The Grey NATO – 260 – Deep Dive: The Thrift Store Navitimer That Found Jason
Published on Thu, 02 Nov 2023 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
The episode starts with a discussion about the Breitling Navitimer watch, which was designed for pilots in the 1950s during the early jet age. The watch features a slide rule bezel that was used by pilots for various calculations related to aviation. The Navitimer was designed to be highly functional and practical rather than focused on water resistance, which was unnecessary for aviation use. The hosts talk about how the watch represents the spirit of excellence and progress in science and technology in that era.
They discuss the background of the specific vintage Navitimer watch that one of the hosts recently acquired. The watch was found by chance at a thrift store for a very low price, even though it came from an Air Force pilot and had features designed for use in aviation. The watch has an interesting story behind how it ended up in the thrift store, reflecting the history and heritage of the era it came from.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | 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 260, 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. James, 260, we're well on our way to 300 here. |
| Unknown | 260, you were cranking through them. We've got some, actually something we can tease, something special coming from Collective and Oris, which includes a pretty interesting little set of extras just for the TGN community. So those of you on the crew, stay tuned and watch your feeds for something special. There's a little teaser to kick off the show today, but aside from that, how have you been? I think you're in a different climate than mine currently, aren't you? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, we've, we've jumped right into winter here. I woke up this morning and actually, I mean, I hate, I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I had to go out and shovel snow. Wow. Yeah. And it's very blustery today. And I'm looking out at the back stairs. The railing has three inches of snow kind of heaped on it. And like the roof is white and the grass is covered and yeah, it's, uh, It's full on. I took, I took the series three without the roof for one kind of final spin yesterday, all bundled up just for the, for the heck of it. And I walked away back in the garage, but man, it's, uh, yeah, here we go. |
| Unknown | Trick or treat. Uh, yeah, exactly. We're recording this, uh, kind of around lunchtime on Halloween, October 31st. Uh, no snow here for me, but it's getting cooler for sure. So it should be a somewhat lesser shoveling season for me, but I'll miss the workout a little bit. That was probably the only thing I liked, is if you got a big dumping of snow and I could kind of push the start of work until 9, 9.30, something like that, then I could go out and shovel for an hour and get a pretty good workout in. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah, yeah. That is a good workout. Speaking of workouts, yesterday I jumped on the rowing machine and I pulled up that YouTube playlist that you... Row 20. Yeah, yeah, row 20. Uh, which is kind of a 20 episode, uh, rowing workout led by they're all about 20 minutes long. Yeah. And, and it was good. I did the first one and it was very simple. It was kind of a, you know, benchmarking, uh, assessment. And, uh, I like the instructor, the background music's a little cheesy, whatever, but like, he's good. He was encouraging without being kind of overbearing. And, uh, yeah, I enjoyed that. So, uh, you know, you, you just had that in, I believe in a final notes or something recently about the use of with your water rower. |
| Unknown | That was fun. Yeah. I think I did like five or six of them back to back and then I, I kind of, I fell off of it and now I've got to get back to it, but I'm traveling as of tomorrow morning. Um, so it's, yeah, I'll pick it up again on Thursday. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. And then, you know, speaking of kind of the, the, the, the bad weather we're having here, I just had a visit this morning from one of our listeners, uh, Luke, who, um, which was a success story if you're not on Slack. And that's one little kind of perk of being there is it's a, it's a really friendly environment to, to buy and sell watches. But anyway, he bought a watch for me and rather than ship it up to Duluth, he said, you know, look, next time I'm down in the twin cities, I'll stop by and, and pick it up. So he, he bought it for me. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it He swung by this morning. It's always fun to meet a TGN listener in person. He was kind enough to bring me a lovely bottle of Japanese single malt, Hibiki. Thanks again for that, Luke, and safe travels. If you're listening to this, I think he's off somewhere warmer. |
| Unknown | Luke sounds like an absolute gentleman showing up with a beaky buying a watch. Not bad. I like it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. He, he, he, I'm not going to say he set the, he set the bar or set the standard. So, uh, you know, but no expectations, you know, just saying I do, I do love to meet TGN listeners, even if they're not carrying a bottle of, of Japanese whiskey, but, uh, yeah, it was fun to fun to see him. |
| Unknown | Yeah. I've made, I've made a concerted effort to cut back on my, on my, uh, my whiskey intake the last couple of months, but, uh, It is that nice season for a glass of Hibiki, no question. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I was tempted to pour one for the episode, but I thought, you know, I've got to keep my wits about me. So it's a little early still. |
| Unknown | Yeah, for sure. A lunchtime Hibiki is a big move for sure. Yeah, right. |
| Jason Heaton | And you're headed to New York this week, right? |
| Unknown | I am. Yeah. So this came up very last minute to swing down to New York for some meetings. So I'll go down. By the time this episode actually goes up, I'll be coming home. So it's a very, very quick trip. I go down for one night to get some meetings done, a little bit like more of our extended team is going to be in New York. So it's a chance to see some people that I don't commonly get to see even when I'm in New York. Because like the editorial team for Hodinkee is pretty spread out at this point. We only have a couple people actually in New York proper. So when we get a chance to be in the same place, it's good to do. It's not go as hard as like a retreat or a summit or something like that. Yeah. But it's nice to be able to sit down and actually see people face to face and get some lunch or a dinner, that sort of thing. So yeah, go down for maybe a little bit more than 24 hours, depending on when I return. Those of you who listen, no, I like to just buy the last flight of the day. And then when I'm actually done, I'll just go to the airport and get on standby for something else. Yeah. Which on a Thursday should be fine. and pretty straightforward. |
| Jason Heaton | And even if you're stuck in a middle seat, right? It's a short flight, so you can tolerate it. |
| Unknown | Definitely for a flight to New York, I could stand and hold a pole like it's a Ryanair flight. |
| Jason Heaton | I don't care. |
| Unknown | It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. Just get me to the city in and out. I mean, you spent like, it's an hour and 10 minutes in the air maybe, and I'll spend at least that much time just like getting to the airport, doing security, doing, you know, pre-clearance and all that kind of stuff. So who cares? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I was hoping to minimize the travel, like I was hoping Dubai Watch Week is kind of the last and only trip for November, December. But yeah, another quick little run down to New York, and then we've got a drive down to Pennsylvania in the next little while for some family stuff and that sort of thing. So yeah, a little bit of travel left, but nothing too stressful. Dubai Watch Week's coming together nicely. I think it'll be kind of fun, and definitely it's an entirely different sort of show than a Baselworld or a Watches and Wonders or something like that. So I'm looking forward to doing that and then getting a chance to chitchat about it on the show, you know, kind of late November, early December. |
| Unknown | Oh, cool. |
| Jason Heaton | I've just got the last bit of news here. I finally got the the print proof of Sweetwater. So then follow up to DepthCharge. My first novel is done and dusted and the print proof looks good. So I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on kind of doing a full print run of that book and get that out there for sale. It'll be on Amazon and then I'll be selling uh, signed copies myself and there will be an ebook component as well. And hopefully at some point in audio book, I know a lot of people have asked for that. Yeah, it's, it's finally come together. It's been a long time coming. I finished writing it about a year ago. So, um, really nice to finally see it in, in the paper. Nice. Um, and, and here we are at this moment and I, I'm suddenly scrambling to figure out like a launch strategy. You know, I want to do an event. We, we, you know, would love to do some chatting about it on TGN in the future. And, uh, just, you know, whatever, but like I should have thought of it about this for the past year and like cooked up a full, but it's just, it's not how I'm wired. So anyway, it'll come together and, and just stay tuned to future episodes here and, and to my Instagram and on my swim proof Slack blog as well. So all will be revealed very soon. |
| Unknown | Yeah. And we've got some plans for some cool stuff that should probably run, I'll say likely in November. Yeah. There's a good chance we'll take a week off in November as well with Dubai watch week being a full week that I'm away. It can be difficult to kind of manage that. I don't really know what the internet scenario will be like there. But there should be some fun kind of uncommon episodes in November that should help make up for it being a, you know, short an episode that month. But I can't tell you, I'm so excited to read the book. I'm really, really pumped. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I can't wait for you to read it. I can't wait for everybody to read it. It's been a labor of love and a long time coming. |
| Unknown | Man, I hadn't thought about that until you said it. the idea that you finished this book a year ago. Yeah. So much hard work and effort and time and the rest of it. And you were done a year ago and now it's like, Oh, now the rest of the job starts. Right. Right. And then when you release it, the other rest of the job starts. Yeah, exactly. Like promoting it and talking to people and you don't want to be recording. Yeah. Uh, yeah. A lot of FedEx and signing books and maybe recording some, some audio for it and that kind of stuff. So it's a, yeah, the work's never, never really done. Right. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's jump into wrist check before we get into our main topic. I'm going to go second, which is fitting for kind of our main topic today. |
| Unknown | So what are you wearing today? You know, I pulled out the Marathon Navigator in steel. So this is the original launch version from earlier this year that has the date. They just recently released a new version that's a no date, which I think is also pretty compelling. I don't mind the date on a watch this hyper-functional. Like once you're already into two Arabic tracks, and tritium loom and that kind of thing. I don't really mind a date, like a 430 date's not pretty, but honestly this watch isn't about necessarily like aesthetic beauty as much as it is about this kind of functional beauty that I really like. Yeah. And I've just been wearing it and it's so... It's just amazing on... I've got it on TGN Grey NATO. Perfect. It's got the 12-hour bezel. Yeah, I'm just a huge fan of this watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. I am too, and you know, certainly I've got I've got something somewhat similar in that in the Benrus type two that I wear occasionally and it's kind of that same case shape and they work so well on, I really like them on NATO straps. They feel like they're just kind of made for that, but they do work on other straps, but mine just kind of lives on a NATO, my Benrus. But the Navigator is, yeah, that's something special. I'm so glad they released that one in steel. I've got a friend over in Sri Lanka that has the, I think it was a fiberglass or acrylic case and he loves that and he's a pilot. But the steel one's really, really good. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I think... I don't mind the composite case ones, but there is something about the steel that makes it feel like a traditionally more complete watch. Yeah. There's something about the resin or the composite case ones that make it feel more like something you buy for the military that's a little bit more disposable if it's beat up in the military, which is sort of the point to a certain extent, keep the cost down, the functionality high. Yeah. This feels more like something... Like a complete offering for Maybe someone who's not in the military or the Coast Guard or something like someone like me. Right, right. Who just wants a nice, solid tool watch that's hyper accurate and super legible. Yeah, I absolutely love these. I just think they're an absolute screaming deal. You know, a brand with a Canadian identity that I absolutely love, watches made in Switzerland, the high accuracy quartz, the tritium, it's very tactical, but doesn't feel overdone because the case isn't black. Right. It still feels a little bit more like a late seventies expression of a tool watch, I would say, um, in, in that sort of vibe. And yeah, I'm just, I'm absolutely thrilled that I still really recommend that people consider checking one out, especially now that if you hated the date for whatever reason, which I can't blame you necessarily, but if that was the thing, then it would give you a chance now to go without the date. You can buy it. And for, I think they're 800 bucks ish within a couple of bucks of that, uh, I think killer value, uh, like I said, and you said, um, great on a NATO, but also has drilled lugs, so do whatever you want. I think these would also be really fun. It's all bead blasted or matte finished, but if you could find a mesh with a similar finish, I think it'd be pretty fun on a mesh as well. Yeah, yeah. But finding a mesh with a matte finish... I used to buy those WG28s from eBay, and then I would take a Dremel to them and remove the finish. Oh, sure, yeah. Because back in the day, you also had to cut those for yourself. And I preferred to do that with a Dremel too, like cut the links to shorten it. And then I would take like a, those semi soft, quote unquote, semi soft wire brushes and just remove all the polish from it. But I broke my, my last, my final WG28 mesh. And only some of you will know who I mean. That was a seller on eBay that sold these inexpensive shark mesh style bracelets, like loose link mesh bracelets. Yeah. Not like a Milanese. My last one finally broke the little post on the clasp. Oh, sure. Suddenly the clasp was open on my wrist and the post was gone. So I could maybe figure out how to like JB weld another post in there. That would probably be the best option. And then I bought... I went online and bought a couple clasps that I thought would fit and none of them fit. So I'm still... I'll find another one eventually, but sadly that shark mesh seems to have been... At least it's gonna be in the shop for a little bit. But yeah, I wanted to pick the Navigator because it It felt like it's in a similar vibe to the main topic of today's show. It shares a couple of letters in terms of the same thing with the Navigator. Today we're talking about a very special Breitling Navitimer that kind of found you, is the right way of saying it. And there's a cool story there. And I think that's what you've got on your wrist this week. So maybe we'll kick off, we'll end wrist check and overlap into main topic with what you've got on. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, you talked about functional beauty, um, and this one, this one's pretty spectacular. Um, and, and if there was a watch that was going to displace the, the Pelagos FXD that I've been wearing for a month straight, uh, it was, it was this one and it's kind of a strange, like completely different sort of watch in every possible way. Um, water resistance, material age, et cetera. Um, but yeah, I, I, I'm loving this thing and that's what I've got on my wrist today. So yeah, we can dig in. Let's jump into the main topic, which is this watch. |
| Unknown | Yeah, we wanted to talk about this watch. We also kind of wanted to kick off a new series because at this point when you and I kind of get interested in watches, it does take a bit of time for them to either become ours or for that interest to fade. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like there's still the knee jerk or the late night boredom purchase watches. You know, those occasionally still happen and we'll certainly talk about those. But In these scenarios where there's like a longer story, I wanted a chance to open up the show to tell the story of your relationship or our relationship with a given watch or interest in a given watch and why. And so this is the first of our deep dive series, and it's gonna be... This episode will largely focus on your relationship with the greater idea of the Breitling Navitimer, and then the more specifics of this one that you've found. and, or like I said, that arguably kind of found you. And I think that the interesting thing for me about the Navitimer and why I kind of pinged you to see if you'd be interested in making this more of a series, a little bit more of a quote unquote deep dive on this watch is for as long as I've known you, and certainly for as long as we've been making TGN, you've loved Navitimers but haven't owned one. Right, right. Like you're a huge Tom Wolfe, right stuff sort of fan. Yeah. These watches are deeply in your vibe, but for whatever reason, and it took you a long time to finally land a second Pelagos, but when we first met, you had a Pelagos, right? Yeah. And for whatever reason, this is another watch that in my mind, if I wrote down your top five watches, I'd probably put an Avatimer on there, but you didn't have one. Yeah, that's true. And I think that's kind of interesting to me. And then the other cool thing, and this is a quick shout out before we dive in deeper, about something I've been trying to find an interesting way of talking about on the show for a while now. Our buddy Paul Hubbard, who we were just talking about your Pelagos, the first Pelagos you had, Paul bought that off of you. Yes, he did, yeah. And at that time, I know Paul very well, but I knew Paul very well at that time and didn't know you super well. And he said, oh, I bought Jason Heaton's Pelagos. I was like, that's cool. Jason Heaton's a pretty cool guy. That's a new Pelagos. That's so funny. And recently, Paul reached out to me, you know, in the last year and said that he was interested in using machine learning. And we can have Paul on to talk more about this. I'm sure I'll get some of these details wrong. Paul is an incredibly intelligent person capable of doing some really remarkable things with software, and he has made an entire transcript of TGN. Yeah, yeah. So not just the show notes, like not just a way of searching the show notes with like Substack does, but it encapsulates the show notes and a transcript of everything that we talk about. It's not like a hundred percent. It's a machine learning transcript, but it is remarkable and I've used it now for a couple of things. I've used it for a kind of special episode we have coming up soon. And then on top of that, for this episode, I thought it'd be cool to kind of dip into this and see how early it was that we started talking about Nava timers, how early in the show it was, because now we can just search and like Don't get me wrong, there's some words that maybe won't get picked up, but Navitimer feels pretty distinct even for a computer to figure out. So if you wanna do this, if you're sitting at home on your computer, open up another tab, go to phfactor.net slash TGN. And you'll get to something called the Complete C-O-M-P-L-E-A-T TGN. And it's an entire transcription of the show divided up by episode and the transcript of the given episode. And in the top right, you can click search and immediately it populates. And let's see, there's episode 20. That's pretty early. Yeah. I'm looking at 78, 239, 56. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seven partners in time. Episode five, the Baselworld jet lag megasode. And you can you can go through and check these out. I can see that in this one we were still like an episode five. I can see a line that says I'm Jason Heaton, a Minneapolis based freelance writer. So we're still doing the correct thing and introducing ourselves, which we barely do anymore. But yeah, so I wanted to use this as a little bit of a thank you or shout out to Paul for PHFactor.net slash TGN. If you would like to find an episode where we mentioned something, if you'd like to dig into kind of the data of the episodes, please visit this. And if you're on the TGN slack or if you know Paul through any other channel, shout him out, say thank you. I think this is a really impressive and cool thing, and I'm only just starting to think of ways that we can use this. But again, it's phfactor.net slash TGN. It's a complete transcript of the audio of the Grenado from the first episode. So I guess in total, that's probably close to 275 some episodes. Wow. what's the ones that we didn't always number and some of the stuff we did early on. So a huge thank you to Paul. Paul, you remain a huge supporter of pretty much everything I've ever done, and certainly TGN as well. And I can't thank you enough for pointing your considerable technological abilities towards transcribing all of TGN. But it does give us a chance to say that apparently we've been talking about the Navitimer since episode five, which would have been very early 2016. Wow. Yeah, yeah. What was your kind of introduction to the idea of a Navitimer. Can you remember that far back, like where it kind of first hit you? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So, you know, before I dive into the specifics about the one that I'm wearing, which is, you know, very, very early, you know, the earliest of Navitimers, um, I, you know, I, I suppose my first exposure to them in, in person in the metal would have been probably at, at a Baselworld or something, but, but I do recall, you know, I've got this good buddy and you've met him on a couple of press trips, uh, at Estlow. |
| Unknown | Oh yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Shout out who used to do some writing for, for gear patrol and a few other blogs. Uh, he's a technical writer and a, and a trained engineer and a good friend who lives here in the twin cities. And, and he was always a Breitling guy and he had like a, one of those super Avengers. And then he also had a version of the Navitimer, which was called the Mont Brion, which was like this, I believe it was like an annual calendar. It had kind of a lighter colored dial. It was, I mean, it was a, it was a beautiful watch. And every time I saw him and he was wearing that, I would always like ask to look at it. And it was, it was just such a beautiful piece. There's something almost, um, kind of mythical about these watches just because it's like looking at, at the supercomputer that was developed during world war II to, to solve the enigma code. You know, it's just, it's just this like wall of wheels and levers and switches and things and flashing lights. And the Navitimer kind of reminds me of that. It's like, you look at it and it's a bit, intimidating. And it's, it just doesn't seem like it comes from the same space as almost any other watch, which is, which are so often based on being very simple and legible and easy to read. And the Navitimer is none of that. And yet it's, it was built, it was concocted out of such a sense of utility. But yeah, over the years, you know, as I'm sure you can relate, you know, you see them over and over again at Baselworld and they, they, you know, Breitling or in press releases, they would release, different versions of them and different, you know, tribute pieces. And a few years back they, they had an anniversary piece that was, was a, you know, pretty much a dead ringer or an exact copy of the one that that's on my wrist right now. Uh, which was very impressive. And, and it's, it's just been nice to see, you know, Breitling keep it in their lineup for one and, and iterate it a little bit. They even make one that's not a chronograph now, smaller ones that are kind of more intended for women's wrists. And I don't know, it's got some staying power, uh, despite the fact that it's, Largely illegible and and completely inscrutable in terms of how to use the the slide rule Yeah, I mean the side rules are really fun thing because you can do a ton with it. |
| Unknown | Yeah, but I feel like most people Have to go back to the same two or three YouTube videos every time they want to remember what to do Maybe you remember how to do one or two things. Yeah convert Celsius to Fahrenheit or whatever. Yeah, but beyond that like you you're going back to figure some stuff out and and for me You know, we did a whole episode on Hamilton just a little while ago. And I think so much of what I loved about the complicated crosswind models is that they kind of have that Navitimer vibe. Same with in that Hamilton episode, I mentioned having a long standing Faunus, one of the first Seikos I ever owned, was one of those SNA Flightmasters. Oh, those are cool. The SNA 411, and those again are slide rules with a chronograph with kind of smaller stubby hour and minute hands and very much like another sort of rip on the same sort of idea as the Navitimer. Right. The cool thing about the Navitimer is in my mind, it's like the original postmodern pilot's watch. Yeah. Yeah. So if you go back really far, pilot's watches were Fleegers, right? Or I guess the Santos for Cartier. |
| Jason Heaton | Or the Mark 11 or something, which is such a stark sort of, you know, just basic. |
| Unknown | Stop sign legibility. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you go back and watch pilot's movies and that sort of thing, and they're these crystal clear watches with big hands and sometimes a lot of contrast in the ability to see them. And then these were also one of the earlier examples of... Along with very early, quote unquote, dive or submersible watches, they were huge. And the idea was that made them easier to see. And then you see the war ends in obviously the mid 40s, and then not that long after you start to see this boom of postmodern sports watches, which include things... 1953 was a big year for watches in general. Yeah, right. I think it's an interesting watch to look back on because so many of those watches, if you looked at all of them then, or even if you looked at them 10 years ago before some of these watches had yet another rise in popularity, I don't think you'd look at the Navitimer and go like, well, this one is like all these other ones that are these simple, straightforward, largely time only or date or a time only date dive watches or sport watches that have like this extreme clarity to what they do. Yeah. The Navitimer maybe lacks that clarity, but makes it up by having this such like tool-ish intentions with all the text on the dial. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I think they're really special, like unique things if you go that far back. Yeah. And then you look at all the watches that have been inspired by Navitimers. And you know, |
| Jason Heaton | I've, I've long been, you know, despite my kind of propensity for, for diving and water sports, um, you know, and, and watches with good water resistance, like the Navitimer as well as the Speedmaster have always kind of also been in, in one of the sort of those out there in that sort of grail territory where I think one day, one day I'll have one of those. I don't know when and where I'll wear it, but like, I just love the kind of the look and what it comes out of, you know, you mentioned Tom Wolfe and the right stuff and, And that era, that, that early fifties when, you know, the jet age was beginning and there were, you know, these test pilots that were, you know, doing these dangerous jobs out at, you know, Morocco air air force base and in the high desert in California flying, you know, the, the, the bell X one and these planes, you know, Jaeger and Scott Carpenter and these guys, and they were, they were wearing this watch and it sort of reflected the increased complexity of aviation and the, and the aircrafts that they were, they were testing and flying at the time. I remember when I was writing a story for probably gear patrol way back when about pilots watches and the Navitimer. And I was surprised to learn actually that the slide rule function on a watch was actually, uh, came earlier, um, also by Breitling on their Chronomat, which, which debuted in the early forties. And it was more of a scientist's watch, which makes a lot of sense, right? Slide rules for, for, you know, before the days of pocket calculators and that kind of turned into, uh, the Navitimer at the behest of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association or AOPA, which kind of requested of Breitling, can we have a watch like this, um, for pilots? And that's how the Navitimer came about. And there's some differing opinions about the year that it was introduced. I think Breitling has said 1952 and some people say that, but, uh, when you look at a lot of the earliest versions of these, they're, they're dated to, to 1954, as is the one that's on my wrist. So not exactly sure. Um, but whatever it is, you know, 52, 53, 54, um, this is, this is a 70 year old watch. I mean, which is remarkable in itself. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I will. I will correct. Cause I'd, I'd positioned this as coming out the same year as, as the sub. And I think it is largely considered to have been the next year, um, in, in 54. So that's a fair correction. I think the other thing that this watch captures that like a fleeger doesn't, is that era of the early 50s, like you said, the jet age era. So the war is over and World War II accelerated aviation technology by several generations. Yeah. And the watches that would come out on the other side of that represented this extreme excellence towards being an aviator, the pride that you would take in being a pilot, especially a pilot in a military or a test capacity. And I think that the Navitimer manages to capture all of that without necessarily exhibiting the baggage of being a military watch. Right. And that sort of thing. And I think there's this like line in the sand on either side where a certain type of watch kind of stopped and a different type of watch kind of started. Yeah. And I think that's an... It's an interesting thing for the Navitimer to represent, to have been the tool of people like Carpenter. Right. Like the idea that this might have represented another gauge or instrument in the cockpit. Yeah. And, and I think there's something about that like mid century excellence of science and technology and you know what, we're just going to do it. We're going to go to the moon. We're going to beat that threat. We're going to break the sound barrier. All this sort of stuff is all, it all is kind of captured in that, in the Navitimer, the early ones especially. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And, and kind of following that thread with, with kind of the test pilots in that era. Um, I, I think another sort of thread of this is that, you know, this was a watch that we mentioned Scott Carpenter a couple of times, and he also had a tremendous history in, in underwater exploration as well. I mean, he was, he was part of the sea lab program and we were just down in Florida a couple of months ago now at, at that facility. And, and, and it's remarkable to think that this guy was a test pilot, uh, one of the first American astronauts in the Mercury program, uh, and then an Aquanaut in the sea lab program. I mean, really an amazing life, but, his history, he, he, he was something of a watch nerd. I mean, you, you look up Scott Carpenter and you'll see him in any number of watches on his wrist. I mean, he, he was doing, there was a magazine ad that I saw of him with a, an Accutron astronaut. Um, I've seen, you know, obviously he's, he's well known for wearing a Submariner with a little compass clipped on the strap. And then, uh, he was a, he was a Breitling guy way back, probably out of his, his test pilot days. And when he was part of the Mercury program and was getting ready for his Aurora seven uh, orbital flight in 1962, he approached Breitling and said, look, I, I really liked this watch, but, uh, you know, orbiting the earth several times, I'm going to be going from day to night to day to night. I need a reference for mission control in Houston and I'd like to have a 24 hour dial. And so they, they created a version to his spec, uh, with, with the 24 hour function. And then they called it the cosmonaut of all things, which was kind of what the Soviets were calling their astronauts. But regardless, I mean, that was always my, kind of my grail. It was a bit of a riff on the Navitimer, just a different enough one that, that had a nod to the space program that I really, really liked. Um, but Hey, you know, this one kind of fell in my lap and I'm certainly not going to complain, uh, but it's not a cosmonaut. |
| Unknown | I think the other thing that's interesting is one of the other most famous pilots watches also is dated to, we'll call it 1954 in common parlance with the Rolex GMT master. Yeah. But there's something again, like just so much more intense about the outlook of the Navitimer. It was like time zones, like we're breaking the speed limit or we're breaking the sound barrier and trying not to come apart in the air. It's just an entirely different sort of outlook on a very... Like essentially making a watch for a specific industry, which was a very 50s thing to do, right? Right, right. To have a watch that was tied pretty directly to a certain activity. Yeah. And it's still the way that we think of watches now was sort of developed, you know, in and around the mid forties through the mid sixties, depending on, on sort of what outlook, whether it was, yeah, a watch for a scientist, a watch for a pilot, a watch for a test pilot, a watch for cosmonaut. I'd like, there aren't that many cosmonauts. |
| Unknown | There were none at a certain point. |
| Unknown | Yeah, right, right. And then they started making a watch with the name on it. It's just such a crazy time for all sorts of design and creation and engineering, but definitely for watches. And I also think this is kind of the starting point. And let me be clear, this is a very North American centric perspective that I'm about to share from my position in Canada, and Jason, maybe yours as well as an American. But this is also where watches started to take on an American personality. This is a Swiss watch, to be clear. Yeah. But has an entirely different vibe than an IWC pilot's watch. Right. Or a GMT Master. Yeah. And I think of the Navitimer as an American watch, which of course it isn't. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's an interesting thought. I do too. And I think it's largely because of my great interest in kind of the space race and the jet age and all of that and its connection to that. And maybe we can just attribute that straight up to Tom Wolfe and his actually calling out without naming it. Um, clearly it's this watch that he's talking about it in, in the right stuff. But yeah, I, I'm, I'm with you right there on, on the idea that this is, this really represents kind of American aviation of a certain era. And I think also, you know, we talk about, we, we've done episodes or we, we did an episode on Breitling and I noticed in, in that, uh, the complete TGN transcripts, uh, that, that popped up certainly. Um, and, and Breitling as a brand, uh, has always kind of existed out there. I can't think of, Okay. I did own a Breitling emergency once and it was a cool watch. I sold that on, um, you've had the aerospace, but I've never been like a huge Breitling fan or owner. Um, I've always kind of admired them from a distance. I I've always found them kind of tough and purpose-built and, and you know, you know, in the parlance of our, our buddy over at watches of espionage, you know, it's like sketchy guys wear Breitlings, you know, like there's this sort of weird history of DiCaprio wearing it in, in a blood diamond and, Oh yeah. That's a good piece of watch spotting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's done some fun posts about, about sketchy guys wearing Breitlings. And I don't think the Navitimer necessarily falls into that territory, but Breitling is just such an interesting brand and they've produced such devoted sort of purpose-built watches from, from the Navitimer to the Aerospace to the Emergency. Just, just really cool stuff. And I think it kind of reflects kind of the earliest days of this territory. |
| Unknown | Yeah, and I think the other thing is while Breitling, certainly now and then through all of their heyday, made a lot of different models, I still think the Navitimer sits at the core of the brand's identity. Yeah, yeah. More so than an Avenger, more so than an Aerospace, which is an oddball. My favorite of oddballs, such a good watch. Yeah. But there's something about this watch, there's something about how kind of modern even today it is as the one from 1954. 41 millimeters, legible, luminous, really carrying a lot of design elements that are still very popular in watchmaking. As we learned when Breitling did the 1954 reissue in the 807, I just think it does represent sort of the core of what they do. It's the right size, tons of functionality, kind of difficult to look at and go, oh, that's something other than a Breitling. Yeah. Like if you asked me to think of a Breitling, I'd probably think Navitimer. Right. Before Superocean or Avenger or Emergency or Chronomat or like they've done so many cool, great sports watches, especially aviation sports watches. But the Navitimer definitely feels like the core, at least to me. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious. Let's jump over to the actual one that you have. Right. And let's give folks a breakdown because it's on your wrist currently, but it's not yet yours confirmed to be yours, but it's kind of an exciting thing. |
| Jason Heaton | It is an exciting thing. Um, so kind of the backstory of this is, is back in August, I got a text message from a good friend of Kishani's and mine, and it said, Hey, uh, a friend of ours found this watch at a thrift shop here in town. This is a small town, a few hours South of us here. And, uh, you know, he, he doesn't know much about it. We're just curious if you can weigh in and, and, you know, let us know what it's worth and what you think of it. And there was a photo attached, this text message, and it was this clearly brightening Navitimer. I mean, there's nothing else that looks like it. And, uh, I could tell it was an early one and, and I'm, I'm certainly no Navitimer expert, but I've seen my fair share. And I knew that these early ones had this, what they called a beaded bezel. So instead of kind of the milled side of a kind of a steel bezel, it, you know, these, these little tiny beads that kind of run around the outside of the bezel for grip. And so I knew it was an early one, probably fifties. And so kind of went back and forth, sent the photo around a few friends, um, and then said, look, I think you've, you're onto something here. It's a cool watch. It's probably worth a fair bit. Uh, you know, I'd like to see it in person someday. So lo and behold, just last week. So now we're well into October, almost the end of October. Uh, we finally got a chance to drive down to, to this town and visit these friends. And this watch got pulled out. Uh, these friends were terrified. It was in their safe. They were quite happy to, to get rid of it, uh, get it out of their house. And so I, I took it, I looked at it, wound it, set it started and stopped the chronograph runs great. Uh, and just kind of started digging into this. And, and then when I got it back home, uh, they let me take it home and I, I used my little Burj on case back removal tool popped off the back confirmed that indeed it has the value 72 movement in it, which was only used. in Navitimers in the very first year of production, which was 1954. So you can count the beads on the bezel and confirm that it has a Valjoux 72. There's no 806 marking for the reference number anywhere, which is another clue. So clearly this is a 1954 Navitimer, so first year of production. And meanwhile, this person that found it at the thrift shop, and I'll get to the most astounding part of this in a minute, he had done a little bit of digging. And seeing as it was a small town, it wasn't hard to trace, you know, how this, this watch ended up in the thrift shop. And he had found an obituary in the local paper from just a few weeks prior to, to when he found the watch and, and found out that it belonged to a respected member of the community who was a professor at the college, um, and a PhD. Um, but before that in the 1950s, he was a member of the U S air force and he was trained for fixed wing and helicopter flying, uh, and, and rose to the rank of captain and then, uh, retired from active service and was a reservist for a while until he, until he retired entirely from, from the air force and went on to being a professor. And even after that he was a private pilot. He would fly his family on vacations around the country. I'm kind of an avid adventurous sort of guy. Um, but anyway, he, he just died in July at the ripe old, old age of 90 presumably his, his, his family, uh, in maybe cleaning up his home and dispositioning that his belongings, uh, just decided to drop off a bunch of his belongings at the, at the local thrift shop, uh, where they, uh, they, they put it along with his gold framed vintage Ray-Ban sunglasses in kind of the bargain basket at the front desk. Wow. Uh, with the price of a 50 cents. |
| Unknown | 50 cents. I didn't know that. You didn't tell me that. |
| Jason Heaton | That's crazy. This friend of a friend bought the watch for 50 cents and he bought the sunglasses for 50 cents. And, um, The watch came on, on a very early, uh, tropic, uh, plastic, you can call it rubber if you want, but to me it feels like plastic, uh, or a very stiff rubber, I guess, uh, tropic strap. That is an early one, as you can tell by the curved ends on it. Um, 22 millimeter, uh, on the watch. Just a really amazing story. Now this, this friend of the friend who bought it was not a watch enthusiast at all. Didn't really have an interest in watches, but, but he knew when he saw this thing and he was a kind of a regular thrift shop. visitor, you know, in this town, I suppose some interesting stuff pops up there, whether it's furniture or clothing or old vinyl records or who knows what. Um, but he, he kind of knew there was something special about this. I mean, he saw this thing sitting in the counter in like this bargain bin and just thought, you know, that that's probably worth, it's probably worth the investment, you know, 50 cents. And a boy, I mean, just, just, just remarkable. And then to, to track down the backstory of this guy who, who was the original owner, just kind of adds to that, to the mystique of it and kind of the story. And, and so I polished the crystal, um, as you know, very carefully, didn't want to touch anything else on the watch as we're all kind of known to believe with, with vintage stuff, you just don't mess with it, you know, polish the case, et cetera. Yeah. Um, but crystals are, are, are okay to, to, to polish up and it's acrylic. So I took some Polly watch and buffed out the scratches, which shows this just gorgeous glossy black dial and this guilt printing. And, uh, and yeah, the movement movement looked good when I popped the back off and I saw some watchmakers marks on the inside of the case back that showed that it had been serviced a couple of times, kind of ending in the late sixties. And, and it's, I've still got it on my wrist. I've worn it nonstop since I think we were down there Friday last week. So, you know, five days or so, and it keeps pretty darn good time. The chronograph works, um, man. You know, what's funny about this, speaking of the beaded bezel on these early ones, I mean, they're, they're known. And I think why probably so few still exist is, I mean, they have almost no water resistance. Our, our buddy James Lambden joked with me and said, you know, these things have the water resistance of a paper bag and a hurricane. And it's true. You know, they're, they're just Scott Carpenter's cosmonaut flooded because he, he exited the capsule on, on his water landing, um, and, and just immediately flooded the watch. And now it's, uh, you can't even see the dial. It's just completely, corroded over but when you spin the bezel on this it's not just turning a bezel it's actually the whole top of the watch is sitting on top of the case and the crystal is you know one with this beaded bezel so like you're turning the entire crystal as you're spinning this thing and there's no there was no gasket when I took the case back off and I doubt it probably ever had a gasket it's just a friction very tight fit Um, but certainly there's no gasket under this, this spinning bezel crystal apparatus on this thing. So these things were not meant for, for being anywhere close to water. |
| Unknown | Well, it's like that, uh, which I think I've referenced on shows before, but one of my favorites, uh, from one of my all time favorite shows of Futurama and they take their spaceship underwater and, uh, and they go, well, how deep can it go? They're fishing with the spaceship and they catch a giant fish and it pulls the ship underwater. And how deep can it go? So it's a spaceship, so it's good to between zero and one atmosphere. Just kind of the same for Navitimers, apparently, you know, the water resistance of an airplane. Yeah, right, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Man, it's really gorgeous. And on top of that, for those who want to go a little bit deeper, you, I think just today or yesterday, published a story to your sub stack. Yes. That would have even more kind of details and background on the watch and some images. So hit the show notes for that. If you're not subscribed to Jason's sub stack, he's too polite to tell you to do it on, uh, on our show. So I'll tell you to do it. Uh, you should subscribe. Um, but, uh, touching the face of God is the name of the, of the post. And it's a, it's a really good one. And it has a couple of images, which I think is like kind of core to really loving this watch. Yeah. Is the, are the way that it looks and on your wrist and on a certain type of strap, obviously, uh, many people can guess what you might've put it on. Um, It's a really beautiful thing. And I think the other thing that's interesting is it's kind of, we decided to do the story today because most of the story has been told, but I guess not quite all of it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. In kind of my research and helping this friend of the friend who bought this watch, you know, he really wanted to kind of determine the value of it and potentially sell it on because it wasn't something that he was interested in keeping, which is great. You know, he really loved the story and likes the fact that I liked it. And he said, look, you know, if, if, if you'd like to buy it, you'd be my first choice of someone to have it just because, you know, you have such an interest in it and a reverence for kind of its background. And so, um, yeah, I'm, I, it remains to be seen whether or not this watch becomes mine, uh, whether I can, I can manage that. Uh, you know, I've, I've contacted a few, um, well-known vintage dealers, including James Lambden and a couple of others, and kind of gotten some info on this and, uh, we'll see if this, if the stars align and things converge, uh, budget-wise and that sort of thing. But as of now, I am the custodian of it, and it feels so good to have on my wrist. And it's just a bewitching watch. I mean, it's just a lovely thing. |
| Unknown | Man, that's a cool thing. And if it works out, kind of a nice little alignment with Sweetwater. Yes, yeah. Might have to have a Navitimer in the third. |
| Unknown | Yeah, that's true. |
| Jason Heaton | I like that a lot. That's how things happen. That's great. |
| Unknown | So yeah, that's this. We'll have to come up with a fun nickname for it. Maybe we'll leave that up to the Slack. some sort of a nickname for this special thrift store Navitimer that managed to find you through what feels like several back channels. My other question, because I'm sure someone will ask, is if you make an offer on the watch, are the Ray-Bans up for grabs as well? |
| Jason Heaton | The Ray-Bans go with the watch, although, you know... Oh, I love it. Yeah, they're funky. I mean, they're wild. I'll have to put a photo on on an Instagram story or something so people can see what these look like. They're not, they're not like the typical kind of Ray-Ban aviators. |
| Unknown | They're not like aviators. Oh, okay. I was, I was thinking gold frame with the green tint. |
| Jason Heaton | They might've been aviators. I'm sure he bought them to use for flying or whatever, but like there, there's a certain, you know, we talk about vintage watches and like you pick, pick one up and like, it has a heft to it. It has a feel of quality. It's the same with these glasses. Like I'm not a sunglass collector. I know a lot of people are, these glasses feel substantial. I mean, you can tell these things lasted for, I don't know if they're the exact same vintage as the watch, but they're decades old and they feel really solid. |
| Unknown | Man, if you ever come across an original, like a very early Wayfarer, they're heavy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really cool stuff. That's great. A fun story, a gorgeous watch, and I'm glad we got a chance to chit chat about it and a chance to do our first deep dive. So I think when there are these watches that make it to us or conceivably make it to other people that have a cool backstory, Yeah. That's the deep dive on, uh, on this beautiful 54 Navitimer. If you've got a great nickname for it, let us know in the, uh, in the slack and, uh, and we can, we can kind of have a name for it and hopefully it works out that it ends up. I mean, if, if everything works out and it's the right move and the rest of it, I hope that it ends up being yours. Yeah. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Cool to watch collection between a 54 Navitimer and a modern FXD. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. True enough. Not leaving a ton on the table there. Right. It's Halloween and we've got lots of candy to get to. You want to dive into some final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yes, indeed. This one was recommended by several people and certainly... It's a good rec as well. The originator himself has kind of put up a few posts on Instagram as well. And this is our buddy Soog, who's based out in the Bay Area in California. He goes by Garactical as well. And he has a YouTube channel now. You know, interesting guy. He's a diver and a watch enthusiast, good photographer, motorcycle enthusiast, and he's done uh, a bit of a translation into Japanese for Houdinki Japan. So really well-rounded, interesting guy. Yeah. Anyway, he's, he's launched a YouTube channel, uh, under his own kind of handle, Geractical. Uh, and, and what he's doing is, is really kind of cool. He's, he's taken his love of motorcycle camping or moto camping, uh, whatever, you know, people that do that call it. Um, and he's, he kind of films his experiences. It's, these are solo endeavors that he does. There's no, uh, voiceover. He's not talking during these. It's just this very calm, uh, sort of routine that he goes through from the actual drive on his motorcycle. I think he's got a triumph and he takes it up into, up into the woods or in some, you know, national forest or state forest or park or something and, and sets up camp. You see him unpacking, setting up the tent. And if all of this sounds a bit kind of boring, um, maybe it's not your jam, but I find it just really kind of relaxing to, to watch. And in the same way that watching, Dick Perenke is alone in the wilderness. You know, I just enjoy watching people kind of do these, these daily sort of routine tasks like, you know, starting a fire, uh, getting your, your supper ready, setting up your tent, packing your bag. Uh, and he does it nicely. It's, it's really well filmed and it's, it's really interesting stuff. |
| Unknown | And like you said, like the tone is super methodical. Yeah. So if you like these sorts of things, uh, you know, it's, I wouldn't say call it like ASMR or whatever. It's more of like vibe. Yeah. Just kind of in an experience. Yeah. I get really, deep into these rabbit holes on Instagram reels, where it's just like people tidying their living room, like a beautiful living room. That's just like rearranging a book or two. It's not actually dirty or like messy. But that kind of stuff I find quite calming. And then I saw these started to pop up on my Instagram, you know, as Sug was sharing them and then to see them also a shout out for actually several, like once someone brought it up on Slack, a bunch of people jumped on it and said like, Oh, I hadn't seen this and loved it. Or I've watched every one of these. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Unknown | And he's got this incredible motorcycle and this incredible kit of that can fit on the bike and he can take very long distances. And so it's a little bit of gear, it's a little bit of travel, and then it's a lot of this like methodical, slow, making a coffee, setting up the tent, putting the light on as the sun goes down. They're great. I can't also kind of co-sign this enough. Gratical is a must follow on Instagram, and now he's added the YouTube vector, which I think is a great move and totally worth everybody checking out. So hit the show notes for that for sure. And a shout out to Sog for continuing to do cool stuff that we can all kind of enjoy. Yeah, definitely. Makes me want to go motorcycle camping. |
| Unknown | It does, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Interestingly, just a side note, speaking of also Duluth, Minnesota, I mentioned that earlier today, I think there's one of our listeners, I'm not going to name his name, but I think he works for a company that that sells those winter, like heavy duty tents that have a little heating stove inside with it. So, you know, Hey, if, if you're listening out there and you want to set us up with a sample, I think it'd be really cool to do that this winter. |
| Unknown | But in any case. That can be the launch of Sweetwater, a big winter camping adventure. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Unknown | Right. Right. Everybody with their own little yurt and a Marine stove. Oh yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Look like a bunch of World War II reenactments happening out in a field somewhere. Right. Right. No guns, more watches. I like it. Yeah, yeah. Alright, where are you at? I have a pick this week that is entirely left field. So I don't like... I didn't grow up with comic books and I really don't like modern comic book movies. I'm not that... I don't have to have a conversation. I'm not here to tell you that Superman or Spider-Man or any of the man are dumb. You can like them by all means, it just doesn't speak to me. Yeah. And I think it's because I grew up with Spider Man and Batman and the rest of it, and then I kind of I feel like I grew out of it because there weren't these kind of like gritty, violent, sort of more adult contemplations of the idea of a superhero. And within the vibe of the whole world that has kind of come up in the last few years, if you think of something like The Boys, which is an incredibly... It's the most violent thing I've ever seen. So we're gonna go with incredibly violent television series about the sort of reality of superheroes, the fact that they would be owned by a company, they would be hard to manage, they would be celebrities, they would act like impetulant gods, essentially. I really align with that take, is where I'm going. And one of the things that's come up in that sort of realm of content, this sort of anti side of the superhero multiverse thing, is a show called Invincible. which is an adaptation of Robert Kirkman's comic series in which a high school age boy realizes his father is essentially an amalgam or a representation of Superman, and then over time realizes that it's not this altruistic Superman thing. And the show basically, especially in its first season, the show basically feels like an after school episode of G.I. Joe, It doesn't seem especially expensive. I will give them that the voice acting is incredible. It's Seth Rogen. It's Steven Yuen plays the main character. It's JK Simmons is in there. The voice acting is great. The cast is incredible. I do think that they play a little bit of a trick on the audience in the first episode because you don't really get the tone of the show until the last 30 seconds of the first episode. But if you grew up like I did with Dragon Ball Z, with the hopes of seeing some of these shows kind of continue on into more mature topics, and if I'm honest, more fantastical violence. Invincible is among the most violent things I've ever watched. It plays off like a kid's show for a few minutes, and then they jump on the gas and they kind of never get off of it, and I'm deeply excited for a second season of this. I don't love animation. Like I talked about Futurama, I'll watch Futurama. So if that sounds interesting, the second season is, uh, is out the day after this episode air. So November 3rd, I'm sure there's like about 10 or 15 other people. And hopefully some of you on the slack and we can talk about invincible there. Um, I'm not saying this is going to be for everybody. I think the violence would be a turnoff for most people. But like I said, if you grew up with, Yeah. Everything from Dragon Ball Z to the prequels in the Star Wars universe, like stuff where you just wanted them to take it a step further. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, in the, in the past year or two, I've sort of adopted this idea that I've got to let down my biases, um, or kind of my rigid criteria for what I watch or read and, and take a chance on stuff. And like given an episode, give it maybe two episodes, whether it's a series or something. And, and, and if it sticks, it sticks. And, and I, I can say I've been pleasantly surprised. Like I've never really been into, you know, sort of animated shows like this or sci-fi or horror or things like that. But oftentimes I'll give something a try and I'll end up watching the whole season or something like, like stranger things, for instance, you know, like there was a show that I just did not think it would work for me, you know, having read about or, or game of thrones and, and became absolutely hooked and just loved it all. So, I'm not going to say that I'm going to love this, but, uh, I'm definitely going to give it a shot. I'll, I'll, I'll give one episode a try and see, see if it sticks. |
| Unknown | Yeah. I think in the realm, in the realm of things that I've recommended to you, this might be more towards than a thing. I'm not sure you'll dig this. Um, but if you give it a run, I think if anybody gives it a run, you will understand the show, but it'll take the last minute of the first episode. Yeah. Yeah. That's Invincible Season 2, and Jason's recommendation for this week's Final Notes is the Gradical Moto Camping series of videos. Hopefully we get more of those, but you can find all of this in the show notes. And if you end up watching Invincible, whether you start with Season 1 or whatever, and you're offended, you have my apology in advance. Shut it off and move on to a warmer type of content. As always, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show, know to get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly. Maybe even grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO or jump into the TGN Slack. Please visit thegraynado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote from Chuck Yeager who said, rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own. |