The Grey NATO – 300!

Published on Thu, 19 Sep 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In this 300th episode of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts James Stacey and Jason Heaton reflect on the show's history and evolution over the past 8 years. They express gratitude to their listeners and discuss memorable guests, favorite episodes, and how the show has grown to include a strong community on Slack. The hosts talk about challenges they've faced, changes in format, and their hopes for the future of the podcast. They emphasize their commitment to staying true to their core interests while being open to organic growth and listener feedback. The episode concludes with their usual "final notes" segment, where they recommend niche products related to diving and bag customization.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode, that's right, 300. And it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you so much for your continued support. If you're listening and not a supporter of the show, but you're curious, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacy. I'm joined as ever for more than 300 episodes by my co-host Jason Heaton. Jason, we made it to 300, man.
Jason Heaton Here we are. Yeah, man, it's been, uh, it's been a long and strange journey and we, and we made it already. Yeah, that's great.
James Stacey It really has been an experience in just generally unexpected outcomes. Uh, you know, I don't think certainly in 2016, we didn't start a podcast thinking it would really do anything. Uh, I think we just kind of thought it would be fun. And at the time we were spending a fair amount of time just conversing and it, and it made sense to kind of lean that in. I think if you'd asked me at the time, like, you know, what do you think of this Heaton guy? Yeah, I like him a lot. He's cool. I don't, I don't know that we could talk for 400 plus hours.
Jason Heaton You put it that way. That's yeah. Seriously. What, what new things could you possibly have?
James Stacey How have we not run all this? But yeah, so look, I mean, we kicked around some ideas for episode 300 and, and finally we, we did kind of land on, on the, a similar tone to 200, which is largely grateful. Uh, very just thankful for the audience, but we're not, this isn't some major production. Uh, I briefly flirted with the idea of a clip show and then got so stressed at the idea of how to coordinate all of that. Um, while also managing everything else we do. Uh, so we're going to do a little bit of reminiscing, uh, a little bit of kind of superlatives that we've come through, maybe a little bit of oral history of the show and that sort of thing, but it's not going to be some major extravaganza. We're very proud to have made it to 300. But honestly, Jason, like this can sound kind of trite or, you know, needlessly wishy washy, but we only got to 300 because of the folks who are listening. Oh, yeah. So true. Yeah. I don't I don't think that we have to sit here and necessarily pat ourselves on the back for making, you know, an hour of audio every week for a while. But I'm proud to have made it to 300. I'm super proud that by 300, we have the sort of community around the show that we have now in the slack. And, you know, the show went through a lot of phases and we'll get into all that kind of stuff. But you've got the Toronto Timepiece Show. We have a in-person live episode taping. I'm not sure what the format of that is yet, but it's going to be exciting and fun at 4.30 to 5.30 on Saturday. We have an event Saturday evening with Marathon Watches that many of you have RSVP'd for. We are very full for that. So thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to seeing everybody who shows up. And then, Jason, if you don't mind, I'll buzz right through our excellent Citizen TGN discount. So if you're considering a new Promaster from the Dive Collection and you're buying through the Citizen US website, don't forget to use the code GREYNATO, G-R-E-Y-N-A-T-O, for an extra 10% off. That runs till the end of the year. So a big thank you to Citizen for making that possible and for helping to support the show. All right. How's that? I think that gets us into it. So I was in, I haven't done a ton, certainly not. I've not done anywhere near as much as you have since we recorded the last episode. I went to, like I worked a bunch, I went to New York for a day to do this live event with Jaeger LeCoultre, which was super fun. And we had a really good time there. Saw a few folks from the Slack. Shout out to all you guys for coming out and holding me down and, you know, chit chatting afterwards. Uh, but yeah, it was like a whirlwind, you know, not quite 24 hours in the city. And, uh, and yeah, I'm going, I'll go back down for more like 10 hours, uh, next week. So it's a, it's a busy sort of scenario these days, but certainly my trip to New York to look at, uh, you know, some fine washes with JLC pretty different from your most recent trip.
Jason Heaton Right. I would say, yeah. And I, I, as you're, as you're saying this, I was, I was thinking, you know, through all these episodes, we've always had to kind of thread the needle of our travel schedules and we've pretty good about like keeping to this Tuesday morning thing. And certainly we've had many weeks where we've had to record two episodes because one of us is gone or do something remotely or have a guest fill in or something. But it's, it's always fun to, to kind of loop back on a Tuesday and find out what we've been up to over the weeks. And some weeks have been dull and some weeks have been exciting and we've been all over the world and Um, yeah, this was one of the weeks when I, I had just a blast. I was, I was out on the boat again in the channel islands with Oceana last week. You know, much like the trip that I did with them in late April, early May, we were, we were living on the peace boat. We were out, um, sailing around the channel islands off the coast of California. Um, it was, it was me and a bunch of scientists and kind of media folks from, from Oceana, you know, getting a lot of photos and. and just diving among the kelp beds out there. And it was, it was an absolute blast. I think for me, this trip was, was more rewarding than the first one because I, I knew everybody on board was very comfortable with them. Knew the, knew the boat, you know, knew, knew the scene and kind of the routines and, and, and then the diving conditions were, were just better. The water was a lot warmer, 10 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer, bluer, um, just less, uh, I guess less nutrients in the water. Last time around it was pretty green. So we had good visibility and, uh, Yeah. This time around we saw some sharks, we saw some rays, we saw crabs and lots of seals and dolphins and someone saw a Mola Mola while they were snorkeling. One of those big ocean sunfish they call them. I mean, I would love to see a Mola Mola. Yeah. I didn't see it. I saw it from the surface. I was on deck and, and, and we could see kind of a fin flapping around and, uh, and everybody was like, is that a shark? Is it a sea lion? And then somebody like the boat kind of maneuvered and And you could see that it was a Mola Mola. And then later, some of the folks that were just snorkeling actually were able to kind of snorkel right above it, which was pretty wild.
James Stacey Yeah, they don't look real at all. If you don't know a Mola Mola, or like Jason said, like an ocean sunfish is what they're also called sometimes. I'll put it in the show notes. They don't look real. They're the size of a car often. And they look like a Pokemon, you know, like a late evolution Pokemon. They're just really insane looking. But one of my absolute favorites, I just think they look totally out of this world. What a cool thing to be in the water with. I'm pumped because, as I intimated in a previous episode, you shot some of this for an upcoming issue of Hood Inky magazine, and so I'm obviously very excited to see the photos. But I gotta say, the stuff that you've posted online so far, you're making that new lens and everything else work for you. There's a coupling incredible photos in there. The one of the one that looked like you were leaving a cave. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Almost looked like it was shot on like old Provia or something like that.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I think my ISO got pretty pumped up on that one. You could see a lot of grain, but I think it kind of adds to the spookiness.
James Stacey Oh, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's that incredible shot of a diver with pink fins and profile. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton The colors, man. Yeah, I know. I know. That was the best. That particular photo came from a dive we did where I mean the visibility was like Caribbean visibility. It was, it was so far water there. We just descended down through this kelp forest and it was, it was, it was like coming, coming down into the canopy of a, of a jungle. It was, uh, it was pretty wild. It was, it was great. It was, it was a wonderful time. And, and of course this, uh, this expedition as well as the last one were underwritten by Blancpain who, who's got a nice partnership with Oceana. So we had some cool watches on board. I had my, my 50th birthday gift to the, the, the Hodinkee edition bathyscaphe. I had that along. I had my titanium 50 fathoms and then, and then Blancpain provided a steel 50 fathoms. And so I was, I was strapping all these watches on various people during the course of the week to try to get photos of them, to, you know, keep the sponsors happy and get some cool, you know, underwater watch shots and that sort of thing. So I think it, I think it turned out well and yeah, I'm excited to kind of share more about it in, uh, in my story for Hodinkee, which I, I'll get cranked up here in the next couple of weeks. So. Absolutely good. Yeah. And the new lens was great. Yeah, you're right. It was, um, it was well worth the, the sizable outlay of, of cash for that. I think it really kind of changed the whole scene for me with, with the Nikon, with the Z seven, which just, you know, the file sizes are massive, which means you can get a lot of detail in the photos.
James Stacey So, yeah. And look, I mean, if you're not wanting to wait for the issue of hood Inky magazine, which is out, I think towards the end of the year, you can certainly swing by Jason's sub stack. That's swim proof. P R U F is how that's spelled. .substack.com for Channel Islands Dispatch Volume 2. Really great story from there with some of these great photos as well. So you can get your fix on that and then wait for the magazine, I suppose.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It was a good week and nice to have a bit of a decompression, so to speak. Pardon the pun, between this and my Toronto trip, which I'm excited about. It'll be a very different sort of travel, but I'm excited to see you. It's kind of fitting that we're doing episode 300 just before a meetup in person in your home city. And I haven't been to Toronto in many years, so it's going to be a good time.
James Stacey Yeah, we we've actually been lucky enough to see each other quite a few times. Well, more than normal, if you consider, you know, it's absolute 300. We're considering the the kind of history of the show. Yeah, I think there was a time where we would see each other about once a year.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. And then especially the pandemic years. I mean, nobody was traveling.
James Stacey Well, for sure. Yeah. And we can get into that because we changed format during the pandemic years and all that kind of stuff. You came out to Vancouver once when I was there. I still haven't been out to your spot in Minneapolis, which we need to make right at some point. But the Toronto Timepiece Show seemed like a great opportunity to get you up here. Like I've mentioned over the past little while, we also have a handful of friends that are going to be in town between Mike Pearson and Jason Gallop and Julie Crowless and Wesley Smith. It's just going to be a ton of people to hang out with and have a good time. Yeah. Uh, but look, let's get into a quick risk check and then we can, we can kick off the, the sort of, uh, naval gazing for 300.
Jason Heaton Yeah. A wholly uncomfortable activity for us. We're not used to kind of turning the, we can, we can do it every hundred episodes.
James Stacey It'll be okay. Yeah, exactly.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. It looks like risk check. We're both, we're both going with Canadian watch brands. I think that's very fitting. Um, for this week and for next week. And I think, I think what I'm wearing will probably stay on my wrist, uh, right through next weekend. I've got the, the marathon, uh, jumbo day date automatic, this monster of a 46 millimeter steel ingot on my wrist. Um, I think it's like 18 millimeters tall, beautiful bezel here. Let's do a little ASMR. All right, let's hear it. I mean, best bezel in the business. Just, just so great. Yeah, I wore my, you know, couple of Blancpain's all last week. So I was kind of used to, to a bigger watch, especially with the 45 millimeter titanium. But, um, yeah, since I got home, I I've been, if I'm not wearing my Garmin, uh, I've been wearing this around and it's, it's just such a satisfying, fun watch to wear and it's Canadian. So got to be on my wrist, especially for next weekend.
James Stacey For sure. Yeah. I'll definitely be sporting my SS NavD for the weekend in, uh, in Toronto for the time piece show. But, uh, for today I'm actually wearing, something from, we'll call it the other side of Canada, a brand based on the West Coast. Actually, I used to share a back alley with their office when I lived in Vancouver on West 8th.
Unknown Oh, wow.
James Stacey And so this is the Momentum UDT Reborn. Tom Place is calling it the new DT, which I like quite a bit. Oh, that's good. Shout out Tom for that one, which is perfect. And I think the official name of this is the UDT 42mm Black Ion, aka, it's called different things on different pages on their website, aka it's also known as the Solar Eclipse UDT or Eclipse Solar UDT. So this is kind of a 42mm steel recreation of the original Chronosport UDTs. More specifically, it's a bit of a blend between the first and second sort of versions of the UDT. if you will, and I think it kind of borrows from each while still making it almost like being a third version. It's really not that close to either of the originals. I have a Breitling Pluton version, which is their version of a UDT, and it is quite different than that, but it's 42 millimeters. It's 200 meters of water resistance. It has a solar powered movement with a fairly large screen at the kind of six o'clock segment, so the bottom uh, kind of spans between eight and four in the markers, nice, bright screen. It's a, uh, a positive LCD screen. So very easy to read. These are retailing for $370. I'm not super sure how they do that to be clear for 370 bucks with a strap with a, you know, it comes in a basic box, you know, that's only a little bit more than you'd spend on a sort of feature full timex. And, and I think that there's just a lot here. I don't think it feels like you know, this isn't something where you're gonna go, oh, this is nicer than an aerospace, right, at several thousands of dollars. But I don't think you'd necessarily be unimpressed at 370 bucks. Bezel's quite nice. It's a big, wide bezel. I can give you the sound here. Very clicky is how I'd describe it. It's a 120 click, unidirectional, It has a luminous pip, but the bezel is otherwise unloomed. The dial is actually very well loomed as far as the main markers go. Big hands. And then, like I said, you have the screen. All three pushers are screw in, screw out. So I'm gonna leave them screwed out because I find screwed pushers to be pretty much a pain. But I guess you could just quickly screw them in if you're gonna go deeper than 50 meters. They have... Momentum has said that the watches are tested to 50 with the pushers open and then 200 with the screwed pushers closed. And then the main functions are controlled just by pressing the central crown, the normal time setting crown on a traditional watch. And that takes you through a digital readout of the time, which is synced to the minute hand, which is quite nice. You don't necessarily have to always be doing that yourself. A second time zone, which is very easy to set. And then an alarm feature. And it can also do like an hourly chime if that's your jam. And then a standard kind of chronograph function. In many ways, I think it operates in a fashion quite similar to my 20 plus year old Aerospace when I had it, the 56062. And I think that's kind of remarkable because you have to spend the better part of two grand for something like that right now. And I think in many ways, the competition for this watch would almost have to be something like the Aqualand or one of the brand new Promaster anti-digi watches that have only just released. I actually just got mine in the mail a couple of days ago, so we can talk about those on a future episode. Within those setups, it's actually quite a simple watch when you have it in person. It doesn't do Bluetooth, it doesn't have a step counter. There's really nothing to set once you've set the time and a second time zone. The rest, it just becomes kind of a nice, easy wearing watch. I would say at 42 millimeters, it wears every single millimeter of that. And it could be that I've just spent the last several weeks wearing a small doxa that wears even smaller than it's 39 millimeter sizing would suggest, the sub 200 just disappears on wrist. This feels so much bigger than the 200. And in many ways, and it doesn't really make sense unless you've tried the Aqualand on, I think it wears kind of similar to the Aqualand. Like it's not big, visually it's quite big, but on your wrist it just kind of works, it's comfortable. Going into the future, maybe making suggestions for future ones, I would love a steel case option, like one without the black coating. I think that would look great. Not a big deal in black. It's actually quite nice and makes it wear a little smaller or at least perceive a little smaller on wrist. I think a backlight for the screen would be a big addition. Yeah. Even if it was one that required another button. So you had like almost like an Indiglo, like a backlight button rather than one that came on every time you pressed a button. I'd be fine with either. I do understand that. there's a battery context to the solar to the rest of it. But I do think a backlight could be really nice to have, even if it was one of those ones where it's like an led on one of the sides, it doesn't have to be like a G shock or or a time X, but and that, and then I'd say like the pushers feel inexpensive is probably the most simple way to put it. They're a little vague. You're not always sure that you've pushed hard enough for it to actuate. And especially with the lower pusher, the one at four o'clock on the case, roughly, That one, you're constantly pressing and holding it to reset a chronograph to start a time, like a setting mode. And it's, like I said, a little vague where sometimes you're pressing and holding and you're just not sure if it ever actually accepted the press, if that's like you actuated it. But other than that, I really don't have any problems with it. I've really enjoyed wearing it. I really like the way it looks. I think it works best on a lighter color strap that kind of picks up some of the coloring from the loom or the hands. where you get a little... It's a little bit less severe than on the black rubber that it comes with, or even I have it on a gray NATO currently. And I think on a tan NATO or something like that, you get something a little bit more... Yeah, tan would be good. Yeah, I think tan's probably the ideal. But yeah, all in all, I would say a big shout out to Momentum for making this happen. This is something that a weird cult of people, myself included, have been asking for, which is more anti-digi watches, especially ones like these that are fairly unobtrusive, fairly simple to use. Look, all of these are more complicated to set than a traditional watch or even a Timex, right? You've got to do some tap dancing on the buttons to really get everything going, but it wasn't difficult. I didn't have to refer to a manual. So if you're in the world of enjoying these sorts of watches, I think you'd pick it up fairly quickly. And I'm excited to see what they do with it in the future in terms of maybe other case and dial colors, that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton That's pretty cool that analog digital watches are kind of having a bit of a renaissance now. And it's such a weird sort of anachronistic thing, but maybe it's, um, you know, maybe it's a bit of a backlash against, you know, Apple watches or, or, you know, feature laden garments and things like that to kind of go back or, you know, maybe it's just a bit of nostalgia for, for those watches of the eighties and nineties. And, um, you know, of course, Casio has been doing it forever, but like we've seen a resurgence in kind of Aqua lands and of course the new citizen land pro master that you said you just got in and this one and you know, the aerospace continues to develop. And it's like, yeah, this is like, this is fun stuff. I love to kind of sit back and watch this stuff come out, especially something like this UDT, which admittedly like, okay, I got mine in the mail yesterday, opened it up, looked at it, sold it immediately. So there's a guy on Slack who's getting it. I'm going to ship it off today. Nothing terribly against the watch. I think for me it was kind of a, when it first came out, I was so jazzed about that. The fact that momentum was re-releasing this, cause you know, Kronos sports at one of those, cult brands that, you know, when they did that, for sure. The, um, the C quartz, kind of the Magnum PI watch. Like I jumped on that, this one, I was watching the launch event. Like a lot of other people were, you know, clicked by immediately impulse by wanted it and then months go by and then it arrives and it's like, you know, I'm sure this has happened to all of us that are listening. It's between the time of purchase and the time it arrives, you start to think like you just move on, you know, you move on to other things, other interests, you know, life happens. Maybe you get a different watch that kind of steals your heart, et cetera. And when it came, I was like, yeah, okay. It's, it's kind of cool. It's not close enough to the original that I was so super excited about it. And I thought before I even take the plastic off, I'm just going to kind of take some photos and flip it. So I did. Um, but regardless, I think it's, it's just neat to see. This is so deeply enthusiast, you know, when we talk about, you know, some of the watches and this is, this is about as deep as it gets and just neat that they released that. That's a, that's really cool.
James Stacey I agree. Yeah, I'm pretty impressed by it. It definitely didn't hit me wrong when I pulled out of the box. I've been very excited about it. I think in my mind, if we're like again, if we're going to pick at knits or whatever, maybe the hands could have been something more directly derived from the original. I think that the polished they went with hands that have like a polished frame around them, a polished steel accent edge, and I think that kind of stands out. Yeah, especially right when you open the box, I will say after four or five, six days of wearing this around, the legibility is awesome. So I really I've stopped even noticing that maybe the hands feel like they came from a different watch or were made for a different watch. But yeah, I mean, for me, that's that's getting quite picky. And I think, you know, I've owned an aerospace I have in a door in Aqualand and I have the Pluton as well. So I have a fair experience with these sorts of things. And I think this slots right in kind of sensibly as a step under the Aqualand and considerably down from something like the Pluton, which even then I think I spent five, 600 bucks on the Pluton, which is a good deal to be fair, but it doesn't say Breitling on it. You have to open it up to even confirm that it is a real Pluton and that sort of thing, but kind of a weird watch. And I enjoy a weird watch, of course, but... Yeah, not perfect, but one that I'm definitely enjoying. And I just like that they went to the extent of sourcing this kind of, I believe it's a Seiko-sourced movement, like an Epson-sourced movement. And I like the way that it came together and I'm excited to see what they're able to put the movement in the future, right? Other sort of expressions of the same idea.
Jason Heaton Cool. Well, there we go. A couple of Canadians on the wrist here. Yeah. And I guess let's dive in. I keep thinking, In my head, you know, when I'm thinking about episode 300, I'm picturing the, like the movie poster for that, that movie 300 with Gerard Butler, picturing, you know, prepare for glory.
James Stacey I mean, you and I are that fit. So I understand, I understand like thinking about that. Oh, we are. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we've, we've been pumped up for this. I've been in the gym. Just getting the full Mark Twight treatment, uh, for, for anybody who went really deep on 300 back in the day. Um, but yeah, so I look 300 episodes. remarkable thing. I think that the place where we really want to start is just with a really simple, heartfelt, totally sincere message of thank you to everybody who's listened. But it's not even just listening. I think that's... You enjoy podcasts, so listening is the entertainment. It's all the other stuff. It's the emails. It's sending in questions for the Q&As. It's buying the merch when it comes out. It's being okay when we take random breaks. We can get into this in the history of the show, but there was a time when TGN almost stopped. and we found a solution to keep it going. It's nice when you're starting these things to see a number. Oh, 500 people listened. Oh, we hit our first thousand. Oh, whatever, that sort of thing. It's a whole different thing when you're several years in. We're eight years in, eight and a half years in on this. And I don't worry about those numbers at all. I barely ever check them because we make a show for community and we know immediately if you folks enjoyed the show or would like something changed if we ever address that something similar in the future, like we get great feedback and we have like we've been able to get into a position. I would say like part mostly by luck maybe or at least by a happenstance that I haven't fully framed out in my mind. But we went from kind of make, I guess making a show to, to making something that, that got a little bit wider and broader. And now any city I go to, you can find some friends. Yeah. And if you want to sell a watch or buy a watch, we've got that. If you want to talk about a topic, and it doesn't have to be watches, it doesn't even have to be the five or six superlatives that we list at the top of the show. It can be vintage Game Boy emulation for a reason. And now I have people to talk to about that and to learn from and all that. For me, there's no way I could have predicted where this went. you know, in my mind, I had always hoped that the show would get big enough that it could be the full time gig. And then I was just, you know, we could make the show and we haven't gotten there yet. But I can't say I'm disappointed by the evolution of the show's taken. There's more depth to it than I ever. And again, not the weekly episode, but the experience of like the great NATO at large with the slack and and the email and the hangouts and all these sorts of things. So I guess I'm rambling because I don't really know where I was going with this. I'm just super thankful that this is what it is and that I have something that's just yours and mine. Nobody else can interfere with it. We've actually been able to protect the show from interference several times over the course of the show's lifespan. And yeah, I'm just deeply thankful to have this in my life, to have the creative outlet, to have something I can do just based on my gut and your gut. And while being able to stick to all those things which aren't always successful, gut moves, that sort of thing. We still have friends that want to support us and people who want to come on the show and lots to talk about and that kind of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I, I think, you know, the ultimate satisfaction for, for, for a lot of people that, that start a small company or, or any venture is that moment when you can sort of almost step back or, or stand in the corner, invisible to the rest and watch the whole scene take shape. Um, as I do often with, with the slack community. And I see people organizing meetups and buying and selling stuff among themselves and helping each other out, giving advice about whether it's diving or the health and fitness stuff, or, you know, just sharing their passions. Like that, that's something that, you know, we may be put in motion back in 2016, but yeah, we, we, you wouldn't know where that rock was rolling though. No. And, and organic growth is something really special. And you know, I've over the years, I've been a part of a lot of different, companies and have watched them grow. And oftentimes what happens is they grow in the wrong way. And, you know, we certainly could have taken, I don't know if you'd call it a get rich quick scheme, but like if we decided like, we're going to focus on numbers and then raise, use that to raise advertising revenue so we can, you know, get rich off this. And it's like, no, um, when we've made some decisions along the way to, um, not do advertising and, and kind of focus more on growing it via subscriber base and just let it kind of take shape. you know, we, we may not have the biggest audience in the world, but like we have the most loyal, friendly, helpful, um, faithful audience. And that is absolutely priceless. It beats anything that I could possibly have imagined for this show. So it's been, yeah, I'm, I'm very thankful as well.
James Stacey And like, as an extension of what you said, there's something I've experienced, I get to experience it a couple of times a year now, I would like to experience it more, but there's something really insanely cool. personally deep in my heart to do one of the hangouts that we do and just see everybody having fun, laughing, taking their shots, making new friends. People are bringing stuff for each other. They've got trades, they've got Ziploc bags of straps that are trying to find homes. All that stuff I find so deeply heartwarming and especially in an industry that I find the watches to be deeply impersonal. It's mostly about what you could do for somebody else or what they can do for you and I'm not saying I'm above that, I'm just saying that's not the way that we operate, like you and I. It's much more like what would be fun, what would be cool, what would we wanna listen to, who would we wanna talk to, what's on our mind at the time. And being able to take all of that and package it into something, and at the same time, in relatively not that much time. Obviously, it's been eight years, but I think that we found an audience pretty quickly. Largely, I would say, if we wanna go back to the start, would be Ben writing a story for Hodinkee. I think we were only two episodes in, maybe only one. Yeah. And Ben wrote a story for Houdinki just saying like, look, these guys, these guys I know, and Jason, you'd written for the site have started this podcast. That's like for, I don't remember the term real watch guys, normal guys, something like that, all true or whatever. Um, I'm not sure what a real watch guy is. I might've made that up, but, um, like, I think we skipped a year or more of like telling people about the podcast and mentioning it and trying to, to just like have that to start out the gate with a, hey, audience of, you know, at the time, probably more than a million people were going to hood in key in a month. Yeah. And yeah, I just, I, I think that that gave us a certain amount of momentum that I'm not sure we could have bought or negotiated or created without, uh, without the help. So, I mean, it's, it will always be true that you get by with a little help from your friends, but yeah, in this case we were able to, able to grow quite quickly to, to the point where the show kind of reached a mass and then we were just able to, kind of play with that and see what it was. And I know that we've made a decent episode when we get a handful of subscriptions. Yeah, in the in the resulting week, you know, the show's gone through a bunch of different phases, I would say, certainly a big phase of when I left when I left Vancouver for Toronto, you know, which was a difficult time in my life, but one that the show was there and a nice outlet for some creativity and that sort of thing. And I guess not long after that time, we'd kind of hit a point where we weren't sure if we wanted to keep doing it. Yeah, you know, we we tried to do a little bit of ads. I wanted we wanted to make enough money that you could at least say like, Well, this is worth however many hours a week, at least tangentially. And at the time, Jason, you were doing you were doing a different sort of work than you were doing now. And we're just kind of We never really butt heads. I don't think we've had one argument in eight years. Yeah. I mean, I think we're both naturally pretty non confrontational, so I probably wouldn't even if I had a bone to pick, but I don't think I've had any bones to pick in several years. And I also think the division of labor has largely worked out, where I'll produce the show and that kind of stuff, which is a chunk of work, but then on the other side, you're managing a lot of how the... I guess the business side of it works, which we're not naturally great at.
Jason Heaton I think a real turning point for the show was when we, when we went from, and we can get into this now, but like when we went from every other week to weekly and that, that sort of co coincided with, you know, the big, the big moment in news and people's lives over the past decade, which is the pandemic, you know, like we, we moved to what we call the isolation tapes and, and we both just felt like this is a time when, and you know, not to, not to self aggrandize here, but like, you know, people, people need, that sort of sense of community more now than ever, as everybody's starting to work from home and feeling more isolated.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Like what can we do? And this was our outlet. This is our way to help. And so then we moved to weekly, which was a, which was a big move. Cause it is a lot of extra work, especially on your side, doing the production every week in addition to your, your other jobs. And, but I'm so glad we did. It's, it's made it all worthwhile. And I think in terms of the health of the show, our audience size and kind of listener loyalty, people still talk about that time.
James Stacey You and I were both looking for a solution as to either how to easily kind of just unravel the show, let it, let it fade away. Nobody was paying for it at the time. We didn't have all those issues. And when the pandemic kind of kicked off, I realized there might've been an ability knowing that who dinky would want more content and that we now technically had more time. I was traveling a ton before the pain. I don't even remember. It was so much.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. I thought I traveled a fair amount this year. I still don't have status for next year. And I used to have status by like April. Yeah. We were able to come to a deal with Hodinkee where we would also post the show to Hodinkee as part of these isolation tapes. It'd be weekly, so we had to double it up, but we were gonna make some money. We're gonna share the ad revenue with Hodinkee. We did the isolation tapes from episode 103 to 114. Oh, okay. So it really wasn't super long. Yeah, okay. But they were great episodes, and they really expanded what we felt it was an opportunity to expand what we were talking about. So we've got an episode there on like how to work from home really well. Oh, yeah. Because you and I had done it for so long to begin with. Yeah. And all this sort of stuff. And yeah, the audience grew quite a bit during that time, I think, because there was just an appetite. There's so much more hunger for content than there is now or there was in 2019. Like people just had more time and felt a lack of connection. So there was some value there. And we did that for a while. And the honest truth is, and I mean absolutely no shade at my current employer, but it was just kind of difficult to administrate the invoices and the timing and which ads went where. And it was just kind of inelegant. And for you and I, I think the goal has always been to minimize complexity, especially when it comes to TGN. If you keep it simple, you can keep on a strategy. And this was so complicated. and there were too many people involved and all this kind of stuff. So we just shut that down. And yep, we took a hit. That was money that we could have used. But by that point, we had a little bit of a new steam going. It's kind of like the second wave of growth for the show through the pandemic. And then we come to the major crisis, which was a long scale, prolonged outage of SoundCloud, which is where we used to host the show. You know, this is where you and I would have different perspectives, because you weren't managing, posting, developing, putting the show online, that sort of thing. But I'm sure you were managing about 400 text messages a minute from me when SoundCloud stopped working. Yeah. And that you couldn't get an update, we couldn't publish episodes, nothing was going online correctly, nothing was getting to Apple correctly. And at that point, we were just on the edge of thinking about moving to a paid platform, and all these things. So I felt really like we could blow everything if the show doesn't go live, like people won't come back. And of course, that wasn't true. And we ended up making the jump to Buzzsprout. And then shortly thereafter, we were able to wrap up in with a sub stack and start to actually support the show directly from the audience, which I'll be honest, we should have been doing since twenty sixteen. Yeah, I it's so much clearer for me to make something for the group of people who are paying for it. At a certain point, for us to make enough money from ads, we would have to hire somebody. Yeah. Yeah. And then you have to sell a lot of ads because now it's three salaries or whatever, or a salary plus whatever you and I would split, right?
Jason Heaton Well, and I don't think either of us were really thrilled about reading ads either. I think it always felt a little... Not fun. Disconnected from the rest of the show, the vibe of the show. It's just not us. Some people do it really well. Some ads and podcasts are creatively done and I don't mind them, but for us, like, like writing that little script, getting it approved by the sponsor and then fitting it into the show. Yeah. It just, it added that layer of complexity and then it just felt wrong given our tone. We're, we're, we're largely ad libers here. You know, we, we sort of just talk, you know, conversationally and then to kind of cut in with, you know, and now a word from our sponsor just felt a little, a little bit jarring, I guess. So glad, glad we moved away from that.
James Stacey Yeah, me too. And I'm not saying that ads are an impossibility in the future, but I do think while the show is listener supported, we can also do our best to not have to go down the route of having the ads and the rest of it. And we do have an ad solution, which is our special presentations. We've done only a couple of those over the last couple of years with the folks from Collective Horology, and I really like those. They're fun, and they take the idea of an ad where another group, in this case, Gabe and Asher from Collective, two guys we really like and trust their judgment, we team up and we make an episode together. It hasn't proven to be something that other brands understand that they, you know, you get a whole hour or whatever, but maybe it'll take off more. Maybe we'll do more in the future. Maybe we won't. It just is what it is. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's, it's a solution that works. The show is supporting itself, which I absolutely love. And then we get the plus of occasionally we can, we can dip into your wallets with a little bit of maybe merch, maybe a t-shirt, maybe a hat, maybe something like that. And We've done some fun merch over the years, but really it didn't, we've never really hit a pace with it just because it requires a lot of, a lot more hands on than I maybe had expected.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, before we dive into, we want to discuss some of our favorite episodes and what's worked and what hasn't and things like that. But I think, you know, I think we're really careful or we have been careful and I want to continue to be careful to stay in our, our areas of expertise and our own wheelhouses. And I think, you know, when, whether it's a publication or whether it's a podcast or anything else. Um, if you start to stray a little too far from, from your comfort zone, um, it shows and, and we've, we've not done that too much. I don't think, I mean, we've had, we've had our stumbles of course, but you know, with merch, like it's fun, it's fun to see people get jazzed about a t-shirt or, or ask us for caps and we'd love to do that, but it's, I don't think it's ever going to be our primary, thing, and I'm glad it isn't. It's just a fun little sort of side project for TGN, so.
James Stacey I think it's something that will evolve, but the show is the show. Yeah. Everything else is extra and could go away. We really invest 80% of our time into the four episodes a month, and that's clear for those of you who are looking at the calendar and realizing how far behind I am on Q&As. I'll always make sure that the folks that are paying for the extra episode are made whole one way or another, and we definitely will. but the main episode is the core of what we put out in the world. And then I think the other side of it is the slack, which is kind of the next major, I would say this is when we hit like kind of the third wave for, for TGN and uh, the slack and the private channel, you know, I don't think that they necessarily grow the show in any way, but the depth that they add is, I think has been really fun. And for me personally, and Jason, I think you feel the same way as You know, I struggled to feel at home on Instagram. There's too many people, too many conflicting ideas. You can be in the middle of a fun conversation and have all sorts of other nonsense happening around it. The signal to noise is very high on that platform, and we largely don't engage all that heavily. through our personal Instagrams, we'll do audio clips and that sort of thing, but we don't do a TGN Instagram. I don't, nobody could prove to me that it would, you know, that publishing pretty photos of adventurous watches would lead more people to want to listen to an hour plus of some knuckleheads talking about the watch. And so with the Slack, we, I think we're able to see the show take, I mean, it's still digital, so it's not a, it's not like a shape, but you can see what everybody's like the mindset. It's a little bit too much to keep up with most days. Um, but I, I try and save things during the day, get back to it in the evening or on the weekends. And I learned something almost every day. I have a great time conversing on there. And, and I mean, whether you want to buy or sell or even just see what's in risk check, it's awesome. There's some incredible watches. Yeah.
Jason Heaton And, and also some incredible personalities and talent and expertise among our, our audience and among, you know, our supporters that are on the Slack. I think, um, you know, here, here we present ourselves, you know, with this, uh, sort of tagline of, you know, adventure, travel, diving, driving gear and watches. And it's like, we are not the top of the heap in any of those categories. Certainly. Um, uh, you know, we, we have our talents and we, we have our experiences, but like, then you go to slack and you find out that lo and behold, someone's a professional stunt man. And another guy, you know, is, uh, you know, he's, he's on the advisory board for the channel islands. I just heard from him the other day saying, you know, Hey, I see you're in the channel islands. Well, I'm on the advisory board for this. And I'm here's an interesting link you might be interested in. you know, I mean, you just get people from all walks of life that are ultra marathoners and, um, you know, whatever it might be, smoke jumpers and whatever. And it's like, Whoa, this is, this is crazy. The collection of people, it's really powerful. It's, it's just this incredible group of people.
James Stacey Really. Uh, it's, it's hard to describe how much the slack has kind of added to the experience for me, like from, from this side of the microphone, from this side of setting it up, getting to work more closely with guys like Chris and Jake, who are incredible moderators, and then getting to see how the, how the whole group kind of connects to certain things, whether it's a new watch announcement or a movie or a great YouTube clip or, and, and then you get these kinds of big moments that, that kind of move through the Slack, which is, I find genuinely exciting. It just, and it feels really fun to know most of the names.
Jason Heaton Well, should we, should we kind of buzz through some, some favorite episodes or memories that we've, we've had? Um,
James Stacey Well, I mean, look, I think it's worth at least listing a bunch of our guests. Yeah, because the funny thing is, is when I describe the show to people, even today, I would say like it's not a guest show. Like it's not an interview show. It's it's heating and I kind of shooting it. Yeah. And the truth is you go back over the list. It might be a bit of a guest show. It's not like it's not most episodes, but it's definitely a lot. Yeah. And like it's insane. Like, you know, you go back really early. We had Jason Lim and and Chase Fancher. Paul Schofield will always be a favorite of mine, even though we couldn't get the audio to be better than it was. I still think a top tier guest that we ever had. Definitely. And I would love to have Paul on again in the future. Paul, if you're listening, give me a date. We'll make it happen. We've had lots of friends on, James Lambden, Cole Pennington, Henry Catchpole. Before we were buddies, we had Henry on, and we were kind of like Instagram, DM, trade backs, talking about watches and cars, that sort of thing. the incredible Marshall Sutcliffe. That's an episode that I really hope everybody listening has gone back from wristwatch revival. Robert Spangle, we've had Asha on, David Concanon has become a buddy, certainly a buddy of yours. And then there's some really wild ones, like I had started to have Thomas Holland from Throttle House has been on a couple times. He's like a legitimately famous dude. Every time we go to lunch, somebody recognizes him or wants something signed or wants a photo. and obviously does some incredible work with with that whole channel, but he's also just like like kind of like a coal, like a natural fit. Yeah, just hand him handle Mike and they know like they get the vibe and he's a listener and that's great. Only a few people have done three episodes, which is kind of fun. Yeah, true coal. We have coal one, two and three and then an unexpected laurel ballester or a ballester Like Michael Jordan of underwater photography and ocean exploration. These days, I think genuinely the modern expression of a Cousteau. Yeah. And he was on episode 123, 153 and 228. And he's a he's just a sweetie every time.
Jason Heaton It's great. I mean, I think back to 153. He did that episode from inside the decompression chamber while he was finishing up his Mediterranean expedition. And to me, that was such a highlight. Like we did it on I think we did it on video and like you could see him there and it was like he was literally like waiting to for the last hours before he could get out after being in this chamber for a month or something. Um, that was a thrill. Uh, Don Walsh, the late Don Walsh, who, you know, I can't like, that's gotta be the one, right? I mean, he passed away like just months after we talked to him. Like, I mean, that was unreal. Richie Kohler. I mean, Richie, I can't, what a highlight that was. Yeah. You know, I, I'm not going to play favorites here because there are just too many great episodes, but like the ones that stand out, you know, Skerfield, the second ballista, Richie Kohler, Don Walsh.
James Stacey Um, you know, for me, Corey Richards. Oh yeah. Yeah. I thought, um, I thought, uh, uh, like I said, Con Canon was incredible. I had about a million more questions for David and then he connected us with, Don Walsh, so a huge thank you there. Carol from Barrel Hand. Watched, just one of the most fascinating people I've met in a little while, and we've become kind of text message buddies since then. Hard to beat Richie. I also just really, genuinely love that we made a show where, in a pinch, if you're gonna be somewhere else in the world and not online, I can call up a Zach, a Blake, a Gajin, a Ben Lowry, and just have them on the show. We've got so many great buddies, and these are high-profile buddies, but they're just buds. So it's a text message. You want to come on the show. There's no like, oh, what would you want to talk about? Can I pre-approve the questions? None of that kind of stuff. Just turn the Zoom on, click record, start asking questions, have a good time. And we've just been really lucky. We've also had some incredible modern-day explorers on. You think Kristen Harilla, Megan Hine, Will Gadd,
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, just incredible. Um, you know, these are, these are serious heroes. Yeah. Kristin Harula. I mean, and you know, if I had one, I guess goal for going forward with TGN, it would be to have more women's voices on the show. Um, and totally when I look at this list though, we've had some very impressive women. You mentioned Megan, Becky shot, Kim Sherwood, you know, Asha of course, Kristin Harula, and then, um, you know, Rebecca Struthers. What a great episode that was. This master watchmaker and historian from the UK.
James Stacey She was a great guest too. Episode 272. I highly recommend if you skipped it. She's incredible. I would love to have Rebecca back on the show. It'd be so much fun. I also know that a lot of you, especially in the Slack, are asking for Sarah, my wife, to be on the show. I'm going to try and make that happen before 310. Oh, nice. Oh, yeah. Next nine or 10 episodes. But Sarah and I have been chatting about it. I'd love to have her on to talk a little bit about, you know, what it is to work in limited editions for Hodinkee, which is what she does. Yeah. And then on top of that, uh, you know, uh, recently certified diver and that whole process. So yeah. Yeah. These are the episodes where it feels like they're equally for you and me as they are for the audience. Like if we make a, you know, one of these other episodes that I can list in a moment, some of my favorite episodes, or even like some of the series, I mean, like maybe with the exception of something like Film Club, which also feels like it's so there's so much fun to do that it feels like a treat for me as well as I hope for the people who are listening. Yeah. But these these guest episodes where you have somebody on, especially when it's somebody you don't know or a buddy of yours you haven't caught up with in a while. It's such a an hour of discovery and just pure curiosity and being able to just ask questions and, you know, hope not to put your foot in your mouth. Luckily, you know, it's a prerecorded show. So I just remove that when I do it. But I do get a real kick out of the chat episodes, the guest episodes, just because they add that extra layer that feels spontaneous for me and I figure for you as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah, yeah, definitely. And just to have a third voice occasionally, I think, you know, it's nice to sprinkle that in because, you know, as we're about to say here, I mean, we've had a lot of non-guest episodes with tons, you know, some hits, some misses. I'm proud to say that most of them were hits. I think, you know, we've rarely done a true stinker of an episode. I can't think of a specific one.
James Stacey There's a couple in there. You can blame them on me. Hey, Pobody's Nerfect. Can't do them all. But if you look back at some of these, I think going back as far, because I saw some of yours, you've got Origin Stories, which is episode two. We both have episode nine, which is Open Water Certifiable. Still a title I'm very proud of. Yeah, that was good. For me, the shows between you and I feel the best when uh, we're either reminiscing about a truly, really kind of wild experience. Like, you know, you can go back to episode 35 is Clipperton with love, which was my report from the Clipperton trip. Yeah. An episode that a lot of people on Reddit hate, I guess, because I'm talking about going on a trip with Oris. I don't know. Um, but I really am still proud of that episode and, and that whole experience. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of luxury travel in the watch industry. Going to Clipperton Island was not luxurious. I came back about a sunburned and banged up and and other, you know, beat up as someone could be from from those days on the boat. But, you know, we there's even some weird ones in there. I was going back like episode one or two. We're talking about I'd forgotten, but we were going to do a early March hangout in 2020 in New York. Oh yeah, yeah, like a co thing with with Houdinki and I just said like it's it's surprising, but like you know one or two meet up, meet up, postpone due to COVID 12 2020 and then we start one or three starts the isolation tapes. I always thought 137 was a very successful episode that never quite got the feedback I expected, which is if we were watch brand CEOs Yeah, that was I think it's a great premise. Yeah, that could be a whole podcast. Like you could do 12 of those a year. Yeah, and have a whole series of its own podcast. Yeah, yeah, more recently, not not to just go back over the, you know, the earlier years, but like 234 was automotive misadventures. I that was a very fun episode to record. Yeah, which is just your in my history in good and bad cars. 260 was your thrift store Navitimer, which is I just think a very exciting sort of fun. Yeah, thing that that talk about playing right into like what I think that, you know, we would all want from a cool podcast story. Yeah, I'd still I maintain that almost all of the drafts or challenges were just a really good time. And usually if we're having a good time recording it, it leads to a fun episode. And then even more recently, I thought that the 286 was how we cast the next James Bond stuff like that. I just love and it's always important for us to get a James Bond in the title every now and then. Cause those episodes are, it's like Cole Pennington episodes and James Bond episodes are absolutely top rank.
Jason Heaton Yeah. We've done a couple of Bond episodes. 179 was also Bond. I don't remember the specific premise of that one, but like, yeah, you're right. Whenever we put James Bond in the title, um, it's, it's a hit and you know, we don't just do that out of, you know, looking for, for listeners, but I think, you know, we're basically giving people what they want. And, and James Bond's certainly popular. And, you know, you, you talk about kind of specific, like, incidents or, or I guess moments in time, whether it's the meeting postponement for COVID or me finding that Navitimer or, um, you know, Clipperton or anything like that. Or, you know, I remember recording an episode, I think I did a couple of episodes from Sri Lanka that we recorded while I was there. Yeah. When you had rabies. Yeah.
James Stacey Well, it didn't have rabies to be fair.
Jason Heaton Frothing at the mic. Yeah. No, but I think, you know, these are like these chart our history since 2016. Like you, you can like go back and like identify like what was happening in the world at that time. You know, I think, you know, there was a point, um, again, during the pandemic year when there was, um, a fair bit of violence here in Minneapolis after the George Floyd murder. And, and, you know, we were uncomfortable, like trying to figure out like, how are we going to address this? And we just thought, let's just do an episode and just talk about it. And it was, yeah. I guess you could call it a little controversial. It wasn't our usual thing, and we got some feedback. We lost some audience, for sure. But it is what it is, and we couldn't ignore it at that time. And I think I'm proud that we did it.
James Stacey And we've used the platform a few times to raise money, although I would say that's way more on the audience than on us, whether it be we've auctioned off watches from Oris, we've auctioned off watches from Hallios. My incredible pastel 12-hour bezel C4 went in support. of a great charity. And we did some stuff when the war in Ukraine broke out, some stuff to be proud of, but stuff that I think probably the lesson should have been to do more of that rather than less. So maybe something we should focus on in the next 100 episodes would be more of a charitable platform for TGN and the Slack and that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton And I think in terms of the ones that we've repeated, I think just the two of us talking for 300 plus episodes, you, you, you kind of start to wonder like, what else can you talk about? And I think that's where these series that we've come up with really help us. You know, the, the film club is awesome book club. We don't do as often, but it's fun collection inspection. Like we come back to that. Um, we've done the challenges, the drafts, things like that. Now some are maybe a bit of a stretch and we've kind of let them die on the vine a little bit, but like the ones that we keep coming back to are, are fun. And I think people, you know, once they get used to the format, it's something they can sort of engage in. And then now that we've got the slack, It's really fun to see people chime in with their own picks, whether it's a budget episode or a draft or something like that.
James Stacey Yeah. I really liked doing the drafts where, and then we get another week of people, you know, offering up their picks. Yeah. For those series, it'd be either Collection Inspection or Film Club is probably the two that have really worked the best. Yeah. And Film Club, I still get nervous when we put one out. Really? It's almost like it's the furthest we move from the core. Yeah. Yeah. True. I'm pretty happy with how it's going now. I think we can do one or two of those a year without feeling like we're doing too much. But I do always have this thing when I'm, you know, when I go to click upload on a new episode, I'll do it with this episode, I'm sure. Where I go, what if this is somebody's first episode?
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I never think about that.
James Stacey Like what if by chance you just randomly show up, your friend goes, oh, I really like this nerdy podcast, these two knuckleheads talking about these six topics or whatever. and you go, you should check it out, you know, swing by grabbed the newest episode and the newest ones of film club like like I think the show has become. I'm going to be really, really straightforward here. Very dense. Yeah, I think this would be a very difficult show to just pick up and I think that that's definitely going to hurt our ability to, you know, grow the show because I think at this point it's a bit. It's a bit like coming into a lot of podcasts that are friendship based that have hundreds of episodes where you don't necessarily have the backstory or the inside jokes. Yeah. And we try and keep, I think we try and keep a lot of that to a minimum to a certain extent. But I do, I do sometimes think like, what if you're like, what if your first one is, is, uh, yeah. Like what, what if your first one is film club? Right.
Jason Heaton It's like, what, who are these guys? Like what, what's their expertise in films and why are they, where are the adventure? You guys ever made a movie?
James Stacey Yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's not like a, we're not like a film commentary specialist in any way, just like movies.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Now, now, now that we're so many episodes in on that series, like we're, we're, we're going deeper and deeper into like these very like sort of esoteric, esoteric picks. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, it's fun. I think we're, we're, you know, we're, we're basically engaging with our known audience and the people that have been with us a while and if, hey, if you're new to this and this is the first time you're listening, stick with us, go back, listen to some of these episodes, and hopefully you'll catch the vibe and continue to enjoy it.
James Stacey Yeah, I think weirdly, like I said, look, we prefaced this at the top. It's a fairly navel-gazy episode. We're talking a lot about things that we've quote-unquote achieved or whatever. All of that is up for debate if you want. That said, really love TGN. Still absolutely adore the chance to make an episode every week. I'm still dreaming of this ability of doing video in the future, and that sort of stuff. There's no... For me, there's no functional fatigue for the show. I just wanna make sure that whatever... If let's say the current quality line is somewhere around 70% of the time, it's pretty good, I'd love to make that 80 in the next 100 episodes or 85. Just slowly crawl it up. And I think that will require Yeah, probably like a little bit more focus and also I would love to find in the next hundred and this is not this is more foreshadowing than a hint, but I would love to find some sort of extension of what the show is currently like another thing and I'm just not sure what that is yet. You know, I think about it a lot, you know, we'll try we'll always try stuff and we've got an idea of something that theoretically will come out in October if I can make it happen that might expand the sort of purview of the show, but all of that's very hypothetical at the moment, but that in my mind, that's what I see in the future is like largely sticking to what, what we know is has worked for the last several years, but finding a couple experiments along the way.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And fear not. I mean, I think we're always going to grow organically and kind of stay within our range of interests. I mean, that's not to say we won't expand our interests and expand, you know, what we want to do and learn new skills, whether it's, you know, you mentioned video or, you know, if you and I start, you know, singing on every episode or something like that, heaven forbid, um, you know, who knows? Uh, but, but it'll always, it'll always happen organically. We're not going to suddenly launch into some kind of big reinvention anytime soon.
James Stacey So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm very excited for the idea of finding evolutions in the future, but I don't want to really revolutionize the show in any way. I'm very comfortable with what it is. I still like that. I think if you got into podcasting a decade ago, the shows we put out today would still feel very comfortable. Yeah. You're currently at a point in your life where you actually have some flexibility in your schedule to do some pretty cool stuff, including things like Oceana and that sort of thing. And I'm almost at the opposite just currently where the schedule is so tight that I'm just making very concerted efforts to maintain the four episodes a month and whatever admin is kind of tied up into that. And I'm hoping that we're you know, we're on the horizon of that kind of shifting as far as a work-life balance or work-to-show balance, if you will.
Jason Heaton And I think, you know, look, this show isn't just ours. It belongs to everybody out there that's listening to this right now and who's on the Slack and who's sending in questions and sending us emails. And so, you know, I guess to kind of wrap up this segment, maybe looking outward instead of the navel gazing, uh, is, is we need your suggestions. We need your feedback. What, what maybe tell us what has worked or what hasn't, or if you have an idea for a, for a future episode, we, you know, we get plenty of feedback already. I mean, we do get people that say like, you should have so-and-so as a guest or, or here's an idea for an episode. All very welcome. You know, we do like that. We're not going to respond to every single one. We're not going to necessarily take everybody's input, but keep sending it like it's all, it's all good. I mean, we're all part of this big community and, and, And we do appreciate that. So, so do continue to write us at thegraynadoatgmail.com or shoot us a DM on Slack or whatever, however you want to communicate. We do like that.
James Stacey Yeah, absolutely. I think that the future of the show is absolutely listener based. And if you would like to be part of that feedback, I highly recommend, we don't really pitch the subscription thing that hard. You know, we mentioned at the top of the show, we mentioned at the bottom of the show, almost canned. I'm sure most of you barely hear it. So this is 300. Let me give you a pitch. If you would like to be involved in the community side of this show, it costs $5 a month. That keeps the show going. It gives Jason and I the ability to invest in gear, to pay for travel occasionally, and to make a piece of our living from these four to five episodes a month. And at $5 a month, you get into the Slack, you get a private podcast feed that includes the Q&A episodes. It also includes all the episodes going back. So once you're into that feed, it's the entire back catalog of the show. It's 300 and I don't know, 318, 320 episodes, something like that, uh, in total, maybe, maybe actually even a little bit more than that. Um, and that's at $5 a month. And then if you want. Uh, the chance at getting, say a TGN sign NATO, which we do in 20 and 22 millimeter with a little sign TGN on the buckle, but you can also get, uh, early access to things that we only offer to the slack, whether it's merch or, you know, some even more special stuff that happened recently, which we won't talk about on a public show, but that comes in at $100 a year. We'll give you the option of a discount when you're buying anything from the shop and also early access for things like events or otherwise. And then on top of that, you get a TGN strap for the first year. Personally, I think, especially at the $5 a month, I support a lot of podcasts that offer significantly less for that much money or more, like maybe you just get an extra episode for five or 10 bucks a month. I think that the slack alone is worth more than five bucks a month, let alone the extra episode. But if you want more information on that, you can obviously swing by the great NATO dot com. Genuinely a huge thank you from Jason and I for the last eight years of kind of fun and exploration and the chance to learn and iterate. Also, I would say from my experience on the rest of the Internet, a lot more leniency than is standard. Yeah. But people have been super thoughtful in their feedback and helpful. And then on top of that, you know, sending in audio files, liking stuff online, leaving reviews on iTunes. It's hard to describe how important the iTunes reviews thing is. It seems like it shouldn't be. But if you're listening to this and you go, oh, I don't want to do the five bucks a month or I already do or whatever, but I would like to do something to help celebrate 300, please go leave us a five star review on iTunes. It's insane how important this is, but the higher you are in that ranking, the more that that show is served to people who are actually verified as like probably being interested in some of these topics. It's a fairly closed loop algorithm because it's all within the Apple platform. And don't get me wrong, Apple is not the only option. I don't even listen to the podcast through Apple. I do it through Pocket Cast, but they are one of the largest kind of home distributor for a podcast, or at least link distribution is what they're doing. And beyond that, you know, it does represent the absolute lion's share of where folks are getting the podcast is through iTunes. Um, certainly for the North American audience. So that would be my only real ask. And if you don't really reviews and you don't want to, that's okay too. Just, you know, happy to have you here and say hi in Slack if you're in there.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, I mean, there it is, uh, 300, uh, you know, hopefully people weren't expecting, uh, some, some, you know, brass band and, and, uh, you know, trapeze artists or something on this episode where we're, we're, we're just doing what we do and we'll just kind of keep on. But, uh, yeah, we did want to kind of take an episode and acknowledge where we're at and, uh, you know, forge ahead to onward to 400, I guess.
James Stacey So, yeah, a big thank you to everybody who listens, a huge thank you to everybody who's ever been a guest on the show, a huge, huge thank you to everybody in the Slack for, like I said, holding us down, keeping us honest, making sure we've got ideas for new shows, sending in questions, pre-ordering special items, waiting for the merch, all this kind of stuff. It's all been... It sounds contrite to say it's been a dream, but the show's just been incredible, and I've been so thrilled to get a chance to make it and to be part of how it's worked out. So for Jason, a big thank you again, and let's jump into some final notes, or at least our 300th installment of final notes.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Always a challenge to come up with something new. Um, and this week I've got a good one actually. It's a, it's a, it's a very niche product. So a lot of you will be scratching your head about this one, but so it's my, yeah, this is a product called the Apollo bio seal neck seal for dry suits. Um, or you could use it for a wetsuit as well. And I first learned about this through my buddy Kev when I was diving with him in Monterey a couple of months ago, he told me about it because my next seal on my dry suit was getting a little loose. And he said, if you get one of these neck seals, um, It's a, it's a soft, slightly thicker silicone. It looks like a turtleneck, like basically just a cylinder that you stretch around, put it over your neck, and then it helps seal your dry suit neck. And, you know, I was like, okay, great. But then I got my next seal replaced on my dry suit and it was quite snug. And so over the course of 10 dives last week, I was starting to get some pretty bad chafing and kind of rubbed raw on my neck. And Darren, um, one of our safety divers on the boat actually had one of these bio seals with him. And he lent it to me for the last day and it was a game changer. Like I put it on and it was actually really comfortable to wear. Um, the, the seal of my dry suit fit over it nicely and it truly prevented that chafing. So, you know, if you're doing one or two dives or just a day or two with a dry suit, no big deal. But if you're doing repetitive diving in a dry suit and you're having these kind of neck chafing issues, or even a wetsuit, you know, wetsuit neck seals can be kind of snug as well. Um, I highly recommend getting one of these. They're about 50 or 60 bucks. You can get them. I've seen them on Amazon. I'll throw a link in the show notes to one from scuba toys.com. I'm definitely going to pick one of these up, uh, of my own and just kind of keep it in my, my dive bag for, for the future. So again, very niche product, um, specific to those that are probably doing mostly dry suit diving and colder water. Um, but I guess, you know, those of you that maybe even do open water swimming, wearing a, like a triathlon wetsuit, I know that turning your neck over and over again to breathe while you're swimming can cause chafing. This might help with that as well. So yeah, check it out. The Apollo bio seal neck seal.
James Stacey It's hard to explain just how, how much no chafing could make a big difference, especially if you've got to do days of diving. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, cause the, you know, when I would do a bunch back to back in Vancouver with the dry suit and then the seven mil over it, Yeah, your neck would come out probably one of the more beat up parts of your body after several days of diving. Yeah. It sounds like nothing, but I think to the right group of people, this is a big deal. This is like insoles for your shoes. Yeah.
Jason Heaton They make a big difference, like quickly. Yeah, that's a good analogy. And they make them for the wrists too, I just noticed too. So if your wrists get chafed, which mine don't, but that might be a good solution as well. And they do help with the fit. So if your suit's slightly loose, this can kind of fill that space nicely. So it's good for that. That's great.
James Stacey Yeah, good stuff. Well, look, mine is not very interesting, also a little bit esoteric, but something that a handful of folks have asked about. So I just wanted to put it out there. I really like patches. I think a lot of us do. There's a ton. There's a whole discussion on on the slack just recently about how people put patches on their bags. Most people deciding that sewing them on was the best choice. And I absolutely agree. But I really like the ability to swap them out. Mm so I recently got this bag for a moment, which I've talked about on past episodes. They were kind enough to give me this bag. It is called the everything tech tote and the ones actually both kind of sides. It's like a big tote and both sides are these large panels of you know, like a nylon and I was very curious as to what it would take to put some velcro one side of the velcro on the bag, stick it on and I went on Amazon. I bought a ton of velcro stuff, just not sure what would work and what wouldn't And I gotta say, of the ones that I got, I was not... These were the... This brand was the most random Amazon brand of all of them, but they're really good and they worked out really well. So these are large four by eight inch panels, and I put four of them across the bag. Yeah. So it looks like one solid wall of Velcro and they're adhesive, so no ironing, no sewing. And for the first couple of days, if I tugged at a corner, it would peel back fairly easily. But over time, it's stuck on nice. It does look like if you wanted to, you could remove them entirely without damaging the bag. So they can come off. They just take a bit of a grip to get them. And you get both sides and both are adhesive. So you just pick which side of the Velcro, the hook or the loop. So these are $10 on Amazon.com. I paid $13 on Amazon.ca and just really happy with it. So if you're out there and maybe you just got a new bag and you'd like to add a Velcro patch to it, I would say that not only is this definitely strong enough for a patch, But I think like if you bought a, you know, like one of those Maxpedition things that has the Velcro on one side, I think you could easily stick it on there and not be that worried about it removing the wall of Velcro from the bag. Oh yeah. It just stuck on really nicely. So look, for 10 bucks, I'm pretty impressed.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's cool. And they have other uses too, it looks like. I mean, you can use it like, you know, to like secure a rug to the floor and stuff like that. I think it's, yeah, it's a neat solution. And I mean, who doesn't love putting Velcro around? I think that's. It's a cool, again, niche, two niche products and final notes, but you know, that's what we're all about here.
James Stacey Yeah. And it comes in tons of different sizes, definitely easy to cut and inexpensive. So I wanted to throw that out there simply because I was getting, and every time I posted a photo of the bag, I was getting 20 people asking where, like what specific patches you got because they fell off or the adhesive didn't work or it didn't stick to this or that. So this is a good option. And a bunch of the Velcro brand stuff I bought was more expensive and less useful. So there you go. All right. All right. 300. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I think we've said it enough. So look, as always for this episode and all the ones before it, thank you so much for listening. If you're interested in subscribing to the show notes, getting into the comments for each episode, supporting the show directly, getting yourself a TGN signed NATO, getting into the Slack, getting a discount on merch, please visit thegreatnado.com. If not, just keep listening. We couldn't possibly thank you enough for hanging out with us here. and we're really going to push hard for the next 100 episodes to make some extra special stuff. Music throughout, as it has been since the start, is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Winston Churchill who said, never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about.