The Grey NATO – 269 – Costa Rica And The Red Devil Breitling
Published on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 06:00:00 -0500
Synopsis
The episode begins with Jason sharing details about his recent trip to Costa Rica for a family wedding. He talks about the travel experience, including renting a car, driving long distances on rough roads, and exploring different parts of the country like San Jose, Nosara, and Samara. Jason also mentions diving with his wife Sarah in Samara, despite some equipment issues with the dive shop. Overall, it was an enjoyable trip filled with adventure, good food, and beautiful scenery.
James discusses his preparation for an upcoming fan dance event in Wales, which involves running with a backpack and other endurance training. He also talks about trying out different gym equipment like the Stairmaster to prepare for the event.
Links
Transcript
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| James Stacy | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 269 and it's proudly brought to you by our 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. My name is Jason Heaton and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host North of the border, James Stacy. James, welcome back to further north than you were last week. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I was down and away for the last six nights or so in as far south as I've ever gone. I was in Costa Rica for a family sort of wedding and a little mini vacation with my wife and my father. And it was good. We got back last night and technically I'm off for today, which gives us a little bit of time to record this. get a few other things in order before jumping back into what is kind of the start of my 2024. You know, I took a good portion of this month off and came back to Watches and Wonders invites and a lot of, you know, booking meetings and that kind of stuff ahead, which is daunting, but I'm feeling pretty good, feeling pretty well kind of rested, got a little bit of a tan and I'll give a little bit of a report on that and some other stuff throughout the show. |
| James Stacy | How have you been? Uh, it's been considerably quieter here than, than in your world. We are amazingly headed into, uh, a bit of a warmup here. In fact, quite an extended heat wave, uh, at least for this part of the world coming up and guessing it's going to swing your way as well. And it's, it's, it's been a weird winter anyway, but it's, I, and as much as I enjoy skiing in winter, it has been a particular boon to my, uh, fan dance training. You know, we talked about, I signed up for the, the, uh, that event over in Wales that's coming up in in mid June. And it involves a lot of, uh, a lot of kind of outdoor running around with a backpack on. And so this, this warmer weather and the lack of ice on the ground has been, been kind of helpful for me. And that's, that's what I've been doing. So just been, just been keeping at it. I'm running about three or four days a week and nice hitting the rowing machine and swimming at the gym and then trying to do a day a week on the, on the stair climber. But man, is that boring? Wow. Not your thing. You know, the scenery doesn't change and it's like, it's not the most, I don't want to say intuitive, but it doesn't remind me of actually hiking up a hill or even climbing a flight of stairs. There's something sort of strangely artificial about it, but I'm doing it because it works the muscles that need to be worked. And so I'll keep that up. |
| Jason Heaton | I find those machines are a little bit like ellipticals where you have to conform to the mechanics of the machine. Yeah. It's a... How would I describe it? It's like a geometry problem almost, where you're like, well, I know what you're simulating, you're hitting the same muscles I would use to do big steps. Yeah, yeah. But you're right, it doesn't feel like climbing a hill or walking uphill, and it doesn't really feel like stairs because the stair doesn't move as you walk. Right, right. Yeah. Right. So it's a little bit of a weird thing to get into. I do know what you mean. And I'm mildly terrified of falling off. Oh, yeah. I always worry about missing a step, dropping a knee on one of those things, and then before I can get my leg out of the way, the next one comes down on it. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention the embarrassment of being that guy in the gym who falls off the Stairmaster and someone will catch it on video. Sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Especially if you've got a big backpack on and that sort of thing. But yeah, it's great. |
| James Stacy | Yep. That'll be on YouTube or something going viral at some point. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | When you're on it, are you, are you watching anything? Like I find that's the key for me. I don't, I couldn't do two minutes on my treadmill without like a YouTube video or something like that. |
| James Stacy | Well, I've only done one session and I'm headed back there again tomorrow, but, um, I really should, I need to watch something because I did 45 minutes, uh, last week, this week, I'm going to, I'm going to up it to an hour and just, just staring at the little screen display. No, I had music on, which, which was a mistake. It was my first time. I mean, I just don't use gym equipment often enough to like even understand how they work. So it took a while for me to kind of get used to like setting it up. And then once I got going, I was kind of conscious of the fact that I'm, I'm in a public gym. Well, it's not public, I guess, but it's, you know, members only kind of a gym facility and there are people waiting for machines and I don't want to be the guy who's like sitting there fiddling with the screen for 15 minutes. And so I just popped my, my AirPods in and listened to some music for 45 minutes. And that was a bit dreary, but this machine has like this console on it that has links out to Netflix and prime video and whatever. So I guess I can log in and I could watch a show. Um, we'll see, I'll figure something out tomorrow, but yeah. And speaking of the fan dance, I hadn't actually officially signed up until a couple of days ago. They just ran the winter version of it, um, on Saturday, I think. And I've, I've caught a couple of, Instagram stories from, from people that, that did it. And, you know, for those in the UK, you're, you're familiar with there. There's a, there was a named storm. I think it was Isha, I believe, uh, that, that blew through the UK over the past week with, you know, almost hurricane force winds. You should have seen these guys up on the top of, of some of the mountains. They're like, just, just getting blown. You couldn't even hear them talking or whatever, but in watching a couple of those, those videos from the winter version, I learned that they were filling up in terms of the the signups for the summer version. So I quickly went on the website and put my name in the hat. So I'm, I'm officially signed up for that. And then I learned that our buddy Felix, uh, who, uh, has sent in a couple of Q and a questions for us. He's a, he's a Brit, but he's living in the French Alps and does a lot of, uh, kind of ultra marathons and running and whatnot. Uh, he signed up as well, and we've been communicating around that. And so it'd be fun to see him there. And if, look, if anybody else is up for it, uh, feel free to join. I think it'd be a fun little informal get together. I'm certainly not going to be chatting or, or doing anything terribly social during the event itself. But afterwards, if there are any folks over there, I'm happy to buy the first round of beers for, for anybody else that's doing the event. So, um, yeah, and I'm doing it through the SF experience, uh, which, uh, there are a couple of organizations that run these races. So I signed up through, through them and so did Felix. So, That'll be fun. And I booked, uh, booked the plane tickets and Kashani's coming along and we got a little rental cottage right in the Brecon beacons to kind of be a base camp, uh, before and a little bit after. It's kind of where I've been lately. I've also managed to sell four watches on, on the Slack group for anybody that's hesitating to, to sign up for TGN or even to join our, our subscriber Slack group. Uh, one of the big benefits of it is, is a really kind of a safe space and a group of trusted folks that, not only communicate about every possible subject under the sun, we have a pretty robust sales channel on there. And I managed to sell a few watches and thin the herd a little bit. So that felt pretty good. |
| Jason Heaton | It's a good feeling for sure. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I've sold, I've sold a handful on there recently and got, got the replies back. Everybody's happy. The prices were all really good. I see a lot of kind of like, like kind of friend prices happening in there, which I like. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Like stuff where you go like, it's a pretty good price. That's fair. That's fair. And the other thing that seems is for the most part, and this is, I think, how, you know, you have a decent sales form, whether it's, I don't know, Gigi or Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or eBay or whatever. But like if some if things that are priced correctly, popular things are priced correctly, they sell quickly, almost immediately in some cases. Yeah, it's nice. |
| James Stacy | And, and in, in contrast to me thinning the herd, you, uh, you added a watch, uh, actually last, last week, uh, during the episode that we recorded while it wasn't last week, actually it was before your trip, but, uh, went live last week and people got to listen in on a, on a live transaction of you, uh, actually scoring a watch. We might, we might've started a trend here, uh, No promises for this week. I'm not planning on buying anything. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I don't know when we'll do another episode of the watch list, but the first one was quite successful. We got a lot of great feedback. So if you skipped 268, go back and check it out. I'm going to talk about the watch when we get to the wrist check, but I've got it on my wrist at this moment. It arrived also into the country from, in this case, I came from Costa Rica and the watch came from Moldova, but it arrived yesterday and I picked it up last night in the midst of a small snowstorm, but I felt like I could brave my way to FedEx to grab it. Yeah, I mean, other than that, like I said, I was, you know, I've been away for the last six nights, so I'm feeling a little bit rusty, a little bit out of the work mode, but returned with this watch. And I'm excited. I mean, you were talking about kind of exercise. We had a pretty active overall, you know, week or so away, but I didn't have my activity goals met every day. I think I missed one day in terms of the goals from the Aura Ring. So I'm pretty pumped. Right after we record this, I'm going to jump on the treadmill for an hour. maybe an hour plus and just hang out on there and get back into it. It was one of the few things I was delighted to realize that I was missing, was my six days a week on the treadmill. So I'm excited to have that back. And then as far as travel for me, I have a pretty busy next few weeks. The next trip for me, I leave on Sunday afternoon for maybe 16 hours in Jacksonville, Florida. So it's for a Talking Watches thing. I'm not there long enough to do any sort of a hangout. I leave Sunday afternoon in Toronto. Of course, you can't fly direct, so I'm gonna spend significantly more time in planes and airports than in Florida, but I'll be in northern Florida for a few hours for this shoot, and then I go directly back to the airport to come back for Monday night back to Toronto. So that one's a quick one for a Talking Watches with a guest I've met before and I'm pretty excited about. So stay tuned for that in the future. You know, ideally I would have had a little bit more time to hang out and maybe, you know, I considered even making my way down to Miami because it's a LVMH watch week and also a swatch watch days. Oh, wow. Yeah. This this coming week. And but it just didn't work out with sort of family considerations. And then some other like I get back and I think I'm back. We have a special guest. Yeah. That we're recording next week. And then I jump on another plane for the Oris uh, sort of a big press launch for the year, uh, is, uh, is over, uh, just over the, the kind of crux between January and February. So crazy times, not home for, for, for very long, but this gives me enough time to get home, change my packing scenario for cooler climates and then head back out for a, for another trip and then home for a few days. And then it's a Aspen ice race. |
| James Stacy | Geez. Well, we'll have no shortage of the updates during chit chat over the next few, few episodes, I think. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. And then I guess the other thing on there, because I said I would talk about it, and I'm more than willing to be honest, is dry January. I did not remain dry, partly due to some enablers in the slack. I think I ended up drinking on the 19th, so I did 18 days. Not bad for me, all things considered. Yeah. Had a couple of beers at the wedding, had a couple of beers out in Nosara. I'll do a full download on the trip in a few minutes, but Yeah, I don't know. It didn't... I would say they didn't scratch the itch that I wanted them to, the beers. Yeah. It was nice to have a nice alternative to water, but I think I've gotten to the point where not only just after the 18 days, but just in terms of the last six months, I think I might like non-alcoholic beer about almost as much as normal beer. Yeah. like maybe with the exception of a couple of my absolute favorite IPAs, which I wasn't going to find in Costa Rica. But other than that, yeah, I'm going to make up the joke that we decided on slack was every drink that every drink was an extra day, which I don't think will be much of a deal deal breaker for me or an issue simply because I don't think I'm going to go back to drinking very much. You know, I think if I'm on a press trip or I'm seeing friends and we're having a beer, that's fine. But otherwise, I think I'm definitely feeling a lot better, sleeping better, enjoying feeling this way without having that on my plate. So how are you feeling with it? |
| James Stacy | Yeah, I'm doing great. We're 24 days in. I haven't had a drink since New Year's Eve. And yeah, like you, I feel better. I mean, I'm sleeping well and What I found is just, you know, I, I don't know if it's a lack of inflammation caused by alcohol, but my kind of the weird kind of joint pains and aches and pains I get after exercise have largely gone away. And most surprisingly, you know, I was always getting sort of, um, evening, uh, nasal congestion, not to, not to share too much on the show here, but yeah, sure. Um, I think, you know, that's all part of inflammation as well. And it, you know, a lot of times people will have, a glass of wine and they'll get congested. But I mean, even without drinking, um, I was always getting this kind of nasal congestion towards the afternoon, evening, almost every day. And I was like, what is causing this? And I could not figure it out. And lo and behold, uh, that that's largely gone away in the past couple of weeks. And I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lay that at the feet of, uh, of dry January also. And I, I think like you going forward, it's, it's going to be very sparing, you know, alcohol consumption on my end. I, I'm almost tempted to just kind of keep going with, with the dry January, because I just don't feel any particular urge to, to have a drink, you know, at best, maybe a whiskey once a week or something. And then if there's kind of a social outing, you know, it's always kind of nice to, to be able to have a beer, drink with, with friends or something. So yeah, we'll see, but so far so good. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And the other thing I found is, is the aura ring really gives me when you take that much time off and you start to see your heart rate variability, like almost in my case, triple. and my resting heart rate and the speed at which my body gets to the resting heart rate when I'm sleeping is significantly better if I haven't had even one beer. And then at the wedding, I had two beers and then they had a really lovely scotch, a Glenmorangi. And I had a Glenmorangi and it was, man, it was just so good. Like just absolutely delicious. I savored every last drop of it. I just had one, a very simple, straightforward pour, and I could see that on my aura ring in 20 minutes. Oh, really? Wow. Heart rate went up 18 beats a minute, like I was up into the high 80s. Yeah, yeah. And then it stayed that way for 24 hours. The sleep was not good that evening. Yeah. And I woke up the next morning kind of feeling a little bleary, and I was like, man, that The whiskey was delicious, don't get me wrong, but this is a battle I'm going to pick and choose moving forward, I think. If I get a chance, if we're in Geneva and you and I are together and they've got something decent on the menu, cool, but other than that, I think I'm good. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, yeah, right. Well, and the pricing in Geneva will keep you to one anyway. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that'll be frowned upon in the expense report. Yeah, right. If you want, we can jump right into a risk check because I think mine will be a little bit extra as I've got this |
| James Stacy | Yeah, let's, uh, I'll kick it off. Cause mine's not a great surprise and you've got a lot more interesting stuff to say about your new pick. I'm, I'm back to my Pelagos FXD. Uh, last episode I was wearing my, my Seamaster, my 2254, but you know, I've got to be honest that the FXDs doesn't leave my wrist very often these days. And other than lap swimming in the pool, uh, where the, the Garmin does such a cool job tracking my laps. Um, yeah, but the FXD goes right back on and it's been there for, Man, for almost months straight. So that's, that's what I've got on. Yeah. Killer. Yeah. And it's, it's just funny. And I kind of just switch up straps and got some, some fun straps, of course, from watches of espionage and from Cincy strap company. And of course our own TGN NATO. I mean, it's, I mean, there aren't many choices in terms of materials for this watch, but I've got bags and bags and hundreds of NATO. So I'm well set in that regard, but yeah. Nice. All right, let's dive into your new arrival, a full day old in your household. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, for sure. So first off, because people have asked and will probably continue to ask, so a two-parter here for a risk check. One, for all of the Costa Rica trip, I wore the Longines LE. Oh, really? Oh, cool. I just, you know, it's handy to have a GMT, love that it's titanium with the bracelet. So I went down and just left it stock. I wore it on the bracelet and I dove with it. We'll get to that. So, you know, the screw down crown, a hundred meters, no real sweat, obviously not that useful for timing, but I had this, I had your Garmin G1 solar descent that you sent me, which is, that might be my favorite Garmin I've ever used. Oh yeah. Yeah. The battery life is ridiculous. I really liked the simplicity of the screen. I'm very used to the experience of the, the full on descent that I have, the Mark Two S, which I really like. My wife wore that, Sarah took that for diving. But with the G1 and that more simple kind of the instinct style screen, not only is the battery life a lot better, it's just very clear what you're getting from it and it doesn't weigh anything. I really like it, the black case, the black strap, it's really quite nice. So that was a good one. The long jeans did beautifully, really can't complain. |
| James Stacy | What time zone were you in, just out of curiosity? Is it... Just one back. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay. Yeah. So same as us. Same time zone as you. Yeah. Cool. And so that was super easy and yeah, super, super happy with the Longines. It was great. But I got home to a missed message from FedEx saying that the watch was a day early, which is good. It would have arrived tomorrow or I guess actually two days early. It was supposed to arrive on the 25th. And so I went and picked it up before having dinner with my parents before they left the Toronto area. So if you missed the previous episode, we talked about watches that we have always kind of been interested in, but for whatever reason, didn't actually buy or haven't yet. And during the course of that episode, I talked about how much I've always enjoyed the Kronosport UDT, and the Breitling version of that is called the Pluton. And in just chit chatting with you and searching around on eBay, I came across a Pluton I had never seen before, which is this Diavoli Rossi special edition, which is probably not like issued to the Diavoli Rossi aerobatics team. I actually am still looking into the history of this team. I know that they definitely did something from 1958 to like 1959, so I'm not really sure. I'm not 100% sure why there is a mid to late 80s edition Breitling for them, but I'll get into the history. We can get into that later. Right now, we're just talking about the watch. It's only been on my wrist for 12 hours or maybe a little bit more than that, but I've always wanted a watch in this vibe. If you don't know it, the UDT was in some ways made famous by its connection to the special forces community and also in Magnum PI. And obviously, if you're deep into Magnum PI, you would know the connections there for that character's history. A Chronosport UDT is a watch I've always loved, but they're known to be quite fragile, difficult to repair due to the limited quantity of available movements and people who are willing to work on them. And in the end, they can be quite expensive for a watch that may let you down in some way, but I still really like it a lot. And in this scenario, I was able to get the watch for $500, which is probably a quarter of what a decent UDT would cost. It has a wild... I mean, it has the actual insignia of the Red Devils, the Italian Red Devils on the dial, which is this insane sort of shooting forward Red Devil character. very sort of mid-century plain insignia. It's very cool. It's got a little bit of red text saying Divola Rossi and Stormio Cazia. Again, to the Italians in the audience, my apology of any pronunciation. I'm doing my best. The watch itself seems more common in photos on Google search as a steel version. So a bare steel or brushed steel with a white dial, which I think would be very rad. But this is a black PVD model with a black dial. which in my mind takes it a lot closer aesthetically to the UDT vibe, which I like quite a bit, and in this case is absolutely worn down. The PVD is beautifully kind of patinated, so much so that I'm wearing it on a NATO, on a TGN NATO with brushed steel hardware, not matching black hardware, and I think it actually works because there's so much you know, bare steel or rubbed open steel. Oh, cool. On the case and the bezel, I think it suits it quite nicely. I was wearing it on a black crown and buckle Chevron, which has like a herringbone pattern and black hardware, and it's fine, but I could not get... I did it for like 45 minutes last night, trying to get the fit just perfect on the Chevron, and finally I kind of got frustrated because it was either like... If it fit my wrist perfectly, then there was too little tail, and if it fit my If I adjusted it so the tail went where I wanted it in the keeper, it was a little bit too tight. And finally, I just switched it for a Grenado and I'm super happy with it. The watch itself is 41 millimeters across the bezel, somewhere more like 42 millimeters at the case. It has three pushers and a screw-down crown, 11.4 millimeters thick and just under 47 millimeters lug-to-lug. brand new. It would have been 100 meters water resistance. I will not be testing that at all. The crystal and dial are in really good shape. There's actually a little bit of loom left. I was quite surprised. So it's got just a tiny bit left, especially on the markers, not dissimilar in many ways to my aerospace, but that watch was at least 12 years newer than this one. and then it has this very distinctive bezel, which is both distinctive not only within the UDT vibe, which normally either had a compass bezel or an elapsed time bezel. This kind of combines both. It's this bezel that we've only really ever seen, at least to my knowledge, and I'm sure the Slackers can show us a few others, but like Chase Durer used to have a watch. I think, Jason, you brought this up when I was sharing the photos. |
| James Stacy | Also called the UDT, I think. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, a similar sort of vibe, but it's this mixed bezel where the you really do have to look at the photo, and I'll include a photo in the show notes, but there's a blend of kind of on the top face of the bezel, very tightly packed compass markings, and then as the bezel curves away and down towards the case between the sort of grip points, these very kind of pronounced grip points it has an elapsed time bezel. So you kind of get both. I'm not gonna use the compass, obviously, but elapsed time is really nice to have. Despite the fact that the watch has a chronograph and an alarm, the ability to run a second time, very similar in loose functionality to something like the Aqualand, obviously without the dive functions. So you have a kind of traditional two pushers on the right flank, the three o'clock flank side of the case for starting and stopping the chronograph and other stuff like that. And then you have sort of a mode pusher at eight o'clock on the case, All the functions seem to work except for unless I'm doing something wrong, and I don't think I am but I'll keep trying I don't think the the chime is working so like the alarm doesn't actually sound yeah I wouldn't use the alarm or the hourly charm, so it's not that big a deal, but obviously that's up to you I don't know if that's a common thing or if I simply have it set incorrectly. I have the alarm Apparently enabled and with the little symbol saying that it should chime, and it didn't |
| James Stacy | I'm sure it'll go off at the wrong time. You'll be in the middle of some talking watches with, down in Florida and it'll start going off. It's definitely possible. Yeah, that's definitely possible. |
| Jason Heaton | Does the backlight work? |
| James Stacy | I've heard that that's a common malfunction of these. I didn't even know there was a backlight. Well, maybe yours doesn't. I'm not sure. I don't know which years had it or whatever, but I know that some people have said that the backlight does not work. It'd be cool if it does, given that it's old and if it has a little bit of lume, it'd be kind of cool if you had a a backlight. |
| Jason Heaton | I will get back to you on the backlight. I'm in too bright of a space to test it at the moment. Yeah, I was setting it in a dimmer space last night and didn't notice a backlight. I also don't see a backlight listed in the okay, the manual that I found for this reference. Okay, so maybe that maybe later on in the run of plutons, they had a backlight. I'm not sure. Yeah, But if this one has... If this one is supposed to have a backlight, I don't believe it has one that functions, but this is an 80191, and the case back says, Pace Military Division Registered Model 8272, and... Oh, I had said it's 100 meters water resistance. It is 200 meters water resistant. Whoa. Yeah, 20 ATM is what it says on the case back, so I had that one off by a bit, but that is right because the UDT is 200 as well, so that makes sense. |
| James Stacy | Interesting you mentioned the the Aqualand because I believe if I'm not mistaken, that the movement in these is a Miyota analog digital movement that Breitling sourced. And if that's the case, that would have been around the same time period as the Aqualand. And maybe back then Miyota was, I mean, if it was citizen owned back then, it would have probably been the same movement supplier. And that was kind of the, kind of the dawn of that analog digital era. Um, it's kind of fun to kind of trace that, that history. You know, we, we talk about the aerospace a lot and I feel like the aerospace came out of the watch you're wearing at some point, just slightly later. Yeah. And the Jupiter and the Jupiter. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty long standing on the show that you and I are both kind of nerds for these analog digital watches. I think they're deeply cool. I adore my Aqua land. I loved my aerospace and kind of wish I hadn't sold it. And the aerospace is the airspace that I had was not even an Evo or, or the ones with the upgraded screen, which did have the backlight. But the clarity of the screen on the Pluton really can't be compared to what you get in the Aerospace. The Aerospace had this incredibly crisp gold toned screen that was easy to read. The top screen tells you what function you're using, the bottom screen is the function, so that way you can really operate it with no crown or just the crown, which is kind of the Aerospace's trick, whereas this has three pushers to basically do the same function set, right? but the other side of this is the little tiny screen at the bottom on this is very small and the text is very small, but mine is in nice shape. It doesn't seem to have any dead pixels or missing digits, which apparently is an issue. Maybe that'll happen to mine in the future. Who knows? But yeah, I'm kind of obsessed. It's like it's comfortable. I think it looks cool. It doesn't look or feel like any of my other watches, which is really fun. Yeah, like I said, I don't know much of the history of this specific version of the Pluton in terms of its connection with the Divoli Rossi or the history of Divoli. That's all stuff I get to experience and learn about moving forward. And if you know something about it, by all means, feel free to drop me a note on the Slack or send an email to thegreatnadoatgmail.com. I've got it on a NATO right now, and I'm just in love. The bezel is also the sound. I'll see if we can get it on the mic. It's really great. It's a 60 click bezel with this really pleasing kind of quality to it. Not sure that'll necessarily come through. Now I've got to spin it back to a Pippin 8. |
| James Stacy | Let's see here. Is it bi-directional or unidirectional? Unidirectional. Like a dive bezel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So fun. I mean, I, I, I love that it came together during our episode last time, but also it just goes to show that like, you don't have to spend a fortune to find something just really fun. And part of the fun of it is this, this discovery period where you get something old and somewhat obscure and then You get to dig in and do all this research and then you'll, you know, you'll find there's like this whole subculture and community online of Diavoli Rossi, you know, fans or owners or something. And yeah, that's a, that's a wild piece. And then, you know, all the fun with, with strap changes and is it, is it a 20 millimeter or 22? |
| Jason Heaton | It's a 20 20. Perfect. The only thing I could find quite concretely about this specific model in terms of like people nerding out about it where people were suggesting to buy this one to get the movement for their unity. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, because it's less desirable being a little bit weirder with the, you know, the the aerobatic team insignia and that kind of thing. Yeah, and I think you know you're up to very, very low, let's say between twelve hundred and eighteen hundred dollars. If you want a pluton and they're pretty nice, I think they're pretty cool. Yeah. And then, like I said, you might even pay a premium over that for a UDT and definitely a decent one. And then you deal with all of these, you know, this is like the Italian car of analog digital courts watches out there because they're just not known to be especially reliable. And I'm fine with that. If this one fails on me at some point, I had the whole experience, the whole pluton UDT experience So yeah, that's the very weird, but for me, quite delightful new Breitling. And it's nice to return back to having a Breitling. I immediately sent a message to Watches of Espionage and said, I'm at least 5% sketchier. |
| James Stacy | Oh yeah, that's great. And it's good timing, too. He's now selling these black hardware versions of his NATO straps, which He posted a picture of one on like an SBS CWC and boy, it looks good. I feel like, um, I feel like I almost need a watch to match that strap. It just looks, it looks really cool. |
| Unknown | So yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I'm hoping, hoping to probably that'll be the direction I go for, um, for a strap for this one. If I want one with black hardware, I love the idea of green black on this watch with the red, a little bit of red on the dial, which I think could be really nice. So we'll see how that goes right now. I'm going to rock it on the TGN NATO and just kind of enjoy it. I think it could also probably work pretty well on a leather. I just have to be it just being the pilots watch like why not right right. But yeah, I understand that these certainly aren't for everybody, but I really enjoy Just kind of the nerdy specificity of a, of an analog digital watch and that sort of thing. So one, I always like to explore and there's so many great ones from Seiko as well that don't cost, you know, into, into a thousand plus dollars. So even if you can't snag one of these for the price that I got, there's a lot out there for sure. |
| James Stacy | Well, that's awesome. Yeah. Fun, fun to experience the, the acquisition of it on, on the episode and then the, the delivery of it the following episode. So kind of closes the loop. Super cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, let's, uh, let's chat a little bit about your trip. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, we don't need to make it too much, but I figure I can do 15 or 20 minutes, uh, on the trip. I was, I was down there for a six nights. |
| James Stacy | You went for a family, family event, right? A wedding or something. |
| Jason Heaton | Yep. Yeah. A wedding in the family. So I had several cousins and aunts and uncles and that sort of thing also coming down. My party specifically was my wife, Sarah and my dad. And, and so it's nice, you know, uh, to, to be able to spend some time with family and to make it a real vacation. I didn't work at all. Mm. I barely touched email. My inbox is a complete nightmare having come back, but I've spent a lot of time in Mexico over the years. I've been to Hawaii and in my mind, Costa Rica kind of blends the two. I would say that the first thing you know about Costa Rica is it mostly operates on USD, so it's not as inexpensive as parts of Mexico can be. You're not finding one dollar beers very often, that sort of thing. It's a slightly different sort of vibe, but and this is a big, but compared to big, but compared to Hawaii, it's like a four and a half hour direct flight from Toronto to San Jose. |
| James Stacy | Really? |
| Jason Heaton | Wow, oh man, it's pretty fast. It's one hour time change. If you compare that to going to Hawaii, which is pretty convenient from Vancouver when I lived there, it's not that convenient to go from say New York, Toronto, that sort of thing to Hawaii. Yeah, so there's that there's two main airports, San Jose and Liberia, So we flew in and out of SGO, which is San Jose. It's like a 20 gate airport, fairly modern. The international terminal is quite modern, really nice, really didn't have any trouble with that at all. And we basically had three phases to the trip. So we had a couple of days near San Jose, which circled around the wedding and dinners and that sort of stuff, seeing family. And then we had a couple of days in no Sarah, which is out essentially due west to the Pacific Coast. And then we had a night back in San Jose so that we could make an early flight the next morning. I would say if you go, you should definitely rent a car. I'm not sure that you could exist without a car. Oh yeah. Especially in and around. We're really actually, I don't think we could have done anything we did without a car. They have Uber, which is fine and worked really well for people who needed it. But I did it where I landed, went to a rental desk, you'd hop on a little shuttle, they take you essentially across the street from the airport and right there you have kind of the mainstay of the standard airports, Hampton, Hilton in all those sorts of things and the main spot to pick up and drop off rental cars, which is super convenient to have them in the same parking lot basically. And then all of those hotels are running basically a constant shuttle 24 hours a day to the airport, which is four or five minutes. All of that was really simple. You land in San Jose and you are essentially just kind of just outside of the city, and you have access to... There's kind of the quote unquote nicer area like Escazu and Alajewa, and then we had a hotel booked just north of the city up in the hills, which looked quite nice, and a bunch of my family was also there. It's called the Hotel Buena Vista, which I highly recommend. It's not part of a big chain, recently renovated, had a nice pool, beautiful grounds with a coffee farm. They had villas and hotel rooms. So we were there for a couple of days. I really enjoyed it. Really nice to have a cold pool to jump into in the morning before breakfast. You know, it's really hot during the day, but not that crazy overnight. So we didn't even need A.C. Had a ceiling fan and it was fine. While we were in San Jose, we did a butterfly sanctuary. So we drove across town, which was kind of on way to a family hangout we were doing. And they have a little butterfly sanctuary. It's 12 bucks a person and you get to stand in a big room with tons of butterflies. I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't expect a lot from it, but it's also 12 bucks. They have parking, wasn't hard to get to, pretty decent pizza restaurant right on site with a wood fire oven and that sort of thing. Oh, and the other one that we did before, so then we had the wedding and all that kind of stuff, which was lovely. And then the other thing we did before we left was we visited the Starbucks farm, the original and apparently the only actual farm that Starbucks the brand operates and runs was just eight or nine minutes down like a back road from the hotel where we were staying and don't get me wrong starbucks, especially in north america, deeply basic coffees, okay, that sort of thing. This place was gorgeous. It looked like something out of jurassic park, the nicest starbucks i've ever been to right and you can if you have time, you can tour the facilities, you can book a tour in advance, it takes an hour and a half or something like that We just kind of went and they have a big Starbucks and kind of a nice area perched way up above a big valley that looked like something out of Jurassic Park and obviously Jurassic Park, the books set loosely off the coast of Costa Rica. So not that surprising, I suppose, but that was really enjoyable and a nice way to if you wanted to sit and spend some time with some folks and have a coffee, a big coffee culture, obviously in Costa Rica, the coffee is excellent. The Starbucks, the place is called Hacienda is called... So the Starbucks spot is called Hacienda Alsacia, or Alsacia, and I'll put it in the show notes again. My apologies for any pronunciation, doing my best here, but it's not my world, and just really enjoyed it. It was nice. The area around the hotel had several little family restaurants, had some incredible birria tacos, and maybe the best hot sauce I've had in a decade. It was made with Panamanian chilies, and I couldn't get enough of it. It was really hot, but really flavorful. Awesome. that and a diet coke on and a few barrier tacos were really going. So after the wedding and that we did the Starbucks farm and then hopped in the car and the plan was to drive to no Sara. So if you're thinking it's a sense, it's not really a straight line because there's like an inlet and then essentially a peninsula, and this is somewhat on to the peninsula on the way. You know, I looked at the distance. This is very silly and very a very James thing to do. So I looked at the physical distance from San Jose to Nosara or the more popular and a little bit more coordinated, if you will, Samara, which is just down down the coast, and I think it's a very normal drive to go from San Jose to Samara and then it's another, you know, forty five minutes ish or so to Nosara. So it's about two hundred and fifty kilometers, give or take, and I looked at that and I thought, well, even, you know, probably a highway going from the main part of the country to a populated, a very popular sort of area, and you could do part of it on a highway. Their maximum speed limit's 80 kilometers an hour, 50 miles an hour. And on top of that, once you get a certain distance with traffic and everything, you're not touching 80. 80 would be the equivalent of just absolutely cooking. Traffic was pretty heavy, pretty much everywhere we went. And then for the last, definitely the spot from Samara to Nosara, the roads are genuine, fully rutted dirt roads, big rocks, definitely thought we were gonna get a puncture. So I think the drive from San Jose to Nosara that first day was like almost eight hours with a stop for lunch. Oh yeah. And I think in my mind, I thought it would be like three to three and a half. So it's just dead wrong. So that's one thing to consider. Right now, Google's saying five hours, 16 minutes for 264 kilometers, which would be what? 170 miles, something like that. Yeah. I had only booked from the twentieth of the twenty second in Osara and I probably should have added a whole other day because you lose, you know, fourteen, fifteen hours of time in Osara driving there back. Yeah, the drive was lovely, some great food along the way wasn't really a stressful drive until we got to the terrible part of the road in the dark and there's motorcycles and tour buses. Everybody's passing everybody And I really love this. I love driving. I love a new driving scenario. I love driving in other countries. So not a big deal. But when you add in like an hour and a half of just slamming, you know, really being jostled around. Yeah. By the time we got out of the car, it was kind of like, all right, I am genuine. I'm pretty happy that we've made it. Right. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. And I'm looking at the map and where Nosara is in Samara. It's on the Nicoya Peninsula. And for those that might be familiar to those that have seen or read Dan Buettner's Blue Zones, which is kind of examines the areas of the world that have the longest lived people. And he kind of examines what, what it is about their lifestyles and diets and, and the people there, the culture, um, that makes people live, you know, to and past 100 years old. And the Nicoya Peninsula is one of those, uh, kind of global blue zones. So, um, interesting to, to see that on the map. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, no, it was fascinating. My wife is a huge fan of the Blue Zones show and has followed Dan's work for some time, so she was giving us sort of a little download on all of that, which is really quite fascinating, and I kind of understand why. We got out to Nosara and you could tell it had that beach town vibe where there were clearly Costa Ricans and locals, and then there was another layer of expats and people who were clearly from other parts of the world. and that sort of thing. If I go back someday, I would love to produce like a coffee table book of the vehicles. Oh, sure. Yeah, not a jeep country from what I could tell very few. We saw a few there. It's not like none, but so many Land Rovers and Toyotas so many. Oh, sure. Yeah, like at parked right in front, like as a display in front of the Starbucks. There's a gorgeous vintage Land Cruiser pickup fully restored. Oh, nice. Green with the full wood back, white wheels. I'll see how much of this I can put in photos in the show notes. Really, really good. And just I saw some of the most incredible Land Cruisers and Pajeros and Monteros, and there's just like incredible off-road vehicles there, and now I kind of understand why. Yeah. We ended up with Suzuki Vitara, which had four-wheel drive, which obviously we didn't need. It was very dry, so that was fine, but just a little hatchback, good on fuel. I couldn't... I asked both in my original booking and when I picked it up for something with a stick, which they didn't have, so it was an automatic, which is probably the only thing I didn't love about the car, but it had CarPlay otherwise, so really easy to get around and use it. and use it for navigation. It was good on fuel, had enough room for lots of suitcases and for adults. So I really can't complain. There's so many vehicles that you see when you visit Central America and you go like, why aren't these popular back home? Yeah, like a little hatchback with four wheel drive feels like an absolute win in Toronto. You could park it anywhere. The fuel economy was great. Yeah, it was comfortable. It had enough tire to deal with how bad the roads were and then Not only did it have like a little dial, like a lot of vehicles do to switch it into four wheel, it had locking diffs. Wow, yeah. |
| Unknown | Like a little Suzuki. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. Probably out crawl most of the vehicles I've ever owned up until maybe the Jeep, right? Right, right. And it probably weighed about half what the Jeep weighs. Yeah. Or it does weigh. Yeah. So yeah, the vehicles were cool. Man, we drove into Nosari in the dark and stopped at this place called Blue Garza, which is like a grocery store and there's a restaurant and and that sort of thing. And in the parking lot, just two down from us was a lifted Land Cruiser pickup truck. So a two cab, like a four seater with a short, like essentially an older version of like a Toyota, but a Gladiator, the formula that they used for the Jeep Gladiator. And we left and it left in front of us and I drove behind it for a while. I was like, man, I really hope I get to see that in the sunlight. Cause it was just, it was stunning. It was like tall and looked really mean. And, and you know, the big Toyota on the, on the gate, it was great. We did learn that you know, Nosara has essentially no centralized area. It's just kind of sprawling. There's a restaurant here and then it's a neighborhood of homes and then another two or three restaurants. And then it's the beach where there's other things. And if you go into Samara, there's kind of a downtown area and then that sprawl kind of continues. Yeah. So it was good. Like I said, the drive took a little while simply because you don't move very quickly. I think I calculated the average speed between thirty five and forty kilometers an hour when it all when it all shook out. So that that gives you I think if you planned to get around forty kilometers an hour anywhere you go in, at least in my experience of Costa Rica, that would give you a pretty accurate timeline. And Google was pretty accurate. Google in ways ways is super popular. which is awesome. I'm a big Waze fan. And those numbers ended up being quite accurate, plus minus gas and food stops. So like it would be anywhere. Yeah, so it was pretty good. We had like a jungle house in Nosara that we got on vacation rental by owner VRBO. That's not an ad, paid full price, etc, etc. But it was great, really easy, kind of a no contact set up to get in there and had a little tiny like a dunk pool that you could sit your feet in or kind of dip into, which was nice and cool, especially in the heat. There are monkeys around and that sort of thing, which is fun. It's right down the street from a big lodge where we could get food if we only wanted to walk, and otherwise there was tons of great restaurants. Nice. I didn't have a bad plate of food, actually had some really incredible food, even found a pretty decent IPA, a local IPA, which I'll find in my photos and include in the show notes if you happen to need a chance to try it out, an exceptional one really. And then Sarah and I did a couple of dives on the one kind of full day that we had in the area. So we drove back down to Samara, we did a couple of dives with the Samara Dive School, which is the local option. I would say it was kind of a mixed experience. The dive school was currently between dive boats. They had one boat that wasn't running, so they were renting a fishing boat. So we had seven divers plus two DMs on a... I don't know, I don't wanna be wrong, maybe a 20 foot fishing boat, maybe a little bit more than that. Yeah. So it didn't really have a ladder, didn't have a dive platform, where I was kind of put off was they were quite insistent on setting up all the gear. So buddy checks became a really I just don't like that. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what are we doing for weight? He's like, Oh, I've been doing this for 20 years. I'll pick your weight. And like he picked, don't get me wrong. I'd want to be fair to the guy, a nice guy, really, really super friendly guy, good diver, all that kind of thing. And he guessed right. Yeah. Yeah. So he wasn't wrong, but also like, I would rather have the conversation. It's my weight. Right. Right. You know what I mean? So, you know, they hand it to you and we just triple checked everything. Yeah. I didn't have fins the right size. I told them, you know, I'm around, you know, for a fin, I like it, I like a really tight fin. So I usually go down a number. So I told them, you know, between a ten or eleven is fine and they gave me a fin that's that was written in sharpie on it, eleven to thirteen. And so I it was I basically thankfully it was a bit of like a drift surge dive. So I just avoided kicking, but if I had to actually kick hard, but one would just pop right off. So a few times where I knew we were trying to make a transit, I would like pull the fin and push my whole the whole front of my foot through the nose hole, the toe hole, and that would give me two minutes of kicking before it slipped off. So little complaints, that sort of thing. The diving wasn't expensive. It was about a hundred bucks a person for two dives on a boat, which is pretty cheap. Really, that's cheap almost anywhere you go in my experience in the Americas. But yeah, I didn't love some of the protocols and that sort of thing, but the diving was fine and we were on the boat with some people who had been with this, with Samara Dive School for weeks. Yeah. We're doing a ton of diving in the area and they said the conditions change almost every day. So we ended up with not incredible viz. I'd say the first dive was maybe 20 feet best. Second dive was more like 10 to 15. Yeah. And the area is kind of known for its kind of rocky formations. You're not really coral diving. Yeah. Lots of fish, lots of biodiversity and that sort of thing. But It's mostly these rocky formations, like little mountains under the water, or pinnacles as they're more commonly known. And we saw some white tips, which is always fun, some white tip reef sharks, rays, puffers, eels, sadly no turtles or mantas, which are kind of the two things I was hoping Sarah would get a chance to see and dive with. But to be clear, it's kind of like a slice of pizza. I'm pretty happy regardless of how it goes. Yeah. It's just nice to be in the water and to get two more dives on Sarah's logs and that sort of thing. So it was good. It was a good experience. If you were really serious about diving in the area, you would probably either go north, like up to Cocoa or like into that area. And at that point, you're probably gonna dive out of Liberia. You'd fly to Liberia and just stay on the west side of the country, or you go south, like closer to Santa Fe. And some of the research I'd done is if you're really going for more of a dive vacation, you probably wouldn't necessarily pick Samara unless there was something specific you were looking for. It seems to be more of a middle option, but I enjoyed it and it was fun. And I think if you went maybe a different time of year than we were there, and I didn't pick... We didn't pick the strip for diving, we just added the diving in. But I think if you picked a different time of year, they said, oh, well, it's whale sharks, it's humpbacks, it's mantas, it's you know, it can change and they have kind of specific dive season. So I would say this is a scenario where your research goes a long way and I can't wait to get back and do more diving, but I would probably do one. I'd probably shoot to do it probably further north. This would be my would be my my at least from what I read, but my guess is there's tons of options. Yeah, and like I said, if you're just there down for a vacation otherwise and you can attach a day, worth it, worth a hundred bucks. Yeah, I can't be super picky, especially I think if they had had a proper normal dive boat in service and these things happen. I mean, it's Central America. It can be different, very difficult to get things serviced when you're this far from other things. So it is what it is and luck wasn't on our side for that case. But I think if you did go down and had the boat and the vis was a little bit better, apparently we were too close to full moon. So there was just something had kind of washed in and it had blown out the vis in a few areas. So Wasn't bad. Uh, but it, you know, it wasn't nothing like what we experienced in Cosimo in August, for example, which is kind of like about as good a reef dive as I'm going to get probably in this part of the world. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. I'd always heard that Costa Rica was not kind of well known for its diving either on the Caribbean side or the Pacific side. And when I was in Ecuador last summer, I was with a couple of Manta researchers from Costa Rica and they, they kind of, said that, but yet they obviously enjoy living there and diving there because of the opportunity to see some, some big critters. And this has been a very strange winter. I mentioned at the top here about the weather here being unseasonably warm. Um, and when I was in Ecuador, they were talking about the effects of El Nino on the Pacific and you were kind of, you know, a couple thousand probably kilometers North of where I was, but still it's the same effect. It's this kind of strangely, um, kind of superheated Pacific currents, uh, this winter that are kind of doing all sorts of weird stuff with visibility and, and animal migrations and that sort of thing. So, um, but you know, like, like you said, I mean, it's the kind of thing where if you're going to a country like Costa Rica, which I've always wanted to visit and there's so much going for it in terms of jungles and mountains and coffee and food, et cetera, like tag on a dive. I mean, look, as the expression goes, a bad day of diving is, kind of better than a good day of almost anything else. So that's, uh, that's great that you were able to do that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yep. And at no point did I feel at no point did I feel unsafe or like, you know, sometimes you do get the vibe where you're like, these people just need to get as many people on the boat as possible. It didn't seem like that. It was relaxed. It was comfortable. We had a really nice time. I would dive with like, if we get back to Costa Rica, you know, I now have some family that's going to be there at least part of the year. Uh, so I definitely plan on getting back to the country. And if I ended up in Samara, I would not question spending a hundred bucks to go back out and try a couple more dives. There's only so much that a dive shop can control. Yeah, one last note on the diving is if you do decide to dive with the Samara dive school and you decide you can either meet them that morning. If you don't send them an email with your sizes and all that stuff, you can meet them at the dive shop and then they drive to the beach or you can just meet them at the beach. So we met them at the beach and it was supposed to be at seven thirty. Yeah, so of course being me, we were there at seven twenty five five minutes early for everything and we're the only ones there. So we they said, you know, meet basically at the end of the beach near Samara, deep sea fishing. So we went there, we walk up to Samara, deep sea fishing, which is just like a cool hut. Yeah, basically cement pad hut open facing the ocean and the fellow there. His name is Seamus couldn't have been more friendly. He had made too much coffee. So he gave Sarah and I each a cup of coffee and we chit chatted with him. He had, you know, raised in Florida, lived in California for most of his life and had just recently after the pandemic moved down to take over this business and was also kind of... It was his boat that they were using for our dive. So there was some co-work there. But please, this guy was super nice. We met his wife. On the weekend, the space is also a little bar. So they got beer, they'll make you a mojito or whatever you want. They're just really, really friendly. So if you get down there, we had a really nice chat. If you get down there, please say hi to Seamus and And say hi for me and Sarah. Definitely it'll be one of the things where if we go back, we'd make a case of swinging back by there. Just really nice. It's that exact kind of like islandy thing that, I know obviously that Costa Rica is not an island, but it had that vibe. Yeah. It was really cool to sit and chat with him and hear about his story of coming to the country and what it's like to kind of learn a whole new culture and what the area is like and that sort of thing. So That was at Samara Deep Sea Fishing, literally just at the end of the beach. So if you find it, you'll see the dot is at the end of the beach. Just keep walking. There's nothing left after that. It's like a very steep wall and you're out of space there. Nice. Sounds amazing. Yeah, it was good. Really enjoyed it. Like I said, we probably booked one day too few. So the next day we got up, had to leave the VRBO and knew we had the drive and I didn't want to do the drive too late. I wanted to get to the hotel in time to actually have dinner, but we came back had a had gotten a hotel in that parking lot where the where you drop off the rental. So we had an evening at the hotel. I can tell you that dominoes pizza in Costa Rica is not the same. So if you really were hoping for that exact dominoes, if that's your vibe, which it's not really mine, but in a pinch, it does pizza was okay, but it's not like dominoes at home, if that matters and then jump back to the airport in the morning is very quick. Everything was easy, nicely done, well managed Yeah. Uh, got in the flight and flew home for some snow. It's a, uh, thankfully a little above freezing here today, but came back in a little bit of a storm and that sort of thing. And that, and that was, uh, that was six days in Costa Rica. |
| James Stacy | Wow. Sounds, sounds amazing. Um, and that's super cool that there's like direct flights to, to San Jose from Toronto. I'll have to look into that for Minneapolis. Cause, uh, Costa Rica's been on the list for a very long time. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Cool. Yep. So plan to probably be back within a year or two. Having been there once, I know it'd be pretty easy to take the kids. Yeah. And that sort of thing. So yeah. Yeah. Nice to know that's there and to experience a new place. And like I said, I'm pretty sure that's as far south as I've ever been. Nice. Maybe Clipperton, a little further south. Which was off of Nicaragua, I think. Ah, okay. All right. Anyways. Yeah. I think Clipperton was something like just off of, off of Nicaragua, so north of there, but. Yeah, I suppose if you have any questions or you're planning on doing some Costa Rican activities, that sort of thing, you're more than welcome to drop me an email to thegreatnadoatgmail.com or hit me up in the Slack if I can advise, I'm more than happy to. But I really enjoyed it. Great country, really, really friendly people, probably in many ways similar in pricing to sort of mid-level Hawaii. And yeah, really nice. And like I said, I mean, the big plus is direct flights. |
| James Stacy | Awesome. New watch, fun trip. Let's wrap it up with some final notes. I have, I actually have two today. One's kind of a quick one. And it is just to make people aware of kind of a pretty cool auction that a previous TGN guest has going on right now. Kristen Harila, the Norwegian athlete, mountaineer who set the record for climbing the 14, 8,000 meter peaks faster than anybody else is auctioning off a Bremont S300 that she wore, um, climbing, I believe 12 of the 14 peaks. She brought a few watches with her on that, that kind of expedition run going to all of those peaks. And sadly her Sherpa companion, the guy who accompanied her on all of the 14 peaks, uh, Tenjin Lama Sherpa, uh, died in October of 2023, uh, when he was guiding someone named Gina Marie I'm not going to get her name right. I think her name is pronounced maybe. Anyway, they died tragically last October and Kristen is trying to raise funds to find and recover Lama's body. So to do that, she's got a GoFundMe going, but she's also auctioning off her Bremont watch and it runs for as of today, another 11 and a half days. And the current bid is at $6,000. If you feel so inclined, um, to, to, to score a pretty special watch and, uh, contribute to a good cause, check that out. We'll put the link in the show notes and, uh, good luck to Kristen, uh, in that endeavor. So that's, that's my first one. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's great. I saw that on the slack when it popped up and, uh, obviously a very sad story, but a nice thing for Kristen to do to be able to help. And, and yeah, a chance at a watch with like genuine mountaineering Providence. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. What do you have? And I'll drop mine in here. So I was actually going to pick the same thing that you did for your second one, so I'll leave that to you. But the other thing that I got through, I didn't get through a lot of podcasts or that kind of stuff, so I have a big backlog, but I did make a point of watching a show that I've had downloaded for some time and finally got to, and that's Poker Face. And I just really, really enjoyed it. It's not like another show I've ever seen. I shouldn't really be surprised by that because of Rian Johnson, who's one of my favorites. So if you remember Knives Out or the sequel, that's Rian Johnson. It has that sort of lighthearted goofiness mixed with serious elements all at the same time, which he does so well. It's beautifully shot. The show is just wall-to-wall fun. The concept is very simple. Natasha Lyonne, who's the star, has a special ability to tell when someone's lying to her. and the shows essentially about people who tried to profit from that ability. She didn't want that to happen. She ended up on the run and it's about her. Every episode is kind of a new space, a bit of a new crime where she's, you know, picking up odd jobs in various towns and spaces around America and gets tied up in these crimes and her ability allows her to kind of see through some of the lies or all of the lies and put things together. So it's these It has a gumshoe vibe to it. It has some really fantastic dialogue. Everything's really beautifully shot and every single episode's kind of a capsule on its own. And then there's an overarching sort of plot line. This is kind of remind me of X-Files, where an episode might be about one storyline that starts and ends in that episode, like a bottle, but there's always an overarching theme that's carried through the episodes of her running from these people who did her wrong and are upset with her and that sort of thing. I just absolutely loved it. I finished it on the plane yesterday, and the added plus of this is Tom Place, who you know from several places on the internet, including the TGN Slack. He is a friend of the show and hopefully a future guest. He was recently on Teddy's channel for some great stuff. Tom is a stuntman and a stunt coordinator, and he was the stunt coordinator for several of the episodes, which is really cool. And it kind of hits home with watching it and really enjoying it. And some of the stunt work is incredible, as you'd assume. I can't recommend it enough. I really enjoyed it. I would say the language is sort of at the adult level, so it's probably not for kids or that sort of thing. And a lot of the kind of topics are fairly mature, but I really enjoyed it and highly recommend Poker Face, if that sounds like something you'd like. I think you'd get the vibe in the first 20 minutes, but definitely one or two episodes, you'd know exactly what you're in for. and every episode is a chance for these incredible, you know, single single episode cameos from great actors. So we got Ron Perlman, Nick Nolte, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Chloe Sevigny. It goes on. Every episode has some people you haven't seen a while. Tim Meadows is great, amazing, really enjoyed |
| James Stacy | Very cool. Yeah, it's on my list and I've been meaning to check that out and congrats to Tom for the Emmy nomination for his stunt work on that show. |
| Jason Heaton | Totally. And well deserved. Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And other than that, before you get to yours, I am just putting this out there. I will get to True Detective season four. I really want a moment to just not have any distractions when I get to it. Yeah. The season for season one is my favorite TV show of all time. My favorite single season of anything ever. Um, so I always put a pretty high bar on it. So I'm avoiding every true detective discussion on slack currently. Uh, thank you people. Uh, thankfully people have been very clear that when they're starting threads that might have spoilers, it's, it's in the title of the thread. So we're good so far. Um, but I, I've heard only good stuff. So that's, I think probably where I'm going next. Yeah. Yeah. Same here. All right. So what's your, uh, your second, it's a goodie. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, it is a good one. And it's also has a TGN connection to, uh, kind of a good friend of the show as well as a past guest. Um, It is the deep track. We, you know, a couple episodes ago we had Blake Bettner on who just kind of started this new podcast, the deep track. Uh, and he's had some, some pretty killer guests on so far. Most recently our chum and slack moderator, Chris soul, uh, was, was the guest on just this past week. I just listened to it actually last night. And, uh, it's a great discussion. I mean, both are super nice guys and, and I love how they, just nerd out on the intersection between diving and watches and Blake being kind of a new diver and having gotten a lot of good diving advice from Chris when he was kind of embarking on getting certified and getting some experience diving. Um, you know, the, the two of them just, just kind of go on about it, uh, in, in the show. And it's, it's really fun discussion. Uh, you know, they talk about watches and Chris's background and how he acquired his, uh, his Seiko monster and has worn it on all of his dives. And, um, Yeah, it's just, it's a good chat between two good guys. And so I recommend it as well as, uh, just simply subscribing to the deep track. If you're looking for another kind of podcast in the same vein as TGN, you know, kind of the intersection of adventure and travel and watches and that sort of stuff. So yeah, check it out. |
| Jason Heaton | That's awesome. Yeah. It's all, it's on my list. I saw the name and I was thrilled. Um, you know, we couldn't be bigger fans of, uh, of Chris and certainly a Blake as well. He was on the show recently, like you mentioned. So I'm super excited to jump back into my podcast and probably kick off with that. Might even be my companion for the first part of my treadmill session in the next few minutes. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I hope that wasn't too much about my, uh, my recent trip. Um, there'll be more in future episodes about future trips, uh, that, uh, I'm on as well, but we have a great guest that we're very excited about for next week. And other than that, you know, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, or even consider supporting the show directly, you can grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO, just visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| James Stacy | And we leave you with this quote from Khalil Gibran who said, let your home be your mast and not your anchor. |