know, like Jason, I'm, I'm curious to see where you would go with leather because I feel like I, once I have a certain ones in there of a certain quality that they last, I don't think about leather straps anymore. I have a couple in Brown. I have a couple in green of a couple in gray and I just kind of move them around from one watch to another when I feel like it.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner I also feel like I don't put that much wear and tear on my leather straps because I wear NATO's like eight out of 10 times. But I would say that the other one to mention is David Lane Designs, which is a kind of mom and pop shop. One guy who I've met in Rochester, New York, he made both Jason and I a gray like suede leather NATO and on a heavy enough watch, like on the, on the Aqua star. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. It's beautiful. It really suits the design. If you're looking for a, like a guy to make you a custom strap, at least have David Lane designs on, on your, on your list. He's a really sweet guy. I hope still a TGN listener and, uh, and the straps are great. I've seen the workshop. I shot it cause he's supplied some special straps with Hodinkee. So we did a little story for the shop a while back and I got to go visit him and just really, really nice stuff.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I guess if we're moving into leather, I mean, I, I, I would have to say that most of my leather straps are, um, Houdinki straps as well. And then, um, when I was kind of working with this, um, guy locally here who, uh, is in the leather strap business and actually is a supplier to the Houdinki shop, he, uh, was working with him on the, on the kind of the concept for that heat and bone strap that the Houdinki shop sells. And, you know, I've, I've been fortunate enough to be chums with him and he's passed a number of kind of prototype straps over to me. So I wear a lot of them, but a lot of them are kind of adjacent to the Houdinki shop ones. Sure. But in addition to those, I would say there are a couple of other kind of small strap makers that I'm, I'm a fan of. And one that I've talked about before is my friend Myron who's at Rover Haven. He's over in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Great straps. Great straps. Yeah. Yeah. He, he works almost exclusively with, uh, shell, uh, cordovan, Horween stuff. Um, super durable leather. I mean, if, if you're going to go with, with leather that you want to wear, like all the time, you can, go with Horween leather, the shell cordovan, and it'll just never wear out. I mean, like you can wear it in the water, you can sweat in it, you can do whatever. In fact, I have a custom 24 millimeter shell NATO that I got that I wore on my old Citizen Aqualand and I actually wore it that way to the Maldives and went diving with it.
Blake Buettner Oh man, maybe I should see if he'll make me one for my Aqualand.
Jason Heaton Yeah, yeah, totally. And they're, They're pretty thin and they're super durable and they just look great.
Blake Buettner Yeah, I have at least one of his straps and they're really nicely made.
Jason Heaton Yeah, he'll do a bund for you. It's all custom stuff and he's got a day job that keeps him busy. So, you know, there's a bit of a wait and he's not, you know, super kind of responsive. It's not his main business, but he does a really nice job and he's a real watch nerd. He's a Land Rover guy. So yeah, good one to hit up. And then another one is Alex at Marsh Made Leather, another kind of small shop guy who's also got a day job. He makes straps on the side. Alex came and visited us at our booth in Chicago at windup. Uh, Hey Alex, I hope you're listening. He does a nice job with straps and other leather goods. If you're into, into, um, like kind of leather bracelets, I had him make me like a double wrap leather bracelet and he does wallets and things like that. So he's another good one. And then the strap tailor, uh, another small kind of one man shop over in the UK who does a really nice job. Um, I also had him make a, I really wanted like a, A canvas and leather strap that's like leather lined with canvas on top. And it's a beautiful strap. I don't wear it enough. In fact, I should put it on something. Maybe I'll put it on this vintage, uh, Seiko 6105. I think it would look great on that, but it's, um, fairly long lead time if you order something and he's, he does, he also sells kind of very unique, uh, rubber stuff and some NATOs and stuff, but his main thing is, uh, his custom leather stuff. So check him out too. That's kind of where I land on, on leather.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Man, you've got me looking at the Marsh Made Leather stuff and a couple of good looking wallets in there too. I like it.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Nice guy too. I mean, we could probably talk, I mean, you could almost do a whole episode on leather and I don't think it's really our wheelhouse. So actually we're probably not doing a proper service, but you and I just don't do a lot of leather. I do, I do bun straps in the winter, but then it's, it's usually a, it's usually rubber or NATO the rest of the year. I'm sure we'll get a lot of comments from people with, with leather, suggestions. And that's certainly welcome. We'd love to hear about more leather stuff in the, in the comments on the post here, because I remember when I was just getting into watches and kind of getting on the forums, it was such big, such a big deal, like aftermarket leather. And everyone was talking about custom straps, custom straps for, especially for like Panerai and things like that.
Blake Buettner So, Oh yeah. So get a, get a good Benares in and then you got to get your Toshi order in three months later, it shows up, man, I got a couple of those still, and that was such an exciting time to be into watches. So if that's the mode that you're in, and maybe that's the mode I need to be in, but for the Aqualand, because it's got the big lugs. Right, right. Yeah. Super fun. And then the other thing I'd say is if you have a recommendation, the Hodinkee shop and a lot of shops basically only go down to 16 millimeters. I have a watch now that I'm not prepared to talk about just yet. Again, there's a grander story that I'm working on about it, but it's 14. Oh, wow. If you have a favorite 14 millimeter lug, or if you just think hey my friend made me one for my old you know watch or whatever maybe drop it in the comments just let me know obviously we've covered a few people who can make custom ones but i'm always interested especially if it's something where it already exists and i could just order it and not wait a lot longer because i've waited a long time to put this specific watch on my wrist and it came back you know from from some work and there's no I don't have a strap for it. And I thought in my mind, I had a 14 somewhere, nothing even close. I might have a 16. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's really small. It's a tiny watch. If you've got an idea for that, I would appreciate it. Any tips in the, in the comments on the great NATO.com in the sub stack. Uh, how about some metal bracelets? Cause there's a few that we like, although typically you use the one that watch came with sometimes, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, I don't have a ton to add for metal. I really have only tried, a couple of aftermarket ones. Cause I'm, I'm kind of picky about, um, metal bands. And usually the one that comes on a watch is, is pretty good. I think you have a couple of good picks. I would just kind of quickly throw mine. And I think a couple of the, the better ones that are out there these days are our Forstner. And I was really into Forstner bands. Uh, when they first came out, they were doing the comfort, which is kind of the mimic of the old JB champion bands that, that came on the speed masters back in the Apollo days of the sixties. Um, and I've got one of those and, and it's really, really quite nice. That's really well made. It's, it's definitely an acquired taste when it comes to the style. But, um, since then, uh, Forstner's really expanded their offerings and they do a lot of kind of Speedmaster style, flat link and kind of three link, um, bracelets. They do like a bond clip style. Um, if you're kind of into that old military bracelet style. Yeah. And they're super popular. Good choice and, and good packaging, good customer service, high quality, um, fit and finish. So highly recommend them. And, uh, and then the other one I'll mention is, um, uncle straps, which used to be called uncle Seiko, but since he, he does, uh, bracelets for a number of different watches, he'll, he does a pretty brisk business in a tutor bracelets as well. If you want like an aftermarket Jubilee for like a black Bay or something, he does some nice work. And I came across his stuff when I was trying to fit a an old 1171 steel bracelet to my white dialed Seamaster 300. Oh, right. And I had the bracelet, but the end links that, that obviously came with that were kind of the hollow, you know, rattly end links for like an old Speedmaster. And so I bought one of his bracelets and I just used the end links from it, but the bracelet itself is great. So if, if you're looking for good aftermarket bracelet for a tutor or any number of Seiko styles or some other stuff, uh, Omega, et cetera, uh, check out Uncle Straps, good stuff.
Blake Buettner They, yeah, they have a ton of stuff. They kind of spread this whole episode as far as straps and they have a great reputation. I've seen a couple of the rubber, the Seiko style rubber ones in person and they're really nice. Yeah. So we'll get to rubber in just a moment. Mine, if you listen to the show commonly, I'm not a huge bracelet guy, but I do love a mesh bracelet, especially on a vintage sort of dive watch. So that Heimdallr mesh is my favorite I've come across yet. It's $39. I think they make a titanium version, right, Jason?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think you're right.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Yeah. So you can get a steel or titanium depending on what you got. It's basically styled after the, the, the mesh that came with the no time to die or can come with the no time to die. Seamaster. I've put that on a handful of different watches for $40. I don't really know what you say. Like it's a, it's a nice metal bracelet.
Unknown Like it's a nice strap.
Blake Buettner The price is just right. You can make it fit pretty well. And, um, and then the, you know, I've had some pretty good experiences like with a couple of like the, uh, Amazon, like $15 mesh bracelets. I'll, I'll try and find whichever one I actually have and put it in the show notes, but they're unremarkable except that they're $15 and a mesh bracelet. That's all right. You know, low stakes. Yeah. And then finally, and I definitely talked about it before. I think it's hilarious to, uh, put my Explorer on a Jubilee, but I'm not going to spend real Jubilee money for something I wear two, three times a year. Yeah. So I bought a Hadley Roma MB 42 16 from Holbins. no affiliation. It's not an ad, et cetera. I paid normal money for it. It's 60 bucks. I think that pretty much rounds out metal. Uh, you can tell that you, we like natives. Yeah. Right. Right. Uh, and, and, and yeah, so we, we can jump into rubber. The, the big ones are stuff we talk about a lot. Tropic makes, I would say probably the best rubber strap you could just buy and throw on a watch, especially if it's a vintage inspired sort of watch. Um, I don't love it when they're like really big straps, like 22, they look better on 18 and 20, if that makes sense. Yeah, I agree. It just kind of suits it better. Uh, isofrane on the other hand makes a lot more sense on a big one. Um, so I think that they're great, especially if you have, if there's enough watch for the thickness of the isofrane.
Jason Heaton Definitely. Cause they don't taper at all. And so they, they look kind of funny if they're on kind of a smaller watch, like a 20, like I would say go with, if you've got like a watch with 22 or 24 millimeter lugs, like isofrane is the way to go like a big dive watch. If you've got 20 or 18, Tropic's the way to go. Cause it has that taper. It's a little thinner. Absolutely agree. And the Tropic ones, they just wrap around the wrist so nicely. They're just so soft and perfect length and yeah, they're great.
Blake Buettner And they're like surprisingly good when they're a little bit wet or you're sweaty. The summer stuff, they'd like deal with sand nicely. And they give, they maintain that vintage appeal. Like if you buy a vintage inspired dive watch and then just put it on a normal kind of tactical style rubber, doesn't always work. Right. Like, uh, these are incredibly cool straps for DOCSIS.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Uh, you know, an, an, an SPB 143, this is where I would lean Tropic immediately. And then if you look on the other side, like for, let's say the scurf, uh, maybe, uh, I mean, Pelagos comes with a great rubber to begin with. So what, what are you bothering with there? But I really liked the Hirsch pure, but they're really hard to find. So I'll try and find one and put it in the, in the show notes. I don't know if Hirsch makes them anymore, but they are like, the most basic, simple design. No, no venting, no holes, no patterning. It's a strip of rubber and a buckle. Um, but it's like nice rubber. And I've had mine for a really long time and worn it on a ton of different watches and it's just thin and works. And, and I really, really like it. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, I, uh, no complaints there. And then the other one I had in that Jason, I think he told me it's, it's an Uta strap, but it's the, the black rubber that came with my Skirfa. Yeah.
Jason Heaton I remember when, when I was working with, you know, I'd written to Terry at Ute and, and you know, was asking him about it. And then I bought a, I think I have a Brown one from him and, and a different color as well. So I'm not sure where else those are available anymore, but really, really nice, uh, nice rubber straps. Yeah.
Blake Buettner Yeah. So maybe you can buy them through Scurfa. I don't know.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah. Good point. Yep. I bet you can. And then the other one I'll mention is, uh, Zealand, which I believe the Houdinki shop is selling now, but you can buy it directly from Zealand, Zealand with an E on the end. This is that kind of soft FKM style rubber. They make them specific to certain watches. So actually I bought a white one for the Seamaster. Looks fantastic. Super comfy. Really nice. Nice kind of fitted end style rubber strap. Really pleased with that one as well.
Blake Buettner So nice. Yeah. They look great. And then that would bring us to what I think is probably the nicest rubber strap I've ever bought or used. And that's the Everest. I have a blue one. That's like fitted for my Explorer two. If you have, I, they probably make far more than back when I got that blue one, but you know, they're kind of known for making really nice rubber straps that fit Rolex products. And I, I mean, are they a bit on the expensive side? I guess if you're talking about comparing it to a 20 or $30 rubber, but kind of like with the triple out design, if you can, one, you can't buy an oyster flex, right? I don't even know what it would cost if you could. Right. but like a good rubber strap does cost from an OEM several hundred dollars. And these don't cost that much. Yeah. Um, but they do Rolex, Tudor, Panerai, and then they have options for what they call any watch. Um, and I've been pretty interested lately to pick up one of these universal options would be the same material. Um, but they're only doing it in black. So if, if they expand, if I could get one of these, any watch versions, which kind of has a little bit of an Omega seed, the previous Omega seed or planet ocean vibe. Yeah. It's like a central channel. Um, If they did this in gray, you know, sorry to be so basic, but black rubber is as close as I get to wearing a black strap, but I have a couple I really like like that Hirsch pure, but I could see these being like a really nice match for an already really nice watch. And I think that's where they make sense.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Good call. And I guess we did mention uncle under metal, but uncle straps makes some great kind of Seiko style. In fact, has actually recreated a number of the old kind of classic Seiko rubber straps. And I think Seiko, as far as OEM rubber, Omega makes great rubber straps, but Seiko has, they were kind of the king for a long time and cool to see Uncle recreate some of those old ones.
Blake Buettner Yeah. The G381 with the flat, the flat vent is cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like those. I was never, I never had, I've never had the wrist or maybe my wrist is too bony for the Z22s like what came with an SKX. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, but some of these, yeah, the, the Uncle Seiko stuff is worth checking out as well. And there's some great rubber, uh, at any price point essentially. Cause you can also like, if you really love your watch, the brand might make a rubber strap like a Breitling or That sort of thing. And those are great. Like a Hershey Breitling is pretty rad. Yeah. Oh yeah. So true. All right. Let's close it out with others. So sailcloth, canvas, that sort of thing. Where do you feel like, obviously we've talked a ton about Ardham.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Ardham sailcloth, you know, I kind of was turned on to Ardham when I was looking for a longer version of the sailcloth to go on my Blancpain to kind of mimic the one that came with it and ordered one. And it's at least the equal of the one that came on the Blancpain. Sorry about that Blancpain. It is, uh, it is a very nice, uh, sailcloth strap. Yeah. Um, Haviston makes great canvas straps. I really like canvas straps. I mean, they're not great for kind of wet, you know, stuff like sweat, uh, or, or swimming, but like you can, you can like hike in it, wear it, you know, 90% of the time. It's great, great alternative to, to leather. And, um, again, Haviston with their, um, what they call it, the canvas series, um, makes a really nice canvas, uh, kind of a pull through style that I've got on my, um, 6105 right now, kind of in an olive color. That's great. And then Barton, I mean, we haven't talked about Barton bands, but Barton, um, makes a wide variety of straps. They do, they do rubber, they do, um, kind of a composite. I was chatting with my designer friend, Paul, who worked on my depth charge book cover, and he's a bit of a watch nerd TGN listener. Um, and he turned me on to kind of this interesting composite sort of canvas rubber composite strap that he's going to maybe fit on a, on a grand Seiko, kind of a sportier watch. Um, those are really cool. Um, uh, the only quibble I have with, with Barton is I'm not a huge fan of, uh, quick release spring bars, you know, the kind of the little, Oh, okay. Thumb tab on the back. I just, I, if I have a watch that has spring bars, like then I have this conundrum of like, okay, now I've got to find some place to put these like little extra spring bars I have. And plus I always have this paranoia that I'm going to, you know, accidentally release my strap on my wrist. It's never happened, but, um, I would love if Barton made these straps, uh, without the quick release, but you know, a lot of people like them and the straps themselves are great and they're really affordable.
Blake Buettner Yeah. And I mean, you could probably also just snip the little trigger and pull them out.
Jason Heaton That's what Paul said.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, I, I like these quite a bit. I also really like quick, quick change straps. Um, you know, I have, I have a dumb little jar on my desk full of spring bars that I have to measure every time I want to use them.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Uh, but I, yeah, I dig these. I've seen these in person. They're nicely made for sure. The, the other one that I wear a ton, it's actually on my scurfa as we talk is the crown and buckle option, which is the Phalanx, P-H-A-L-A-N-X. And it's just a really nice, like long, like I've had mine for a long time. I think it was one of the stock straps that came with my original Halleo C4, the 12 hour bezel pastel. Oh, it's like a green sort of light Denny sort of green canvas that I just, I wear a lot. I have a tan version that I don't know who it's from and I'm not home to be able to flip it over and see if it's embossed.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner Uh, but I think it might also be a crown and buckle or, or like a Hirsch, that sort of thing. Like a bigger, normal sort of strap supplier that's been around for a while. Hadley Roma, maybe. Um, but those are the two that I like the green and the, and the tan kind of really do the, the whole thing. I have a gray version of the crown and buckle as well. So I, yeah, I think there's a lot of good options. If you want the premium go with the Artem and then give it a moment to break in really lovely.
Unknown Yeah.
Blake Buettner Yeah. Cool stuff.
Jason Heaton Lots of straps, lots of straps. We've scratched the surface though. I mean, this is, this is such a huge category and I think we were overdue and we'll probably have, we would have to do one, one a month in order to hit all these people and I'm sure we'll just get so many comments with like you forgot about so-and-so or whatever. Yeah please let us know. Yeah guilty as charged.
Blake Buettner Yeah and I'm sure we'll have a Straps channel in Slack starting probably in the next we'll call it two weeks. Yeah good point. I'm just you know been too busy if I'm honest running around to put the final touches on how that invite will work and make sure that people come in and we'll be able to be part of it but I think a Straps channel makes a lot of sense for the Slack so if you want to get in on the Slack we talked about this previously but That's part of the new plan for the coming year. The big addition to those who decide to pay for the gray NATO, um, either at the $5 a month or the a hundred dollar a year, which does the strap, but either one will now also include Slack access. And I would imagine that if you're listening to this and it's anytime after the day it comes out, the comments are going to be full of really good, uh, strap options. There's just like, we've never been more spoiled for choice. Like I remember back in the day, there was a go-to for the big Panerai style strap. There's a go-to for rubber. Now there's like 10, 15, 20 go-tos. You can just do really well.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Good one. All right. We should, uh, wrap this up with, uh, with some final notes. Yeah.
Blake Buettner What have you got this week? Uh, mine's actually my annual announcement that Top Gear is back. The show's back on. I always like to tell people that it's out. Uh, the first episode I really, really liked and it included one, in my opinion, what's one of the best films they've done in quite some time. I genuinely, like, I genuinely believe that I saw some stuff in this video I've never seen in a car before. So it's the Rimac Nivera. Chris Harris is driving it. And I'll put a reaction video, sort of like talking about the film video that they put on the Top Gear YouTube. That'll be the link in the show notes. But whatever you got to do, whether it's through iPlayer or whatever, to check this episode out if you're into cars. The hosts, I think, have really come a long way. The show has its own feel distinct from the original sort of pattern for the show, but still really fun. And then this Rimac is like a 1900 horsepower electric car. Wow, they show a few things in this whether it's a top speed run or a four wheel drift that like I don't think I've seen before and it's so well captured. It really reminded me of like very early days of YouTube like what the first time I saw a Top Gear thing was them driving a Lamborghini Murcielago and then chasing it in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. And I remember seeing like, Oh my goodness, like how could that car be keeping up because it's in the rain and it's got four wheel drive and I remain a giant Top Gear fan and I'm thrilled that it's back. And the first episode was awesome. And the kind of highlight reel for the season, I'm, I'm really pumped for it.
Jason Heaton Nice. Yeah. Cool. I like Chris Harris too. I mean, he's, he's one of the, the great, uh, car guys.
Blake Buettner Yeah. And how about you? What have you got?
Jason Heaton Yeah, this came actually through, um, one of our listeners named Marius who sent it over. It's from the CBC. So Canadian Broadcast Corporation, um, great Canadian, uh, radio history here. Um, this is a, uh, kind of a interactive, unique, um, presentation on the radio one website called paddle of the century. And, uh, the subtitle says 40 years ago, Don Starkle and his teenage son set off from Winnipeg's red river on a world record setting canoe trip. And it's just a, it's a lovely long form piece with, uh, an audio component and some great kind of old nostalgic photos and an interactive map that as you scroll through this article, it takes you from their journey way up in Winnipeg, down through the U S down along the coast in, uh, in Mexico, along the Gulf. I mean, this was an epic, epic trip that he and his sons did in a canoe, um, which is just daunting to even think about. And it's, it's just a really fantastic story. I mean, the story itself is good. The presentation's great. So, uh, check that out. We'll throw the link in the show notes as usual. Uh, and, uh, thanks to, Marius for sending over that link. We, uh, we appreciate the recommendations as always. So thank you, man.
Blake Buettner I love a CBC reference. This is great. I'm scrolling through this now and I did not pull this from, from Marius's email. So this is a, this is rad. I'm now very excited to probably get into this, uh, this evening.
Jason Heaton Super cool. Cool.
Blake Buettner Love it.
Jason Heaton All right. That's the episode. So, um, as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode. And for this one, please do or consider supporting the show directly. And we leave you with this quote from Mark Twain, who said, The difference between a miracle and a fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.