The Grey NATO – 277 – Slack Crew & A 2024 // Part 2

Published on Thu, 21 Mar 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

The podcast covers a wide range of topics related to travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and watches. The hosts, Jason Heaton and James Stacey, begin with a discussion about Jason's recent trip to New York City with his family and the challenges of finding suitable accommodation. They then move on to a wrist check, showcasing the watches they are currently wearing. The main segment of the episode involves answering questions submitted by listeners through the show's Slack community. These questions cover a diverse array of subjects, including personal anecdotes, hypothetical scenarios, and watch-related preferences. The hosts share their insights, opinions, and experiences in a casual and engaging manner. The episode concludes with final notes, where the hosts highlight various watch-related products, collaborations, and other topics of interest.

Transcript

Speaker
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 277, and it's proudly brought to you by the always 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 up in Toronto, James Stacy. James, back from a week away. How was it and how are you doing?
James Stacey I'm pretty good. The week away was awesome. Always a good time down in PA. I'm a huge fan of the area and we took the girls into New York for a couple of days. So I got to kick around there and do some, you know, New York's become a bit of a work city for me. So I don't do that much tourism. Yeah. And then you start stacking it up and we emptied the girl's battery in about 36 hours and headed back to PA. It was good. It was good. Everything went pretty well.
Jason Heaton Did you stay overnight in New York?
James Stacey We did, yep. Stayed overnight. For those of you who have kids and want to stay in the city, just a quick heads up at the Freehand, which is at 23rd and Lex Hotel. I stay at quite a bit and have stayed quite a bit with my wife. They also do bunk rooms, so they have rooms that have four bunk beds in them. Oh, that's cool. Which makes it pretty handy and all things considered pretty affordable as far as... I don't know if you've ever got... Like Jason, I know you probably haven't, but you, the royal you of the listener, I don't know if you've gone through the trouble of... Obviously, if you use Hotel Tonight, you can't say, I want two rooms and I want them adjoined. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So you have to... You kind of have to find a hotel that might even offer that, then call them and hope that they treat your requests with respect by the time you actually show up and they have two rooms. Like we got to the freehand and they were like, all right, we have you one room on this floor and another room on that floor. And we're like, no dude, that's not what we booked. I got two little kids. We're very excited to have, you know, the premise of their own room. I'm very excited to have it three feet from my room. So it ended up just fine. Things worked out pretty well, and it was a good trip. Everything was good. Honestly, the only thing that I didn't love was the audio quality of last episode. So a small apology to the patient and loving listeners. I'm aware that the audio from that DJI mic that I still really like, but cannot get a consistent quality out of. I must be doing something wrong. It just didn't sound good at all. And when I did tests like 30 minutes before we recorded, and listen to the wave file, it sounded pretty good. So I just figured we were fine. It didn't work out. I'm either not going to use it in the future for shows or I'm going to figure out how to use it correctly. But I think in that scenario, I should have just dragged a mic and a recorder and the rest of it down south. So no big deal. But for those of you who listen and we're like, why is this? Why are we changing what's working? The normal mics are fine. I agree. I shouldn't have gotten so excited about using a bit of new gear, but I don't know. I see people on, on Instagram and the audio sounds pretty good and I'm either using it wrong or there's a setting wrong. I'm not really sure. So I'll, I'll figure it out before I try again.
Jason Heaton Well, you're obviously more versed in, in the audio tech side of things than me, but I have to say that I was, um, I didn't notice the audio quality in your end from last week, but I did notice how good the audio quality was from the interview I did with, uh, with Alex Bescoby last week. I mean, I, you know, I took along our usual kit or the one I usually use here, which is this, Shure microphone and then the H5 zoom recorder and all two microphones, of course. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm always impressed by how these things really kind of screen out the background noise. I mean, we had people and, you know, um, rowing machines and airplanes going over, et cetera, and it came out. Okay.
James Stacey So, um, it's so hard to beat an SM 58. I don't know why I even try, which, which for those of you who listening, who don't care about this stuff, it's like a hundred dollar microphone that you've seen everywhere. You've ever gone that had a microphone. if you've ever gone to a public park where somebody was ranting on a microphone, probably an SM 58. If you've ever been to a punk rock show where somebody was swinging the microphone around and smashing the stage and it still worked, almost certainly an SM 58. It's just the most ubiquitous microphone. It's what Jason's talking into right now. It perfectly suits Jason's voice. Yeah, these are nice. But yeah, the DJ has a learning process on that one and obviously travel sometimes dictates a difference in audio quality, but I'm glad to be back home and in front In front of the good mics and the stuff that I know works. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. How about you? How have things been for the last week?
Jason Heaton Good. I'm over the jet lag from my England trip and I'm kind of still in Land Rover mode. I'm halfway through reading The Last Overland, the book that I talked about that Alex gave me as we parted ways in London. And then lo and behold, I think it was two days after I got home, And, um, you know, you, you've had this lovely, um, kind of watch themed painting that he did for you with your Explorer two hanging behind your desk there, uh, in your office. And, you know, he had asked me a long time ago, like he said, you know, I'd love to do something for you too. And I said, I said, great, you know, but I'm not that keen on, on kind of watch themed artwork, um, personally. And he said, well, what about something else? What about, you know, like, you know, like, you know, uh, your Land Rover. And I was like, that's a great idea. So he asked for a couple of front end photos of my blue series three Land Rover and I sent it to him and this box arrived and it's this beautiful big canvas painted lovely front end of, of the Land Rover. And I'm hanging right next to my desk here. His work is so cool. I couldn't, I couldn't have asked for anything better than this. I mean, it really is kind of perfect for me. Like, you know, I've got the Land Rover parked out in the garage, but now it's like visible to me all the time here right next to me. And he nailed all the, All the little details. It's even got the TGN decal that I've got above the grill on the front end. So thanks. A huge thanks to Justin for sending that over. Um, I'll, we can throw a picture in the show notes or, or, you know, I've, I've put one up on, uh, on my sort of alter ego, Instagram feed, Minnesota bonnet spares, uh, which I kind of maintain for my, all my Land Rover geekery. So if you want to go check it out there, I posted a picture of it over there, but, uh, yeah, super cool.
James Stacey You can certainly follow Justin on Instagram, and I highly recommend it. Justin underscore Sauders underscore art. It'll be in the show notes if you don't you don't have to remember that if you're driving or whatever. But yeah, I'm a huge fan of Justin. He's just a really sweet guy, even if he wasn't a talented artist, probably still big fan. Yeah, but he's just a really nice guy. We've connected a few times, and he conspired a little bit with my wife, Sarah, to put together one of an explorer two, which is, yeah, it hangs quite prominently. along with some other watch derived artwork in sort of the background for whenever I have to do video calls and that sort of thing. I absolutely love it. It's perfect for an office and I can see the Land Rover being a great choice for you as well. Obviously, I think watches are kind of like the core, but obviously now you've got the Land Rover. I've seen him do like a golf ball. I can't remember who that was for offhand. It was on his Instagram, but it was like a golf themed one. So just a ton of talent and a really cool style because there's a huge amount of texture to the final canvas. So like my daughters find it fascinating just how three dimensional the paint, like there's big kind of globs and units of paint in various spots. And I don't think you would look at one of his paintings and confuse it for anything else. Like they have a very kind of unique effect and style. So yeah, that's a big, big shout out to Justin. We're huge fans of his work. So that's really cool to see you get one and have it be your Land Rover. That's rad.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I couldn't be more thrilled. And you know, you've talked about the kind of the globs and color blocks and sort of drippy bits all over. And to me it kind of captures perfectly exactly all the oil drips underneath the Land Rover. If you sort of squint and look at it that way. And he even nailed the, the dented front bumper and stuff like that. So yeah, really, really happy to see that. And then also I, the bonus was it came with all this big packaging cardboard, which is now serving double duty as a, an oil catch under, under the Land Rover, the real Land Rover. So it's a win win.
James Stacey There you go. Yeah. All right. How about a little wrist check to get us into, uh, into the mode for the show?
Jason Heaton Sure. Yeah. Um, I'm back to, uh, kind of, uh, regularly scheduled programming. I've got the Pelagos, uh, FXD on my wrist today on a lovely stripey, uh, Haviston strap, which I haven't worn in a while. Um, and, uh, you know, I mean, the fun thing about the FXD is, uh, you know, despite the fact that you can't put basically anything other than a, a NATO or just a single piece pull through strap, like I have bags of those things, so I can just kind of pull out random, even the 20 millimeters work on this, but I'm playing with some old straps that I haven't worn in a while. So yeah, good to have it back on the wrist.
James Stacey Do you often have someone kind of make you like a combination leather NATO slash bund?
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Oh yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Where the leather natal could thread into a bund and that way you could, you could really go. I do have something like that. Full ham on that one. Our friend. Is that, that they already exist?
Jason Heaton Myron, I commissioned him to make me one for, for a CWC years ago. It's for a 20 millimeter like CWC diver. But, uh, yeah, I haven't tried it on this. You know what? That's a good point. I will fish that out and maybe post a photo at some point. That's a good idea. Yeah.
James Stacey Jason Bund. Yeah. As I saw someone call you on the Slack recently, which I found very, very entertaining. Yeah. Kudos to whoever said that. My apology for not having the name on hand. This week, I've got on... Because the story went up last week and the watch is now sold out, so it kind of missed our chance to really lean into it. But it's this Notice Raven Trail Trekker. So some of you who would have seen the story on Hodinkee, the watch, the first batch of the watch has sold out through Notice. So notice we'll come up a couple of times in this episode, because there's the final notes here as well, but I'm super impressed by this. I've known Raven watches, like Steve Laughlin, who runs Raven. We meet with him at Chicago every year, but I've known Steve, like he was probably one of the first people in the watch world that I traded emails with way, way back. I was living at my parents' house, so it was that long ago, and I bought a 44 millimeter Benares More, which is like a Panerai style dive watch, and Benares was run by Steve before Raven,
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And so I go way back with Steve and then notice is kind of new to my radar that, you know, I'm aware of them, the collabs they've done with smoking tire and that sort of thing. Always really curious, saw some cool stuff at wind up and then Steve had mentioned, Oh, we've got a thing coming. That's kind of like genuinely in your space, like sort of your, your vibe. And it's this 39 and a half millimeter GMT runs on the new Miota. So you get a flyer style GMT The case and bracelet are all gray DLC. The bezel has a Cerakote finish on it as well. It's just like very matte. I wouldn't call it necessarily tactical because the gray and the yellow feel more like sporting gear than military, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. But it has this really nice build. I would say that the case and bezel obviously kind of inspired by the Explorer II from Rolex, but then you get a kind of a flat link on the bracelet, single sided screws. and a really nice dial design. It's all like hyper matte. I'm really impressed you $875. I think it's in there if you wanted an alternative to something like the Laurier, the Hydra three, which we've talked about, which is even less expensive. But it's just nice to see these sorts of watches. I'm not surprised that it's sold out and just a cool piece. So check that out. That's what I've got on my wrist. It'll It's been fun to be able to borrow it from them.
Jason Heaton So I'm getting my time in with it before it's got a head back This is a cool watch and I'm looking at the at the images on their website We've got a link in the show notes and did I know you you wrote the review and you have the bracelet on it But what that kind of textile strap they have looks pretty amazing, too I haven't come across a strap like this before so that's it's also worth taking a peek at it.
James Stacey It is a ballistic fabric Yeah, it's sewn to have the rigidity of a NATO, but it's super soft. It's like wearing a like if you could make a layered nylon from a jacket into a strap, it's really, really comfortable. I think it looks really good on the watch. And the one thing I would shout out that I think for some people would be worth the price jump from something like the Laurier, notice bracelet has something called a Node X extension. So it has a tool-less micro extension, it's up to a centimeter, it's 10 millimeters, built right into the clasp, but the clasp the design that they have, and they say right on their website that if you're another watch brand, you can license the design from them. And if you're out there listening and you want to add micro adjust, this is like one of my favorite modern features on a dive watch. I use the one on the Pelagos probably twice a day, just a little adjustment here or there, really comfortable. And I think they've done a really nice job with this. It's a little bit higher tech or more mechanical than the system that's in the clasp on my Pelagos 39. Little things like that really kind of set a watch apart. Like for me, single-sided screws are like the sign that the person who made the bracelet or made the watch cared. Yeah, definitely. Because it means that you don't... Like the two-sided screw thing where you've gotta use Loctite, you've gotta get two screws in it, you've gotta hold it a certain way and like... that just means that someone, maybe a brand new enthusiast, not me, I've got all the screwdrivers, I'm a knucklehead, but a brand new enthusiast buys your watch and immediately has to take it to the watch store that they were probably in some way avoiding by buying a watch online.
Unknown Yeah, true.
James Stacey They take it in, now they're answering questions, they're worried that somebody might not know how to... They're aware that they don't know how to size the bracelet, but they don't necessarily know that the person they're asking to do it does know how to. And so I just... Single sided screws are like... It's like It's a little hint for me that the watch came from an enthusiast. I mean, I guess if you really want this one, the price hasn't changed, but you will be waiting into the latter half of the year, August 2024. You know, these are small companies. I don't know how much, like if I was putting my money down for one, I wouldn't be holding them to that date. You just hope it's close to that date. That's how this kind of world works. A big congrats to Notice and Raven, and finally getting a chance to check out a Notice was also fun. So big fan of both. Obviously adore a micro brand and really just genuinely my enthusiasm for a lot of the watch industry waxes and wanes, but my love for a sub-thousand dollar watch made by a watch enthusiast has never done anything other than, you know, be very, very strong.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Cool choice.
Jason Heaton Fun to see something new pop up. You know, we've kind of been in a with a few exceptions kind of in a run lately. So it's, that's kind of exciting to see something new coming through risk check.
James Stacey But yeah, totally. That's a solid risk check and a good way to kind of jump into our part two of the 2024 slack crew. And a, uh, for those of you who might be absolutely brand new, how do we normally explain this? Our normal Q and a comes out monthly and it's, uh, um, for the paid side of the, of the TGN kind of community. And that's audio recordings that are then answered by Jason. I sounds kind of like a radio call and show that sort of thing. Uh, this kind of flips that on the head where we take text questions from the Slack community to kind of give you an idea of what's going on in, in the, the hive mind of Slack. And then we just answer, we read them and answer them here. So it's been fun. It's something we tried last year. It went really well. We did part one, uh, six or seven episodes ago, and we just have like probably 40 leftover questions. So there'll be probably a part three and a part four. Today's part two. And, uh, do you want to kick this one off from, uh, the, uh, the moderator himself, the scuba daddy crystal?
Jason Heaton Yeah, he's got a good one too. This is a good place, a good place to kick off. Chris writes two truths and a lie, three outrageous statements about yourself. One of which is a lie, throw them all out there, embellish a tiny bit. If you're, if you desire to sell the story and then let the crew speculate, but don't reveal the lie until the next crew and a. This one could be fun. What do you have? Why don't you give us one first here?
James Stacey All right. Here's my three. One of these is a lie. Two of them are absolutely true. My least favorite food in the world is lasagna, and I'm not going to try yours. I've tried enough. That's one. Second one, I was a possible professional contender in pool. in my early 20s. Could have gone pro if things had gone a different way. Turns out there's not necessarily a ton of money in pool. Wow. Wow.
Jason Heaton The hustler.
James Stacey For my third one, I have a good shot of probably knowing the lyrics to every Lana Del Rey song ever made. Take your pick on which three of those is the thing. Ooh. Whoa. I mean, so you can, do you want to take a guess and we'll talk about it in three or do you want to hold off on the guessing and we'll come back to it in three?
Jason Heaton I'm thinking personally, I think the, the, the professional pool thing is, is the lie. I just, I, I feel like I've played pool with you before and I don't remember you being particularly great. I mean, no offense, but I think at some level in the penthouse at SIHH, maybe it was too many whiskeys or something. I can't remember, but, but that's my guess. That's my guess. Lasagna though.
James Stacey I guess we'll see in the next episode.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Right. What have you got for your three?
Jason Heaton All right. My three. I once was the lead actor in a German language play in which I played the hero and ended up forgetting half of my lines in front of a live audience. That's my first one. The second one is I once led a life of crime, stealing newspapers out of corner boxes until I got caught by the police. And the third one is I was born right-handed, but a childhood injury forced me to use my left and I never went back. Oh man, that is really tough.
James Stacey The play feels possible to me. So does stealing things, but I just don't know why you'd be, what's the market for newspapers? Were you selling them?
Jason Heaton This is probably showing my age, but you know, there used to be these corner boxes where you'd put a quarter in and pull the newspapers out. And I was stealing the newspapers. Maybe it was, I guess it was just a thrill. It was just kind of one of those, you know, the thrill of getting away with something.
James Stacey For sure. No, I understand that fully. I didn't resell them. No. And then the third one, an injury that caused you to form a new dependence on your left hand. Hmm. I'm going to say it's the left hand thing. The last one's the lie, but we'll find out in the next episode.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Whenever that comes, right. I'm sure that I'm sure Slack will be a buzz with all of these.
James Stacey Yeah, probably sometime in the next couple of months. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Right. Yeah. It'll be fun to keep an eye on the episode chat of Slack in the next couple of weeks.
James Stacey Yeah, definitely. Definitely see what people's guesses are for sure. But that's a fun one, Sol. Thank you so much for that. Next up, we've got one from Lee, who has a question for me. He says, as a regular traveler and a father with kids, how do you and Sarah manage all of the needs with lots of parents in the TGN community and many who travel? It would be great to hear from your family handles at all. I mean, it's Google Calendar is kind of the core. it's like genuinely understanding and setting certain expectations. And then I just the other side of it in keeping the answer short is I turned down a lot of travel, probably two thirds. I moved to either somebody else on the hooding key team or just turn it down. Yeah, you know the scheduling can be such that it can be difficult to feel like you have any actual time with with the kids. If you don't make that time and You know, I'm not a... I'm a fairly organized person. I don't love administration. We've talked about this before, maybe not specifically, but I have a real... My year really goes in seasons, which I suppose everyone does because there's four seasons. But for me, it's either summer or it's not. And when it's summer, I'm not as good an employee, I'm worse at podcasting because I'm better at being present as a dad. My kids aren't in school, right? And that's the, we really try and tune as much of the, as much of that as possible to like time at the cottage, weekends away, special moments, that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And do you use like FaceTime or zoom or something when you're, when you are, when you do have to travel to kind of.
James Stacey Oh, of course. Yeah. A lot, a lot of FaceTime. You got to FaceTime with the bunny. You got to FaceTime with the kids, the whole thing. Yeah, for sure.
Jason Heaton I think I saw a picture of you holding a baby, baby duck or something recently. Was that?
James Stacey Yeah, yeah, my my in-laws in in P.A. It's on my Instagram, me holding a baby duckling and but my in-laws in P.A. picked up three ducks and three chickens. They have a coop at their house. And and so I didn't realize you could buy a duck for like six dollars. But yeah, that's the story behind that photo, which many people were asking if the duck was mine, what the duck's name was. I'm not sure the duck was named at that point. It was a couple of days old. But yeah, Hopefully, that answers your question, Lee. Thanks so much for sending that in. Next up, we've got one from a gentleman going by Great Lakes Watch, all one word on the Slack. You both fell into a black hole and popped out into a parallel universe that never invented watches. What would your new collection interest be? Man, as a kid, I kind of collected anything I could get my hands on if I'm honest.
Unknown Oh, really?
James Stacey Oh. Oh, sure. I still have stamps. I had a lot. I had a lot of sports cards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably not even the right term for it. all sorts of stuff. I mean, like I've got that more. I would say I'm more of a hoarder than I am, maybe a collector to be fair. But yeah, I think I like all that all that kind of stuff would have been on my radar. I don't really know what as an adult, probably cameras. Oh sure, yeah, I have such a fascination with them and now you're starting to see the through. I don't know how much you guys follow this. We've talked about it a bit on the slack, but like you'll see people are now 3D printing modifiers, so you can use your phone as the film essentially for hundred year old cameras and that makes me, I wanna spend so much money to try that out. Oh yeah, there's people fitting medium format into like with these baffle boxes essentially, they're not baffled.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey and then you slide your phone in and it's at the correct distance to function as the same way the film would have. Oh my gosh, that is so cool. And you can shoot through this old equipment. Wow. I'll put it on the Slack, I'll put it in the show notes, the rest, but there's some of this stuff on Instagram that I'm finding really fascinating. Wow. And also being able to share that hobby with my kids has been really fun. My girls carry cameras when we go places. Yeah. It's been great, whether it's an Instax camera or a vintage film camera or something more modern. Yeah. It's just such a great hobby and This stuff's endlessly collectible because everything kind of slightly changes the experience, whether it's a new lens or a new this or that, like you can, it all kind of reflects in on itself.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, you, well, I was just, my initial response to this was going to be, um, I don't really collect anything else right now besides watches. Um, and so I didn't think I would really collect anything else, but you, you kind of threw it back to your early days and when you were a kid and looking back, I did collect a fair bit too. I, I had a pretty sizable collection of like matchbox cars. I had a lot of those. I collected, um, like you, I had sports cards, uh, mostly football cards, uh, which I believe my parents still have some in their basement, which I probably should go through and figure out what to do with, you know, I'm not sure I would collect cars. I, for a while there before I really got into watches, I was kind of a car flipper. I was, I never like, Never had a big collection. I mean, I currently have two Land Rovers and then we have a Volvo daily driver, but yeah, it used to be kind of a cyclical thing where I'd get a car and drive it for a couple of years and then flip it for something else interesting. So, but you know, collecting cars is something that requires a lot more money and a lot more space, which I don't have right now. So, um, but yeah, and in place of watches, I suppose that there probably would be some void that would have to be filled. I'm not quite sure what that would be. The cameras is a good one. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I would. But I do have a history of it, so I suppose I probably would fill the void with something. It'd be interesting to find out.
James Stacey Yeah, the wiring doesn't change. It'd just be, you know, a slightly different circuit somewhere out there. Right, right, right. Interesting question. All right. Fun one, Great Lakes Watch. Appreciate that. Next up, we've got kind of a complicated one from Kyle C. in D.C. It's a two-parter. Let me see if I can get my way through this. Put yourself in the shoes of Edmund Hillary or Victor Vescovo, where you've been tasked with accomplishing something record-breaking. Sparing no expense, what record would you try and break? What summit would you reach or depth would you explore that no other person has ever done? Now put yourself more in Corey Richards shoes. Shout out Corey, saw him recently. Like when Vacheron had him test the Everest GMT and imagine you get to design and carry a prototype watch along with you. What brand would you partner with and what does the watch look like and how does it help you break your record? Jason, have you ever thought, oh, that's a record I would take on?
Jason Heaton No, no.
James Stacey I'm yeah, I don't, I don't have that whatever that why we're just talking about wiring, whatever that wiring is, I don't, I don't possess it. Yeah, yeah. And now we've spoken to so many people through this show, through Hodinke, through this world that like have done things right, like some genuinely remarkable things and you go like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure that's for me necessarily. Probably, I guess for me it might be something like driving. Yeah. Like whether it was, you know, maybe it's a Perry Dakar, maybe it's a Panamericana or something like that, but I can't, uh, maybe we've already broken records that we just don't even know about it.
James Stacey Hey, maybe so podcast related or something, you know, it's just, you know, it's just us and, um, cereal right at the top of the, yeah, exactly. It's just fighting for those records, right? Like you, you could tell that I don't even have a modern blockbuster podcast reference. I think it's been a while since cereal cranked out an episode to be fair. Right, right. Anything leap to mind for you? Would it be, you know, trying to get up a mountain or climb something no one's climbed before?
Jason Heaton I mean, I kind of shot for the moon here. You know, maybe I misinterpreted Kyle's question, but I kind of came up with this idea of, this is absurd, fly to and then dive under the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa. So this is, this is like, you know, this is a pure fantasy, of course.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. I like it though. There's a whole different, I went so literal.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I wasn't sure. And maybe that's what he was after. But, uh, you know, in terms of terrestrial or earth, earth born records. Yeah. I'm like you, I just, I'm not wired that way. I kind of go for sort of personal challenges that I know are things that, um, that other people have done and could do far better than me and have done much more extensively. But, um, for me, it's more personal challenges, not really breaking other people's records. Um, I like your idea of, a long drive and it reminds me of when I was in England to talk to Nick English. He's doing the Peking to Paris drive, which just sort of fired my imagination. But again, that's not, that's not record breaking unless you do it faster than anybody. But, um, yeah, so I kind of went for this, uh, this far flung thing, um, kind of looked, looked into which, uh, which of the moons or which planet has, uh, has some potential diving on it. And I came up with Jupiter's moon Europa, which has some, some big bodies of water that are frozen and under ice. And I thought, okay, that's, that's where we'll go. We'll, we'll, we'll go full on with kind of a space adventure and then, and then throw some diving into it. And you know, who knows what all that will require. But then the second part was the watch, which watch would you take, which brand would you partner with? And I thought, you know, for, for kind of a far out sort of space and dive related thing where you're going to need something durable with some functionality, I'm going to, I'm going to go ahead and partner with sin on this one. Great call. Yeah. And I think, you know, they've got some experience with extreme temperatures and vacuum resistance and, uh, air pressure and of course water resistance. And I think I'm going to, I'm going to have them spec out like a titanium dive style watch that has a complication that shows however you keep time, uh, in space travel, whether it's, you know, in souls, I guess that would be like the sun time or maybe Jupiter has its own, you know, because of its own orbit, it would have a different, uh, Different timeframe. Uh, it would have to have a depth gauge of course, because batteries aren't going to work in my dive computer after such a long journey and the temperatures and that sort of thing. Uh, and it's going to be an automatic obviously. So avoid the whole battery issue. Good loom, of course, titanium, et cetera. But, uh, yeah, that's my grand adventure. And of course to, to get there, I'll have to live till I'm about 230 years old, but that's just a small thing.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah, it's cool. The Zen sub Jupiter. I like it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Europa. Europa. Yeah, exactly. Europa. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. I didn't come up with much. I mean, there's always there's always like stuff I would like to do. And as far as watch companies go, I mean, if I could do something in Western Canada, it'd be cool to do it with Hallios, like with a custom Hallios of some sort. A fun question. One, I don't know. I can't I can't say I have like a specific record in mind that I always thought like, Oh, yeah, that would be the one to try and try and do like, I don't know, like if I, if I was a significantly, I mean like not even a little bit, if I was an order of magnitude better driver, like I'd say, well set the lap time at Nuremberg ring or something crazy. Right. Yeah. And for that, I, I'm not sure what, uh, you know, probably would have to go with, uh, more of a sporty chronograph racing watch sort of, uh, sort of outline. So fun question though, Kyle, thank you very much for that. Next up, we've got one from Adam Peterson, who said pick the most underrated watch from each of your five favorite watch brands at the moment. Your list of brands doesn't need to be too thought out, just the top five that come to mind. All right, Adam, this feels like one that could be an entire episode. I'm not super sure how to address it all that quickly, but Jason, anything leap to mind for five favorite brands and their most underrated watches?
Jason Heaton Well, I've got four, I came up with four favorite brands. Uh, I'm either misread or, or blanked out his question. Um, but the first watch that I'm going to throw out there is, uh, and one of my favorite brands is from Blancpain and I've always loved the air command, which, um, looks like a 50 fathoms with the chronograph functionality to it, although it has pretty poor water resistance, but I just find them incredibly beautiful. And then, and as I was looking through, their website, I realized that they made a 36 millimeter titanium air command. And I just feel like, and it's in blue. I mean, this, this is a stunning watch and you know, there's not even a date function on it. So you don't have to quibble over, you know, kind of a four 30 date placement like you do on a lot of 50 fathoms. It's got those beautiful prominent push pieces, um, to register chronograph. I mean, this is a gorgeous piece and I feel like it's underrated. I feel like nobody really talks about air command. I think it's always 50 fathoms. So, That was my first one. I guess along the same line, it's, I wouldn't say it's my favorite watch, but I think it gets kind of unfair criticism or over oversight from people. And that is the black Bay chronograph from Tudor. I think it's, it's, it didn't strike me as my, as a, as a, a great watch. When it first was introduced, I thought it was kind of a weird mishmash of kind of styles. But since then, as I've seen more pictures of them, I've sort of warmed up to it. And I think, um, It's, it's just a different riff on, on what we all know and love about the black Bay. So, you know, I, as much as I'd love to see a new version of the heritage chrono, I think, you know, we're left with the black Bay chronograph for now. And, and I'm going to go with that one. And, uh, yeah, I don't know the Malore 72 from CWC is another one I came up with. I have one of them. That's this tiny little, you know, kind of take on the, on the British infantry watches that, that CWC made, um, with their little tiny old logo and, little hand-wound thing. So that's kind of a fun one. Everybody talks about their dive watches, but nobody really looks much at the Melore 72, which is kind of a cool one. But that's kind of where I end. I had a Railmaster 40mm from Omega, which I think is a good one. But yeah, that's kind of where I stand. I guess it's only four brands, but that's all I got for you today.
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, the other ones that leap to mind for me, I guess now discontinued to some extent, but the Rolex Milgauss has always kind of seemed... Yeah. If you're talking within the guise of Rolex, kind of underrated. Yeah. Especially if we're talking blue dial, the kind of more interesting colorways. I think every time I see those, I'm always pretty excited, even though all things considered, it's essentially a Datejust. Right. Which is, which is of course not a bad thing, but like that is a more common thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I think that the other one that really jumps to my mind, if you look at another huge brand like Omega, I'm always surprised that the X 33 doesn't have more, the first gen of the X 33, the sort of like Mars timer, you know, with it's crazy high alarm and the titanium case embrace it. Like I get that it's difficult to live in the shadow of the speedy pro, but this is just such an incredibly cool watch. Yeah. And I wouldn't even say that Omega is necessarily one of my favorite brands, but it's a watch that has always kind of stood out to me to a certain extent, which I think is pretty fun. I think if we're going Tudor, it's hard not to highlight the North Flag or the P01, the two kind of like oddball offerings of the last several years. Tudor is a favorite brand of mine. I have a watch that maybe is the underrated option in the Pelagos range in some ways, but it's still like a banner watch for the brand. I feel like the North flag and options like the PO1 are so weird that they fully, not unlike the X33, sit in the shadow of the larger models. The Ranger is not underrated or overrated, but with a few tweaks, it could be one of the major watch lines that they produce. I think there's just a huge appetite for something like Tudor's take on the Explorer. And I understand that's also to some extent outside of the fold, And then, like, let's go Zen. Let's wrap it up with Zen. I still think, after talking about it for a long time, owning one, I think the 144 is underrated. Yeah. You know, the brand gets a lot of attention for 857s, gets a lot of attention for, obviously, the U series. The 356 is an incredible watch. Really, really nice. 104, awesome. 105 in the more modern sense, but, like, just quietly in the background, you get a ton of features. You can get versions that are time-only in the 144, chronograph, GMT, really wearable, really adaptable to a lot of different risks, great on a strap, great on a bracelet, really solid watches. I think those would be my picks from some brands that I like very much. But like I said, that question could easily go for an episode.
Jason Heaton Totally. And I think your P01 choice is spot on. That to me is kind of like the poster child of underrated or under considered watches. For obvious reasons, it isn't definitely an oddball and I don't think Tudor ever expected it to be a banner banner choice, but yeah.
James Stacey I think it's also one of those things where like the timing and the way that the watch was launched made it tough. I think a lot of people thought that they were gonna get more like a Black Bay 54. Yeah, right. From some of the teasers and the stuff that came out that year. It was also one of these years where like because of the Black Bay, the attention on Tudor was through the roof. Yeah. And I think that people wanted core product, core Tudor product, not a weirdo. And I say weirdo with nothing but love. I love weird watches. Yeah. But I also like conventional down the middle watches too, like my Pelgos 39 or a Black Bay. Right. And I think that sometimes a watch comes out that's... It happens all the time with cars or go back to watches that are crazy popular now, like a Royal Oak. Those watches came out and took some time for people to understand. And I'm not saying like two, three, four, five years later, the PL1 is gonna pop like a Royal Oak. But I'm just saying, you know, sometimes things don't always fall into the right timing. Right. Right. That could be a part of it there. Yeah. Thanks very much for that question, Adam.
Jason Heaton Yeah. All right. Let's move on to one from Dave Payne. He says a pretty popular post theme on our most certainly watches channel in Slack is the five watch collection. Assuming the constraints of watches you currently own or have owned in the past, pick a five watch collection that you think would keep you satisfied for a reasonable length of time, say for 18 to 36 months, no rules on new or pre-owned, vintage, et cetera. So, you know, I think, you know, we've had kind of versions of this question over the years, you know, whether it's a one watch or three watch or five watch. But, you know, look, I mean, every time I revisit this question, I think I pick five different watches.
James Stacey So it's... But I guess in this case, the twist is that it's either watches we have owned or do own. Yeah. True enough. Yeah. Yeah. So it's almost like a focus, like try and focus your collection rather than like rethink it.
Jason Heaton Right. Right. Yeah, well, I've got five I picked, but why don't you go first? I've actually picked five that I still own that I would just kind of thin down to.
James Stacey Yeah, I could easily be very happy with five of the watches I have now, and he's got a timeline of, say, 18 to 36 months. I don't know. Obviously, cool things come up. I can't wait for my Arkin, for example, but I'm never not going to be a guy that's pretty jazzed about jumping into a new micro brand, but as far as stalwarts, things I could have and own and just keep wearing. It'd be for me, Pelagos 39, Explorer 2, two really easy ones, gives me a ton of options there. I think also, we were just talking 144, I had a 144 in the past and I'd probably bring the 144 back, that would give me my Zen, that would give me a chronograph, that would give me another GMT option, which is great. I'd have to have an Ana Digi. So you in the audience can take your pick, whether it's an Aqualand, which probably would be, something like the Kronosport or the, in this case, I have that Red Devil Breitling sort of oddball watch, or it could be something like E-50 6062 Aerospace.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey I would be happy to have that watch back. Also one from my past, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I guess that brings me to... Is that four?
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Uh, yeah. And then it would have to, I would have to have something from the micro brand space. So I think the ones that I constantly go back to are, I have a couple of Halleys. I have a Universa in the teal dial and I have a C fourth in the Vancouver spec, the Roald Dorf spec. And I think either one of those would be great. Um, and, and you know, that list could also go in 20 other directions when it comes to some of the smaller brands that I've had the, you know, good fortune of owning and kind of messing with for, for a long time.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. How about you? I mean, obviously the, the, the Pelagos FXD, which I'm wearing now in which I wear, let's face it, nine, nine days out of every 10. Um, it's just such a, such a fantastic, versatile piece that kind of suits my interests and lifestyle. Um, I think in terms of, I gotta have a vintage dive watch and it's going to be my, my Doxa sub 200 T graph, which, you know, now that I mentioned it, I haven't worn that in a while. I need to dig that out and wind it up, but such a fantastic piece, you know, vintage docs is so hard to beat. Like if you've handled one, like the new ones are great, but there's just something about a vintage one and they almost always have enough scars on them to show that they've been used for something interesting. Kind of staying on the vintage side of things. I'm still in kind of a love affair with, uh, or a honeymoon period with that, that Breitling Navitimer, the 1954 Navitimer. And I wore it again over the past couple of days on a bun strap and what, beautiful piece. I mean I absolutely have such a soft spot for the Navitimer and just such an icon and such a fun watch to wear. So that one my 40th birthday Submariner is going to be up there. I think you know to have a Rolex in the collection is kind of a maybe a predictable choice but one that you know I feel is kind of a necessity and that watch means a lot to me. And then I'm going, I'm going with one from your, your choices as well with analog digital and I got to have an Aqualand. I think it was kind of a watch that I learned of early on and I can't decide which one it would be. It'd probably just be, um, you know, I have one of the first generation kind of vintage ones from the eighties that, um, you know, I've had up to spec and taken diving and whatever. And they're just, they're just such cool watches and the functionality and the, just the look of them and everything. So I think that's, that's five. And I just think, be so happy with those five watches and a lot of it comes down to like what maybe what you know what mood you're in on a given week or even the season or what you've seen on people's wrists or on instagram or you know what's popping up on you know in the news maybe there's a new version of an aqualand or a new doxa and you're like oh yeah i'm kind of in a doxa mood these days so you know ask again in a month and i might have five or at least three of the five might be different or something.
James Stacey But yeah, I think, I think if, yeah, exactly. If I, if I did it again while looking at my watch box, I probably would have said my, my doxa, which, you know, I still get monthly wear out of, but I, it's, it's tough getting down to five. I mean, it's, it's probably the reason you and I don't have just five, right? Yeah. Is right. You know, haven't, haven't gotten there yet. So yeah. Yeah. Fun question, Dave. Thank you for that. All right. To close out this run of the slack crew and a, we've got one from Kai who says, what are some of your favorite albums from high school and do you still listen to slash revisit them or do they make you cringe now? Uh, this could be fun. Um, cause my, my musical taste was, uh, as I think for a lot of people really formed in high school and it totally wrapped around playing the guitar and being obsessed with the guitar where, uh, you know, I, I had certain maybe musical taste beforehand and then afterwards and it all kind of changed while I was in high school. But I'd, I'd be curious, Jason, for you, Oh man. Yeah. That's a good call.
Jason Heaton Um, yeah, mine is, this is going to be a version of like, you know, the oldies station, um, or at least, uh, eighties, eighties rock. You know, I'll be honest. The first album I ever bought and it was on vinyl. This is, this dates me certainly was, I went out and I bought, uh, And there are some great songs and yeah, I do indeed know every lyric for most of the songs on that album, but I remember it was, I felt slightly scandalous as like a young teenager buying that album because the album cover was like a woman in like lingerie putting, putting on lingerie, putting on a dress. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. a record on a turntable. It was like kind of this moody dark cover of the album. And I was like, yeah, this is, this, this makes me feel kind of adult and kind of, you know, kind of like I'm doing something I shouldn't be and whatever. Totally. And you know, even the title of the album, whatever. So yeah, that was my first record. But beyond that, I mean, some of them are bonafide classics. I think most people would agree. So by Peter Gabriel, just so many good songs on the album. you know, red rain and in your eyes and a lot of others. Um, such, I listened to that so many times, uh, the Joshua tree by you too. One of the great, great albums, uh, 1985, the dream of the blue turtles by sting was his first solo album and really informed a lot of my tastes and things. A lot of his lyrics kind of led me down some paths that, that I'm still on today and kind of got me jazzed up about jazz music. As a matter of fact, cause he did that album with a bunch of well-known jazz musicians. Kind of to follow that up, I think that actually led me into more of a journey into jazz music. And I think I've mentioned this on a past episode, one of my all time favorite albums that I bought back then and still listen to a lot now is a kind of blue by Miles Davis. And it's just such a, um, you know, one of the great jazz albums. And, you know, even if you don't know it by name or, or whatever, like I'm sure you've heard several of the songs from that album, cause it's often used in films or advertising or just played in the kind of smoky or well, not so smoky these days, but, uh, you know, nightclubs and coffee shops and things like that. So, yeah, those are the ones that, uh, take me right back to those days.
James Stacey That's great. It's it is, I have a real thing for going back and listening to music, but it has to be kind of in a certain manner. And I think the REO Speedwagon is so funny. That's a, that's such a, I would not necessarily have picked that. I didn't know if you're going to say like the payolas or something like kind of British late pop or like late wave pop sort of punk rock from Britain or something like that. But for me, I'm trying to think like if we go really far back, I'm trying to remember, first album I went to the store and bought all on my own was probably Home by a band called Seven Dust, which nobody talks about anymore, kind of in the same vein as like a POD, maybe Korn adjacent, just rock and roll, heavy rock, that sort of thing. Yeah. I had friends that were deeply into the Tea Party and Deftones and all that kind of stuff, and that got us into the guitar. But the earliest that I remember being genuinely flat out obsessed with a quote unquote modern record, because I grew up with... My parents had pretty locked in musical taste. We had Chicago, we had the Doobie Brothers, we had all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But for me, it was Sparkle and Fade by Everclear, 1995, so I was nine. I definitely didn't know this album when it came out. This would have been more like 12, 13, 14, so several years later, but I still go back and listen to Santa Monica. I just adore that song. I'm not super sure why, but it hits the right zone every time I hear it. And then otherwise, My teens, my high school era was really defined by like there was a time before I got into Pink Floyd, and there's a time after I got into Pink Floyd. And before, we can list a lot of bands that I don't go back and listen to that commonly. Sum 41, probably one of their biggest fans. Obviously, all the pop punk stuff. Anything that would have been on a Warped tour at the time, I was into. First song I ever downloaded illegally on the Internet was Bob by NoFX, which is gonna say something about my age. Still enjoy that song, but I'm not gonna sit down and listen to a NoFX album that commonly if it comes on, or if I catch it on an expanding playlist on Tidal or something, I'm pretty thrilled to hear it, Rancid, all that kind of stuff, lots of fun in there. And then my cousin, I was 16, it was the summer I was 16, my cousin, elder cousin gave me Dark Side of the Moon and said, like, this is gonna kind of change things for you. Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown And it did.
James Stacey Yeah. And obviously it's not it's not special for me to say, like, I still listen to that. I do. I know every note. I know every... I could play a bunch of it on the guitar at one point. I'm more of a wish you were here guy, 1975. Can't throw anything but love towards Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall. It's all great. Big Pink Floyd fan. The next wave, the wave that Pink Floyd kind of got me to was like appreciating I mean, the easiest way to describe it is like some slower, easier songs than punk and pop punk. And it was Coldplay. Oh, sure. The U2 of my generation. Really, this would be the easiest way to describe the difference between your age and my age, Jason. It's like you liked U2 and I liked Coldplay. And certainly, I would have been fourteen when Parachutes came out. I would have been sixteen when Rush of Blood to the Head came out, and I still go back and listen to those albums. Coldplay became a meme and that sort of thing, and really, for me, it's the first two albums. I didn't dislike X and Y, and then the band, I would say, flat out lost me at Viva La Vida. When Coldplay became, and this is me being a hipster or what people say about every band they love, when they became the kind of band that would play a Super Bowl, I wasn't really in anymore. Yeah. Maybe you're a little younger than me and you're rolling your eyes because you know Coldplay of the last 10 years. Go back and check out Parachutes. Go back and check out A Rush of Blood to the Head. They stand up. Really, really solid albums. And then I think, largely, if you needed to explain my musical taste now, it is that blend of garage pop punk stuff. And that, I would say, what I definitely still listen to from that world is The Vines. I think the greatest, most underrated band of all time. uh, the vines from Australia. And, uh, and I think if you take the vines and you take Coldplay and you take Pink Floyd and kind of blend it all together, you do kind of get like a pretty good scope on my taste in music.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I've got a couple of comments as you were talking. I, for one thing regarding Pink Floyd, I had to make a pilgrimage to Battersea power station when I was in London because it was obviously the cover art or used in the cover art for their record album, their album animals. Um, and it's just such an iconic place. Great album. Aside from that, I was curious, neither of us talked about, and maybe it was straddled or kind of between our high school ages, the era of grunge, Nirvana, Pearl Jam. I did like that stuff. Now, I guess I didn't mention it because it was kind of past my high school age, but you never got into that?
James Stacey I did. I mean, I grew up in a pretty like strict Christian household. So like the Kurt Cobain thing wasn't really understood or like you know, he was pretty controversial. Yeah, yeah. And obviously there's even just titles of some Nirvana songs that are problematic, let alone the song themselves. And look, it's art. I'm not putting ethics and art together, but I was probably just a little bit too young and in some ways a little bit too sheltered to have grunge. Like my dad wouldn't have been playing Pearl Jam in the garage, whereas I grew up with lots of guys whose dads went from you know, one minute it was hot for teacher and the next minute it was even flows. Like that's what was on the radio in their garage. Right.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. And what about the other band I was curious about that I got into way, way past kind of when they hit the scene and were popular radio head? I totally see you as a radio head fan, but are you way more as an adult?
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. I missed the radio head, the REM that generation of music. Um, the other one that's, um, a very close friend of mine is like a massive Smashing Pumpkins fan, and I know like two Smashing Pumpkins songs. Yeah. And it's just an age thing, probably in the similar way to grunge, right? Whereas by the time I had some freedom, I was going out buying my own albums. I had a Panasonic Shockwave CD player and like a 48 disc binder in the backpack that was supposed to have school work in it. Yeah, right, right. By that point, we were listening to but it kind of like not moved on, but those bands were big and I was probably on whatever, like the next wave for a 16 or 17 year old would have been right. Right. But now looking back, I mean, I just karma policeman creep. Yeah. Like those hits are hits for a reason. They're a reason that they're not going away. Yeah. Incredible bands for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey That's a fun question. That was a fun question to close out on. Yeah, for sure. All right. Thank you so much for that one, Kai. And that's going to close out round two of 2024 Slack Q&A. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. I have a full list of the questions. We didn't forget anything. We're just going in the order that they were submitted on Slack. So I hope people enjoyed that chat. And I say we close it out with some final notes.
Jason Heaton All right. Yeah. Good idea. You have two this week. So why don't you jump in? Go first.
James Stacey I do. Yeah. My first one is a shout out to a member of the Slack community, Michael Harris. who partnered with or helped partner and create a project between Notice Watches, which we talked about at the top with the Trail Trekker, and the Pen Addict, which is a blog and podcast all about pen fascination. I think a lot of us can understand the need for such sort of content in our lives. They worked together and created a 38 millimeter version of the Notice Sector Diver, which is the Pen Addict edition. It's got like an orange and gray color scheme, uh which is a reference to the members have like a poker chip for the pen addict is my understanding from what i've read and this one is also features a countdown bezel it's 475 dollars 50 of each one goes to st jude's children's hospital it'll be a link in the show notes so check that out but i did want to put a shout out there as michael asked for a little bit of a mention on the show and i took a look at the watch it's a great looking watch especially if you like orange And a big congrats to Michael and Pen Addict for getting that off the ground with notice. And also for, you know, bending it a little bit towards charity. I mean, there's not a ton of margin in a $475 watch. So 50 bucks a watch is pretty solid.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Good one. All right. A quick one. What have you got? Well, this one is probably isn't coming as news to many of our listeners or the Slack crew, et cetera. Took the Slack by storm for sure. Oh, it sure did. Yeah. Good buddy, local friend, Matt Ludvigsen. who helped us kind of redesign our TGN logo for what it is now, as well as I've worked with him on a number of other projects. He was featured on Teddy Baldassare's YouTube channel in about a 25-minute video called The Watches of a Graphic Designer. So good to see Matt making the trip to Cleveland and sitting down with Teddy to open up his watch roll and show a few of his favorite pieces. Matt has impeccable taste when it comes to watches. He's just an all-around good guy. and uh and some of his choices well all of his choices were were great i've seen i've seen all of those watches in the metal and uh they don't disappoint and uh his chat with with teddy was uh was just so fun to see yeah so congrats to matt well deserved uh on the attention there and if you're not following matt you've got to hit him up on on instagram because he's uh he's a pretty good photographer as well and just an all-around good guy so check it out absolutely
James Stacey Yeah, great video and solid work by Teddy and his team, of course, as always. But yeah, like you said, just a super treat to see Matt kind of profiled and some great watches as always. Shout out for that for sure. My second, I don't commonly have two, but I wanted to throw this in there as I got one for my birthday last week. It is a little glass dish from a woman named Morgan Gilbreth. I found these on Instagram. On Instagram, Morgan's account is Morgan GILB, G-I-L-B, all one word. And she's an artist and she works primarily with glass based in Richmond, VA and makes quite a wide range of things, has a shop online. But I came across these on Instagram and basically they're these, the exact thing that I got is called a salt cellar. So it's a small cut piece of like a frosted glass that has a smoothed out dish, presumably to keep your salt I'm not going to do that. I've got spring bars in it currently. It's perfect for that. It looks awesome on my desk. I really genuinely love stuff like this. And it was a great gift from my wife. And I thought I'd throw a shout out in there. They're about 70 bucks. They come in like 20, 30 different colors, different texts, different sizes. They've got doubles and singles. I can't imagine this will be the last one I own, but it is the first. So I wanted to put a shout out in there to Morgan Gilbreth, and that's morgangilbreth.com. We paid for it. It's not an ad in any way, just a shout out. Really like the product, have no direct connection with Morgan aside from buying one. And a special thank you to Sarah, my wife, for hooking me up with one. I absolutely love it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's a cool one. I love, I love these unique crafts that people do that, you know, you just don't think about or you don't, you don't realize until somebody points it out. And so that's exactly why we do final notes and that's really cool. And spring bars, I mean, That's the perfect use for it. You gotta have a dish for your spring bars. And I don't and you just, it occurred to me, I need something like that. I probably should just pull a little, you know, I think I stole an ashtray from a, well, here we go back to life of crime discussions here. I think I stole an ashtray from a French hotel way back in the, in the day. I probably should pull that out and use it for something like spring bars.
James Stacey But yeah, good call. Yeah. Sometimes stealing stuff is fun. What do you know? Low stakes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We do not endorse the life of crime on TGN, though. No, no, we don't endorse getting caught. Come on. It's funny, for a long time, my desktop like spring bar catch-all for little bits, screws, things like that, was actually like the radiator cover of a vintage amp that I bought at a garage sale. It was like a six-year-old and took apart in my bedroom. I was thinking about this just the other day, because I look at vintage audio equipment with some frequency online, I was like, man, I wonder if that was something special, and I just tore it apart. And all I have that's left of it is a little metal, essentially like a little metal grate. Oh, sure. With the corners turned up, it makes like a little rectangular dish. Yeah, yeah. And I still have it. It's sitting directly behind me. I don't know why it's managed to stay with me for 30 years, but it has. I am that type of guy who needs a few things in his life that just maintain tiny items from being lost. Yes, yeah, yeah. Which these salt cellars are good for, so be sure to check that out. Yeah, and hey, I guess that's an episode.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions this week or actually it wasn't this week It was quite a while ago, but it's a quite some time Yeah, we had a we had a fun fun group and we've got another fun list of questions to come up on our next one Which will be in another few weeks, but until then thanks so much for listening Yep and if you want to subscribe to the show notes get into the comments for each episode you have Discussions about which one of our things was a lie and which one was a truth
James Stacey or consider supporting the show directly and maybe even get a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazz Hour via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Yogi Berra who said, always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. Yogi's always good for a good quote.
James Stacey He sure is. I'm not sure half of these he actually said, but I like every single one.