The Grey Nato - Ep 37 - Collection Inspection Vol 4

Published on Tue, 27 Jun 2017 09:01:58 -0400

Synopsis

This episode of The Grey NATO podcast covers two main topics:

  1. Jason and James discuss their chosen watches for a "collection inspection" segment. Jason highlights his Citizen Aqualand dive watches, which feature an integrated depth gauge and other dive-related functions. James talks about his beloved Seiko SKX007 dive watch, which he has owned for 10 years and recently had serviced.

  2. They also share some interesting articles and podcasts in the "final notes" section. These include an in-depth Hodinkee article about the Bulova Accutron Astronaut watch worn by pilots of the Lockheed A-12 spy plane, a profile of late mountaineer Ulli Steck by fellow climber Conrad Anker, and a new car-focused podcast hosted by Spike Feresten.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Welcome to episode 37 of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. Thanks for listening.
James Stacey And we're kicking off tonight's show kind of just running right into it. So first up, we have a quick mention of our ongoing giveaway. If you listen to this on the Tuesday, it comes out. You have two more weeks to enter for an Oris Diver 65. It's an awesome giveaway. And that's obviously thanks to Oris who provided the watch. So if you go to the GrayNado Instagram account, you'll see a picture of the Oris, only one picture of the watch. And in the description for that post is the instructions for how to enter the giveaway. only put your comments on that one post nowhere else, and you're set. Jason, you got any other new business? You're back from the GoPro Games kind of recently, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, last episode I mentioned that I was headed out to Vail, Colorado with Tudor Watch to check out the GoPro Mountain Games, and I'm back. It seems like it was ages ago, but it was just last weekend. It was a real blast. The GoPro Mountain Games, I didn't really know what to expect, but if you've ever been to Vail, it's kind of the It's like a ski town that was built to be a ski town. Like in the late 60s this town was constructed just to be a ski resort. And it kind of has this faux Swiss mountain town feel to it. Lots of kind of old looking wooden buildings and balconies on hotels and things and these quaint little streets and shops and things. And it kind of sprawls below I guess Vail Mountain where all the ski runs are located. the GoPro games just sort of spread out throughout the town and into the surrounding hills and on the creek that runs through town. It was a really cool experience because, you know, I was thinking it was kind of more of a, you know, along the lines of more like a, you know, music festival mixed with like a fun run and, you know, kind of like, you know, wandering guys on skateboards and kayaks and things. It definitely had much more of a a sporting event feel to it mixed with mixed with like a festival. You know, there was music, live music and there were vendors and tents and the, the sports that were going on was this real interesting mishmash of freestyle kayaking that was done in this rapids right under a bridge. It was a perfect place to watch it. Um, slack lining, uh, there were dogs jumping off of this kind of fake dock into a big pool of water competing for kind of the longest jump. Um, It was trail running and mountain biking. Uh, there was a world cup, a bouldering competition. It was really cool. I mean, it was neat to watch all of these really high level athletes compete in these very niche sports. None of which I do, you know, these are, these are pro athletes. These are pro freestyle kayakers. There was this guy, I'm not into whitewater kayaking at all, but I've even read about this guy, Eric Jackson. He's kind of this old, old time. He's been in the sport for,
James Stacey Decades and he's got his own kayak brand and he was there and his kids compete now and sounds awesome Yeah, top top men's and women's rock climbers were doing the bouldering and I saw some instagram stories for the bouldering that looked great That's a that's a really fun and it's cool because the bouldering of course doesn't require A huge field in which to do it so you can actually it does actually become a spectator sport at that level Yeah, which is uh, which is pretty neat. It looked like a lot of fun
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And, and, uh, your, your, certainly your stories and photos and stuff from there. People can certainly check out the photos at least on your Instagram, but there was a, it looked like a, a real kind of Mecca for, yeah, mountain sports and, uh, and that sort of kind of the original idea behind the GoPro product.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, and I was there with Tudor, which is kind of at first blush, it's, there's sort of an unlikely sponsor of the GoPro mountain games, um, just because, luxury watch brand, part of the Rolex group, but you know, tutors, especially in the U S has made this effort to kind of brand themselves as a, you know, like a watch for adventurers based on their history. Um, but also kind of this new image that they're trying to project with, you know, a PVD dive watch and, and, um, you know, the North flag and, and watches like that. And, um, so while I was there, you know, they had a, they had a tent set up right next to, you know, LL Bean and, and, uh, a lot of other sort of outdoor brands that were there exhibiting. Uh, but they also use the occasion to introduce their newest, they aren't really calling him an ambassador, but kind of a brand partner. And that's a guy that we've talked about on the show and Jimmy Chin, uh, whom I mentioned on the last show. And, and it's a great choice. He is a great choice. It's, it's slightly, it was slightly awkward timing for Tudor. I think, um, you know, they were really enthused about introducing him at the GoPro mountain games, but I think it was, timed rather close to their unveiling of David Beckham as a brand ambassador. And I think they didn't quite know how to mesh the two together. But I had a great opportunity to interview Jimmy for about an hour in my hotel on the second day of the event. And it was a real, I guess, writing career highlight for me to sit down with a guy like that whom I've admired and looked at his stuff for many years, um, in various magazines. And of course the, the Meru movie that, that we've raved about so many times here. Yep. And yeah, so my, you know, my interview rather than kind of summarize it here, you can, we'll put a link in the show notes. I interviewed him for outside magazine and that's up on their website currently. So you can go check that out. But, uh, we got to do, you know, he, he sort of hosted or did a Q and a after a private screening of Meru that we did at a local cinema there, which was, You know, I've seen that film like four or five times now, but, uh, never, you know, it never disappoints. I could watch that thing every night, I think.
James Stacey Must be good on a big screen too.
Jason Heaton Yeah. In fact, you're right. I guess I had never seen it on a big screen and that was fun. And it was in one of these cinemas where you can like bring food in and the chairs are like big lazy boys. So it was pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. So, um, yeah, that was, that was, uh, kind of the highlight of, of last week. And then just quickly, I'm, I'm off on Friday to go to, uh, to Bermuda, um, with Ulysse Nardin. for the finals of the America's Cup. Hey, nice. Which, you know, different change of direction here. I was in Bermuda last year with Bremont and I'm excited to go back. It's a cool place. And even though Ulysse's team, Artemis, isn't in the finals, I'll be curious to see how they, you know, kind of handle the viewing. But I'm told we'll get to see the finals from a spectator boat. And I've lined up a morning of diving on Sunday to kind of get out and you know, with some free time and maybe check out some of the shipwrecks there. So pretty excited about that. And, uh, yeah, I'll be there Friday through Monday. So that'll be my new business next time, I guess.
James Stacey Hey, very cool. You could do a lot worse. Uh, Bermuda, I'm sure is lovely pretty much all year round. Yeah. And, uh, to get there and check out a really kind of awesome boat race is as good a reason as any to get down to that part of the world.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. I'll, I'll be bringing a long lens and, and shooting and, uh, Hopefully come back with some decent photos. I agree. And speaking of lenses, you finally did pick up the lens you were after for quite a while.
James Stacey Yeah. So on the last episode, I spoke about this Zeiss 24 millimeter F1.8 for the E-mount, the crop sensor Sony mount for my a6500. And I actually ended up buying the lens the day before the new episode went up, such as the delay in podcasting. And I've been using it ever since. So you can pretty much see a delineation point in my Instagram, where I show a picture of the camera, pretty much everything. Actually. Yeah. Everything after that has been with the 6500 and this Zeiss, uh, 24 millimeter, which is about 36 or a 35 millimeter on the, uh, on the crop sensor. And I absolutely adore it. If you're using an E-mount camera and want. the best 35-ish prime out there. I can see why, um, I can see why people go for this. This is one of the more expensive lenses I've ever bought, but it's, uh, it's lovely and it takes a really crisp photo. It handles light a lot better than the kit lens.
Jason Heaton What was the kit lens? What was the focal range on that?
James Stacey It's a 16 to 50. Oh, okay. But it's a 3.5 to 5.6 depending on where you are in the zoom range. Oh yeah. And I don't really like zoom. I like wide is fine and I prefer to stay in the sort of wide where you don't get a lot of distortion. So I found, you know, with the, uh, X 100 T being 35 millimeters after the lens is on, it's not a 35 millimeter sensor, but like the Sony, it's a, a sensor that essentially magnifies the lens. And with the X 100 T you essentially got 35 millimeters. And now I essentially have 35 millimeters on the 6,500 and the difference in using the camera is night and day. It's a, it's, it feels like it focuses faster. That may not be accurate. I don't really have any way of testing that, but I definitely only take one or two shots versus several, uh, to get what I want. And you can pretty much run it wide open at one eight. And it seems really sharp, especially certainly right in the center. It is very sharp. Yeah. And then if you stop it down, even just a bit into a three, five or four, it's a razor sharp across the whole, the whole range. So great lens, not much bigger than the kit. I mean, it's about, double the length of the kit lens, but the kit lens is really only probably a little under two inches. Oh yeah. So this isn't, uh, it's not out of place on a camera of the 6,500 size. So I'm, uh, I'm thrilled they're expensive, but, uh, really, really, really nice. I'm happy with it.
Jason Heaton Nice. Yeah. The photos look great. And you've sent me a couple of sort of non watch or non Instagram photos as well. And, and you know, the family photos and the car stuff and the watches. I mean, it's, I can see how you're going to, You're going to get a lot of use out of that.
James Stacey Yeah, nice simple option. I got it on Craigslist and the guy had a Zeiss CPL, so I'm set for cars as well. I always like to shoot cars with the CPL. And then if you do any video through this lens, the CPL will essentially work as a bit of an ND filter so you can get the shutter speed to where you want it to be for the videos.
Unknown Huh, nice.
James Stacey Which is an added bonus. Yeah. But yeah, you got anything else new or you want to roll right into our main topic?
Jason Heaton Let's jump in. I think we've got Kind of a long overdue one, I think, this week.
James Stacey Yeah, it's been over six months since we've done a collection inspection, so we thought, why not throw another one in the mix? We've got more watches to talk about. So, Jason, you want to kick it off with yours?
Jason Heaton Sure, yeah. I was trying to remember what we did for our previous ones. I couldn't even remember which... I remember the watches we did, but I couldn't remember which order. But when we were chatting about it today, you'd mentioned your choice, and I had one in mind as well. And we've kind of, we're kind of coming down in the same general price bracket and actually from the same part of the world too. I, I picked a citizen, it's two citizens, but I'm going to kind of talk about it as one because they're essentially the same watch separated by 30 years. It's the, the Aqua land that if anyone follows me on Instagram, you know, you've seen, I post a fair number of photos of one or the other of these watches. And it's essentially the, The two references of Aqualand that I have are the C023 and then the JP2000. The C023 was Citizen's first Aqualand that was released back in 1985. It was a really revolutionary watch at the time. It was the world's first diving watch that had an integrated electronic depth gauge. It's got this analog digital display that Um, for, for that model in 1985, it, it had a, you know, it showed your current depth as you were diving, um, maximum depth as well as, um, an alarm function. Uh, it would keep track of, of your, your maximum, uh, dive depth as well as your dive time for, for the dive that you were using it on. And then it had stuff like, you know, chronograph and, and a second time zone. And I think just a standard alarm for, you know, waking up in the morning or whatever. But at the time it was really revolutionary, and the watch that I have, I picked up quite a while ago, I think I got it on, I might have even gotten it on eBay or maybe off of Watch Recon, but it was actually manufactured, I checked the serial number, and it was manufactured in January of 85, and that was the month the watch was actually released to the public, so it's a very early one. You know, you and I have waxed poetic about quartz watches in our last episode and kind of the analog digital form factor, you know, with your aerospace and, and the emergency that I had. Um, but, but to me it represents this great, you know, early to mid eighties functionalist that, that really to me kind of represents that era of where watches were headed. You know, we were coming out of that period, you know, the so-called quartz crisis where mechanical watches were sort of, um, on the out and and everyone was wearing quartz watches but but the dive computer hadn't you know really caught on yet it was you know early 80s when the first dive computers came out so this was really that kind of bridging watch between tool dive watch and and dive computer which you know as people know or are more commonly used these days than than any sort of an analog dive watch so this this watch was i think kind of the ultimate evolution or culmination of what dive watches became. I think it was kind of the last iteration of a true tool dive watch that was used as as it was designed and and for that reason I like it but I think just aesthetically it still really holds its own because it has it has kind of a traditional looking dial with these big it has this little digital window at the top of the dial, which it doesn't intrude on the aesthetic. And I think it kind of, I think it actually kind of adds to it. Um, as well as kind of this bulbous like tumor on the left side, that's the depth gauge. But, um, I don't know. I've always, I've always liked this watch when, when I was, um, after I got out of high school, my best friend down there, who's I still keep in touch with and still go diving with. He, he got into diving right away after high school. Uh, he actually worked in a dive shop and, And he bought one of these and he had the, I think it was the CO 20 and it was the one that had the gold accents. And he wore that thing for, you know, 20 years or something like that before it finally leaked and gave up the ghost. But, um, I just remember seeing that watch on his wrist and thinking how, how, how cool it was that, that a, that he was using it for, for its purpose and, and, you know, kind of made me want one, but I didn't feel I deserved one until I really got into diving. I don't know. It's always kind of stood out as, as one of those icon pieces. And now for a watch that you can get for, you know, 300, maybe 400 bucks, it's such a cool watch to own. And then the kind of the second of the two watches, when I talk about kind of the book end of this is more recently, I picked up a, the JP 2000, which was released in the mid nineties to as kind of an update that that first aqualand. And even though citizen had been, updating the format of this watch, and there are numerous iterations of Aqualands over the years. The JP-2000 was the version 2.0 of that original Aqualand. It looks almost identical. There are a few font differences on the dial and things, but they really updated the functionality of the watch. The new one has a four-dive memory, it has an ascent rate alarm, depth alarm, and I think the Kind of the biggest change was they moved to a screw-on case back, whereas the early one had a case back that was actually the exact shape of the watch that was held on by like, I don't know, eight little tiny little jeweler screws. So if you were changing the battery, actually it had three batteries, it was kind of a pain because you'd have to fiddle with all these little tiny screws and make sure that you tighten them all equally so the gasket was torqued on correctly and then you had three batteries you had to deal with. And so the new one, I think was quite a, quite an upgrade to that. And, uh, but otherwise it looks identical. And I think you see a lot of, you know, people that have these watches on Instagram, they have the JP 2000 because they, as far as I know, they still make these. I mean, I bought this, it came new in the, in the little scuba tank that they sold it in with a stamped warranty. And, um, so I think it's just really neat that they still sell this watch, not in the U S but you can get it from, I got mine from Spain, I think, but you can get it from Singapore or Japan or wherever. Um, that you can still get this, this really cool watch as it almost as it was made in the early eighties.
James Stacey So yeah, for sure. And there's, there's not really anything that looks like these watches. Yeah. I mean, there's things that have kind of a similar hand and of course there's other anti digi watches, but in terms of the size and the feature set and all of that all applied to the aesthetic, they really kind of stand out in a special way. I had, I had the Aqualand that had, it was a chronograph with the loom dial.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James Stacey And the depth gauge, it didn't have a digital screen on it. It just had sub-dials. It was very complicated to read. And I had it before I was into diving. And I actually kind of wish I still had that. It had a little bit of gold accent on it. And then the lume dial and that combination was very strange and very cool. And for whatever reason, I flipped it. And they're just really, really fun watches. And I'm trying to think of like an analog for a car because it has a style that's very much 80s. but not in a way that seems offensive or ostentatious now. It just feels older now. Yes. Yeah. You know, like a, like a Toyota pickup truck, like the, the ones before the Tacomas, the B series, the B2000s and such. Yeah. It just kind of, you know, simple, straightforward. And then with a certain like citizen charm to the, to the entire package.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think, you know, the one that you had and kind of in subsequent years, probably as dive computers really caught on and this watch became slightly less relevant, I guess, for divers. They did get away from the analog digital display and went to that more chronograph look with like a hand that told the depth. And I think by doing that, they actually got away from the really excellent functionality of this one because, you know, a digital screen, whether it's on a Garmin or a Suunto or whatever, it's just so superior for reading off data quickly, especially if you're underwater. You don't want to be trying to figure out, you know, is that hand pointing at this or that? It's just very accurate, very crisp and easy to read. But I agree with you about the aesthetic and it has this, even though it's a big watch, I mean I measured it just before the show and it's kind of hard to measure, it's got a crown and then it has three different push buttons on it and then this big bulbous depth gauge on the side, so it's kind of almost hard to find a spot to put the caliper, but kind of across from 2 to 8 across the case, it's pushing like 44 millimeters and then of course with the depth gauge on the side it's you know crazy big like 50 some millimeters but it actually wears fairly small it has it has short kind of short lugs and the dial and the bezel are kind of small but then it's really weird because the lug width on this watch is 24 millimeters so it gives it kind of a It's like a square look. It's kind of a square look. Yeah. And the 24 millimeters is, it's a little tricky. I mean, you know, you can get like Panerai straps and 24 millimeters, but I picked up a NATO strap from crown and buckle. That was a kind of a nice gray, 24 millimeter. And then the strap that these watches have always come on is this kind of annoyingly stiff rubber accordion style strap. That's super long and has metal keepers. And then printed on kind of the six o'clock side is the no deco table, which I always thought was kind of neat. And especially as it kind of gets used, that sort of starts to rub off and get a little patina to it. But the strap itself, I've never found terribly comfortable. So I tend to kind of, you know, wear it on a NATO or I've even put it on like a leather strap or something. But, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm just smitten with this watch and I I've had several over the years. I remember I bought a JP 2000, oh gosh, I don't know, eight years ago or something and then I was diving in Sri Lanka with some friends that were new divers and the guy, you know, didn't have a computer or even a depth gauge, or maybe he had a depth gauge, but anyway, I said, you know, somebody was like, do you want to borrow my computer? And I said, well, you know what, why don't you just take this Aqualand and use it because it gives you some of the functionality that you need. It has an ascent rate alarm and it has the max depth and all that kind of stuff. And I just kind of gave it to him. And, you know, for the price of these, I just thought it's kind of a nice way to get him started on, on, uh, you know, dive watches and kind of give him a tool that he could start using. And so then, you know, inevitably I replaced it with a, with a different one, but, uh, for sure it's a watch that, uh, you know, I've always, I'll always want my collection. I've actually got my, the old, uh, the CO 23 is actually in Georgia right now being serviced at citizens service center. The battery started to go and, I thought, let's get it fully overhauled and get the gaskets, you know, get it all watertight again and get it all serviced and ready to go. So I imagine it'll be back in a couple of weeks. So yeah, fun piece. You know, maybe not one that, you know, people expect. Maybe after our quartz episode, people were hoping we'd get back to, you know, I don't know, Omegas and Braemonts and stuff. But, you know, this is the one.
James Stacey Yeah, I think it's kind of an overlooked piece as well. I mean, you definitely see guys on Watch You Seek that love them. And, but there, it's kind of like that watch has kind of a crew.
Jason Heaton Yes.
James Stacey Yeah. That's, that's kind of championing its existence in the enthusiast space. Yeah. And I, yeah, I definitely, I definitely think the appeal is so similar to that of the aerospace or the emergency or, you know, these kind of tough multifunction and, and it just gives you another size option. If you look at something like, like my 40 millimeter aerospace seems too small.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey then you have this option. How do you find the lume on the hands?
Jason Heaton It's fantastic. The lume is, you know, Citizen, I think, is up there with Seiko and a few other brands with lume. You know, on the old one, the lume is long gone, but on this one, it's nice and bright. What's really remarkable is I had this watch, I took it diving in Florida, I don't know, a few weeks ago. In daylight, that fluorescent orange minute hand, it just positively glows. I mean, I'm not even talking luminescence. It's just so bright orange. Wow. It's really cool.
James Stacey And the bezel? I've never played with one, so I don't know.
Jason Heaton The bezel's a little, it's kind of, it's easy to grip. It's tall and kind of knurled, just like the crown is. The bezel isn't fully loomed. It's just an aluminum insert, but the, you know, it's got a little pip. I mean, it kind of looks like an old, Gosh, I don't know, like an old Seamaster or old Submariner bezel or something. Right. Easy to grip. It's a little sloppy, but you know, I don't mind that. And you can, you know, I've used it for, you know, it's got, it's got like a, you know, full on digital chronograph so you can use it for, you know, running or swimming laps or whatever you want to use it for. And I remember I haven't, you know, dived with it much recently, but I can remember, you know, wearing a dive computer on one wrist and this on the other. You know, you get ascending a little faster than you should, and it beeps at you, you know, it'll do the full ascent alarm, which I've always found, I mean, not that I want to, you know, be making a practice of ascending too quickly from a dive, but it's kind of a kick to have, you know, just your little watch kind of screaming at you. You expect that from your dive computer, but it was just kind of neat to have that feature on the watch. For sure. And to have the dive log, you know, you can scroll through four dives and play back your information.
James Stacey It's funny with those, you mentioned that the rapid ascent alarm, you know, I don't, I don't know what the sensitivity is on the Suunto Zoop for that, but I never, either, either I've never had that alarm go off or the diving I do around Vancouver, I have a hood on and I can't hear the beep.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James Stacey But diving in Clipperton didn't have a hood on, it was 30 degrees, it was very warm. And a couple of dives were in fairly considerable surge.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James Stacey And it would set the alarm off depending on the position of your arm.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure. Yeah.
James Stacey And, uh, and then I was, it was unnerving the first couple of times cause I was like, Oh, have I done something wrong? And I'm looking at it and you know, it's saying like the little gauge on the right is full. And then you're like, Oh, and then I could hear other people's doing it. You can hear so much more when you don't have a hood on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's funny to be able to hear everybody's camera beeping at them and their computers when everybody's in the same sort of surge, it just feels like you're surrounded in a little, yeah. uh... symphony of uh... of a little electronic beeps but yeah that's cool uh... it's it's fun that they pack some of those features into a watch that you know isn't a dive computer per se uh... you know as it's not doing any gas calculation uh... gas exposure calculations for you but uh... still uh... still really cool and and i i guess the uh... so you can still get the modern one and i guess its competition would be like a frogman yeah maybe i mean uh... the latest frogman i know has depth gauge and some of these same features i
Jason Heaton I don't know the Frogman as well, the most recent one. Me neither, yeah. I think it's such a legitimate kind of backup tool if your dive computer went down. I mean, you could still certainly at least, you know, keep track of your max and current depth. It's much more useful, I think, than a lot of the really high-end depth-gauge diving watches, you know, even like the the AquaTimer Deep 3 or some of these others, Jaeger LeCoultre, even the Aorus, that kind of give you current depth and maybe maximum depth in some cases. But the fact that you can log dives and it does kind of ascent alarms. I mean, it was designed in the 80s before, like I said, computers kind of really took hold. So it still maintains that real functionality to it that I like. Yeah, really cool. And I think it kind of represents era, you know, when I was kind of coming of age, like I said, I had this friend that was getting into diving and it sort of came out of that time when, when at the time I think, you know, I've talked about this, uh, one of our very early episodes and it's a good segue to get into the watch that you chose. You know, when I was wearing like a mechanical SKX or 7002 Seiko, you know, diving watches captivated me even back then. And I think I wasn't quite ready for the Aqualand back then, but I think, uh, it, it still kind of has this nostalgia to it. Um, that I really, I really enjoy. So yeah, let's maybe that's a good place to kind of jump into your pick, which I'll let you introduce.
James Stacey Yeah. So my pick is a fairly easy, straightforward one. It's my Seiko SKX007. I recently realized that I had had the watch for 10 years this past March. And if you'd asked, and I think I've even said on the show that I've had it for more like seven or eight years, and I honestly don't know where a couple of those years went, but I got it very early in my sort of watch enthusiast career, if you will. I had bought a handful of other watches, a couple Invictas and a couple Orients, but not like dive watches, just things that I was interested in purely on their aesthetic. And I liked the Invicta fine, and then I'd learned enough to know that it was essentially just a direct rip off of a very famous watch. And I had at the time the Daytona clone and a sub clone. And so I ditched both of those and, and decided to, you know, look into what you could get that was legitimate at, at a price point I was willing to spend when I was 20 and, uh, you know, in university and, you know, wanting to spend most of my money on gas for my car or insurance for my car, things like that. So I eventually came across the SKX007 and the SKX779, the original black monster. Um, I ended up buying both of those and just over the process of elimination, I found the 07 to be just more wearable day to day. Uh, I really liked the monster and I wish, uh, I had either held onto it or I've been oddly eyeing, uh, 781, the orange monster just for fun. Cause that's a lot of fun for the money that they charge for them. Yeah. But with my SKX007, it basically has been on my wrist weekly for 10 years. And then about two months ago, I got it serviced for its first time. So I just got it back about a month ago or maybe three weeks ago. And it's running like a top and keeping good time and all ready to dive and all those sorts of things. And other than that, the watch is essentially bone stock, aside from I installed a stainless steel 12-hour bezel. Oh yeah. Because I didn't really plan to do any diving with this watch. And even if I did, you still have a 12 marker. So you could still dive with it. You just have to do a tiny bit of math underwater. But I installed, I really love a steel bezel. A bunch of my collection uses a steel bezel and I really adore the way this looks. And then I really love the functionality of a 12 hour bezel giving you a complication free GMT.
Jason Heaton So you didn't just buy an insert, you bought an entire replacement bezel?
James Stacey No, it is just an insert. Sorry. Yeah, it is just an insert. You can buy the whole bezel from Yaboki's, the company that sells the insert.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey But it is just an insert and there's a technique. You can basically use a dull knife or, you know, a thin... and I wrap it in tape. And you can get it under one side of the bezel and just kind of wiggle it until you get to the catch point and the bezel pops off. Sure. It doesn't take as much force as you would expect, but it's maybe a little scary if it's your first time or if this is like your favorite watch.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And then the insert is kind of glued in the original black aluminum insert. And you kind of pop that out of place, uh, hopefully without bending the insert. So I wouldn't use too much force. And then this one actually just kind of clicks right in place. I want to say I paid, uh, 30 bucks for it back in the day. That was, uh, three years ago, so I don't know what they charge right now. Um, and, and at the, uh, listen into final notes, I've put this bezel, specifically this bezel in final notes, and I have some instructions on how you actually go about buying the bezel. Cause it's not just a normal web store. It's a little bit more, um, complicated than that, but I think it's worth, worth your time. And then my only note was, uh, the bezel that I received a couple of the numbers in the, in the scale, the 12 hour scale weren't fully painted. It had just either worn off or the paint wasn't done that well and at $30, what are you really going to do? Yeah. And I just took like a uniball pen, one of those liquid pens. Yeah. And you can actually just set the ceramic ball into the indent, the carving for the number and it just fills it with ink and that's held for, well, three years.
Unknown Oh wow.
James Stacey So no issue there. And then you can just wipe off the excess with a like a piece of paper towel and what's left is painted in the numeral. That's great. I kept the click spring. So it's still, you know, still clicks and is still unidirectional. Yeah. But I guess if I wanted to, you could pop this off again, take that spring out and make it bi-directional, but this way I knew that it would hold, it wouldn't get bumped or anything. And I don't mind it the way that it is.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And it could still function as a dive watch just fine. Although really, I'm not sure how important a unidirectional bezel is for the way that I dive. It's pretty lazy. It's not going to get bumped. I absolutely adore this watch. And I would buy another one if it broke. This is the watch, although it doesn't really work with a suit, this is a watch I wore to my wedding, simply because it was a watch that I knew I would never sell.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And it would be the last one I would get rid of. It looked ridiculous in the photos. I just kind of kept it under the cuff. I think a big dive watch looks ludicrous with a suit. You know, your opinion may vary, which is fine. Of course, you wear what you want to wear. And yeah, it's as close to a sentimental watch as I have. And I really, really love it. I think it's wearable. And if you had no sentimental attachment to it, then I would say every 10 years or whatever, whenever it's not keeping great time, probably between five and 10 years, give it to a friend or a friend's kid and buy another one for yourself. It's going to be about the same as servicing it.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey You know, a normal watch movement service, a full service is going to be about $250. uh, depending on where you go. At least that's the average that I've experienced with, um, having two Seiko service and a couple Etas is somewhere between 250 and $350 depending on where you go and how fast they are and all those sorts of things. Like everybody kind of knows this watch and I don't like the bracelet, the Jubilee bracelet. Like it's not bad. It just, it's like rattly on your wrist and uh, And I really like the watch on a NATO or on a leather strap. It works really well for both because it's not like a really thin watch, but it's not a super thick watch either.
Jason Heaton So yours came on the bracelet. It didn't come on that rubber strap that so many of them come on. The flat vent Z22 strap, huh?
James Stacey Right. This one came with both. Oh, it did. I actually, I don't remember who I bought this from because it was 10 years ago. And I think it was before I knew about Creation Watch, which is where I would buy a Seiko today. Yeah. Or a Seiko like this today. Yeah. And I like this watch because a lot of times when you start out in watches, you're going to buy things that the later version of you as an enthusiast will scoff at.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Like, oh, I wish I hadn't bought those Invictus or, oh, I wish I hadn't bought this or that. That was a junk watch. That one was broken by the time I got it. Whatever, whatever the reason, either your tastes change or you learn more or whatever. But this is a watch from roughly the start of my interest in this hobby that I can still wear with zero shame or issue or anything. I love this watch as much as when I first got it. Yeah. And they're super wearable and, uh, they're not expensive. And I think it's a nice thing to wear to like a red bar event because you meet other people who maybe are just getting into the, into the, uh, into the, the hobby or the, the enthusiasm of watch collecting. And then you have something kind of to show them that's accessible. A lot of red bar stuff is, very expensive old Speedmasters and lovely Navitimers and expensive new subs and things like that. And it's always nice to have a couple of these just to kind of share the love of stuff at the $200 price point. I mean, I think this was probably roughly the king of our watches under $250 episode. For another $30, I essentially made it mine with the steel bezel. Jokingly on Instagram, I call it the CMT, the cheap meantime. And yeah, I love this watch, I think. And you can buy old ones. You can buy new ones. You can buy ones that are not made in Japan. You can buy ones that are made in Japan. There's lots of options. The prices don't range that far. Like we talked about last week, there's a quartz kind of version, which is a little bit smaller at about 39 millimeters, the perpetual prospects, uh, which is, uh, which is a cool option. And then if you're listening to this and you're going like, Oh, every time you guys mentioned an SKX 007, but they're too big for my wrist, you can get an SKX 013, which is the kind of mid-sized version of a 007. So it looks identical black bezel, all of that. I don't know what your options will be for modding the smaller version.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey But it's just a small, I want to say it's 37 or 38 millimeters. I haven't seen one to measure in person. And of course, all these sites, these kind of gray market Seiko sites have different sizes listed. But yeah, I think that as a family of watches, there's a ton to offer. And I think that universally when you talk to watch enthusiasts, with the possible exception of movement enthusiasts, because the 7S26 that's in these is not a great movement. It's not up to the, even the level of say a 28, 24.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey I don't think it's a bad movement. It requires a service every 10 years, which is awesome. And, uh, and it keeps very good time in so much as I don't notice it being fast or slow. I don't measure my watches any more accurately than that. If I notice the watch is fast or slow, then there's a problem. Uh, but otherwise, uh, I really like this and, and they get, it gets accolades kind of across all price price points, and certainly if you're getting into the hobby and you're somehow have made it to episode 37 of the Grenado without buying something, I think this is the right kind of thing to save up for if you're a university, college kid, or, you know, blow some birthday money and pick up a great watch. I absolutely adore mine, and if you get tired of it, you just mod it. I'll speak more about the modding side of it in final notes, but there's like a billion things you can do, hands, dials, bezels, all of it.
Jason Heaton The SKX family, I mean, even like the 009, you can get the Pepsi bezel and, uh, I think, um, you know, I've got an SKX, I think it's the 173, which is the 009 that came on, on a Jubilee bracelet, which I personally, I love that Jubilee. I know that it's thin and rattly and cheap feeling, but something about it just says this, like, it feels like a watch from the sixties. For sure. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of one of a handful or even less than a handful of truly sort of unimpeachable watches that any watch nerd will respect. It's so funny how a watch at this price point will just universally be accepted like you said at a red bar event or I think almost you know every watch nerd that's been in the game for more than a few years knows this watch and has probably owned one And it's kind of a testament to that, that I think Hodinkee, when they do watch reviews, they'll often use the weight of an SKX007 as kind of the benchmark. So like if they're reviewing even like a Lange chronograph or something, they'll weigh it in grams and then they'll say, for reference, an SKX007 weighs X, you know, because people can pick up their own and say, oh, OK, it's double that or it's the same as that.
James Stacey Yeah, it's a clever usage of essentially establishing a unit. Yeah. Yeah. One, one SKX. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, no, I, I agree with, cause I mean grams is pretty esoteric at a certain point. If you're, if you're used to a giant Panerai, you wouldn't know how much it weighs. And if you're used to some titanium feather light Skagen or something like that, you wouldn't realize that you're wearing something that's like 50 or 60 grams weighs about as much as a bracelet on most watches.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. And, uh, yeah, no, I've, I've always thought that was a cool idea and a good use of the, a good way to leverage the ubiquity of this platform.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It's just such a, it's such a functional, handsome looking watch. I love the markers on that sort of lozenge shaped markers on the dial. The hands are really good looking. It's just a, in whatever kind of form, even, you know, lightly modded like yours with the, with the bezel. It's just, it's a very eye pleasing watch. It's the kind of watch if you, if you owned only that watch, you'd probably not get tired of looking at it every day. I think it's, um, like you said, it wears well in different straps and, um, you know, you can dive with it and you can, where to your wedding and you can, you know, I mean, it's, uh, it's such a great pick. I mean, I think you can't say enough about the SKX. I realized that we're probably pushing the limit, but, um, and I don't even think it's necessarily the official watch of the gray NATO, but it's, it's just so representative of the kind of stuff we'd like, um, that, uh, I would inch You know, we don't, uh, we don't do a lot of sort of endorsements on the show, but I think it's probably as close as I would come to actually endorsing telling, like literally just telling someone to go out and buy one of these watches. Cause they're, they're just so great.
James Stacey Yeah. Whenever, whenever you have that, that email that seems to always come up in November, my husband wants a watch. My, my boyfriend wants a watch. My son wants a watch. What do I get? This is always in the list. Yeah. And I think they often, I would say quite often people go with something else.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey in my experience, but the second time, when they come back the next time, a year or two later, and it turns out husband or boyfriend or whomever wanted more watches, then I think they land on this, and I think it's a great choice. And if you want something a little bit stranger, go with a Monster. I absolutely love the Monster, and the Lume is just so much fun. I mean, the Lume is really good on the 07 and the 09s and the 173s and the 013, all of those great Lumes. The Monster's just a different thing altogether. It's like the markers are made out of loom. Huh. And so they're very bright, ludicrously bright, and a great bezel, and just a very kind of, not wacky, but just, like I guess when I say strange, almost always I think I mean it as like a very positive thing. I love a strange watch.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And I think the Monster, if you look at the 007 and you go like, well, it looks like a steel dive watch, which you're not wrong.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey It looks exactly like a dive watch. Yeah. And you want something a little bit stranger, you're going to get the same level of everything in the Monster. And there's now, I believe, three total generations of the Monster. I'm starting to see the latest revision of the SRP3XXK models. Huh. And so those have a pointed marker and then the earlier 779781, which are my preference, just because that's what I'm used to. And I've had both. I had the vampire. The earlier ones have kind of a squared off marker, which just feels a little bit more old school. And the marker in the hands are that off color loom. I can't remember the term you used for it about, I don't know, 15 episodes ago, but you know, it's not white in daylight. It's this kind of greenish pale tone.
Unknown Yeah, yeah.
James Stacey And then You come in from a sunny day inside to a darker room or you hit it with a flashlight at night and they're just crazy. I mean, that's how all Seikos are basically. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and the monster has, uh, the monster is, is a better bracelet. Certainly it's this solid H-link style bracelet that uses a very annoying to the uninitiated pin and collar system to retain the links. So you have to use a little pusher tool to remove the pin and then the collar just falls out on your desk and disappears forever. But if you can do it over a big piece of tape, then you retain all your collars and can put the bracelet back together and the bracelet's really comfortable for that price point. And it's solid and chunky and heavy. I mean, I guess I was probably just supposed to talk about the 007, but I think you have to view it in the entirety. There's a small one, there's a quartz one, there's a bunch of ones at this 007, 09, uh etc and uh and then you have this kind of offshoot into the monster which i think is a great option if you want something a little bit stranger you already have a black dial diver get the orange monster oh that sort of thing yeah lots to love maybe it's uh maybe this is a good segue for you to jump in go right into um how to how to order that uh that bezel oh yeah so let's uh let's dive into final notes and yeah i'll kick it off so uh yaboki's is essentially just like a um a photo bucket gallery If you remember so this like pre flicker photo bucket. Yeah So it's just a gallery with hundreds of different things So on the left, I'll link directly to the bezel that I've been talking about which is called the SS GMT bezel But there's loads of stuff. It's not just bezel. It's hundreds of different things that he carries, but it's all just organized by photo with no description or information So when you find the thing that it is that you want Basically you copy the link or the name if you prefer. I did both in the email that I sent to Yabokis and basically you copy the link and the name of the item and send Harold is the gentleman's name and send Harold an email and I'll put this in the show notes but it's yabokis at yahoo.com.hk and then he basically replies with instructions and a link to order whatever you want. It sounds Ridiculous in the context of how we normally buy things online now But it works just fine. You send an email. It's kind of like buying something from a friend Yeah Or from a craigslist or something like that like you just send an email and then harold gets back to you with What it costs and how to go about buying it and it was all Perfectly easy. Yeah, and then uh, and then it shipped to you So it's not as easy as just picking the thing from a store and putting it in your cart and then checking out But at least if you have any questions, especially about things like compatibility or whether or not you have to buy another bezel for the insert, or if you want just the insert, Harold would be the guy to ask. And it'd been three years since I sent this. I know Yahoo's not exactly like the most reputable tech brand out there right now, but I did find a thread on Watchuseek where I verified these steps that was from November, 2016. So please, if you do all this work and then write Harold and it doesn't work, could you just send me a quick email? TheGrenadoAtGmail.com, because we can update in the next episode if it turns out these instructions have failed. I couldn't find direct instructions on his website. I found them on WatchYouSeek, that link to his website, and that's basically how you buy from what's essentially a photo gallery on Photobucket. But yeah, so the bezel that I have is that SSGMT bezel. It's just an insert. And then on my notes here, it was $32 when I bought it three years ago. So maybe it's a little bit more now. And it's been great. It actually doesn't show a lot of scratches. It's awesome. Worth every penny.
Jason Heaton Is payment handled through like PayPal or something? Yeah, I paid via PayPal. So it's basically just one extra step, which doesn't sound too daunting.
James Stacey No, and I mean, like, It also kind of like means that you're not necessarily filling in a form and creating a user profile on a website.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey You're just sending Harold an email, and it doesn't bother me. I don't mind it being like this. It's definitely confusing if you just land on his photo bucket and you don't know what to do next. Oh, yeah. But once you know what to do, and there's a ton of people on WatchuSeek that explain this, like there's tons of threads where people have asked and they're like, please, we've already talked about this. Yeah. Once you know what to do, it's not that difficult. It's a couple of steps and your bezel will be in the mail. So, bezel or hands or crystals or dials or whatever. Yeah. It's got tons of stuff. Huh. Nice. That's basically just the like very crest of the dark hole that is Seiko modding. If you want to go down that hole, I would go to Watch You Seek and start there. There are people in the States that specialize in modding Seiko, so you can basically tell them the hands, the dial, the bezel, and all of that, and they'll assemble it and all put it together and make you something cool. And then there's tons of guides on doing it yourself and what kind of tools you would need and that kind of thing. And this is tantamount to buying that $500 car from your neighbor and then working on it in your driveway. I mean, if you go out and buy even a used Seiko and start pulling it apart to learn how hands are set and how dials work and all these things, that's a pretty good project if you're looking for something to kill some time. So I think you could definitely walk your way into that sort of hobby backwards. I've certainly gotten to the point of having a bunch of tools in the cart and then just not checking it out. But someday, someday when I'm just flush for time, which is not now, but some other day maybe.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, a local guy here, um, who's a avid Grenado listener at Estlo. Um, he's done some, some writing that some people may have read as well. Um, yeah, for sure. He, uh, He did his own modification a couple of years ago. He got an old turtle, you know, 6309, one of the old, the original Seiko turtles from, you know, the 80s or whatever it was. And he bought the kit to modify it to look like an Orange Dial Doxa. So, you know, he got the bezel, like a Nodico bezel and... Oh yeah, a Soxa. Soxa, yes, that's what they're called. Orange Dial, with like the crosshairs and kind of that asymmetrical dial. The little hand. It looks, yeah, I mean it's crazy because it's the same kind of case shape you get in a Doxa, so kind of a neat mod, but yeah, that's cool.
James Stacey Yeah, for sure. What have you got for final notes?
Jason Heaton First one I'm going to mention was an article that popped up, I think it was last week or the week before, written by, you know, a good friend of ours, great watch writer Jack Forster over on Hodinkee. He did a piece that kind of merged a lot of stuff that that I geek out about, and I know you do too, and it was an article about the Boliva Accutron Astronaut, which, you know, was a watch that many people know, made kind of in the 1960s, but what was really cool about it was that that watch was, it was kind of official issue to the pilots of the Lockheed A-12, which was kind of the premier and arguably still, you know, one of the premier high-speed stealth, you know, spy planes of, of any era. And, uh, the article's just, it's such a wonderful in-depth piece about, um, not only the, the, the watch, but the development of, of the plane in, in Lockheed's, uh, Skunk Works program that, that, you know, basically built a, a brand new plane starting from, you know, blank sheet of paper and, and, uh, all the elements that went into that plane and why, um, It was required that the pilots had a special watch that didn't have a standard mechanical escapement, which very few watches were available that didn't have that back then. And so the Accutron was chosen for that reason. And last year I had actually bought from a guy here locally, I bought one of these Accutron astronauts of the same sort that these guys used. And it was a really cool watch, you know, steel bezel, 24-hour bezel with a 24-hour hand. Just kind of really stark black and white dial. It has that great Accutron tuning fork movement in it so you get that really cool hum. I didn't hold on to it because it just wore really small. It's a small watch. It's kind of an early 60s piece. But now I want another one because this article is just so good and you know it's kind of an aviation geek and of course a real fan of purpose-built and used tool watches. It just kind of ticked all the boxes for me. We'll link out to that, but he did such a great job with that piece.
James Stacey Yeah, Jack did such a fantastic... I don't know if Jack listens, but either way, Jack, kudos for this. This is a piece that I've thought about before. I've read just about everything I can about the Oxcart program that led to the SR-71. I genuinely believe the 71 to be maybe the most fantastic thing people have ever made. Um, you know, the space shuttle is right up there too, but to tie it into the watches and in the manner that Jack does it, I mean, he's just very good at what he does and, and that that's fully displayed by this piece. Absolutely. Anyone who's listening to this should definitely either hit the show notes or swing over to Hoding Key and check out that post because it's A plus.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And it reminds me too, that, that several years ago, I mean, quite a few years ago, actually, Jack was Before he even got into writing about watches professionally, he was a kind of a top contributor to the watch forum called The Purists, which I think is based out of Asia somewhere. And it kind of has this interesting following. It's not the most popular watch forum on the web, but if you go over there and read some of the stuff in the forum and some of the articles over there, these guys really know their stuff. And Jack wrote this three-part series. I think he called it The Right Stuff, and it was, if you Google this, you know, maybe I should have, we can add it to the show notes if I can find it, but, um, yeah, for sure. It was, it was the most extensive in-depth history of the development of the Speedmaster and why it was chosen by NASA. I think I've read it many times because it's just such a fantastic piece and it's just, it's great long form writing. You know, you can just, it's just, it's in three parts. It's got great photos that he embedded with it. Um, and I, I think it's articles like that that ultimately probably led Jack to get into the, you know, the career that he's in. I don't know for sure, but, uh, it reminds me that this Accutron piece, um, reminds me of, of why I've always liked Jack's writing and, uh, for sure. So, yeah, but, uh, definitely check out the Accutron Astronaut piece. I actually, I remember when I had that watch last year, I had dug up some information that, that it was actually the, also the official issue of pilots of the X15, which was kind of a precursor to the A12 and the SR71. And, um, was kind of the fast plane before the SR-71 that actually Neil Armstrong flew. And there was like a magazine ad that I bought off of eBay that had a picture of the, you know, it said, this is the official watch of the X-15 pilots. And so, you know, some great history. I think Bulova has kind of slipped from people's minds, especially recently, although they've kind of had a kind of a cool comeback with some throwback pieces. Some great, great stuff from, from this, uh, this old brand. So check that out.
James Stacey Yeah. Great piece. Definitely worth a read. So my second one for this week, my, my last one is a brand new podcast. Uh, that's going to be mostly for the car nerds that are listening. I would say at least there's only one episode so far and it was very car centric and given the people that are on, I think it's going to fade between, um, kind of entertainment and comedy and then into. cars a lot. So it's called Spike's Car Radio. So any of you who know the name Spike Ferriston, he wrote for Seinfeld, the sitcom, and he has a very successful show on the Esquire network called Car Matchmaker, where he meets somebody, generally a celebrity, and then finds them a car, usually not a new car. It's pretty fun if you're into cars. And basically he and his buddies of whom, you know, you have everybody from, uh, Seinfeld to, uh, Patrick Dempsey and other like kind of entertainment people in the entertainment industry that are also really into cars. Um, they often go to a spot in Malibu called the Malibu kitchen and sit and chat over breakfast about cars. And he decided to start recording these as a, as a show. So it's only one episode in so far and the first episode is Jerry Seinfeld and their buddy Paul Zuckerman. I think I have that name right. I follow him on Instagram, but I think it's like his Instagram name is his last name. It's Zuckerman. And so obviously Seinfeld is a huge car collector with a preeminent Porsche collector in the world. Ferriston has a bunch of Porsches and Zuckerman has a bunch of Porsches. So they talk at length about Porsche and Old and new and very esoteric, you know, hunting down cars that were too made in sequence from the factory that had a different roof than the rest of them. And they're worth a fortune or had no factory radio and are worth a fortune. And they talk about the new Porsche 911 Turbo S exclusive, which is like a, in Canada, it's a $300,000 911 with over 600 horsepower. So they talk about that and I mean obviously they have the perspective of very wealthy collectors which is fun for somebody who doesn't buy Porsches ever. But if you're looking for another podcast that you can start kind of at the first episode then I would check out Spike's Car Radio. I really liked the first episode. You know Seinfeld's always funny and their buddy Zuckerman that was on is a laugh as well. So they had a good time and it was a good episode.
Jason Heaton That's great and I enjoyed watching Spike when he was featured on the Hodinkee Talking Watches and he just, he definitely come, he has a great presence. He just has a great delivery. I think he's, he's, you know, for someone who, who is into, you know, collecting cars and watches, I mean, there's certainly potential for a certain level of pretense and he has like none of that. And I think it's really refreshing.
James Stacey Yeah. Funny and affable. And I think it's fairly approachable, even though they are talking about like in, at some, in some instances, a million dollar cars. Yeah. I absolutely loved the episode and it's funny and I'm excited to see where they take it from there because it's kind of a neat presence. You can hear all the noise of the restaurant.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacey Around them because they're just recording at their table, but it's produced properly and it's done through the podcast one network. So it's not like he's just putting a phone on the table and clicking record. Yeah. So, yeah, if you're into cars and you kind of dig Spike, then check it out. And if you're not sure who Spike is, then, yeah, swing by Hodinke's Talking Watches with Spike. It's, uh, it's pretty cool. I listened to him on, uh, another car podcast, the Smoking Tire and, uh, the host of the Smoking Tire, Matt Farah, recently got into watches in a fairly big way. And so they, they talked at length about watches and he's also had on Jonathan Ward from Icon and talked to him a bunch about watches. And so it's fun to see watches start to infiltrate, uh, the other side of my like hobby interest with cars. So it's, uh, it's cool. It's a good show. Check it out.
Unknown Huh.
Jason Heaton Nice. Well, I'll close out with another article. This one's from Men's Journal, came up last week, and it was written by another sort of great NATO hero, Conrad Anker, who was kind of one of the other guys in the film Meru, along with Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk. But Anker, you know, legendary mountaineer. He wrote this piece for Men's Journal called, it was just, it didn't really have a title. It was just Conrad Anker on Uli Stek's Final Climb. And, you know, Anker is an You know, I don't know that he's done much writing and whatever, but this just felt like kind of a raw from the heart sort of appreciation of a fellow legend in mountaineering. And of course Uli Stek died back in April when he was on a mountain over in the Himalayas preparing for kind of a pretty epic traverse across Everest to the neighboring mountain. He died in kind of what many consider sort of a routine type of climb that he shouldn't have died on, but I think Anchor sort of bypasses that whole question because it really is sort of a moot point and just really kind of does a really nice appreciation of Uli Stek's career, his background. I mean, you know, if you've ever seen videos and there are certainly plenty of them out there of Uli Stek climbing, he was just superhuman, I mean, just an amazing person to watch. I think, you know, with Alex Honnold's free solo of El Capitan a couple of weeks ago, you know, climbing is sort of in the forefront and there's some really exciting stuff going on, some really exciting climbers. And I think arguably Honnold on the kind of the pure rock climbing side and Stek on the mountaineering side, just we're at the bleeding edge of of what was possible in the mountains. And it was such a tragedy when Stek died. Sure. And Conrad Anker, of course, has done amazing things himself. And he wasn't, uh, he, you know, in the article he talks about how he wasn't really, he never was a climbing partner of Uli's and, um, but you know, they crossed paths in various expeditions or various times, you know, at base camp at Everest or, um, you know, just different parts of the world over, over their mutual histories. And, um, I think, you know, comparing the two, I think there's such different personalities. Um, and yet you can just sense that, that Conrad Anker just had such deep respect for Uli Stek that, um, to read it was, um, there wasn't anything I would say groundbreaking or anything I learned new about Uli Stek reading this, but it was just, it's neat to see one sort of giant of any discipline kind of write about somebody else. It's sort of, everything else falls silent. It sort of shuts everybody else up and you sort of read, okay, Conrad Anker, you know, you've got to kind of sit back and listen to what he has to say. And, um, I think his appreciation of what, what Stek did and who he was is, uh, was really poignant. And I think, uh, you know, it actually ends in a great quote that I think we'll close the episode out with this week, but, uh, yeah, just, just a great article.
James Stacey Yeah. Agreed. Really, uh, well-written and a great summary of, of Steck and I think it would serve really well as a primer if you are listening to this and you're like, you know what, the only time I've ever heard this guy's name is when James and Jason have brought him up. And you're not sure who Uli Steck is, this would be a pretty good starting point for a kind of a quick overview of his career and that sort of thing. And certainly right up until his very untimely death, but an ultra high performer and one that changed the sport repeatedly throughout his career. Yeah. Uh, and it's nice to see another guy at the top of the game, like you said, um, kind of voice respect for what he had accomplished and how he went about doing it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details. You can follow us on Instagram. I'm at Jason Heaton. James is at J E Stacey and do follow the show at the gray NATO. If you have any questions for us, please write the gray NATO at gmail.com. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts, or grab the feed from TheGrenado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And until next time, we leave you with this quote from Uli Steck who said, And now I'll just go and only worry about the events that lie ahead of me. Day by day, one by one. It is here and now that counts. What comes next is uncertain in any case. Learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow.