The Grey NATO - Ep 73 - Downhill Adventures With Oris
Published on Thu, 24 Jan 2019 06:00:13 -0500
Synopsis
In this episode, Jason and James discuss their experience attending a product preview event hosted by Oris in Vail, Colorado, where they got to ski and try out some new Oris watches. They talk about the new Pro Diver Dive Control limited edition watch and their interactions with Oris executives like Rolf Studer. They also discuss the exciting news that Omega is reviving the 321 caliber movement for an upcoming Speedmaster release. Other topics include Jason's experiences with the Sony WH-1000XM3 noise-cancelling headphones, a podcast recommendation about the Apollo 13 mission, and the classic British crime drama series Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nado, a Hodinkee podcast, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This episode is brought to you by Alps and Meters, upholding the tradition of classic alpine sport. This is episode 73, and we thank you for listening. James, we're face to face. Hey, buddy. How's it going? Good. |
| James | Yeah. We've had a fun day. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Oh man, I'm tired. |
| James | My legs are cooked. I'm just sleepy. I got hot eyes. Yeah. You know where you close your eyes and it's kind of warm? Yeah. And you're like, take a nap. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I haven't earned that nap. I skied for three, I barely skied for three hours this morning and then I took some pictures of a watch and ate a huge, a huge lunch. Giant lunch. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | So a lot of bread and cheese in that lunch. We are recording from Vail, Colorado. Uh, we, uh, James and I both were invited out here by Oris to attend their, what has now become an annual Sort of product preview, pre-Basel. Yeah. A little show and tell where they show us some new watches. And, uh, you know, I think this, this event was cooked up by Rolf Studer, who we, you know, we, uh, we had this, uh, event, uh, last year as well here. And, you know, Rolf is a very avid skier, um, and a very good skier. And, and, uh, Vijay Geronimo, who's the U.S. brand president is also an avid skier. So I think these guys use this trip as kind of an excuse to get together and just do some skiing in some cool places. So last year we did this trip in December. in Beaver Creek, which is, you know, not far from here. And it was it was early in December. And by all accounts, from locals and everybody, it was kind of a bad winter for snow out here in Colorado. Well, now here we are in early January here. And it is spectacular. |
| James | I mean, it was an incredible day. Yeah. So yeah, people who listen to the show long enough will remember that we did this very similar thing last year, we recorded a live episode, we had role fun. And while the format of this trip is very similar, the show is just Jason and I this year. And we're just going to chat through kind of, you know, some of the stuff that we did today. We had kind of a good day. And like you said, the weather was, even in the span of time between when we got our gear and then when we got to the top of the first gondola, it was a different day. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if the sun came up over the mountain or what, but we, we got our gear. I think we were probably at the lift by, I don't know, 9.15, 9.30. You know, at first, a little bit chilly, you're kind of layered up, and then we did, I think we did one run, and of course, out here, you know, these runs are 20, 25 minutes long, and you're pretty cooked by the time you get to the bottom, and you know, you and I were both contemplating shedding a layer, but I kind of evened out over the rest of the morning, and seemed to be dressed just right for it, and it was, the sun came out, blue sky, I mean, just, you know, the classic high altitude, blue, dark blue sky against snow-capped peaks, and we did three solid, solid hours of just run after run after run all over Vail, which is just a massive... I had no idea. |
| James | You would go to the top. So if anybody's never been here before, the biggest place I skied was Whistler, and Whistler's huge. You could go do the peak to peak, but imagine Four? Five whistlers? I don't know. I don't know. But it just keeps going. Like you get to the top of what you think is the mountain. Yeah. And then you look off. And as far as you can see, you can see another, uh, uh, chairlift. Yeah. And then, and then you, you ski that in that direction, take another chairlift up, get to the top of another sort of, not a peak exactly, but the top. Yeah. Right. You look over the top and they go down into another bowl. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. What always amazes me about, uh, you know, the skiing like this is how you can sort of piece together an entire sort of days worth of skiing going you know, sort of almost traversing an entire range of slopes and lifts just by, you know, you take the lift up, you ski down, you kind of traverse over a little bit, come down, take another lift up to another. So you're sort of zigzagging your way across this incredible ski area, going up and down, taking different lifts, just different sorts of terrain. I think the most spectacular thing was when we got up to the top of, gosh, I don't remember what that lift was called, but we got all the way up to the top and looked back into the the legendary back bowl area, which is just, you know, the Rockies just go on and on and on. I just see this in 700 feet or whatever it is. Oh, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. The sign said something like 11,500. I mean, it was I was wondering I was getting a little bit of a dry cough up there and I thought, OK, then, you know, I thought I would get a headache because I was getting a headache like in my hotel room at what are we at? |
| James | Eight thousand thousand feet. And I got up there and I felt really good. It was really nice to get like legitimate recreation exercise, like not a run in the rain or something like that, like, like sweating. Yep. And then like, you know, you'd go and like we were seeing, you alluded to this previously, but we were skiing with Rolf Studer, co-CEO with Vijay of Oris. Yeah. He's an avid skier. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | He just rips. He just rips. And, you know, he's, he's humoring, especially me. I'm, I'm strictly a green and very easy blue run skier. And, uh, you know, you can just tell he's just bristling. He just wants to go down those black runs and to see him just rip past. He kind of humors us, kind of sticks close and makes sure we're safe and doing OK. And then every once in a while, he just cuts loose. And you just see him go flying down the hill. I mean, just it's a beautiful thing to watch. |
| James | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's a nice connection with like he's so Swiss. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, he loves to ski. He adores watches. And he's like, I think probably a good handful of listeners saw the chat that we had, uh, roll fun at, uh, Haudenosaunee 10. And if not, I can put that in the show notes. No trouble. Yeah. Um, but he was on our dive watch panel and I think you get a real idea for the guys kind of mentality. He's very sharp. He's very focused. Um, but you can tell he takes, um, he takes the same sort of pride in the watches as it does in his skiing ability and his appreciation of it. Like he's a very humble dude and like it's, he's a really, really nice guy to spend a morning skiing with. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, it was great. I mean, just the three of us just going up and down on the lift and, uh, just went all over the place. Amazing. You know, you mentioned, you know, coming down, you know, exercise, you know, getting some exercise and coming down kind of sweaty. And, uh, you know, for those who maybe aren't downhill skiers, you sort of envision downhill skiing as a sport that isn't necessarily exercise per se. You're, you know, gravity helps, you're going down the hill, but in a place like Colorado, where the runs are, you know, 2000 feet long and 25 minutes to get down, you get to the bottom and it's actually surprising. I mean, your legs are just you know, just cooked. I mean, your quads are burning and you're sweating right through your base layer by the time you get to the bottom. |
| James | Yeah, no doubt. The skiing was really good. And this is kind of like a trip that I wouldn't, like you would, I would make concessions to get to. Because, you know, I think anyone who's listened to the show for a long time knows that Jason and I, we were commenting on this last night, despite not currently owning an Auris between us, have a huge affinity for the brand. I'm going to say it's one part, the fact that the watches are really good. I just can't pick one just yet. But the other part is the people who run the brand are so normal and nice. And I'm going to say it again. They're just normal. There's not a lot of normal people high up in the Swiss watch game. They become Swiss watch people. And Vijay and Jamie and Rolf and my pal Mark, who runs the Canadian market, they're just really nice people. And you can see why the brand has managed to grow. in a time when other brands have had trouble making their price point and other things like that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. We had a really nice, you know, kind of sticking with that sort of Alpine theme. We, after skiing today, we dropped off our skis and shuffled just, I don't know, just a couple blocks down from the bottom of the gondola and popped into this very, I guess it's an Austrian, it's owned by some Austrians, but it felt very Alpine. Alpine style restaurant called Almrezy and You know could be kitschy, but not isn't I mean like you know to give you an idea the the waiters are walking around in lederhosen, you know leather leather trousers with suspenders and They're playing sort of you know Austrian folk music over the the speakers they had cowbell chandelier, so you know sounds very kitschy very gimmicky, but it it worked and and the food you know it was heavy and rich and you know, bread heavy and schpatzel and potato pancakes and that sort of thing. But it seemed very fitting, you know, to start with fondue and have a nice tall beer, you know, before diving into lunch. And then they did a little product presentation with some, you know, some new watches, some of which we can't talk about, but one in particular that we can certainly discuss a little bit. It was good. I mean, maybe now would be a good time to maybe talk about that. |
| James | Yeah, I think it makes sense. And yeah, we... So they showed a handful of watches, and it's one of these things where they do a preview for the press where a handful of it is embargoed. Yeah. So you can't just put it on Instagram immediately, you can't really talk about it, you definitely can't talk about it outside of industry circles, like people who are here basically. Right. And this is how a lot of things are done, a lot of press releases come out with embargoes. It's not rare, it's actually, I would say, the predominant way of operating. And this just allows Auris to keep press engaged without just, you know, showing them 10 watches and hoping they remember to write about them over the year. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. And I think because Basel is, it's, you know, you run in, you have a 20, 25 minute meeting, um, you take, snap a few photos, say a few pleasantries and dash off to your next meeting. This really gives an opportunity to spend time with the people most importantly, but then, you know, handle the watches, take the photos you want and ask questions. And so, yeah. |
| James | So yeah, Jason wrote up a post for Hoding Key about it. I shot the photos, uh, as you know, as I want to do. And, uh, The watch in question is called the Pro Diver Dive Control, and it's one of their big, super professional, not messing around, it's limited edition. I really like the way it looks. If I'm really transparent, it's just way too... The smallest setting on the rubber strap is too big for my wrist. I have a seven inch wrist. I don't have a huge wrist, but I don't have a small wrist either, it's right in the middle, and I'd have to punch another hole in the rubber strap. It's 51 millimeters, it's titanium, it's DLC coated, it's very thick, for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Because it's a chronograph. A lot of crystal. Yeah, a lot of crystal. The saving grace of that watch is the lug-to-lug, I didn't have a chance to measure it and it didn't show up in the press release, but very stubby lugs, like the ProDivers. The lugs almost go straight down. Yeah. So it probably can't be more than 52, you know, 52, 53 lug-to-lug, so kind of workable. And then this is the first time they've done a ProDiver with a black case, so it's got a DLC black coated titanium case, grade two titanium for those keeping score. So it's fairly light for its size. It's still a big, chunky watch. Certainly not a watch that is going to fit under a shirt cuff or, you know, maybe not office wear. But I don't know, to me, they're, you know, I generally err on the side of comfort and slim dive watches. I like, you know, the new Seamaster Pro, the, you know, it's kind of Submariner, Oyster-cased dive watches these days. Having said that, I like a big, chunky dive watch sometimes on a colorful strap, and this one sort of met that criteria. It's a black case, big, giant watch on a bright yellow rubber strap with a fold-over black deployant clasp. Also comes with a black strap as well. And AORUS does a nice job with their rubber straps, but this is purely a sports watch. I mean, this is classic big, heavy, chunky sports watch in the way of You know, what Oris has done in the past, the ProDiver fits in at the top of their dive watch range. Of course, the Diver 65 has been just a runaway success for them, kind of in that slim retro style watch family. And then the Aquus, according to Vijay, was actually their best seller. |
| James | So their core model, essentially, for the last couple of years. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, kind of a modern dive watch, 42 millimeters or something like that. Very along the lines of the old TT1 watch that everybody kind of came to love and know in the 90s and early 2000s. But then the ProDiver is kind of their top line. It's kind of where they go all techie. And according to them, they developed it in cooperation with a Swiss commercial diver named Roman Frischknecht, who is Swiss. And what was interesting is today over lunch, when they were presenting the watch, they brought Roman in live on Skype It was pretty cool. Video chat. |
| James | Yeah. I haven't seen that before. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. So we're sitting at this long table with cowbell chandeliers over the top eating fondue and they dial up Roman, who's back in Switzerland, getting ready to take a ski vacation. And he was an interesting guy. I mean, you know, it wasn't a ton of insight, but, but, you know, it was, it was neat to see and hear from the guy who is behind some of the features on this watch, like the locking bezel, the rotation safety system, they call it. And what was interesting is we learned that Roman, his previous career was a ballet dancer, who then got into commercial diving, which is probably the strangest or least common kind of trajectory for a career, or oddest items, bullet points on a resume you could think of. So it was kind of neat to hear from him, and we got to handle that watch, and James shot a bunch of photos, And of course we saw some other watches that will be rolling out with articles and photos and things in the coming weeks and months, especially more towards Baselworld. |
| James | And yeah, so that was great. I think the ProDiver looks really cool. Like I said, it's kind of too big for my wrist, but it's also genuinely, I don't think they design it for people to wear as a daily wearing watch. I think that's the 65. I think that's the Aquas at 43 millimeters. Yeah. And I think this is something kind of special. It's like a, you know, it's like a, it's an F350. you know, it's like a giant pickup truck. It's kind of for a different thing, for a different use, for a different sort of dive watch fan than the type that might be drawn to a 65 or something like that. Sure. And now we're back at the hotel. We're kind of kicking back. I don't even have socks on. Sorry, Jason, you're in my room. And yeah, so we're just kind of relaxing. And the funny thing is, we actually missed a pretty incredible email, you know, while we were you know, running around today, and that's that Omega is going to resume production of the 321 Caliber. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, incredible. And what's funny is that at the Hodinkee 10th anniversary event a few weeks back, when Reynald Eichelmann, the CEO of AORUS, was one of the guests, he was actually the first guest panelist of the whole event, and Ben Clymer was sitting with him talking, and I think, you know, one of Ben's first questions was, will Omega be bringing back the 321? And, you know, Reynald sort of deferred in a very political way, you know, as, as they want to do, the Swiss are very secretive. Um, but it foretold something that, uh, I think we talked about a little bit in our last episode, when we were talking about watch wishes for 2019, I mentioned the, the return of the three to one is one of my wishes and here, here it has come to pass. Of course, 2019 being the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, uh, during which back in 1969, the, uh, Apollo astronauts were wearing Speedmasters with caliber three, two ones inside. |
| James | right. And I would you know, we could I think I do think that we could sit here and talk about this movement for for some time. And if people really want that, by all means, and maybe we would actually call somebody in to talk about it, because I think this is a genuinely interesting thing. Yeah, this is, um, you know, like car manufacturers don't do this, they don't go back and make an old engine. Yeah, that's true. You know, like, like Ferrari will do clashes for Colombo. But that's not really the same thing. This is Omega proper remaking this movement and they're making it based on a reference, the second generation of the original 321. My tip is simply go to Hodinkee, read Jack's piece on it. Jack wrote it. He said it better than Jason and I probably will. Certainly off the cuff, he definitely did. Jack's as good as it gets. I would say go back and read that piece. I'll put it in the show notes so you can just hit it right in your app or you can go to Hodinkee and check the show notes there. The post has been up for very little time and has 200 comments. Wow. So wow. Like if Omega wants to know that they did what they needed to do for like the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, whatever. Yeah. I think people want a 3-2-1. Yeah. They would have taken it a couple of years ago. They would have taken it a couple of years from now. Yeah. I think it's cool. And I think it bears mentioning because you like a Speedmaster quite a bit. Yeah. I enjoy some Speedmasters quite a lot. Yeah. And and I think this is a really interesting way. And it'll be really interesting to see where the movement kind of ends up being placed over the next few years? |
| Jason Heaton | You know what I love about this is that they announced that they're restarting production of the Calibre 321 without it being part of a specific watch launch, which is kind of unusual. I mean, you don't see a brand... I mean, we kind of know which watch it's going to go into. So it's kind of like the trilogy release in 2017 with the 60th anniversary of the Speedmaster, you know, where they came out with a special watch that was a, you know, straight on sort of reissue of the one from 1957. This is just a movement. We're restarting production of this iconic movement, which, like you said, nobody does that. |
| James | Nobody does that. Yeah, they decided to scan the movement from Gene Cernan's watch from Apollo 17. So they literally are making it's a recreation of a movement. So like, I'm sure that they're going to use modern tools and everything to make it so it's not like they're going back and pulling some dusty machines out of a basement in BN. It's something else. And I really just swing by the article and check it out. I think this is really fun. And I think that for everyone, and actually I'm going to have to put myself in this camp, but for everyone who derides the vintage effect design language that goes through all these brands now, this is it at a much different level. This is vintage technology just for the romantic element of it. And I'm totally on board. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, I love it. I love it. It's kind of like, it sort of reminds me of when, what was it? There've been a few car brands that do this and you'd know better than I, but the Jaguar did those lightweight, the reissues of the lightweight E-types and they... Aston Martin did the DB4 GTs. And these cars came with engines that were the same engine as the... So with the Jaguars, they were original cars. |
| James | They just finished building them now. |
| Unknown | Yeah, yeah. |
| James | So the Jaguars can be driven because they had a VIN. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | The Astons are essentially reclassifications, so they don't have a VIN number, you're not supposed to drive them. That said, if you own a DB4 GT, you could probably move the plate from one to the other and hope nobody could tell the difference, those sorts of things. But yeah, it's definitely in the vein of something like that. But it's funny because I think that the watch industry has done the design element, because cars can't look like they used to look in 1963. We have crash impact and we have, the headlights have to be certain height and bumpers have to be hidden. They can't be exposed. They have to be certain height off the ground. You have to have like impact zones. So if you hit somebody, nothing sharp pokes them or cuts them or does other things that would happen to someone who might hit, might bounce off the hood of your Aston Martin. But watches have never been constrained by that. So as soon as the world was tired of, you know, when the internet became something we were all kind of we understood and digital cameras were something we all understood and we didn't want a digital watch and we didn't want like a high tech watch. Yeah. And suddenly this design language started to trickle in of like reliving the sixties, reliving the seventies in terms of design. But now, you know, it's one thing where you hear, uh, there's examples of companies finding old movements or using old movements in a new watch. Like even the, that dark side of the moon Apollo eight uses a specially designed version of the 1861 movement, which was, period correct to Apollo 8. Oh, okay. So if you go to the period correct movement for... Yeah. So there's almost a precursor from less than a year ago. Right. Which hinted at the fact that they would do this. And then, I mean, they've got images of the movement. It looks incredible. Yeah. I think this is cool. I don't think we're gonna see this from a lot of brands. |
| Unknown | Yeah, yeah. |
| James | Because you have a lot of brands that just keep movements in service, like JLC, will just run... Like a good movement's a good movement. Yeah. Omega being, I would say, more of a technological company than JLC typically, especially at a consumer level. Like if you get into the geographic stuff and the sphere of tourbillons and such. But at a consumer level, Omega is very focused on technology. You see that with the coaxial, the adoption of the coaxial movement and now anti-magnetic movements and all those sorts of technologies. And to see them not only go and pick something out of the past because they know it's what collectors want and they know that they're willing to go further than just making the dial look like an Ultraman, or the dial look like a Mark II Speedmaster, or various things like that. |
| Jason Heaton | I wonder if they'll adapt the... I wonder if they'll do any sort of modernizations for chronometric perfection or anti-magnetic qualities, or if they're going to keep it... For instance, replacing the hairspring with a silicon hairspring or something. I wonder if they'll... Probably not the first time around, but you hit on an interesting point, and that is Omega is so much about technology, |
| James | They're just so good at what they do, and part of what they do is high-tech movement. |
| Jason Heaton | And they keep saying, we're going to put coaxial in every single, we're going to do master coaxial certifications for all of our watches, except the Speedmaster. And here they are re-releasing an old movement, which brings up another point, and that is that this movement, which originally was a FPGAY movement that then became a LeMania movement that we're talking back to the 1940s, has been used as the base for many chronographs from I think even Patek Philippe has used it, Vacheron, over the years. And to me, it's kind of interesting to bring back a movement like this that I don't know that it's ever been. The 321 has certainly been discontinued when they moved to a more mass-producible, affordable, or cheaper, the 861, which just losing that cam-actuated chronograph movement just was easier to produce and cheaper and more sort of reproducible. So, you know, all of these elements coming together make this a very significant move, and I think it's a reason that, you know, we're obviously going on about this for several minutes here, but... Yeah, we're rambling a bit, but I'm excited about it. I'm not even a Speedmaster guy. |
| Unknown | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's very significant, and I think watch people... This is one of those things that you almost can't be cynical about. I think people should just be excited about it. |
| James | Yeah, I think so. I mean, they're gonna put it in watches. People would be able to buy it. People who really love the 321 can now have one that's modern, made by the same company, but is the same thing. And that's cool. You don't get that in other stuff. You might be able to buy a chair from the same company that made the amazing chair in the 60s. And it's up to you if that's of the same thing or if you consider it more of a reproduction, because it's now out of its era. But I think this is neat. And I think that we've been so inundated by good and bad examples of vintage aesthetic. Yeah. To see them go vintage in tech. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | About it. Yeah. Cool. Good on you, Omega. And like, if you don't like this, everything else, Omega is the opposite. Yeah. Yeah. It's all coaxial. It's all anti-magnetic. It's all like very beautifully designed and brand new and great. And I think that this is like this is them taking that that trilogy to the next level, which is going right into the heart of the watch and going like, this is what you want to buy. Let's sell it. Yeah, I agree. So before we get too far away from skiing and anything else, it's probably a good time for a quick ad break. And this week, the show is brought to you by Alps and Meters. We couldn't be happier. I'm so impressed by this brand. I finally had an experience with their product firsthand. I skied in it today and it's it's great. We're so thrilled to have them as a sponsor. |
| Jason Heaton | Great fit for TGN. Alps and Meters is I've skied with the Alpine Winter Trousers for the past couple of years. And you just today were able to ski for the first time with the Alpine Guide Sweater, which you just picked up here in Vail. |
| James | Yeah, exactly. So I had mentioned on the last episode that I hadn't had a chance to experience their gear, so we just had you talking about your experience with their pants and other stuff, and they were able to hook me up with an Alpine Guide Sweater and also the Touring Flannel. Both are incredible, but I skied all day in this Alpine Guide Sweater, and we were leaving here trying to decide how many layers to wear, and I went basic. I went with a simple base layer, a merino wool base layer, then this sweater, And then just my normal, like, I don't even own a ski jacket. Like it's a city winter jacket. Sure. A light layer. Right. And it wasn't like super cold here. We're in the mid thirties maybe. And it's such nice gear. Like it's funny because what they've managed to do is take the quality and the physical performance of like technical performance gear and they package it in a way that doesn't look like something from Arterix. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, exactly. So go and check out alpsandmeters.com. They've got a lot of great products, and as a bonus, if you enter Hodinkee as a code in your shopping cart when you're going to check out, you can get free expedited shipping. |
| James | So yeah, a huge thank you to Alps and Meters. It was an absolute treat to actually get to use some of their gear in the space where it was designed to. But hey, I think we should probably just bounce into final notes. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, so my first one is kind of a tech gadget that I got recently called the Garmin InReach Mini. It's been out a while. Garmin has been doing these InReach products for a while, and it's What it is, is it's a portable, you know, on-the-go adventure GPS messaging system. And the mini is a very small version. It's like four ounces. It's about the size of, I don't know, I think it's probably half the diameter of my iPhone or half the length of it. So it's quite small. It's compact. It comes with a pack of cigarettes. Yeah. It's funny. I remember... Four batteries. Yeah. I remember I used to work for, this is an aside, but I remember when I used to work for a pacemaker company, they always used to say that, to describe a pacemaker to somebody was, it's about the size of a pocket watch or a stopwatch. And at some point, they always used to describe things as about the size of a Volkswagen, referring to the old Beetle. It's like at some point these things become just not culturally relevant as much anymore. Anyway, yes, a small pack of cigarettes. Comes with a little strip of webbing and a carabiner. So I did a little adventuring up in the Rockies outside of Aspen a few weeks back. Just clipped it onto the front of my backpack strap and doesn't get in the way. It's very light. But it also has SOS capabilities. So there's a little button that you can flip back the cover for and press and hold. And it will actually activate a come and get me signal, a la Breitling Emergency, or any sort of EPIRB or beacon that you would need to take into the back country or sailing or wherever. and it will communicate via satellite and trigger a search and rescue to come and find you. But what's really cool about this is that it connects with an app that you can download for your smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc. It allows you to send messages to pretty much anybody anywhere in the world without having any sort of Wi-Fi or cell phone coverage, local SIM card in your phone or anything like that. You just tie it via Bluetooth to your phone and then you can use, you can go through the app and then send messages back to, you know, your family if you're hiking in the back country. Yeah, it is. And how they sell it is the inReach Mini itself costs, I've seen it between 350 and 450 bucks, so let's say on average 400 bucks. US, and then you sign up for a contract. And the contracts are about a year long, and they're priced based on the kind of features that you want with it. So it depends on the number of messages you want to send per month, or just kind of the extent to which you think you're going to use it. And I haven't used it much, but I got it from Garmin and just wanted to give it a try. And, you know, I travel a fair amount. You know, we both have done liveaboard dive trips where something like this would have come in handy. You know, going into the backcountry, going to, even going to, you know, Sri Lanka, which is, you know, obviously a civilized country and I can certainly get a SIM card or find Wi-Fi. But, you know, hey, you're out cycling or hiking somewhere and you just want to send a message to somebody, it can come in handy. So, yeah, I haven't had it that long, so I haven't really put it through its full paces, but so far I like it, and it's the Garmin inReach Mini. |
| James | Yeah, I think those are really clever, and certainly for people, I always think that that must be very popular, or maybe it's very popular among people who decide to do like big through hikes. Yes. Where their family's like, you're really gonna hike for three months? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, right. Like the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail. PCT, yeah. Or Base Camp to Everest or something like that, yeah. |
| James | I think it's really cool, and I like that it connects with a piece of technology you would already have, like a phone. And I think that makes sense. Garmin makes great stuff. I mean, we've had great experiences with Garmin for several years, so that makes sense. My first one this week is actually a follow-up to Jason's no-budget choice from the 2018 gift guide, which was the Bose QuietComfort 35s. So after he talked about that, I'm very suggestible as a buyer. And after he talked about those headphones, I was like, I think I might need those headphones. I spend a lot of time on airplanes. I spent a lot of time with earbuds in editing the show or listening to music or podcasts, you know, all these sorts of things. I made my, I made up a hundred reasons why, like, how did I live without these? So, uh, you know, at the time I was in New York and I went just down the street from where I was staying, of course, there's a, a Bose flagship store. It's New York city. And I tried the QC 35 twos and the, um, The way that they do noise canceling is highly effective, but it also kind of messed with my tinnitus. |
| Unknown | Oh, OK. |
| James | It's that impression that there's like air rushing through the speaker, I guess. |
| Unknown | Sure, yeah. |
| James | Anyways, so, you know, I didn't quite let it die. Maybe I should have let it die there, but I did come across a product that I'm absolutely in love with at this point. And that's from a review on The Verge about these new Sony WH-1000XM3s. And they are essentially Sony's competition to the Bose noise cancelling, the QC35 II's. They're unbelievable. And I now like when I'm demoing them to friends, I'll be like, do you want to spend $350? And if they're like, no, I don't. I'm like, then don't try them on. Yeah, because they sell themselves. Their 30-hour battery life, they charge over USB-C. If you forget to charge them and they die, you get five hours and 10 minutes if you're using a high wattage charger. So if I use the charger from my cell phone or a high voltage charger, then you use the charger from the cell phone and it charges quickly. That's clever. It's 30-hour battery life. They have a touch control on the right ear cup. The noise canceling is absurd. I can't hear my feet when I walk and I wear boots all the time. I'm always wearing red wings. I can't hear my feet when I walk. I can sit in a in a coffee shop like two days after I bought them. I went to a coffee shop around the corner from holding key and like did. I was four times more productive than I normally would be. Yeah, I put them on. I didn't turn any music on. I put them on. I turned them on and just listen to nothing. Yeah, I've got a ton of work done. I'm entirely hooked on these things. They come with a little travel case. They're not cheap. They're 350 bucks US, which is a lot of money. Absolutely. And I don't think you're paying for audio quality. Music sounds fine, really good. Podcasts, you know, general audio sounds fantastic, but it's not audiophile. Don't let anyone tell you it is. It uses a, if your phone is Bluetooth five, you can do LDAC. So you do get a very high quality sound, but it's still like it's wireless. What you're paying for is the noise canceling and what really sells it is the minute I tried it on a plane. you hear nothing. All you can hear is conversations because voice is impossible to cancel. But any droning noise, the plane is silent. I used it to come to Colorado. I used it to leave New York. I'm absolutely hooked on these things. I couldn't say more kind of nice things about them. And then they have one more party trick, which is if you take your hand and cup the right ear, which is the touch sensitive ear, it opens up the mic. It brings your music or your internal audio down to like 10% and then it opens all the microphones so you can have a conversation. So if you're on a plane and you want to order a coffee as they go by, you don't have to take the headphones off and find a place to put them or put them around your neck or whatever. You just touch the ear cup and it's almost instant, the slightest of delay, and you can hear everything and you say, all the coffee with cream or whatever. They go, okay, you remove your hand and your music comes back gently. It's super clever. I absolutely love these things. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, you let me try them here in the room today. And I love that feature. And now that you mentioned on the airplane, that's the perfect use for them. I thought, OK, cool feature. But it happens all the time. I mean, I use my Bose flying all the time, which don't have that feature. And you're right. I always have to pull it off my ear, pause the music, et cetera. It really is nice. And I think with either the Bose or these Sonys, what you're buying, like you mentioned, isn't necessarily audio quality for music, which is great. It's fine. Um, but it's, it's the whole package. It's the battery life. It's the, you know, the charging speed. It's the, these little, you know, features that they introduced that are like, okay, yeah, these are expensive, but I personally, you haven't had your Sony's very long, but I've had these bows for a couple of years now and I wouldn't go back. I mean, it's, you know, it's one of those, those products that has improved my life, you know? |
| James | The Sony's, and I think that the Bose have this too, but the Sony's have, uh, the ability to go into like an adaptive sound canceling mode. where it cancels the noise of people pulling their luggage past you in a train station. But if there's an overhead announcement saying your train has been delayed, it lets that in. |
| Unknown | Oh, wow. |
| James | There's some weird stuff going on. Interesting, yeah. And I don't know, I'm about it. And I think what I'm about most is the silence. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | I really love that I can go somewhere kind of noisy, turn them on, Like I got off that plane to Colorado and I had to write a piece before I got to the hotel. And there were three other people in the car with me. And they're all talking about how the flight was, I don't know, difficult or whatever, what people talk about after a flight. I got into the back seat of this Yukon, put these on, turn them on. And then someone had to tap me on the shoulder and say like, we're here. No, no, just to say like, oh, I was saying something to you. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm working. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're great. It's a great product. Yeah. And I don't think it matters necessarily if you go between the Sony or the Bose, like no dog in that fight. I like the Sony's. Battery life's rad and they don't really mess with my tinnitus. And I've now done like 12 hours straight with them on. It's great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, cool. Yeah, that's great. I'm glad you got those. So what do you got? My second one is a podcast that came via a listener. John Cook sent this podcast recommendation over to us. It's from an Irish podcaster who is named Brady Haywood, and his podcast is just called the Brady Haywood Podcast. That's Haywood with H-E-Y-W-O-O-D. And apparently, I haven't listened to this podcast prior to this five episode set that John Cook recommended to us. But Brady kind of focuses on, I think he's an engineer by training, and he focuses on engineering failures, and kind of disasters that could have been averted, etc. But for episodes 20 through 25, he pays specific attention to Apollo 13. And I think that's why John forwarded this to us is because, you know, we've talked a little bit about kind of our space geekery and the right stuff and all this sort of thing. And of course, Apollo 13 is just a generally fascinating and popular subject for a lot of nerds, whether you're a Speedmaster guy or not. Apollo 13, for those who might not know, and there probably aren't many of you, but it was the mission in 1970 in which, as they were headed towards the moon, they had a fairly serious flaw where it started venting oxygen from the command module. And they had to kind of call back to Houston and say, we have a problem. And everybody sort of leaped into action to come up with a solution. really ad-lib. I mean, it was really a tremendous effort. Certainly there's been a movie and a book, et cetera. But what's really cool about this podcast, and I'm only into episode 20, so I'm actually only into the first of the five that focus on Apollo 13, is that he has pulled actual audio tape from NASA, from Capcom, from CBS News, from various sources. And he's quite proud. He talks about he's quite proud that he put a soundtrack behind this. He's got this kind of really nice music that sort of fades in and out along with this great soundtrack of Charlie Duke or whoever it was at Capcom talking in this typical sort of southern test pilot drawl, talking up to the capsule. And Jim Lovell up there conveying back what sort of issues they're facing. And I don't know. It's just a really captivating listen. And certainly I've not made it a secret that I'm quite a space geek. And Apollo 13 is just one of those iconic sort of failures slash success stories from human history. And so it's good. So I'm going to continue on through episode 25 and listen to all of these. And I encourage all of you to do the same. So far so good from my perspective. And thanks a lot to John for sending us that email and recommending that. I think it's a great one. |
| James | So nice to get a tip like that when it's so directly up our alley. So yeah. Yeah. Kudos. That's awesome. Yeah. And my final one, we'll close out the show with something that I brought up to you just now on the couch and you were like, oh yeah, it's a BBC crime drama from 1991 that started in 1991 called Prime Suspect. It was largely a vehicle based around Helen Mirren's performance as a detective something, Jane Tennyson, Jane Tennyson, and what they call their DCIs or DCs and all that. And it's... I mean, if you love The Wire, if you love Luther, if you love... There's too many to list now, especially British crime dramas, but if you like crime dramas in general, especially gritty kind of challenging crime dramas, this feels like a certain amount of genesis to it. I mean, Homicide, was probably the pre-generator to something like what we have with The Wire. But this is probably, in some level, genesis to the 50 or so British crime dramas that exist, Marcella. If I talk long enough, I'll come up with another 10. And I have an affinity for these things And you watch this one and it's so good. I know. |
| Jason Heaton | I know. It's so good. I need to rewatch. I watched those many years ago, probably 10 years ago. And I mean, Helen Mirren's great in it, but I think... Everybody's great in it. It's so good. I think these British crime procedurals, these dramas, what I love about them and what separates them from, you know, the American stuff like, you know... Law and Order. SVU and, you know, all the CSIs and all this kind of stuff is, you know, the characters are so so real and they're flawed. I think that's the key. They're flawed. They either drink too much, they're bad in relationships, etc. And that's certainly the case with Jane Tennyson, Helen Mirren's character. But also, the things she's facing, I think as a woman in the early 90s, rising to the rank of, I think, Detective Chief Inspector or something, sort of a position of authority. She just is not getting the respect that is due. |
| James | Despite a number of big wins, if you watch the show. To use Top Gear's term, the special way in which the BBC operates, the show kind of came in and out. So it actually ran from 1991 until Wait a minute, like 2001, 97? Yeah, they had several seasons. They went for a while, and like a season will be four episodes, and then there's very clearly a jump in car and phone technology by the time they pick up another one. Right, right. In the 90s, things were happening pretty quickly with things like phones, and it's really good. I highly recommend you seek it out if you enjoy a really good crime drama that's personality driven, that's performance driven. I mean, if you don't like crime dramas, this isn't gonna change your mind. It'll feel like you're watching something you've seen before. But otherwise, check out Prime Suspect. It's absolutely fantastic. Yeah, agreed. All right. Well, I think that does it. As always, thanks so much for listening to the show. And a big thanks to Hodinkee for making the show possible and for this week's sponsor, Alps and Meters for supporting the show directly. Hit the show notes via hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Stacey and you can follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcast. Music throughout a siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And befitting our day of skiing green and blue runs and skipping the black. Here's a quote from Ernest Shackleton who said, better to be a live donkey than a dead lion. |