The Grey NATO – 232 – Crew & A #2

Published on Thu, 23 Mar 2023 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

The hosts discuss James' upcoming trip to Switzerland for Watches and Wonders, including meeting with Tudor and attending the show. They answer questions from listeners about various topics such as budgeting for hobbies and interests, planning affordable vacations, water resistance ratings, and stolen watches. The hosts share some new gear recommendations as well.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason 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 232 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 and aren't already, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. James, I guess speaking of travel, you are a day away from flying off to Switzerland.
James Yeah, yeah, we're recording on a Tuesday and very late Wednesday night I'll head to Geneva to do a little hangout with Tudor and then switch hotels and do four or five days at Watches and Wonders. So as I've said the last several times, you know, just trying to keep everything going, make sure we don't drop any major balls, lots of solutions, lots of stories that still have to go up, you know, even into the weekend. So just kind of working on that. Really don't have like a ton of fun experience. I've spent the past week like largely sitting in front of a laptop or shouting into a phone.
Jason How have you been? Oh pretty good, pretty good. So are you going to be, speaking of meeting up with Tudor, I'm guessing you're going to meet with our former TGN guest slash host Cole Pennington, right?
James Cole Pennington, absolutely. Yeah, looking forward to seeing Cole and a bunch of the team. You know, got some buddies at Tudor for sure. getting to see the manufacturer, which is pretty exciting, not only as someone who recently bought one of their watches and, of course, one of their movements, but being able to kind of tell that story, I think there's some confusion between the Tudor, the Canisi, the Breitling, the Norcane of it all. And I think it might be kind of fun to actually just kind of get some clarity on that kind of stuff. So a nice way to start the show kind of loop, but I'll be in Geneva by the time this episode goes up. So Obviously, this will be the last episode. 2.32 will be the last episode we do before we take a little break for Watches and Wonders. And then we'll be back on April 6th with kind of a full download of our impressions from the show. Jason, you know, more on paper and me more hands-on with the stuff. But that should be good. And then I will say that at this point, I don't think I'll be able to get the monthly Q&A for March done until early April. So look forward to that kind of stuff first week or so of April. Um, but we're going to take the next week off just to, just because, uh, you know, it's kind of 24 hours a day for watches and wonders, especially if you want to get a little bit of sleep in.
Jason I've already started my, uh, you know, kind of just scratching out a list of, you know, we've already seen a few watch releases this week, uh, ahead of the show. And I know whenever we get around to our, our big episode, um, mega sewed around these shows, I always, I always, it's always nags me that I, forgetting something so I've just kind of started to like just jot on a list some of the watches. I'm not even going to mention them today because I'll save them for for our next episode which is always a fun one.
James So yeah for sure there's there's been stuff released from a handful of brands some of which we've already talked about on on the previous episode and some that we're going to hold for uh two three two so just uh you know heads up for April 6th on that one and thank you very much of course for your understanding in uh in the fact that we need to take that week off so The only other thing that's kind of new for me, and I dropped this in the slack a couple days ago, is I put in an order for a new canvas strap from Postale. Before I sent you their stuff, were you aware of it? I had no idea.
Jason I didn't even hear of the brand. No. This looks cool though.
James Wow. Yeah. So I asked Jason Lim of Hallios. One of my favorite canvas straps that I had in the past was from a previous Seaforth. So I thought I'd check in and see if that was something I could buy. Maybe they make it in 21. I'm hoping that it'll really kind of suit the Pelagos, but it'll also work on the Mido. double value when it comes to trying to buy this weird size at 21 millimeters. Yeah. And so Lim recommended Postale. I checked him out on Instagram. I'll put it in the show notes, of course. So far, I haven't had the strap in my hands, but I ordered a 21 with a taper to 18. Oh, nice. In sort of a nice green, and I'm really excited to see it on the watch. The Pelagos has been living on the Erica's original and it's basically perfect. I took it off very briefly yesterday when I was just rowing. I didn't want to get the Erica's unnecessarily sweaty. And it's just been, it's been great. All the stuff I said in the last episode has been good, but I think that's, that's, you know, loosely the only, only sort of TGN-esque news I've got.
Jason Yeah. These straps look really cool. And a tapered canvas is something I don't think I've ever even seen. They're usually very wide all the way down to the tail. So I'll be curious to see. to see how that looks, that'll be great.
James Yeah, I thought it might suit the sort of Rolex Tudor silhouette to have a bit of a taper. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, they look like pretty solid straps. They do single piece and two piece, a bunch of different colors and a lot of them are made from like sourced material. Yeah. Which I like quite a bit. So check them out on Instagram.
Jason And it looks like they're made in Finland and you can only order through like DM on Instagram, right? Yeah.
James Yeah. So like I said, I don't have any hands-on experience, but the ordering process was very simple. Answered a few questions, sizing, width, that sort of thing. Paid by PayPal, super easy. And I'll follow up once I actually get the strap in and start wearing it. But I was so far very impressed with the general process and that sort of thing. And it is sort of a premium option. It's in there in like the Ardham price point. But I think it should be good. And certainly they seem to review quite nicely.
Jason Well, I don't have much new to report, you know, since we spoke to each other last time. And, you know, I'm just out the other end of COVID, as I mentioned last week, and it just kind of feels good to get back to a little bit of exercise and, and, uh, that, but nothing, nothing really new to report. I, speaking of, of Jason Lim, I, I, I pulled out my C4. So that's my wrist check for this week. I've, I've got it on a, on a gray NATO fittingly. Um, and this is the, I guess it's the first generation without the timing bezel and the pastel blue dial. And, uh, I've been wearing it about the past three days, just such a great watch. Um, it had been a while. I had, lent it to my mom for a couple of years. She, she had seen it, you know, a couple of years ago when I was wearing it and like, I've never seen her get so excited about a watch. And she saw the blue color across the dinner table or whatever. And it's like, Hey, you know, let's put a, let's put a strap on it. So I put a nice kind of Hermes leather, you know, strap that I had on it. And then she wore it like that for a couple of years. And then, then we swapped and now she's wearing the green dial Raven, which she, she likes equally well. So, um, I've got the, the hair feels back.
James Yeah.
Jason Yeah. So, yeah. Nice. Okay. That's on my wrist. You've got the Pelagos. You're off to, uh, Geneva and, um, and we've got some questions to get to. This is, this is part two of our slack crew and a, as we call it.
James Yeah, absolutely. So normally we do Q and a's as an audio kind of presentation. It's the fifth episode. It's what you get. If you're in either the subscriber levels, we wanted to do something that was a little bit faster and gave us a chance when we didn't really have a topic like the week before watches and wonders, everything's coming out a couple of days later. So, you know, this works out really nicely. We have a ton of questions. And if you're not really sure of the format or whatever, go back just a couple episodes and check out the Slack Q&A part one. That should fill you in if you missed it. But if you didn't, then you should be ready for a new block of questions. And we'll kick one off with one from Jason Harrier.
Jason Jason writes, my very first mechanical watch was a Rolex Milgauss gifted to me from my wife for our wedding. It was the one one six 400 with the matte black dial and clear crystal. She had it engraved on the case back. You make every minute worth remembering, which is a great, a great quote. Um, I wore it daily for almost 10 years until it was sadly stolen while on vacation in Palm beach, Florida. I registered it with Rolex has stolen and have Toronto 24 and eBay alerts set up daily just in case it pops up. It was on an orange rubber B strap when it was stolen. He still has the box papers and bracelet. Uh, so hopefully it's still on the strap and easy to spot. Outside of those methods, I'm curious if you have any other ideas on how to locate the watch. Also curious if you've heard of folks actually getting a stolen Rolex back that has been intercepted by them during servicing. Thanks for the advice in advance. This is a really unfortunate question, Jason. I'm really sorry to hear about that. It sounds like it was a really significant watch with a great engraving. I don't know what to say. I mean, I guess this is one step you can take is getting the word out as we're hopefully able to do with you know, our listeners. James, do you have any other ideas? I know there's some databases.
James Yeah, I think there's some databases. I'm not sure how accurate they are these days. Yeah. So I would say, you know, look, look into those options as well. And if I can find any guidance for that, you know, check the show notes. Jason, definitely, you know, this, this sucks. Not ideal to lose the watch that has the sentimental value, right? Like in many cases, a watch got stolen. You go like, ah, well, maybe it's insured, that sort of thing. You move on. But sounds like this one had a nice story. and a great engraving, which kind of stings even more. I would probably set up a daily or whatever sort of triggered alert for watch recon for this reference. And then, you know, just check in, you know, see if there's any similarities to yours or otherwise. Sometimes you can ask for a few digits of the serial number without really causing any sort of alarms to go off on the other side. And that may give you a chance. It depends on how much time you want to put into it. The Milgauss, even among Rolexes, is kind of a rare thing to see. I mean, it can't hurt. Watch recon is really easy. It's free. You can just set a trigger for the reference or for Milgauss or both. And then once a day, you could check through and if something kind of looked like it could be yours or there's even a chance, then maybe you could dig a little bit deeper. And then as far as somebody actually getting a stolen Rolex back intercepted by servicing, I haven't heard of it, but it absolutely must happen. I mean, especially if you have something like what police report, um, I think, which I think you need to register it with Rolex. So, uh, yeah, I think it's probably very much possible, uh, that, uh, that that kind of happens, but I don't have any specific, you know, anecdotes from, from that sort of a scenario.
Jason Yeah. Yeah. Really unfortunate. And, uh, you know, best of luck, Jason. Um, it sounds like you had, uh, you had a good 10 years with it, which is, uh, you know, not, not great consolation, but, um, Yeah, too bad. We'll keep our fingers crossed for you.
James For sure. All right. Next up, we've got one from Jimmy Carbone, who says, Currently, I'm waiting on a list for a Rolex OP with a green dial. My plan was for this to be my wedding watch. I expect to wait for it for a while, but I'm also worried that by the time comes, I may not have the money for it. Has this ever happened to either of you, especially for an important piece? What would you do in that scenario? Would you find a way to make it work or just let it go and find an alternative that won't break the bank? Thanks, guys. Thanks for that question, Jimmy. Jason, have you ever had this happen where you had to get on a waiting list for a watch and then maybe you spent your money on a Land Rover or a dive trip or something like that?
Jason Not the waiting list scenario. The only significant kind of watch purchase that was thought up ahead of time was for my 40th birthday, which was now quite a while ago. We splurged and I got my Rolex Sub at that point from a retailer in town here. And at that time, this was, just to show you how long ago it was, uh, there were no wait lists for, for Rolexes back then, um, or significant ones at least. And, uh, I was able to buy it right at the store. Um, and at the time we were not, um, in, in a financial situation to kind of just plunk down the cash for it. So I did it on like, you know, 0% interest one year payment terms through the retailer, which I can't say I would do that now. Um, you know, I prefer to just buy things that I can afford at that moment. um, rather than buy things on credit. But it certainly worked, worked out just fine back then. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's hard to advise not knowing, you know, your financial situation, uh, Jimmy. Um, but that, that, that was my personal scenario. James, what's, what's your advice here? I suspect you're, you're in the same boat. You prefer not to, not to extend yourself.
James I probably wouldn't, but it also depends cause I've had several friends recently and it all depends on your cashflow. like trying... Because we've talked about on recent episodes, I think Q&A about how we felt about borrowing money for watches.
Unknown Yeah.
James And occasionally I'll chat with somebody, like a close friend, and they'll say like, oh, I didn't have the money when Rolex called and had my GMT ready, so I just financed it with a firm. And it all comes down to what the cost of the loan is, right? If we're talking about a few hundred dollars for you to weather the storm, then I mean, you know your cash flow better than me. It's not something that I'm super comfortable with, but it all depends on what the cost of the loan is versus how badly you want the watch or or let's let's it doesn't have to just be watch. It's a watch in the case of Jimmy's question, but like let's say right now a buddy decided that he wanted to he wanted to get rid of an Alfa Romeo that I really wanted and the price was right. Yeah, you I'd be I'd be running the math on a loan. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? Because like If you either wait a long time for something, that's something that's brand new, like a Rolex, or an opportunity comes up to buy something at the right price, but you don't have... That's why you do the loan thing. I wouldn't say that I've reversed my opinion, but I feel like my opinion on borrowing money for some of these things has become more nuanced. To try and understand the total cost of the loan, and if that price still makes sense, if you're comfortable, obviously, with the price of the OP, and then on top of it, the price of whatever the loan is, then it's fine. If you're putting it on a credit card... Yeah, yeah. Don't. You know what I mean? And I'm sure there's nobody in the audience here who's buying watches on 27% credit or something like, or at least I hope not. So I meant that mostly as a joke. But yeah, just understand that there is access to a lot of financing, and if the numbers make sense to you, then I don't know what the risk would be, because the watch isn't gonna be, at least these days, isn't gonna be worth less than retail. So if it ends up costing you $500 more, is it worth having that watch at your wedding for 500 bucks? And that's for you to decide. Obviously, congratulations on the pending nuptials. I assume this question wasn't days that you didn't get married within days of asking this question, but I think whatever watch you wear is great. I think a Rolex OP is a fantastic choice because I like the idea of getting married in an everyday watch that you can wear every day. You don't have to find some excuse to wear some vintage dress watch or whatever, just to just to have the sort of like wedding vibes on your wrist. So I like that idea for sure. All right. All right. Next up, we've got one from Southern Watch. And he says probably more for James. But if you could have a beer or drink with any current f1 driver, who would it be? That's tough. I get the feeling that a lot of these guys are too fit to be drinking. Yeah, yeah. So it might be like a, you know, a soda water or something like that. And hey, no, no, no shade thrown in that direction at all. But, uh, you know, I think it probably would have been Sebastian Vettel, not a, not a current driver. Um, but I think, you know, being German, great sense of humor. I think he would have been pretty fun to sit down and have a beer with.
Jason Who was the Finnish guy that just retired like last year? He seemed like a fun guy. Um, it was a long time driver. Uh, when Hulkenberg is back, Yeah, Hulkenberg would be my choice, either him or Valtteri Bottas. He sounds like a cool guy. He's got the mullet going, the mustache, and he's into cycling. I could see having a post-ride beer with him.
James Yeah, probably the easy answer is also like the current sort of people's favorite for Formula One would be Alonso. Yeah, yeah. I get the feeling that Alonso wouldn't necessarily be avoiding or doing a dry season, or however a Formula One driver does the math. definitely seems like a good sense of humor and I'm sure, you know, it'd be a fun time. I got about a billion questions and he just took his hundredth podium. Yeah, very, very impressive career and, you know, drove with pretty much everyone you can name from the last, you know, several generations of the sport. So yeah, I think that's probably where I would land, but I don't, I don't know that there'd be like a bad hang in the group. Like Max doesn't seem like he's like, he seems too serious. you'd be relaxing and having a drink. And you see him palling around with the other drivers. So my guess is they're all kind of pretty fun guys, but that's how I see it.
Jason Kimi Raikkonen was who I was thinking.
James Oh, of course. Well, that's stupid. Of course. Yeah, Kimi for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he'd be good. You'd spend the whole drink trying to make him laugh, I think. Yeah, right. All right. That's a fun question, Southern Watch. I appreciate that.
Jason All right. Next up, we've got one from our buddy Jeff, who goes by WatchCowsDive on our Slack group. His question is, I want to drive, in quotes, a car without red and blue lights showing up in the rear view mirror. James, you appear to be more of the sports car type. Do you have any specific recommendations for a beginner track day? I don't need to drive the latest $350,000 supercar, but I'd love to get into something like a BMW M3, an Audi R, some equivalent at a minimum, and really drive it like it's meant to be driven. What's your take on this?
James Do you know where Jeff is based? He's in Wisconsin, just across the border. He's in Wisconsin, so... There's Road America there. Road America would be one. The big thing is, and I also... If you're near Road America, your options are huge for track days, for arrive and drives, that kind of... They're a little more expensive, obviously, when you don't bring your own car and that kind of thing, and you'll probably have an instructor, which is all good. I would say, try and find the development tracks for the big track in your area. Like if I like if I wanted to drive around here, I wouldn't necessarily start by going to Toronto Motorsports Park, otherwise known as Molesport. I might look into other options. Karting, I think, is a great way to really feel an incredible amount of speed and develop car control. And you can learn to cart at any age, like you can be three or four years old, like a Max Verstappen. Yeah. And get into carting, but you can also just join a league. Carts are much more affordable. They fit in smaller trailers. Like if you really want to just go for a drive and your plan is to do track work, see what's around for discovery day or an arrive and drive for some carting. Yeah. And the carts, you're not going to not feel like you're going fast. They're terrifyingly fast. That's a great option. Otherwise, you mentioned BMW, Audi, BMW does, and I've done several courses with them over the years. So if you look up the BMW M experience, so there's a bunch of different layers. This is involved, I think I took my first BMW M class 17 years ago for my 16th birthday, and that was at Downsview Park, like a large piece of cement in North Central Toronto, and drove an M3 around and you everybody gets you trade a car off with another guy, but there's some class sessions and then you drive around and do a bunch of drills. I've done the AMG Academy for the GT Series. And I've done the AMG Academy for their winter driving event. They do that in Gimli, Manitoba. And I've also done the Porsche winter driving experience. I'm sure there's a, I'll put the correct names for these in, they all have like slightly different names. Um, but that's in Le Magantique in Quebec, pretty incredible. Drive a 911 on studded tires, hard to beat. If you really want to go in and do track day stuff, I would also look and see if there's like specific, like instructor series. So you would show up and the goal would be to get better at driving and you'll probably be in a Miata. or similar on a track, even on a big track like Road America. Yeah, those would be my suggestions. I would say a lot of car brands offer performance driving. They're kind of like a little bit luxurious. You go to the track, maybe you get a helmet with your name on it, that kind of thing, but you don't have to be doing it with a McLaren or a Lamborghini or a Ferrari or something like that. They do it with M... BMW used to do something called M Power Tour, which I thought was really cool. They did it for clients or you could pay, it's a few hundred bucks. I did it as press, but we were at Mission Raceway, which is a little track outside of Mission BC, and you basically just went from one M vehicle to another. There's somebody on the radio, there's a radio in the door, and they would give you instructions, you're doing some... You're not passing or wheel to wheels kind of stuff, it's more like demo driving. Yeah. But they also weren't telling you like, Oh, he went too fast. Oh, like we heard the tire squeal, like you're on timeout or whatever. So yeah, I w I would say all that kind of stuff. If you have access to a track, I would go and see what they're, what they do at the track. Jason, I feel like I read and I just can't remember, so I don't want to be wrong, but I don't know that Skip Barber is still doing their thing. I had Skip Barber.
Jason They used to do race schools all over the US, right? They're still in business. I mean, I looked it up and And they still do it. I'm not sure if they're at Road America or at a different track somewhere in Wisconsin, but I remember Skip Barber being a thing and they do everything from kind of sports cars on up to, I don't know if it's like Formula 3 or IndyCar.
James The Formula 2, the Formula Ford ones, the open wheels. That was on my list of things to eventually get to. And then maybe they went through insolvency or they moved on to another owner. I apologize if somebody knows the specific story of Skip Barber. The last thing that I would add is if you want to do more car control stuff, but it doesn't have to be on a track. Maybe consider a rally school. There's a bunch of different options. I know of one that I believe is in Seattle area called Dirt Fish, and then there's another one in Vermont that I'm blanking on, but I'll put these in the show notes. There's lots of good options out there. I would say try and find something that's as local as possible, and then start with the thing they offer. That could be autocross. It could be a drift day. There could be all sorts of options that like the idea of motorsport or like enthusiastic driving really comes in all sorts of different varieties. But if you want to hit a track, most places have a track, not too far away. And I would simply, you know, check out their website and see if they're offering stuff. And if not, uh, yeah, maybe find a school or use one of the, um, essentially the like demo series from a vehicle manufacturer, like the BMW driving or the AMG Academy, uh, Porsche experience centers do track drives as well. Uh, so that's another one to consider. Lots of options though.
Jason Yeah, that's a good question. And, um, Jeff, if you find anything, do, uh, do post it up in Slack. I have a feeling, um, our buddy, uh, Matt Ludvigson, um, he's a big road America fan. He might have some insights as well. So hit him up as well. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. We've got one here from, uh, Ben Grunwald, um, who says, I've been wondering how big is the TGN community these days and how did it develop over time? Slack is the first medium where it becomes sort of tangible, at least for me, and it is clearly a significant crowd. And that is a selection of premium subscribers. So how many listeners do you have every week and how big, ballpark, I don't need to know your financials, is the supporter crew these days? Do you want to divulge the secret sauce here?
James Yeah, sure. I mean, the Slack one, I think if you just go in and look around, I think it's just shy of a thousand people now. Yeah, amazing. So much so that that they're starting to limit the way that we can invite people. It's about a thousand people, so that gives you a rough idea of, you know, at least a hint at what the subscriber level is. The total level of subscribers is a decent percentage beyond that, between a thousand and two thousand kind of supporters of the show. And then the normal for an episode, unless it has like James Bond in the title or maybe Seiko, is going to be like in the neighborhood of 5000 downloads in the first 24 hours. And then it just kind of carries on from there. I think, you know, some of the most popular episodes we've ever done, they seem to Peter out around 30 to 35,000 downloads. And then they just kind of maintain this small run. But the the show as far as like the entire feed, the numbers huge, but that's because there's 230 plus episodes, right? So people are hitting the show. Some of you have been listening since one, so you're only downloading the newest one, whereas we have other people who hit in and download 20 episodes to kind of check it out, and then maybe they kind of filter in from there. But the nice thing is, as Jason and I have said, we're really not interested in growing. We'll just keep doing the show that we think we would want to listen to. And if it grows, cool. If it kind of plateaus, that's fine. We have our group, all of you guys that are listening, guys and gals that are listening. So it's not like a huge thing. When we started out, I think, you know, there's a couple hundred people, thanks to a post from Hodinkee, that number went up after just a couple episodes. And then it's just been kind of a steady increase in time. I would say that it's, it's, it can be difficult if you start to look at one episode versus another, because the people's interest in the episode, there's always like a base, the first 5,000 people, I assume that's who's listening right now. Um, otherwise the title seems to make up the difference. So if it's an episode, like I said about James Bond, about one of a few brands, that sort of thing, then we, you know, you get a 20, 30% bump.
Jason Yeah, it's been, and the organic growth of it has been really satisfying. And as you said, you know, we're not, we're not out to, to, you know, get huge. Otherwise we'd just change the title to, you know, the James Bond podcast or something.
James And yeah, Rolex and James Bond hour. Yeah.
Jason And there's a good hearty laugh for the person who asked about it a couple episodes ago. That was good. All right. Well, that's, uh, that's where we stand currently. Um, and, uh, we'll move on to a question from Matt who has a question about water resistance. He asks, uh, I'm sold on 100 meters being plenty for swimming and diving, but I've still heard you both express disappointment in watches that have only 50 meters of water resistance. Shouldn't that be plenty as well? What about 30 meters of water resistance? That's sometimes described as splash resistant and not suitable for swimming. But no one ever swims deeper than 90 feet unless actually diving. To my mind, if a watch is truly rated for 30 meters, shouldn't that be plenty for swimming? Do we not trust a 30 meter rating the same way we trust a 100 meter rating? Do we want a buffer or delta between stated ratings and actual depth? Curious to hear your thoughts.
James This is a really tough one. How much time we got? This could easily be an entire episode. Water resistance. Yeah. It's one of my major complaints with the state of the watch industry. Yeah. Along the fact that there's no standardization for what in house means, right? There's maybe 20 or 30 different stratas of movements and who makes them and how. The other thing that bugs me is every brand does exactly whatever they want when it comes to water resistance until you get to dive watches that have to conform to ISO or DIN. Yeah, yeah. There's a comfort in the standard and I think everything else is so vague. 30 meters should be plenty. 30 meters could be a dive watch, maybe not for your open water advanced proving dive where they'll take you to 40 or near that. But yeah, this is a major complaint, Matt. I think it's a really fun question. I would love to have concrete answers. My problem really comes down to whether or not... Like 100 with a screw down crown, cool. I'd say do what you want. Modern watch with decent gaskets, that'll do it. 30 meters with a screw down crown, also fine. Yeah. It's just at a certain point you get into passive crowns and water resistance that I don't believe the brand ever tested. Like when Vacheron makes an overseas and it's 150 meters water resistance, I feel like that's them saying like, no, we're serious, take it in the pool. Yeah. Even though like that's an overkill of two decimal places, right? Right. But when you see another watch and it's five ATM, which again, deeper than most pools, right? You're definitely deeper than a casual pool. That's the kind of watch where in my mind, and I can't necessarily explain why, I take it off to wash my hands. A lot of this isn't based in reason because there's no standard to back it up. I almost think it's like when you go to a restaurant and they have a number of little chili peppers next to something. Yes, exactly. There's no way of knowing how hot they actually mean. It's like a reference based on that company's or that restaurant's existence. When you're outside of that, then I really have to take in the vibe of the company. Like if Seiko tells me that my SSK is 100 meters, I trust them. It's a modern watch from a company that makes a ton of watches, including dive watches. When Rolex says that they test all their watches at least to the number on the dial, if it's a dive watch you test over, because they're ISO, I trust them. And that's why I would have no trouble taking, say, my Explorer 2 in the water, swiping 100 meters.
Jason I think know, it's almost like they're separating out their intended use of the watch that they're selling from the pressure rating. And I think almost a more honest way of expressing this for a watch brand would be, and some do obviously, they express it in atmospheres or in bar because that's how they're testing it. Let's face it, they're not actually putting it on a fishing line and dropping it over a boat you know, over the side of a boat and measuring the length of the fishing line and saying, this is a hundred meters water resistance. It has really nothing to do with water. It's more about pressure. And they're doing that in a lab with, you know, probably a dry, um, you know, air test in some cases for, for sort of quote unquote, shallower rated watches, or maybe in a wet tester, um, you know, for the deeper diving stuff. But I think by saying a watch is 50 meters water resistance, which I think is the current rating for a speed master. Um, the, They really don't even say that with the intention of you actually taking it in the water. They're actually trying to discourage you from taking it in the water because, um, it's, it's their automotive slash space watch and they don't have any intention of being in the water. One thing that frustrates me is that brands say, Oh, it's, it's rated for a hundred meters of water resistance, but you know, wink, wink, but we tested it twice that depth or one and a half times. It's like, just put the actual depth that you tested it to or the pressure that you tested to. Um, and let us decide what we're comfortable with. I mean, I, you know, I've, I think like a, a Bremont MB two, for instance, you know, it's got two crowns, they're both push pull crowns, not screw in. Like I, I would have no problem diving with that watch. I've died with like the rotto captain cook or, you know, um, like an Oris, uh, diver 65, you know, a hundred meter rate. I mean, these are, these are perfectly fine. I mean, I think it really comes down to your own personal comfort level and, and looking at the pressure rating as a objective measure. Um, and taking it for what they say, you know, I'm comfortable diving with a hundred meter watch. I'd, I'd swim with a 50 meter watch. Um, I don't really own any 30 meter rated watches, I guess. Um, at least none that I can think of it, you know, and vintage stuff is its own, you know, that's a whole different category.
Unknown Oh, sure. Yeah.
Jason Yeah. But yeah, it's a very frustrating kind of discussion that, that you're right, James. I mean, maybe we should just have a, an episode on water resistance and maybe get, maybe get some opinions, maybe, maybe talk to some folks from brands and say, what What do you guys really mean by this?
James Yeah, no, I agree. There's some that are real head scratchers, like modern Panerais that are 30 meters.
Jason Yeah, yeah. Why did they say that? What is it truly rated for?
James Does it just mean we don't intend this to ever go in the water? That's why it's also on an alligator strap? Right, right, right. Sometimes the strap is my hint as well. Yeah, yeah, true. If it's on rubber, you're like, maybe I trust it. If it's on gator, you go like, I'm going to treat that like a 5270 or something like that.
Jason I do have one anecdote. This was years ago and I was, I did this story about water testing for Houdinki way back when. And I was at the local Rolex retailer where they had all the equipment and they, they had a, uh, a GMT master to, I think it was GMT master to might even been an older one, just the case, no movement in it. And to demonstrate the water resistance or how they test it, the watchmaker, he, he put the crown in the stem in and the crown, but he didn't screw it in. Um, and then he, he put it in the water testing. thing. And I believe this watch was, it must've been an older GMT master because it was rated for, I think, 50 meters, one of the, you know, the vintage ones and easily passed down to a hundred meters, um, with the crown unscrewed, you know, I mean that, I think that speaks to Rolex for one thing, but it also kind of made me wonder, you know, about a lot of other watches, you know?
James Yeah. I think that wasn't necessarily the Rolex story I thought you were going to tell, but maybe you're not allowed to tell that. Oh, that one. We'll keep that one in the pocket for a future episode. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Rolex is a whole different thing because they're, they're maniacal. And I mean this in the nicest possible, the most impressed term I could make about their quality control. Yeah. That's why they make one of the best watches in the world is they're so crazy about quality control. But the thing that bugs me, Matt, is the vagueness from most other brands. Yeah. Unless it's a dive watch, right. Or they're Zen, right? Like I feel like whatever number Zen puts on the watch go nuts. Right. And same with a lot of the Seiko stuff. Certainly, we've seen videos of people putting a Citizen in one of those pressure chambers and exceeding its water resistance by 4 or 5X. So it's a bummer that it's not just clear or that there was some sort of an industry standard where you could say like, oh, this watch has no ISO rating, don't get it wet. This watch is ISO rated to this number, you can use it in these manners, swimming, showering, washing your hands, don't take it in a hot tub. This one is rated... This is 6425 dive watch, go nuts. We only need a couple more standards. I'm not necessarily saying people have to test for all of this, like each one needs to be tested like you might test a dive watch, but I think that there should be a standard so that somebody looks at it and they go like, wait, can I wear this to the cottage on the weekend? Right. Or should I switch watches? Yeah, yeah. That's all. Just take the guesswork out of it. It's annoying. I've been in this industry for more than a decade, and I think half of the brands make it up, and they figure if they put a small enough number, you won't get it wet, so they won't have to have the conversation. But I've had other brands say to me, like, oh, well, five atmospheres is just so you don't get fog inside the watch. And yeah, I don't like the vagary. It bums me out, and I think it leads to questions like this, and it leads to anything that makes people more confident in a product, be it luxury or otherwise, has to come from things being obvious or things being quality controlled to some extreme extent, right? And I feel like the water resistance thing is too vague. It's too, it's too shadowy. It's too smoke and mirrors. And I think that there's no, there's no guidance for brands that have no clue what they're doing when it comes to water resistance. Yeah. And I mean that among like major brands, not like little brands. Right. Fun question. Wish I had a better answer. And if we can work out the right person to talk to about it. I'd love that to be a bigger episode. So thank you for that, Matt. Next up, we've got one from Joshua. And next up, we've got one from Joshua H. He says, I've been meaning to ask this since August of last year, I took my father and brother on a birthday dive trip to Florida, both have birthdays in September. In recognition of the event, I bought us matching dive watches, Seiko SRPE99. And I ordered I ordered them from a European outfit, but it looked like they were going to get caught up in customs and maybe returned, so I ordered from a domestic retailer. Then both orders got here, and the three of us have our matching watches. Thus, Joshua ended up with six watches instead of three. At this point, he had three options. Return the surplus. It's international, so it'd be some sort of a pain. Sell the surplus. That's a different kind of pain. Or keep the surplus. I have two children. Could give them to them. Jason, I mean, in my mind, like, These, these aren't like special or incredibly rare watches. They're special because of the three bought for the dive trip. The other three can just be returned. Worst case, it takes a little bit longer for the money to hit your credit card. Right.
Jason Yeah. That, that was my simple answer. I'd, I'd return them. Selling's a pain. Um, either way, you know, you've got to deal with shipping, which is unfortunate. I don't know if I'm guessing there wouldn't be free shipping for a return, but, um, yeah, I, I mean, my, my answer would just be to return them. I wouldn't, I would not bother to sell them.
James Yeah, I don't know if this is from August of last year. Maybe we don't have the return window still active, but that's what I would have said is, in this case, just return them. Worst case, you hit a little fine for the shipping, and that's the cost of doing multiple businesses to make sure the watch kind of showed up on time. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that, Joshua. And next up, we'll jump into one from Simon, who says, hi, gents. I have a broad question about the TGM brand. You've built a product and now a community packed full of passionate and like-minded enthusiasts. How would you like to see TGN evolve? What are your aspirations for the brand in the future? More growth, more community events, moments, ambassadors. I know I'm not alone in thinking you guys have created something special. Can't wait to see what happens next. Thank you and keep up the good work. Simon, super kind of you to put all those words in that order. Very sweet and nice to hear. Jason, I would say that we don't have plans for growth. If the show's good, it'll grow at the pace it's supposed to grow, right?
Jason Yeah. I mean, you know, this sort of is a good piggyback off of the earlier question about kind of our listener base and what we said there. And I think we're both really happy with kind of the organic nature of, of the growth. And I think, you know, James, you and I have talked at length about plans and whether we should plan and how to plan. And I think the mantra that we have is just better content, more and better content. That's what keeps people happy. That's what we keeps our listeners happy that, which is what we've heard. Um, and we're happy to hear. And you know, if it brings new listeners, which it seems to, because we get a few new that trickle in every week, new subscribers. Yeah. All the better. It's great. I mean, you know, we have ideas, I think, you know, we we've talked about, you know, maybe TGN travel where we do, you know, some kind of a dive trip and more in-person stuff, you know, get togethers. And we'd love to do all of that, but yeah, we're just going to keep doing what we're doing and hopefully do more of it.
James Yeah. Yeah. I agree. You know, when it comes to growth, organic is fine. We're not going to push, we're not going to do ads or, or, promote otherwise. You know, we're very selective, kind of choosy about both who we have on the show and what other shows we go on and that sort of thing, which is, I think you're, that's kind of one of the ways that you can grow, but I don't see ever doing ambassadors really, but we have people, you know, we had Cole Pennington on several times and we had David Concanon on last week. I would, I would love to have David on again. And I think that's kind of the closest thing to us is if we can get people to a point where they've been on so many times that they're kind of a known quantity. and you just get into certain types of conversations. Uh, I think that would be great. Uh, definitely more to use Simon's terms, community moments and events. So come to wind up Chicago, you'll be able to hang out with us. We're not going to be running a booth. We're just there to hang out and chit chat and, uh, you know, talk watches and do some recordings and that kind of stuff. I would love to eventually have the time and maybe, maybe it's a world down the road where TGN is the full-time gig and writing about watches is the part-time gig. It kind of flips. And if that became the case, I would love to do more episodes. You know, some of my favorite podcasts have a normal feed. That's sort of one product and, uh, the paid feed is something else. Um, and, and I love that idea, uh, you know, to grow it beyond the five episodes we do now, especially if we had, you know, maybe a couple more voices or a couple more like normal time, special guests, that sort of thing. Other than that, you know, we'll keep doing some merch. until people tire of it. So far, that hasn't happened. So we'll kind of keep going. But everything we're doing, aside from the normal shows, and even then, like this would like with a crew and a it's a little bit of a test. The merch is a little bit of a test. We don't know how many hats you guys want, right? We're barely businessmen. So we're just kind of making it up as we go. And the gut is like, what would we not want to hear from a show that we love? And in some ways, many of you have supported us, right? So we take that part really seriously. The rest of it, we're just trying to have fun. And that's how I think the show will continue. But I would love to do more, more episodes. I'd love to have a daily, like a weekly newsletter at some point, or maybe travel reports, or I don't know, TGN guides to certain cities. We've got a thousand ideas. It's just a question of hours in, hours out, and that sort of thing. So yeah, I think right now we're kind of doing what we feel we can do that won't tire us or anyone else out of the process. while still keeping, you know, connected to, to the folks that want to be connected, like with the Slack.
Jason Yeah. It's remarkable. We're 232 episodes in and we still find something, something new and interesting to talk about every week. I mean, it's debatable how interesting it is every week, but you know, I'm still interested. I still love Tuesdays and our opportunity to chat. And I think stuff like the crew and a, our, our kind of subscriber Q and a that we do like that gets every other people's voices involved. And it's just been fun to kind of evolve that way. So.
James I agree. Yeah. Thank you very much for that question, Simon.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Uh, our next one comes from Dan H who asks, uh, I'd like to know how you guys budget for all of your hobbies and interests. Do you have a carefree attitude to the whole thing or do you have a financial plan that you follow? What things in your life can you reduce or cut out altogether to allow more funds for watches, travel and adventures? You know, speaking personally, I mean, it's kind of, uh, a priority, you know, both financial and just, you know, budgeting for time, um, with Kashani and me to, to do as much kind of adventuring and hobby stuff as, as we can. And I think that's at the expense of, um, or if you talk about cutting things out, uh, we don't really spend on, on our house. Um, we don't buy furniture or artwork or, um, you know, expensive, uh, TVs and things like that. We, we, we kind of have the same stuff we moved in here with like almost 20 years ago. And, uh, and so that therefore kind of that frees us up to, to, you know, buy stuff for the garden or flights somewhere, you know, dive gear if we need it. And I guess the occasional watch here and there, but yeah, I guess it's, it's a priority of ours that is the priority over, you know, outfitting our house or, or buying new clothes and things like that. So, Yeah. Um, James, I think, you know, we're in different situations and I, I, I can't emphasize enough how different my life, our lives would have been speaking about Kashani and me had we had children and you know, that could be a whole other episode. Oh sure. But I think not having children, whatever, I mean it was a choice we made, but like we don't have college expenses to think about or daycare or you know, all of that stuff. And I think you're in a very different situation and you know, without getting personal or whatever about all this, uh, I think that's a big, big thing for us and the big differentiator between us and, and I don't know your situation, Dan H, but, um, that has made a big difference in our lives too.
James Yeah. I think that's, I think that's definitely one, one thing to consider. Um, and I, I've, I've really started, especially as I got into my mid thirties to see my life in phases in my year in phases, when it comes to budgeting, I don't have a budget for anything other than sort of cashflow. So a certain amount gets into savings. and occasionally you might have to spend some of that savings, which then diminishes outward cashflow in the cascading months as you get back to a certain number for your savings. Other than that, a lot of it just comes down to judgment and alignment between myself and my family, myself and my wife, and that's, and just make sure we're on the same page with things. You know, I'm, I'm in sort of a, not a unique scenario. Lots of people are in this, but being self-employed, lots of tax liabilities, I have kind of, constant conversations with my accounts or that sort of thing, but there's a bunch of privileges tied with that. One, watches for me are a self-sustaining hobby. I get watches, I sell watches, I never... I could run those like a separate book and I may... Now that they've changed some of the kind of gains and sales tax stuff for selling something like a watch, and that could change in the next little while, but for the most part, I see it as being kind of like self-funded. And then otherwise, I'm very careful about not spending money unless I actually think that the next step in price would actually change my life. I would challenge you to find someone who loves cars a lot more than me, but I've made a concerted effort for, let's call it 30 years, to really keep my enthusiasm on one side of a line and what I actually spend on cars on the other side.
Jason Yeah, that's admirable. I mean, it's, and it's surprising to me. I mean, I, I think, you know, if someone listened to you talk, they would think you must have like a garage full of, of cars, you know?
James Yeah. I mean, ideally I would. Um, and then I, I did the thing where I wrote about cars and that, that kind of got me through a part of my life where I probably could have made some bad financial decisions. You do kind of have to also calibrate what your monthly forgotten costs are. Right. Like it's easy to remember what you spent on your car or maybe the big screen TV a couple of years ago or a new laptop or a watch. But like I feel like a lot of people don't don't occasionally do a little audit on like the streaming services. Oh man, that's so necessary. The this, the that. Like, you know, my wife and I just did this recently, like in the last couple of weeks, and it was like thousands of dollars a year. We just had to make a few simple decisions. Like, dude, do I really need two terabytes with Dropbox, two terabytes with Google Drive? two terabytes with iCloud, a mega folder for some work I did a couple years ago, and then supporting all of that. So you're spending $80 a month to store 200 gigabytes across a handful of services, and then an hour's worth of work, and you start to realize like, oh, I'm gonna save a significant amount of money. And so there's those sorts of considerations, but it's the month to month stuff that'll really give you a haircut when you suddenly go like, well, how am I gonna save for that dive trip?
Unknown Right.
James Right. What do you want from what you're spending your money on? Right. And for me, like the stuff that costs us a lot of money is when we move out of the season we're in right now and we start going to the cottage every weekend, it's a lot in gas and it's a lot of costs at the cottage and it's rebuilding stuff up there. And that's fine. That's where I want to spend that money because I get a lot out of it. I get 10, 15 great weekends. Yeah. Try and develop a generalized budget. And then especially if your hobby is at odds with other people in your life, Um, so what would be a good example? Like, like if your wife doesn't love how much you spend on watches, you need a budget for that. So you, you remove the, the like negotiations that come into that thing, just like, you know, years and years and years ago, I stopped doing a lot of diving because that hobby, that interest was like at odds with my family, both in terms of time, more in time, more in terms of time than money. It's not that expensive to dive once you own all the gear, but time, money, those sorts of things, you know, Where there's friction points, that's where a budget's helpful. Otherwise, just be relaxed. Don't spend money that you don't have and don't buy things that you don't think are going to... If you can buy more time in your life, that's the best money. It's so easy to be inundated with the stuff that we talk about on the show. We're part of the problem. If I'm going on a full-on rant about consumerism and overspending and the rest of it. My wife and I have really gotten into this guy, and I'll put him in the show notes, Caleb Hammer. He does these like financial audits of people. He's in Austin. Yeah. And he'll invite somebody on very brave people come on his YouTube show and like give him all of their financial information. He kind of like explains what they need to do right now to recover from, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars of debt or more. Some of them are really terrifying. Yeah. Um, but I think the easy thing is you'll get to a point in your life and if you're a little bit older, maybe you'll know what I'm talking about. And if you're a little bit younger, maybe you're, you're about to get there. you get to a point in your life where you'll actually start making the amount of money you feel you're worth, don't change your lifestyle just because that happens. Right. Right. So this has been an incredibly long answer and I apologize, but it is something I think about a ton because of how much I work and I'm always trying to figure out like, Hey, if I, if I adjust this, could I get 10 hours back? Right. Like especially during the summer, like how can I work as little as possible and make enough to keep going? I know it sounds as stupid as it could possibly sound, but it's something I learn. I relearn every now and then it really is a question of priority during the pandemic. I probably spend an ungodly sum of money on like uber eats right because you couldn't just go to a restaurant and and there's just times when like you just like I just needed to show up and work in a ton that kind of thing and like that was a priority at the time and it's when I look back on and wish I hadn't bought it. I wish I had that. I wish that money and stay in the bank. I wish I had spent it on a watch. Yeah or more on the cottage or on a vacation. I've never regretted a dollar I spent on a vacation. I'm not sitting here from some high throne. I definitely have had like spending problems in my life, but yeah, it all comes down to like knowing the things that actually make your life better with money. And usually, usually, I mean, a great watch is a great watch and we're all in that headspace to make that decision if we want to, but usually it's experiences and time with, with loved ones, right?
Jason Yeah. I remember we, you know, we were, we just finished watching the season of the English. that that show with Emily Blunt and oh yeah. Um, it's good. Yeah, it's great. It's really good. And um, there's, there's just one quote that sticks out in my head and it was, uh, two people are talking, I can't remember the exact scenario and they mentioned something about, um, you know, but how do I take everything that I need if we're just going on, you know, on horseback or whatever. And the guy answers and says the difference between what you want and what you need is what you can carry on a, on a horse. you know, and it was, you could apply that in different ways. And I think, you know, we kind of joked and said, you know, it's what you can fit in a Land Rover or it's what you can put in a backpack or whatever. And it's, it's so true. I mean, it's like everything we've talked about in the past about travel and about, you know, you go to Sri Lanka for a month and live out of one suitcase and come back home and think, what do I need all this other stuff for? You know, you know, for some people that's more Spartan or more minimalist and it also is dependent on the size of your family and what your future plans are and when you plan to retire or if you do plan to retire and that sort of stuff. So, Wow. Yeah. This feels like you can almost cut this out and make a start of a whole separate episode.
James I don't know how much of that we'll actually keep. For those of you who want to do a little bit of math, I rambled for about 14 minutes. All right, Dan, thank you so much for that question and apologies for my very long winded answer. I'm sure this is something we can dig into quite a bit deeper on the Slack or maybe it's having a I don't know, some sort of a financial advisor that knows something of the, uh, the adventure world coming on and chatting about some of the strategies that, you know, kind of successful folks have used. Cause we've all known people who, you know, didn't have money and managed to get to Everest. Right. It's just a question of question of, uh, of saving and budgeting and prioritizing. So, uh, you want to do one more question here?
Jason Yeah, sure. We can fit in one from David Emerson who asks a summer is not far off. How about tips on planning a TGN friendly vacation full of adventures, but also accessible and affordable. I'm I think back to the trip that Kashani and I took last summer to Asheville, North Carolina, it was definitely affordable and it felt accessible. And I think the way we kind of made that trip happen, it was, well, there are two ways to do it. Like one is we love road trips and we love to incorporate kind of a mix of maybe camping and Airbnb, um, with, you know, bring a camp stove and kind of cook along the way and that sort of thing. But in terms of flying somewhere, we kind of look for things that are a affordable, but be, you know, as much as possible if it's going to be within the U S a direct flight and Asheville fit both of those criteria. It was, it was dirt cheap as, as flights go. And it was a very short direct flight. And, and it was also a place that I'd had, in mind and kind of on a short list of destinations for years. And I think that's kind of the key is as you run across things, whether it's a magazine article or you're listening to TGN or you're, um, you know, watching a TV show or something like make a mental note or even a physical note somewhere of like, you know, one day I want to go to Asheville, North Carolina. And that was on my list for, for many years. And then when we were seeking out a place, I just dug that up and started looking into it. And then it was, you know, Airbnb using points to get a rental car. Um, so we didn't have to pay for that. And then look for as many kind of human powered activities that we could do, which are usually either free or very cheap other than something like scuba diving. And then the other thing I would say is, you know, if you're, if you're in a, like a rental home or something, you know, find a place with a little kitchenette and do as much kind of local grocery shopping and cooking as you can for breakfast and pack lunches. And then you're not eating out as much, which can keep costs down. Yeah. And I think it always adds, I kind of like having a home base where you're packing your meals and then setting off for the day to do something fun. And, um, we're not big city people, Gashani and me. And so we tend to kind of aim for, for either mountains or ocean and, and kind of the activities that those provide. And I think, you know, you mentioned kind of a TGN friendly vacation. And I think we as a TGN community are lucky in that the stuff we typically like to do is not that expensive, um, because it is, you know, human powered, whether it's, you know, a bike trip or a road trip with some camping or a hiking vacation, things like that. You know, the Maldives for a over water bungalow dive trip is, is, you know, sure diving is TGN friendly, but it's certainly not, uh, not affordable or terribly accessible. So yeah, that's, that's kind of where I, where I think about it. Um, and, and we already have plans for the summer to do some kind of great lakes road trips and, um, kind of more regional or local diving and that sort of stuff. So, Yeah. That's kind of my take on it. Uh, James, you're, I mean, you, you know, you're, you're cottage trips. I mean, you, you could call those there were their weekends, but they're, so they're not technically like a vacation per se, but, um, kind of fits the same mold.
James The simple thing that I like to keep in mind is like, you know, kind of dovetailing off the last question. Think about what a great hotel room costs five, six, a thousand dollars a night in some scenarios.
Unknown Yeah.
James For one night, you could buy a really nice tent. Yeah. Right. you know, a decent car camping setup is just not that expensive. Even when you factor in the tent, the bags, the pads, the, the, the stove, some utensils, like it's, it's less money than you think it would be. And once you have it, now your only real task is finding places where you're allowed to camp. And if that's in North America, there's a lot. Yeah. Try and find some without mosquitoes and it can be pretty luxurious, right?
Unknown Yeah.
James Like it just can be like You don't need to buy high-end technical gear. It just has to be comfortable. You use an air mattress. You got room in your car, probably, maybe. And the final thing I do is I'm very much, and we can talk about this if it's a question for a future one, I'm a huge, like Jason mentioned, getting the rental on points. Well, I pretty much, all the points I accrue across my Amex cards, I just use BuyDown, where I can go into the app, like when my wife and I did Newfoundland last year, that was all on points. we didn't actually have to book anything on points because sometimes you do, sometimes there's a benefit, but otherwise you just buy what you're going to buy the flights, the hotel, whatever it is. And then in the app, you can just like click on it and say, pay for that with points. And it just gets knocked off your bill. It's awesome. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. If you spend a little bit of time learning about the credit cards that are great in your area, they're different in the States than they are in Canada. Of course, learn a bit of time, learn what things like whether gas or food should go on one card or the other, because you get five of the points or double the points or whatever. A little bit of that sort of knowledge, not a ton, you don't have to be an expert, but a little bit of that sort of knowledge will cover a portion of your vacation every year.
Unknown Yeah. All right.
James So yeah, thank you so much for that question, David. And to everybody else, I think that's the better part of 10 questions. And I think we'll wrap it up as clearly I'm in a rambly sort of mood. Jason, you want to jump into some final notes?
Jason Yeah, let's do it. I, I've got one that, that, uh, that somebody sent me, um, a good friend of mine. And, uh, so, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of this. There's this well-known by now, uh, kind of cold war story about these, uh, these us Navy divers that, that worked out of a submarine, um, over in the Pacific off the coast of Russia, um, to, to wiretap an underground or to wiretap an underwater communication cable. And it was called operation Ivy bells. And it's, it's a great story on its own, but, um, the story is a twist on, on that. It's actually a little known aspect of it. And when they were building the submarine, uh, to use for this very unique covert operation, uh, turns out that one of the engineers who was working on the submarine in, in, in a facility in California actually had his briefcase with the plans stolen by two teenagers who thought they were getting something completely different. And it kicked off this whole emergency covert operation to, to figure out who stole them, how to get them back. And, and this, this story that I'm linking to, it's, it's off of a, a site called trulyadventure.us. Um, actually truly adventurous is what it's called, but the URL is trulyadventure.us. And, and it's the series, the site itself is great. There's a lot of really interesting stories about a variety of subjects. Um, but what's cool about this one is it's, it's well-written, it's kind of a long form, um, article, and then it's interspersed with these sort of graphic novel kind of illustrations that kind of help illustrate the story itself. And, uh, you know, between kind of the, the artwork, the, the writing, and then the story itself, it's, it's just a wonderful read for anyone that's kind of into you know, kind of cold war espionage, um, you know, kind of tales from, from the 1960s and seventies, um, which, you know, if, if, if you read the news these days about, you know, who blew up the Nord stream, uh, underwater, um, pipelines, uh, it, it, it's right out of this, this type of, uh, story storyline. And, um, so this, uh, this feels very timely and relevant and just an excellent story. So, Yeah, check it out. We'll put it in the show notes. It's just called Ivy Bells, but it's definitely a twist on that main story. Very cool. This looks great. All right. How are you going to bring us home here?
James Yeah, mine this week is actually something I was sent by, I guess, probably the agency that supports like Pelican Gear in Canada here or in North America. They reached out and said, you know, got some cool stuff if we could send it. And I said, yeah, I never really met a pelican I didn't like, but they sent one of these smaller cases, it's called the M50, and it's from the Micro line. Oh, okay. And it's a small, simple pelican, and for a little while, I couldn't quite figure out what I would use it for.
Unknown Yeah.
James Right, because it's maybe a little bit too small for a scuba mask. You'd maybe cram one in there. It's probably the right size for a phone and a few other things, if you're kayaking or something like that. But I ended up doing a little test layout of all my batteries and chargers for watches and wonders. So I've got three or four Q batteries and two M10 batteries and a charger for each, and then a bunch of double A's. And it's actually just the right size. And then what I realized after I'd packed it, was it's also basically just the right size to fit in a camera bag. Oh, yeah. Like as a piece of gear, it's neither too big nor too small. So this is the M50. They sent a few. I have an M50 and an M60, possibly an M40 as well. It's a nice size. You can get it in clear. Mine's a jet black one. You can get it in clear, which my guess would be even more handy for security. But being able to put all the batteries and stuff, which typically needs to come out at the airport, to put it in this, I'm able to just pull it out of the bag, pop open the lid and drop it into the container so you can see it. The only reason I really put it on the list for today was I was going over my packing list and said, oh yeah, that Pelican's pretty cool. And then I realized I hadn't actually looked at what it cost. and it's only 40 bucks. And I feel like I'm used to seeing some of the other competitors or knockoff versions of Pelicans being in this price point, or where they're so small you couldn't get your phone in it. Like, what am I supposed, what do I put in this? Whereas this has a little bit more flexibility, it's a nice size. I like the idea that some of the stuff that definitely isn't supposed to be crushed, like a battery, is now in a nice hard case. Yep, I'm impressed. They always make a nice product. Nobody's kind of fighting with that. I was just impressed by the price And it feels like a solid piece of Pelican gear. So that's my shout out. The M50 micro case. Pretty happy with it so far.
Jason Yeah. I like it. I like these smaller size. I mean, I like all size Pelicans, but this is great. It reminds me of, um, I have something from, I think it's Canadian brand Nanuk, um, that I believe I got at Haley's. Yeah, they make nice stuff too. I use it as for my save a dive kit. So I keep, uh, you know, spare O-rings and a little Allen wrench set for regulator blank plugs and, and, you know, various zip ties and things like that. So it's nice for, you know, sticking a dive bag. It's not crush, crushable and it's waterproof. And, but yeah, I mean, yeah, anything from Pelican's great. And, um, I'm loving this kind of expansion of their line into all different sizes. That's a, that's really cool.
James Yeah. The micro stuff is nice. I've seen the other one, you know, they make one that has all your SD cards. Oh, it's like a little crush proof thing. You can put SD cards in. I think that kind of makes sense. Yeah. They've got a handful of good stuff and, uh, the pricing seems, reasonable these days. So I figured I'd give them a shout out. And obviously they sent it to me. I didn't, but it didn't pay for it. I wasn't even aware of the price until this morning, but it's good gear. So thanks very much for that. And I think that wraps up the show, right? Yeah. A longer, longer one than planned. I'll certainly trim some of my rambles out of it, but we'll be well over an hour.
Jason Yeah. Good one. It'll hopefully take people over into next week when we aren't, we're not doing an episode, but they can still catch you on your daily Hodinkee.
James Oh yeah. Hodinkee radio starting on the 27th. of March, we'll be doing a daily episode assuming I can record and edit the show before I fall asleep. So yeah, there should be four episodes that week 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th. And then I'm flying home on the 31st. So if you do want to hear more from the show kind of live, the rest of the crew from Hodinkee, etc. Please check out Hodinkee radio if I'm sure absolutely all of you know that show in the past, but I'll put it in the show notes just in case you need a fresh subscription. So as always, Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even get yourself a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throw to Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
Jason And we leave you with this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who said, It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.