The Grey NATO – 308 – Slack Crew & A 2024 // Part 6

Published on Thu, 14 Nov 2024 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

In episode 308 of The Gray Nato podcast, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey discuss recent activities, including James' trip to Vancouver and their latest merchandise collection, the Pippet 8 collaboration with Tony (The Illustrated Watch). They perform their regular "wrist check" segment discussing their current watches, with Jason wearing his vintage Navitimer and James sporting his Pelagos 39. The hosts then tackle the final installment of their 2024 Slack Q&A series, addressing questions about topics ranging from watch brand sponsorships and NATO straps to electric vehicles. The episode concludes with final notes about new gear, including a Dog Watch Travel Shaving and Signal Mirror from a listener and an Olight Oclip flashlight review.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nato, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 308 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, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton and I'm joined as ever by my friend and currently ill and coughing co-host James Stacy in Toronto. James, how are you holding up?
James Stacey I'm okay. I am under the weather yet again. Seems to be the move for me this fall. And yes, I have developed something of a fairly active cough. So if you hear a little bit of weirdness in the audio, it's because I have to cut around it. It's very loud. Yeah, just got back from several days in Vancouver. I was there for press checks for the next issue of Hooding Key Magazine, which is printed in Burnaby with Hemlock and has been since our first issue. And then just stayed a couple days planning to, you know, explore and do some hiking and go for a bike ride. And then I got sick. I spent a bunch of my time in my hotel room. It was pretty rainy. So it is what it is. I'm not sure it would have necessarily been a great weekend to attempt to adventure. But did get to see some folks and catch up with a few of the old Vancouver sort of stomping crew. So big shout out to those guys and certainly to Jason Lim and Mr. Gallup. And we got to see a handful of folks. My cousin, who I used to dive a ton with, still lives out there. So I got to see him. Nice. Came back very late last night and got some not so great sleep. And now we're podcasting, so what are you going to do, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's a Wednesday. It's actually a Wednesday afternoon, so I'm sure hot on the heels of this, you'll be in edit mode, I would think. I will be editing this essentially as soon as we finish, yeah. This is about as close to a live episode as you can get. We almost could have just done it live, done it tomorrow morning. One day we'll do that.
James Stacey Someday. Yeah. I mean, I just, it requires too much editing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Right. Right.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey But this should be a fun episode. What have you been up to for the last week? We certainly launched a new collection for the shop, which seems to be going quite well.
Jason Heaton I would say so. Yeah. I've been, you know, I can't say I've had a close hand in any of the fulfillment of that, but I've been keeping an eye on on orders and everything seems to be going smoothly. I think folks are starting to get their orders. This is the Pippet 8 collection. So we launched this last week in episode 307. And for those that maybe aren't caught up or skipped over that episode for whatever reason, the Pippet 8 collection was a collaboration with one of our longtime listeners and actually a local Twin Cities guy, Tony, who goes by The Illustrated Watch. He's done some great artwork over the years kind of watch related stuff and some t-shirts and we worked with him with a design that he created and we developed some some t-shirts and a hoodie and a cool enamel wear camp mug and a coaster And it's, I'm really pleased with it. I think we both are, and it seems to have resonated well with the crew. I mean, just watching the orders go through and so far there haven't been any real hiccups. So looking forward to seeing some photos of those and some feedback on Slack.
James Stacey Just so everyone's aware, for this collection, much like we did with the last of the merch, the t-shirts and such is done through Printful, which is a fulfillment company that prints on demand. So we don't have a bunch of waste. We don't have Jason's basement full of triple XLs and, you know, double smalls. But that does mean that if you add on a strap or something else to your order, in this case, most notably the strap or I suppose the the kerchief set.
Jason Heaton Let me just interject. We are down to three kerchiefs. One I sent one out today and we're down to the final three of the climb set kerchief set. So if you if you want one. Get them now, because like I said, there are three left in the basement here, so that's then it's over.
James Stacey Yeah, I don't. But I don't believe we'll do another. Certainly we wouldn't do another of the climb set. Yeah, right. So once once they're done, they're done. So, yeah, check that out. But if you order something like that or a strap, it will ship separately and is hand fulfilled by Jason. So if you end up with two different shipments, that's why the Printful stuff goes from Printful, the straps and the kerchief set come from Jason in Minneapolis.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Other than that, um, I don't have a ton to report. I've been just, you know, I'm, I'm full on in dog dad mode here and just kind of hunkered down getting ready for some sort of impending winter whenever it comes. I'm not in a hurry to see that, but, uh, yeah, it's been, it's been a good couple of weeks. It's a bit of a blur of just counting my steps. You know, I'm, I'm racking up, you know, 15, 18,000 steps a day between two, two long dog walks, but, uh, I'm, I'm enjoying it. Yeah. It's great.
James Stacey That's super. Yeah. I, uh, I don't have a ton going on either. Like I said, just got back from a trip and it's kind of the first like genuinely cool day here. Maybe there were some while I was away, but it's, you know, it's near zero. Yeah. You could feel the cold in the Jeep this morning. Oh yeah. It was a little, you know, little, little sluggish to come up, get the clutch warmed up and that sort of thing. So that's a, always a sign that it's, it's, you know, winter proper is just around the corner.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Do you remember, um, gosh, was it maybe two years ago or so? I, I think it was one of my final notes. Uh, I had found those affordable seat heaters for, for the fender. I got them on Amazon and they've kind of a strange name. I think they're made in China and, and sent from there as well. And. That's my big winterizing thing for the Defender. It's not the most sealed up and toasty vehicle, so those seat heaters make a big difference. And it just plugs into the 12 volt power outlet in the Defender and they work really well. I mean, we haven't had super cold, but yeah, we've had zero centigrade kind of weather. Um, they, they, they get pretty toasty. So I'm, I'm real pleased. It's, it's a nice addition for, for this time of year. So, you know, if you're, if, uh, if you're in need of something like that for a vehicle, you've got maybe an older one that doesn't have built in seat heaters. Uh, yeah, maybe we'll, maybe we'll throw that link in the, in the show notes again, because it's, uh, I'm really happy with them. So.
James Stacey Yeah, I think we definitely should. And to be fair, part of that's selfish on my part, because I have seat heaters in the Jeep. And they heat about a six-inch area of the seat, but only when they feel like it. You can't run them when it's warm out. It seems to be based on some sort of a temperature sensor in the vehicle. It runs OK when it's cold out. But I wouldn't say that they get especially warm. So maybe one of these, especially for Sarah, my passenger princess of many years now, maybe one of those for her side because I assume on those is it like the heating areas like the whole back the whole back in this and the bottom as well I mean it's it's a full wow okay so that's a that's a big improvement over yeah what you get in the in the Wrangler yeah it's nice yeah it is nice also a fantastic gift for people because they can use it probably the day they get it on Christmas or whatever like it's cool Not always. We have people listening. It's not cold where they live for winter, but certainly for Jason and I. And that can make a pretty solid gift for your mom, your dad, or something. Again, if they have a vehicle that doesn't have it, or they're obviously probably quite popular for people with limited, not limited, but like some sort of a mobility issue, whether it's like back pain or hip pain or that sort of thing, because it would keep you kind of warmed up.
James Stacey Yeah.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah. They really do the job. And you mentioned a good gift idea. We're getting, we're inching close to that, uh, that, that annual episode, um, probably in, I don't know, late November, early December. We haven't really talked about dates for that, but, uh, stay tuned for that. We'll be doing our annual kind of holiday gift guide for, for TGN coming up here. Oh, a few weeks. We've got kind of a fun one next week with an interesting guest that I think people really like. And then, then we're kind of better for worse. We're heavy into, uh, into gift giving season. So yeah, stay tuned for that.
James Stacey That's great, for sure. Yeah, we do have a few things coming up. So next week, we have a great guest. The week after that would be American Thanksgiving, with the episode coming out on the 28th. We are going to take that week off. Yeah. As you can tell, maybe from my health status over the last few weeks, I wouldn't mind a small break. So we are going to take that off. I'm driving down to Pennsylvania to do American Thanksgiving with my in-laws, with Sarah's family. And it's one of the more fun things that we can do. It's just a really fun thing for the kids. And we have a great time. So I'm very much looking forward to that. But I am asking for a small favor. And that's just to understand that we're going to take the the week off. So we'll have an episode on the 21st with a great guest that we're very excited about. And then the 28th, there won't be an episode and then we'll be back on the 5th. And then I assume we'll do episodes through the 19th. And then we'll probably take a couple of weeks off and come back. And to be clear, Jason, I didn't talk over this, but I think we'd probably come back the 9th of January. So we will polish up that schedule and be more specific, but I feel like that's largely pretty clear.
Jason Heaton working out our calendar in front of the audience here. That's true professionalism, right? But that's what's happening. Yeah, there we go.
James Stacey We have a style and we stick to it. Right, right. That's the way it's going to work out. But yeah, it should be a good season. We'll definitely have a couple sort of holiday themed episodes. You can look at previous years. to see how that breaks out. But yeah, happy in advance, you know, happy Thanksgiving to all anyone who's celebrating. And I do hope it's okay to take that week off. I know it's a busy travel week. So people like to have episodes maybe, maybe bank next week's episode. Yeah, right, right.
Jason Heaton Well, speaking of episodes, we've got a we've got a good one. And actually, this is this kind of closes out our kind of series that we've been doing for a good part of the year. And that's our kind of our slack crew. And this is part six. Actually, we had a lot of questions and we're down to the final eight.
James Stacey And I can go and do a whole breakdown of what the crew is and why we're doing it and why there's six of them this year and all that kind of stuff. But before we get there, do you want to do a little bit of risk check?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Um, I've been wearing my, my old Navitimer for the past few days and you know, every time I wear this, I love it. I mean, I've talked about it many, many times, so I don't, I won't go into it too much, but you know, I'm, I'm often struck by how old and how rare this thing is. And it kind of scares me because I like to wear it and you know, Navitimers are not known for having any water resistance and this is a pre 806. So this is like one of the very first from 1954. So. You know, in a way it should almost be like locked away or in a museum or something, but I just adore this thing. I wear it, I use it, I use the chronograph, I wear it, you know, walking the dog and it's on my wrist all the time. I mean, obviously I take it off for anything remotely close to water, which isn't my usual style, but I just can't not wear it. It's been just such a beauty to just look down at my wrist and see it. I guess I'll take my chances. And actually I went to a Breitling event, courtesy of a local retailer, Continental Diamond. They had a thing a couple of weeks ago and I was there. Oh, nice. They were launching these new NFL watches, which I'm not a huge fan of, but they did it at the Vikings headquarters, Minnesota Vikings headquarters here. got to catch up with some old kind of local watch guys and the folks from Continental were nice enough to invite me. But there was another guy there, David Branke, who runs Twin Cities Time and Luxury, really great kind of secondhand watch dealer here and online as well. And he was wearing his as well. He's got a 54 pre-806 as well. So it was kind of interesting to see these two unicorns in one place. And that was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, it's such a gorgeous watch and there's something very... It could be that I'm packaging up my concern about humidity for a watch of that age, where I'm like, that's more of a fall watch than maybe a summer watch. I think that's a winner and it's just such a pretty thing as well. Even beyond the functionality and the incredible history and the design, it's just so special. Yeah, it really is. What did you wear out West and what are you wearing today? West, I got lucky because I got to bring several watches. I very seldom get to travel inside of Canada.
James Stacey Oh yeah.
James Stacey And so I took a whole roll. I took a couple of different watches. The Red Devil came with me in my Vancouver le Halio Seaforth and the couple of GMTs and you know stuff I wanted to show Show the guys when we hung out. Yeah, but oh one thing I will note I put this on the slack, but people might get a kick out of this I have that it's based on a Breitling Pluton. It's that red devil mm-hmm kind of chrono sport inspired thing with the little screen at six. And when I got it, I, you know, we definitely talked about it on an episode. I bought it out of like Moldova and on, you know, on eBay and it showed up and you know, it doesn't, the alarm feature doesn't seem to work and the backlight didn't work. Everything else was fine. And for what I paid, that's not such a big deal. And I paid under 500 bucks for it. And the other day I went to set the time because I was in a new time zone in Vancouver, went to set the time and just happened to be doing it sort of in a dimly lit element. I might even have been on the plane or just before I got on the plane. And I noticed that the backlight works. So it's self-repaired. Not something I would have expected from You know, Breitling, that's probably the better part of 30 years old. Wow. But it's back and it works. And weirdly, it might be an indication that it needs another battery.
James Stacey Oh, sure. Yeah.
James Stacey Because when I press it, the screen actually dims a little bit. Oh. Like there's only enough voltage to run the screen, but not the light. So it has to drop voltage. I don't actually know if drop voltage is the correct term, but the screen kind of goes a little bit dim and makes it actually kind of harder to read. It's not the greatest low-light experience, but yeah. So that's what I was wearing. And then today, I've just got the Pelagos 39 on out of a no-brainer. It was already set and ready to go. And that's what I wore home last night.
James Stacey So it's just super easy to wear.
James Stacey And I'm just putting the final touches on my hands-on for the FXD GMT, which I know I promised nearly a week ago, but then I went to Vancouver and I lost some time there and that kind of thing. should go up. You know, this episode goes up early tomorrow morning, so it'll be sometime tomorrow, maybe Friday morning, something like that. Can't wait to read that.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that was the subject of our last episode. So yeah, you're curious to see all the good photos as well. That'll be great.
James Stacey All right, well, let's get into the final installment of the 2024 Slack Q&A. This is part six, I believe, unless I've numbered them wrong. In the event that this is your first ever Q&A, it's basically we take a format and turn it on its head. So our normal Q&A is supposed to be a monthly episode. Everybody knows they don't come up monthly. You will have a lot to listen to in December as far as Q&As. We're going to get through every question that we've got, I think. But our normal is a fifth episode each month that goes to any of the paid subscribers. And that includes voice memos that people leave us that are questions and it's kind of sounds like a radio call-in show. Early in 2023, we did a little thing where instead of that, we turned the format outside and we asked the Slack to ask text questions that would form a public episode. which is I like it because it's kind of a look inside the mind of the slack like what people are into and what what folks are talking about. And and it allows us to get some q&a that doesn't really cross paths with the standard quote unquote monthly q&a 12 annual that sort of thing. Yeah. So that's where we're at. Basically, we end up with a huge text thread in Slack and we copy and paste the questions in and then we answer them in line. So I think this is like our last seven or eight questions, eight or nine questions, something like that to round out the year. And we'll probably do another one of these like February 2025, something like that.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's been, it's been a fun ride. I think, um, unfortunately, I guess, um, the ones we're getting to today were, were submitted whenever we started this one. I don't even remember how many months ago it was. So hopefully none of these are too time sensitive. Um, and apologies for those of you in this, in these final eight or nine, um, that are, that have been patiently waiting for us to get to your questions, but, uh, here we are.
James Stacey All right, well, let's kick it off with the first one from Graham Likes Watches. He says, lots of brands sponsor events. What event that doesn't have a watch sponsor do you think should have one or would be good to sponsor? What brand would you choose? Could be a sporting event or something more like a scientific expedition, etc. So interesting question there from Graham Likes Watches on the Slack. Jason, You know, sometimes it feels like every event has a watch or a watch brand. And anything come to mind for you for events that you think would be fun to have a watch?
Jason Heaton I had a few in mind. Um, one of them kind of those prominent one, and I think they have a watch sponsor or have had sort of a timing sponsor, but I just don't feel like it's really strong one. And it's a massive event and that's the tour de France. And some people might be shouting at their, uh, at their speakers right now saying, you know, Tissot has, has been a timing partner for tour de France. And I, I know they have been, I, I, I'm not sure if they still are, but. You know, the Tour de France is the biggest cycling race in the world and it's all about time. And I just feel like that it's so ripe for a really top brand, um, you know, a chronograph brand. I could almost imagine something like this being kind of up Tag Heuer's, uh, uh, kind of street, so to speak, or, um, you know, even Omega kind of their Olympic timing stuff or Longines, uh, I think would be kind of cool. Uh, I think the tour de France is ripe for one. I also think, and this is a tiny, very niche event, but it's, it's one I participated in this year. And that was the fan dance. I think these kinds of smaller events, I could see some, a brand like, uh, well, like Elliot Brown or, or CWC, um, being sort of a watch sponsor or something. Maybe, maybe there's a giveaway for, you know, a watch or something for some of the top finishers or, something along those lines, but given that it's sort of a British special forces based event, I could see one of those brands stepping up and putting their name on a banner or handing out some t-shirts or something like that. So hey, if you're listening, never say never, I might do the fan dance again one day and I'd love to, of course I wore a CWC for that one, but I'd love to see one of the brands step up for that. And then the last one I thought of was, was Peking to Paris, you know, again, a very niche event, but it's, it's one of these vintage car long range, you know, rallies over Mongolian desert, et cetera. Um, Nick English had taken part in it this year. I think, um, also Nick Sullivan from Esquire has done it a few times and he's talked about it and it's, it just sounds like such a spectacular. automotive event with a lot of adventure involved because you're doing it in very old cars over some very rough terrain. And I hadn't thought of a brand for that one. I guess Chopard comes to mind, but, you know, they're kind of more tied in with the Mia Milia, but, you know, maybe one of the more adventuresome chronograph brands, maybe a Breitling or something like that would be kind of cool for that. But yeah, those are the three that came to mind.
James Stacey How about you? I also had Peking to Paris on the list and I thought it was.
Jason Heaton Oh, you did?
James Stacey Yeah, because I think it's weird that that's not one. I think it's weird that it's not a bigger event. Like I do feel like if they found a way to properly televise it.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey Put it on YouTube or make it something that a lot like I could watch it for five bucks somewhere and like cover the whole event like the same way. Like I've said this before on the show, like a huge portion of why I will follow F1 is that they made it really easy to watch it.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. I pay $80 a year for the app. The app has everything. Like it's just you load up the app on a race day or race weekend and get in and start going. Yeah. I think part of it is like, it's weird that that event isn't bigger. The, the peaking to Paris. And I think it's strange also that there isn't a watch attached to it.
Jason Heaton Which brand would you, would you choose for that one?
James Stacey I mean, I think in the earlier era of the brand, Braemont would have made a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah. Tudor feels pretty strong. Like imagine if they were bringing back automotive chronograph. Yeah, yeah. So those were kind of the ones that leapt to mind for me. And then the other one was more of like a funny idea, which is like, if you imagine a brand that can make just about anything, and the one that leaps to mind for my specific example here is Garmin.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey I do think it'd be really fascinating to see Garmin make watches that essentially have like specialized software for specific races. Like imagine you're doing the Barclay and you could load up Barclay mode on your Barclay edition Forerunner or Phoenix or whatever. And then I think imagine if you could then go on your phone while the Barclay's happening and load up data from those watches. Oh man. So it'd be this kind of, uh, you could run the Barkley anywhere because it is five, 20 mile laps. Right. I think. Right. Right. Yeah. And then Barkley is just one example. Like I think you could create a whole sort of ecosystem of making software that that is designed for a specific race, whether it's it accounts for fastest known times, or the structure of the race, like the the way the Berkeley is run in concentric loops, and that sort of thing. I think I think that would be in my mind kind of a thing where you could actually not just be a sponsor, but like be involved in the community in the actual like, act of the of the event.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. I could, I could totally see Garmin doing that. I love the idea that, um, that you could sort of mimic the event on your own watch or, um, or, or track individual. Athletes, uh, in the actual race, um, from, I think it'd be super fun or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.
James Stacey Like, imagine if you could put it in a mode where your 18,000 steps a day contributed to a hypothetical Barclay. Yeah, yeah. And then once every five days, seven days, whatever, and you've crossed the 100 miles or whatever it is, you would have that, like, you know, notification or something like a way of kind of using all the data that's available to these watches to actually bring you closer to the event that you may never intend to run anyways. Right, right. It's kind of like the concept of Everesting.
Jason Heaton the cyclist, you know, you can do 29,000 feet over a given period of time and you've, you've ever stood basically. I mean, you could do that. You could bark, you bark lead. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, you could say like, Oh, I'm, you know, we're going on vacation to Switzerland. I'm going to try and Barkley while I'm there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you know, put a hundred miles in or whatever it may be. And I do think there's just, there's like a connective tissue that a brand like Garmin could kind of attach both the technological side, they obviously already have the watch, and then they have a huge community that's already tied to the app. And I just think about some of the engagement that could happen across that, which I think would be pretty fun. Cool question. Graham likes watches. Thank you very much for that. Next up, we've got one from Dave Ann, who asks, how is the guitar learning going, Jason? And for me, James, what was the first song you learned when you picked up the guitar? So Jason, how's the learning process going with your guitar?
Jason Heaton Well, when you first gave it to me back in April, just for some background, James gifted me a lefty guitar because my past guitar learning has come on kind of a standard guitar made for right-handed people, which is the vast majority, and I struggled and I suddenly realized why I was struggling and it's because I'm naturally a left-handed person and It just felt more natural even to air guitar left, left-handed, you know? Um, sure. So you took it upon yourself and I'm very grateful to order up a lefty guitar here in the twin cities. And I picked it up and initially I started playing around with it. And then I kind of had a wacky summer and things got set aside. And so now I'm banking everything on winter. Um, I think winter is going to be a great time to learn, just build a fire and sit, sit with, uh, sit with the guitar and work. So it's, it's in progress. I will, I will make it happen and I'm excited to do it. And I will put out a, I guess a request for anybody listening. If you know of good kind of basic guitar lessons, you know, preferably on something like YouTube, I would love to for, I would love to hear recommendations for that. So feel free to drop those in Slack. You can DM me or, you know, in the episode chat channel on Slack would be great or thegranadoatgmail.com. I'd appreciate that. And what about you? What was the first song?
James Stacey I mean, we're going back like 20, 22 years or something like that. I'm fairly certain it was more than a feeling by Boston. Wow. At the time I had a friend who like made me a CD. Like a you know, a CD-R if you're if you those of you who can remember back to the CD-R days made me a CD with you know, probably like 10 songs that he thought were pretty good to like mess around with and learn it was Ain't Talking About Love by Van Halen. So yeah, I think those were, I think those were the starting ones. I, you know, there was definitely some Smells Like Teen Spirit and that sort of thing in there as well. It was a, it was a mixed bag for, for my very limited, I mean, and my skills stayed very limited. I got a little bit better, but never, never really nailed it.
James Stacey So yeah. Nice.
James Stacey But definitely, I agree. It's a good thing to do on a, on a cool evening once you've, you've kind of settled out the rest of the day.
Jason Heaton All right. Well, Dave and thank you so much for, uh, for those couple of questions. And let's move on to our next one from Alex Hart, who, uh, is asking what is the backstory of the PIP at eight trend on the risk check thread. So, you know, this is directly related to what we talked about earlier in the episode here with our opening chit chat about the PIP at eight collection. Uh, James, you want to give a little explanation of the whole PIP at eight thing?
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, as much as I can, this is a question for the Slack, so it's not a question we're going to answer live on the pod. Alex, if you haven't gotten your question since you asked this, and it's something that comes up probably, I would say, as frequently as even once a month, maybe even a little more in the Slack of people asking, like, what is this reference? Because they weren't there when it first came out. And because we don't use a paid version of the Slack, So there's no archive everything maximum we get is 90 days, but the slack is so active and has so many people on it. So typically, there isn't much of a backlog. Yeah, on there. And that's simply because just so everybody's aware, and certainly folks in the slack are, I think to go paid on slack would be $7 a person. And we're talking a little over 1800 people in there currently. And we only charge, even if you only pay, in your mind, if you pay only for the slack, you only pay five bucks a month for it. So it'd be a loss leader that you and I, you know, would end the show within two months or something like that if we decided to go that route. So we don't have a backlog of of these things. So sometimes the question comes up and it's a question for the Slack. It's like an inside joke for the Slack. So Alex, if you don't have your answer already from hanging out in the Slack since you asked this text question, then I would say vest it again in the Slack. Feel free to tag Jason or I, but you'll get your answer very quickly that way.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey So thanks very much for that question, Alex. Sorry to be dodgy, but it's a Slack inside thing. So that's how we keep it. Next up, we've got one from Matthew birth, who said I recently purchased a manta Ocean King and have been loving the on the fly micro adjust in the bracelet. I know Tudor has their own version, which they call T fit. Do you guys know of other brands who offer this sort of bracelet? So I think Matthew's talking about bracelets that have like to list micro adjust. Yeah, I believe the manta one is push button. Unless I'm, I could have it wrong. I, some of them operate with a button. So you don't actually even take the watch off your wrist. You can like press the button and kind of squeeze or adjust the, the, the setting tutors is called T fit. Rolex is called easy link. A lot of brands have this actually. It's it's, I would say for a while it was almost most common on micro brands.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey Hallios has a push button version. We've seen, sort of like push-button slide extensions in clasps from Oris, certainly like where you have multiple little stages in the clasp. And that's very sort of like pinch and it slides into a little groove. Jason, any others kind of leap to mind for you?
Jason Heaton Well, I remember back in, gosh, it must've been 08 or 09, one of my very first watch reviews was, it was actually a Doxa sub 800 tie. So it was the titanium sub 800 that had the tritium tubes. I mean, a real rare, rare bird these days. You just don't see them around. They didn't last very long in Doxa's lineup. I was struck by the bracelet on that one had that sort of double push button setup where, you know, the upper push buttons, I guess, open to the clasp itself and then the bottom one slid the clasp open and shut in small increments. And I was really struck back then how nice that was, especially, you know, wearing it over a wetsuit or whatever. And then I started to see it on all sorts of watches. I mean, from micro brands on up, and I still think that very clasp, it's probably from you know, probably originated with like one supplier somewhere in Asia that, that was making those for a lot of different kinds of smaller brands. But it, look, it, it worked really, really well. And, and to me, the idea of a, of a class, but you can do that easily without having to take it off or lift up the end of the class to kind of fiddle with it. Uh, it really, it was really great. And I, I agree with you too on, on Oris. I, you know, having tried a couple of their pro divers, even on the rubber strap, um, with the folder for class, but had that little, It was kind of unique. I'm not sure I've seen that on any other watches, but it did have that strange little kind of set of channels on the side that you sort of squeeze and slide back and forth, but that worked pretty well too.
James Stacey Yeah, I had forgotten that even my Sub 200 has that second set of buttons that gives you quite a noticeable extension of the glass, which is nice. Also, because I got it wrong, the Rolex one is not called EZ-Link. I believe it's called Glidelock. Omega has an option as well, which includes a little button. It actually says push. Very easy to know if you happen to take your Omega off inside the clasp. And it's another, it's probably like six or seven millimeters. A lot of them are about that. Some of them go as much as a centimeter. So that would be another one that offers it. So I would say it's kind of on the edge of being on pretty much every watch you could like, at least offered by almost any brand you can think of. Like back in the day, even my aerospace, and it didn't have a push-button extension, but it had a spring sliding system in the clasp. So you would want it to be the right size, but if you flexed your wrist or it got caught on a sleeve or something, it could kind of expand a little bit, and it was quite comfortable that way. The other one that comes to mind that I experienced recently and actually had extension on, built into the deployant clasp of their rubber strap, there was a little tiny amount of adjustability, which is quite clever. It was the first time I'd seen it. That's Formax with the Reef Radiant Bronze diver they made for collective was my experience with it. But then I saw more of it at wind up. I think it's actually something that's fairly common in a lot of different bracelets these days. I think the Tudor one is quite rudimentary in that it's a little spring that holds the system tight against the interior of the clasp, but otherwise you're pulling the system away and sort of sliding it up into various like a laddered notch. Yeah. Grand Seiko has a has a system that's fully ratcheted across the plane of the of the clasp, which is quite nice. And then, of course, these are all options that are theoretically offer more than the multiple drilled holes that you have to use, go back and forth. Oh, a fun note for those of you who have one, like me, have lots of watches that have the micro adjust holes that you need a spring bar tool. If you use a pretty fine Muji pen, which is my favorite sort of pen to just have rolling around in the bottom of a bag, The 0.38 is sharp enough to press those holes in so you can do that while traveling and not have to try to remember a tool of any type.
Jason Heaton Nice. Well, I mean, you know, I remember, you know, back in the day when, like I said, when I first encountered that DOXA there, there just weren't a lot of options in that, in that area now. And, and, you know, Rolex, you know, had the, the, the ones in like you're describing where you actually, you know, push it with a spring bar tool, et cetera. And now it seems like everybody's got, I mean, it's, it, it is the standard. I mean, you almost have to have that on a class these days.
James Stacey Yeah. And let's not forget the most extreme version of this is was on the original Pelagos. Yeah. You know, with a class that had both multiple positions and a spring extension, uh, that would auto essentially auto Titan around a wetsuit. Yeah. Um, pretty clever stuff. And certainly in the world of like, you're, you're just getting into Seiko diving, that sort of thing. The, you know, these, the fold out, dive extension clasp is too much to account for a slightly swollen wrist on a summer day. But I think that was probably, at least in my mind, the earliest version of this. Obviously, they tuned that to add a centimeter or whatever for a wetsuit. But there's a world in which that could have been done to a lesser degree and would have been useful for kind of the same reasons we do it now. But I think it's something that's on a lot of watches these days. I'm less and less surprised when I see it, or actually at a certain price point, I'm surprised when I don't see it. Like I bought that Longines GMT that Hodinkee made, the titanium one. And it's great. It's got quick release for the strap. So if you want to change the strap or whatever, but then the buckle is just this very basic, you know, with the little holes for micro adjusts. And I was thinking, you know, at this price point, you should have tool lists. It should be in the class. But yeah, that's a fun one and a solid question, Matthew. So thanks so much for that. Next up, we've got a question from Ian Crandall, who says, I live in New England. where are some great diving spots and a crew that will go with me? I've not done any diving in New England. So Jason, have you dipped into the waters around there?
Jason Heaton Early in my diving career, I was at a point where I just wanted to dive anywhere, anytime. And I had a day job that took me to Boston for work. And I remember taking my dive gear out there with me for one of my business trips. hooked up with a local Boston diving club or dive shop that did weekly lobster dives in Boston Harbor. Um, you know, these guys were pretty hardcore. They'd go out like on a Wednesday night, uh, after work and they'd get on this boat and they'd go out in the Harbor and it was really shallow, very murky diving. And I just tagged along. I wasn't really even catching lobsters. I didn't have a license. I didn't know what I was doing and, but I just wanted to dive. And I went with these guys and, and know, it was murky. Like we were right below, almost like below the runway for Logan airport. Like the planes are screeching and overhead. It was questionable water quality. You know, I mean, it w it wasn't glamorous diving, but it was, it was diving and it was fun. But I think beyond that, you know, Rhode Island and New Jersey, um, have really good wreck diving. There's, there's everything from U boats to, you know, warships and steamships, et cetera, out there. And, um, certainly on up to the Andrea Doria, which is off of Nantucket. But when you ask about a crew that'll go with you, I know a perfect place to get a crew and that will be in the diving channel on Slack. I'm convinced that if you dip in there and ask this question there, you'll get a bunch of people that are happy to either suggest places or even go with you. So do check that out.
James Stacey Absolutely. Good question, Ian, and good luck in the diving channel. Folks who might want to go diving in the Northeast, await Ian's post and have a good time, be safe and all that kind of stuff. Next up, we've got one from Trey Elvis Hansen, who says, I'm not sure if this will make the deadline, but I am sure this is the most ludicrous hypothetical question that has yet been asked. I would like for you to picture the following watch brands as encapsulated in human form, so a human embodiment of what each brand represents to you. Each of the brands below are in an all-out bar fight. How do you see it playing out, and who is the last one standing? Here are the brands. Doxa, IWC, Breitling, Omega, Rolex, Grand Seiko, AP, Tudor, and Aorus. He says, apologies in advance for the absurdity of this question, but I have a feeling it should be fun to listen to the two of you talk through how it will play out in your minds. Just a good old-fashioned watch brand bar fight.
Jason Heaton How do we approach this one?
James Stacey Oh, so let's start with that. What two brands are the instigators here? Who's the one brand that bumps into the other one and says, yeah, you watch yourself.
Jason Heaton And then it escalates from there. I mean, got to be Breitling. And yeah, I was, I would go either with AP or DOXA is kind of the other instigator. I think I see DOXA as sort of this brash sort of sunburn bleached out guy who smells of beer fights dirty. Sure. You know, that sort of thing. And he's got a pocket full of sand. Yeah. AP's got like one of those grills on his teeth, you know, like he's a big dude. Yeah. Well, and he's got, he's got like a knuckle duster, like a rock or something. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. He's a roundhouse puncher, so he might get lucky with a big swing. Yeah. Big haymakers. Yeah, for sure.
James Stacey And then, yeah. And then I see like probably Omega and Grand Seiko are the friends that are like holding you back.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. He ain't worth it, man. It's not worth it. You're good. Right. You know, Breitling's just like cracking his knuckles. Yeah, yeah. You know, resetting his jaw, something like that. Yeah, yeah. I think Tudor's the guy that, like, waits until the fight actually kind of gets going.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I picture Tudor in the physique of Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Like, super ripped, you know, really athletic. Live. Yeah, like, just, yeah, yeah. Breitling would probably, you know, have a shiv in his pants, you know, like he'd be ready to cut somebody. He'd have some training as well. Krav Maga, you know, some sort of martial art. Yeah, exactly.
James Stacey And, uh, look, I, yeah, and I think, I think brands like Grand Seiko and, and, and like you said, with, uh, with Oris would probably be attempting to make the piece, maybe not make anything worse. Yeah. Right. Maybe, maybe there, you know, I, I think I would see Rolex as the brand that like, uh, moves a chair. So nobody trips over it in the fight. Maybe, maybe he gets a table out of the way. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. And, and if things start to go really bad for like, for their side, that's when they would step in, but I don't think they would be, I don't think like Rolex or even tutors out there like picking a fight. No, I think they see themselves more as like, all right, I can end this fight.
Jason Heaton Yeah. When I'm ready. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Rolex is above the fray. I think IWC is kind of the athletic, handsome guy who doesn't want to, you know, get, get blood on his clothes or, you know, break his nose or something like that. So he's going to for sure.
James Stacey Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. And the docs is the kind of guy that has like a fat lip most of the time, right? Maybe a little, just a little bit of a shiner.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. From, from the last time this went down. And I think of all of them, it's like docs and Breitling are the two that are kind of grinning when all of this goes off. Like this ain't so bad for them. This is kind of yeah in the zone, but yeah, right I don't know if this is exactly the answer that that Trey was looking for But I think that's you know, cuz like bar fights have rules not everybody is the the fighter Right, right and it look if I think this is like an all-out like street brawl I Yeah, I think I would, I would probably want to be on, I would, I would hope to be on the side with like Doxa, Breitling, Tudor, that sort of thing. And then, yeah, like if you need a ride to the, to the hospital afterwards or something like that, I think Oris will give you a lift for sure. I picture Vijay or Rolf, you know, driving. But they're also like, that's, it's the type of brand that probably has a first aid kit in their car. yeah right right and uh and you know can maybe even an ice pack or or you know the one of those ones you snap open or yeah you know and i think docs on the other hand he's pulling a cold steak out of the freezer maybe a cold bottle of vodka with it and he's putting that on the eye and you know putting the game on or something like that yeah right right definitely a different sort of vibe But a fun question tray for sure. And that's when I think we should definitely kick off in in the slack. So folks, if you want to, maybe we'll vest this question again into watch talk. Yeah. And or most certainly watches and see what people think as far as what Jason and I are kind of assuming and this is a bit like that question of compare watches to car brands.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey It always just upsets 50% of the people or the other 50 agree. And then no matter what the pick is the same 50% just flip flop back and forth. So I mean, I would say this is definitely one of those questions where there is no right answer because there's really no actual answer. It's just a lot of a fun question from Trey. So thank you so much for that. Next up, we've got one from Nanad. He said, I'm curious to hear what the anatomy of the perfect pass through NATO strap for diving would be. That's material, hardware, stretch level, thickness, time to dry, and other properties. So Jason, I don't like personally, I don't think of like a NATO being for or not for diving. It's just a question of whether or not it's long enough to go around whatever you're wearing. Yeah, yeah. I dive with a NATO quite frequently. And I like ours. To be honest, it's funny because my opinion and taste has changed a lot since we started the show. But I'm still pretty much locked in on the NATO that we offer as a TGN NATO is among essentially a perfect NATO. There's definitely other versions that are great and super wearable, but I wouldn't do much to change that specific formula.
Jason Heaton Right. I think my preference for diving is not NATO straps. I never have good luck with NATOs for diving other than the length. And for instance, when I was doing the Channel Islands trips this summer with Blancpain, I used very long NATOs because I was wearing a dry suit and everybody on board was in really thick wetsuits. So they're good for that. But I mean, To me, ideally, and this is getting off topic a little bit, the best strap for diving is still a rubber one with that kind of a stretch accordion venting. Yeah. That'll take up the slack. But to your question, um, I do think that, uh, you know, any NATO will work. I think you just have to tighten it down more than you think you should. So, you know, your fingers start to tingle a little bit because then when you get in the water and your, your suit compresses a bit, it's kind of perfect and it doesn't spin around in your wrist. But, uh, I guess in terms of material. Um, something, you know, the one we have is maybe a little too absorbent, a little too of a softer, uh, material. Whereas some of those, like, I'm trying to think who sells them those ribbed ones from what used to be called cheapest NATO straps. I think she goes by CNS now given the nasty lawsuit business from that guy that everybody loves to hate. But I think that one does not absorb water very well. So it's good. Um, you get out of the water, it's not kind of. you know, wet against your wrist for the rest of the day. But yeah, hardware doesn't really matter. Steel, titanium, whatever.
James Stacey Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. For me, I think the material, I like what's in our standard. Like I've said, I really like the 328, the Zulu Diver rubber NATOs. Oh yeah, those are good. So I think if you're really making a NATO for diving, I'd probably go with rubber. It's super comfortable. It makes it easier to get it super tight, like you mentioned. Yeah, true. Stretches a little.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey You know, as far as hardware, I'm more concerned with how the hardware matches the finish of the watch than I am the specifics of the hardware. Like if it's a black watch, I'd like black hardware. If it's titanium, ideally I'd have titanium, but to be clear, I'm totally fine wearing a titanium watch in brushed hardware. And then if I'm going with like more of a vintage style watch, I might want polished hardware, which is kind of the traditional kind of spec of a NATO. So yeah, I think that would be how it works out of my time. I like a very thin NATO, whether it's the rubber or the kind of cotton, nylon option. Time to dry, you know, in that case, just give me as fast as possible. Or again, with rubber, it's almost immediate. If you can get the water off of the strap, it's dry. So yeah, I think that's probably the direction I would go. as far as NATOs go, I have never really come to a point with the one that we offer where it's not what I want. And I still have dozens of other colors from UTA, UTE Watchco that Terry ran before, and that's who our supplier was. And then when that got shut down, we got connected with the original supplier of the straps, and that's how we still get the 20 and 22 and gray, but I had lots either through the hooding key shop where we carried them or through Terry, where, you know, we always had, had stuff coming and going for Terry and that sort of thing. So, you know, I'm, I'm a bit of a broken record, I guess, or maybe it's just, I, my taste hasn't really evolved when it comes to NATOs. The, those ones really do hit the spot for me.
Jason Heaton Don't overthink it. NATOs are NATOs. Get a bunch and swap them out as they start to fray or the polls go bad or anything like that. Good question. Absolutely. We have one more from Dan H. The final. The very final of the 2024 Q&A series. And Dan H asks, I'd like to know what are your thoughts on electric vehicles and out of the currently available options, What would you choose to replace the trusty Land Rover and Jeep? And we'll take trusty with a grain of salt on that one. So what are your thoughts on electric cars? Are you curious? Do you like them?
James Stacey Yeah, I would say largely pretty disappointed by the offering so far. I mean, again, I see them as being, and I think I talked about this a bit on the Deep Track recently. I'm not sure if it made the edit that Blake put together. but I just have trouble seeing like taking the same enthusiasm I have for something like a Land Rover or a Jeep or or any like kind of old school or old school adjacent off-roader that was, you know, originally designed either for some sort of a military application or literally just to have fun. And then extrapolating that to the point where cars are now and then adding in the electrification side of it. From a practical standpoint, charging a vehicle in Toronto is a pain. If you're not charging at home, feel free just to go back and watch like any of the electric reviews from the straight pipes. they always do a pretty good job of highlighting just how much of a pain it is to try and get the machine to work and whether or not the space is open and people use them like parking lots so they're not even charging but they're in the charging spot and then level whatever doesn't work so you're it's going to take three hours and you're going to sit in this parking lot maybe if you're lucky it's at a mall or something like that none of that is interesting to me i do i like the idea of your city car if you need a city car being a small like electric runabout And for those, it's like your options are myriad. You could go with a Chevy Bolt. You could go with, you know, the Volvo or Polestar options. You can obviously go with options from BMW. You can go with options from Tesla. As far as like something that would replace the Land Rover or the Jeep, that's a tough scenario because I drive a fair amount in the winter and we get a cold winter and so do you, Jason. So you have a huge range problem when the batteries are cold. And then on top of that, I tow with some frequency, like several times a summer, I tow a trailer. And that's not always great. I think they're getting better at this, but it is a little bit of an Achilles heel for electric pickup trucks is their towing ability is so hard on the battery. And so that's an issue as well. And then the other side of it is like, Jason and I, neither of us really drive that much, all things considered. Right, Jason?
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey You don't drive a ton, neither do I. And in many ways, I could probably operate almost without a car, aside from my summer, where I want to get to the cottage. I want to be able to do cottage stuff and get my family there. And then I want to go to the dump and I want to pull a stump and I want to do all these other things that I like to have the Jeep for. And Outside of those scenarios, owning the Jeep, or in your case, Jason, with the Land Rover, is an emotional decision. You didn't buy that car because it's the best possible car. And an electric car might indeed be the best car to get around and get from point A to point B, especially, again, in a city scenario where you're not driving hundreds of kilometers a day. I see all the value points and all of that kind of stuff as well, but replacing an enthusiast vehicle with an electric option feels crazy to me. There's nothing enthusiastic about any of these vehicles as far as I'm concerned. Best case, you can get a Tesla that's very expensive and goes very fast in a straight line. But it's not speed that's fun. It's not going as fast as you can in a five-speed Honda Civic. That's a lot of fun. You're really managing all these elements. I've spent some time in stuff like uh, the Rivian, which is probably the closest thing to something that could replace a Land Rover or a Jeep. And don't get me wrong, I would absolutely consider something like an R1T. I like having the truck, I like having the four seats, I like all of the other technology and that sort of stuff, but I don't think it would be a one-to-one sort of consideration to the Jeep, where I have a stick, where I have a vehicle I can service in my own driveway, where I have a vehicle I don't have to worry that much about because it's just not that expensive. The Rivian is going to cost 100 grand or whatever or more, right? And you would have to also buy the Rivian and at the same time make a decision to actively not buy stuff like the new Forerunner, the new Land Cruiser, the new GX series, or even something like the Ineos. It's not like the only options that are good are the electric stuff. And again, I thought the new Scout stuff, I mean, granted, I like it. We just talked about Rivian. They seem very similar to me. And I think we'll see more and more. And I've read fairly mixed owners' experiences with stuff like the Lightning, the electric Ford truck. But I love that idea. I love the idea of an electrified Ranger, because it could tow. So I think some of these things just, we're still kind of weirdly in like one and a half gen of the electric car. Like we're definitely post-Tesla having the only option, but we've also watched it fail out for other brands. You know, Jaguar couldn't make it work. And there's public communication from brands like Toyota saying that they're going to hold their breath on the electrification thing because they don't think it's actually the solution because the charging may never catch up. And they still think it's more of a hydrogen thing or a synthetic fuel sort of thing. And genuinely, that's way beyond my pay grade. And this is before you even get into the considerations of what option is actually better for the planet. If you're buying a brand new car, you have one type of math. If you're talking about replacing a currently running and functional used car with a modern electric car, that's a different math. Because a lot of the sunk costs are already sunk when it comes to the ICE vehicle, like a 15-year-old Jeep or a significantly older Land Rover, right? So, I mean, I could ramble about this for a long time, but the things that led me to the Jeep, and I think in many ways, Jason, the things that led you to the Land Rover, I don't think you can replicate. You can get a great electric car.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey I don't think you can replicate an enthusiast experience right right now.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I agree. And I, I think, you know, I often think about kind of my footprint with, with especially the defender, you know, it's a 30 year old diesel powered truck. Um, but I, I can sort of justify it in, in respect to what you said about, I just don't drive that much. And also it is, I'm keeping something existing and old, um, with most of its original components that were made many, many years ago. on the road and in very functional use, whereas to go out and buy a new electric vehicle, we're talking minerals that are mined from the earth and a lot of plastic and batteries that might last seven years before they have to be replaced. And then what do you do with all of that? If you even own a vehicle that long, people tend to kind of lease things for two or three years and then flip them and I guess my mental math or my justification is buy something that you'll just drive for a very long time and just keep it on the road and just keep it maintained. I think one option that we haven't discussed is kind of a restomod or repowering of something like my Series 3 Land Rover, which I've seen several companies do now where they will actually replace the gasoline or diesel engine with an electric set of electric motors and batteries in like a Series 3 or whatever. And there's a company in Australia that I follow that that does that and does a good job with it. I'm not sure that I would like that again. Like part of what I love about that vehicle, which is, you know, pushing 50 years old now. And then the 30 year old defender is it's such a, every time I drive it, I'm really struck by how mechanical it is, how every push of the clutch pedal and pull of the shift lever, um, or using a choke, et cetera. It's all very, I'm very connected to a machine. It's like wearing this Navitimer, you know, you press the button, you can feel it engage and you see the hand start to move and. I think with electric vehicles, it's all push button and screens and you just sort of silently move away. And I get it. Some people are A to B drivers. And like you said, in a city, a small electric vehicle is a nice choice. No brainer. Yeah. I think hybrid is something that I could consider. I think that there's a hybrid version of the new Defender. I'm not sure if Ineos is there yet. I'm not sure where Bronco is. I think in terms of if I were to look for anything new that would kind of fit my mold of what I like, I think. Like a, a new Bronco with like a six speed, like a very base version would be cool. And I'm not sure if they're, they're headed in the hybrid direction or electric yet, but, um, that would be a vehicle that I'd consider. And then the new Scout, you mentioned that. That's a tie up, I think, between Volkswagen and Rivian. And it does look like the Rivian influence there. And it's a sharp looking vehicle. I'm not sure I'd consider it because it's probably way out of my price point, et cetera.
James Stacey Yeah. No, I think they look great. And look, I don't want to sound like I'm being so hard on electric cars. I see them as appliances. And if you are, and there's absolutely no shame to this, it might mean that you're mentally more healthy. But if you are an appliance driver, like you drive to go to work, you drive to take your kids to soccer, and what you value is functionality and usefulness and practicality and packaging and comfort, an electric vehicle is an incredible choice, especially if you're in the market for a new vehicle. Yeah, especially now that you could go out and get whatever that new big Hyundai is that maybe it's called the EV9, EX9, something like that. It's a great big three row that looks like a kind of in the same vein as like a Tron version of a Defender. And you know, it's got it's got an electric powertrain and you're not buying first generation tech in these scenarios. But I just, in my mind, I don't have a vehicle, like I have a vehicle that is useful with the Jeep, but I don't, like my uses for it are more than just point A to point B sort of driving. And like I said, there's no shade in that being your mode, like everybody's going to find joy in life the way they find it. But I think for those of us who find joy in automotive, in the automotive space, especially in older vehicles that have manual transmissions and sort of more vintage technology and that sort of thing. I think it's going to be a very difficult perspective to apply to the world of electric cars. And I think the dailies will all have to become electrics over time, for sure. But I do think at the same time, we will see a very specific type of You know, I may love and enjoy my Garmin or an Apple Watch, but I don't have an emotional connection to them. Maybe that's the best way to explain it. Right now, I've not experienced an electric car that I would have an emotional connection for. Maybe that Sacrilege 911 would be as close as you could get because it still felt very much like an enthusiast vehicle. That said, at $800,000, I would just buy a nice 911. But to be fair to Sacrilege and even I had this conversation with their CEO, I am not the buyer for this car. I've not owned, I don't currently own 15 other 911s and want an electric alternative to bring out on a weekend. So I don't think I'm hurting anybody's feeling by saying that wouldn't necessarily be my, the way I would spend 800 grand. right there are buyers for something that kind of specific but i think that's the extent you're going to have to go to to make an electric car something that appeals to people who really feel strongly about previous the previous generation of the car of the idea of a car right I think a lot of times as we move forward, we'll all see like 2010 to 2015 is this real dividing line in terms of cars. Yeah. 2011 we had the CGT 6-speed V10. Amazing. Then all of a sudden we had to have the P1 hybrid and the LaFerrari, which is a hybrid and the 918, which is a hybrid. And then now with the new ones we have, uh, the new, you know, Ferrari, the F80 is a V6. with a, with an electric motor in, in a, in a, a series Ferrari, you know, like a flagship Ferrari, what previously would have been an F50 and F40, a 288 GTO. Oh, sure.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey Real driver's cars, sort of enthusiast vehicles. And I think it'll be, it'll be brands like Ferrari and Lamborghini and, um, and Aston Martin that have to unpackage this problem of enthusiasm not necessarily aligning with high tech. Right. Yeah. Sorry. That was a very long winded answer. Not sure it was what you're looking for. This is something I think about a lot because I think there's so many great merits to electric vehicles, but none of them are this are none of them are going to appeal to people the way that like buying a V8 is. Yeah. Or does or optioning a stick over a
Jason Heaton analogy of a Garmin or Apple watch. And when you look around, most people are wearing Garmins and Apple watches or Suntos. And I think those people enjoy their Prius or their Tesla or whatever. And I totally get it. We are probably in an ever-increasing minority when it comes to this stuff with our old Navitimers and Pelagoses and things like this. And I rarely see another, you know, well, Defender, that's a bit of a long shot anyway, because it's an import right-hand drive, et cetera. But I, you know, you just see less and less of this type of thing and more and more of, of the electrics and the hybrids and stuff like that. So we're definitely headed in that direction.
James Stacey Theoretically, this is all good for the world, which is a good thing. I just think that once we've all moved on, so everything that's new is electric or almost everything that's new is electric. There'll be this increased shine for 2012 and back of these vehicles that didn't have giant screens, didn't have dual clutch transmissions, didn't have I guess my point, and maybe Jason, you're in the same place, is I would love to be proven wrong, but right now I haven't seen the connection between classic automotive enthusiasm and electric cars. Obviously, there's a huge amount of cult-like enthusiasm within the Tesla world, but I don't think that's necessarily the same sort of enthusiasm you would have for something like a vintage Land Rover or something like that. Anyways, Dan H, I apologize if that was way too long of an answer. How about a little bit of final notes to put a bow on it now that we finished the final question of the 2024 outing of the Slack Q&A. That was part six. Thank you so much for everyone who asked questions. And Jason, like I said, how about a little bit of final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's dive in. Actually, just yesterday, I got a package on my doorstep from TGN listener, local friend, Mike Canfield. Mike has a really unique podcast, or started as a podcast, called On the Dog Watch. Really clever. He's had some interesting guests and interesting topics. And he's also got a little shop, and it's worth a visit. It's called thedogwatchcompany.com. And his most recent product is called the Dog Watch Travel Shaving and Signal Mirror. I think this is kind of right up a TGN sort of EDC alley here. If you're familiar with a signal mirror, this is kind of a relic from days gone by, but still certainly relevant and useful. And it is, as it suggests, it's a polished slab or sheet of steel that you can use to shave around the campfire or if you're camping, etc. But it also doubles as a signal mirror. So if you're lost in the woods and there's an aerial search going on or even a ground-based search, you can reflect the sun off of this highly polished piece of steel to alert people of your whereabouts. You know, you might be scratching your head and wondering, you know, why is this relevant? Why is somebody making this? Well, it's, it's actually a really well-crafted product and, and Mike's put a lot of thought into this. Uh, I know he's worked on it for a very long time cause he's told me about it for quite a long time and, and he was kind enough to give me one as a gift. And I think James, he's sending you one. And I think he, um. Oh really? Yeah, he is. And he included a little note and said that this product would not have come about without TGN. So thanks, Mike, for this gift. And that's our disclosure, I guess, for this final note is that it indeed was a gift to me and coming to you, James, as well. I think it's a great product by its own merit. It comes in a beautiful little fold-over leather pouch. Everything was made right here in Minneapolis-St. Paul, right down to the packaging and the signal mirror itself. It has some nice engraving on it. It comes with a neat little note, kind of an explanatory note. I don't know. It's just fun to support our fellow TGN crew. And Mike's been a longtime listener and I've met him for coffee and he's been at a few local events here and he's a great guy. So check it out. It's the Dog Watch Travel Shaving and Signal Mirror. It's $75 on his website. Yeah, currently on sale.
James Stacey That's great. Well, a big thank you to them for sending one my way. I look forward to checking it out. I think these are very cool. Definitely like super traditional, sort of rugged old school piece of gear.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey But I think for the right setting, certainly if you've got a cabin, if you like to do some camping, there's a few different ways this could be useful. Certainly signaling is one of them. And I find actually the signal to be like genuinely useful. I've used that. Yeah. Trying to get, especially on water, like to get people's attention.
Jason Heaton Oh, yeah.
James Stacey Which can be quite nice. So that's cool. Yeah. Neat stuff.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey what do you got and mind in some ways aligns sort of you can signal with it if you want uh you know i spoke briefly about in the car segment there about maybe if you're not too deep into cars you might actually be more mentally healthy than people who are Uh, that also goes with flashlights, especially for me. Uh, I have a problem where these days, almost anytime I'm buying anything, I find a reason just to add a flashlight from Amazon.
James Stacey Oh yeah.
James Stacey Um, it's not a good trait. It's not something I'm proud of, but I was, you know, kidding out that, uh, Franny pack I got recently, um, which I spoke about and I can put in the show notes from fees originals. Um, And in that process, there's a few things I always do. I added one of the glow-in-the-dark zipper pulls. I added a clip from Night Eyes. And in the process, I was watching a lot of what people carry in their little bag, whether it's a Franny pack or a Maxpedition pouch or whatever. And this one light kept kind of coming up as a good option for like a bag that you could just kind of throw around. And it's this one from Olight, a brand I've used before. They make a lot of sort of inexpensive high-performance flashlights. And this is called the Oclip. It's $30. It comes in five or six different colors or versions. And it's literally like a very strong metal clip that has a light built into it. So you can clip it onto the edge of your pocket. I have it clipped onto the band of the pad. And it works really well. Like I said, it clips on. It has a fairly simple single button control which will move between multiple brightness. It's up to 300 lumens. It also has a red version. So if you're walking on a street that doesn't have any streetlights, I like to use that so somebody doesn't just slam into you with their car or their bike or whatever. And yeah, it's just kind of a nice, simple, really small USB-C rechargeable. I've seen guys on Reddit using it as like, you know, like a money clip. So that's about the size that it is. It's, in my opinion, a little thick for a money clip. But I've had it on the bag for the last little while. And especially in that zone where You know, last night I was coming back, it was a five hour flight or whatever back from Vancouver. And, you know, it was an evening flight, so they shut the lights off after they do the dinner service. And I wanted to dig around in my bag and I just had this clipped on. I was able to turn it on to this very low initial brightness and dig around in my bag. And then, of course, you can clip it to the brim of a hat. You could clip it to the collar of it or the edge of a hem of a jacket. So there's a bunch of different ways to use it. And I do like these solutions because I have a lot of really nice flashlights, including like Machines and stuff like that. But these ones that I don't have to hold right when I'm using them are quite handy. This one's partially magnetic. So if you're using it while working on the car, you can clip it to the hood. Or like magnet it to the hood and that sort of thing. It's just a nice simple thing I don't I think it costs the right amount of money and so far I've been happy with it. So that's the Oh light Oh clip and and like the Franny pack I paid full price for it on Amazon I have no connection to Oh light or or any of this that there's none of this was like planned or spoken about I just bought it Used it for the last couple weeks and I've really liked it.
Jason Heaton This is great I have a perfect use for it too because I the defender does not have a dome light and So this time of year, when I get in and I'm fiddling around trying to figure out where to put the key in the ignition, I often have to turn the light on on my phone and hold it next to the steering wheel to find where to put the key in. And I think this could be clipped onto the sun visor and then just turn it on. When I get in the car, it'd be very easy to then see my way around if I have to dig for something. sitting in a parking lot or something like that. So, um, yeah. And they also show it on the website in red mode, clipped onto, you know, a cyclist's back of his Jersey for riding at night. I think, you know, I've got a few of these kinds of clip lights for, for biking, but I think this one is a little more versatile for kind of everyday use. So yeah, really cool. I like this.
James Stacey Yeah, I dig it. Simple, straightforward, sort of fun. And it definitely scratches that like EDC itch. Yeah. Because it's a totally different format than, you know, my other 40 flashlights that we don't have to talk about right now. So definitely. And I've definitely gotten to a point where I probably won't buy another flashlight ever that can't be USB recharged. Like I have the Michant stuff, which if I'm gonna have a light that can't be recharged, that's the one. They're so beautiful and nice to use and feel great. And I always have one in my main camera bag. But for stuff like this, like where I'll just leave this clip to the pack permanently, like it just lives with that. And that way it's easy to keep on top of remembering to charge it and all that kind of stuff. And then you're also like, you get used to actually using it and it becomes quite handy.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Cool. So there you go. Nice. All right. We're getting close to gift guide time. I think, you know, we got to start, we got to maybe keep our powder dry and maybe start, you know, banking some of these suggestions. That'd be, that'd be a great one, but.
James Stacey Yeah. And I mean, it may make the, it may make the guide who knows. We have to rethink how we want to do the guide this year. I'd like to do like a super episode for that, like a bigger one, maybe bring somebody in. Yeah. I think we've always done that one, just you and I. So I've got a few ideas, but it should be fun.
James Stacey Yeah.
James Stacey So that'll be coming up in December. Please stay tuned for that. But this is everything for 308. Thank you so much for everybody who sent in a question or offered a question for the Slack Q&A. If this wasn't enough question and answer for you, buckle up because we've got, I think, five Q&As that need to be run before the end of the year. So we will be on top of that as well. That'll also help fill in a little bit of a gap over Thanksgiving. So stay tuned for that. If you are on the subscriber side, but you don't get the Q&A episodes, you do have an email from Substack that has all the steps required to add the private feed into whatever podcast app that you use. And then you'll be able to see both all of the standard episodes, but then on top of that, the monthly, quote unquote, Q&A episodes. So look forward to that. And otherwise, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly. Maybe even grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO or access to the slack. And of course, the private feed with all the Q&A episodes. Please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Francis Bacon, who said, A prudent question is one half of wisdom.