Episode 61 - The Traveling Watch Project
Published on Wed, 25 Dec 2019 23:00:00 -0800
Synopsis
This is a podcast episode featuring a conversation with JD, the founder of the Traveling Watch Project. JD discusses the origins and purpose of the project, which involves sending a modded Seiko SNK805 watch around the world to different hosts who take pictures with it before passing it on. The goal is to eventually auction off the watch and accompanying photo book, with proceeds going to the Veterans Watch Initiative that trains veterans in watchmaking. JD also talks about his experience with watch modding, sharing details on some of his favorite projects. Additionally, the hosts discuss topics like upcoming Star Wars movies, amateur blacksmithing, and riding bicycles with flat pedals.
Links
Transcript
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| Andrew | Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is the 1420 Podcast with your hosts Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you? |
| Speaker 1 | Man, I'm tired. Why? Because it's ridiculously early in the morning. |
| Andrew | This is for sure the earliest we've done. No doubt about it. It's also the first time when it's been too early to even drink red beer. It is too early to drink red beer. |
| Speaker 1 | In fact, when we were, when we were sort of planning the show out, I had that thought to myself. I'd say, you know, there's just no chance. It's not, there's not going to be any whiskey. No, there's not going to be any red beer. Uh, because it is literally six in the morning. |
| Andrew | Well now it's six 20, but yeah, no, it's still a little bit early for me. That'll ruin the whole trajectory of my day. |
| Speaker 1 | Uh, yeah. Uh, but I'm good. Uh, I'm good. Uh, finished up a long week, but this is like the sort of last week before Christmas vacation. I have to pack a bag at some point in the next 24 hours and prepare to put my two small children on an airplane, which is always... I mean, just the idea of it is worse than the actual process. And they're old enough now that... They can carry their own shit? Yeah, we bought them suitcases. Yeah, good. Yeah. We bought them suitcases. Some of that is just because their ticket holding passengers and we need their space, right? So we got them like not small suitcases. |
| Andrew | So that you can pack Kim's toiletries into that bag, because the toiletries that travel with an adult woman are astounding. |
| Speaker 1 | You know, Kim's actually pretty mobile when it comes to that stuff. I'm probably worse on the toiletry front than she is. Really? Yeah, almost certainly. |
| Andrew | Well, I stand by my statement. |
| Speaker 1 | Traveling with an adult woman. Yeah, but other than that, I'm just trucking along. There have been no major changes in my life, so nothing to note really at home besides just normal life. And no kitchen. Oh, that's true. I have not had a kitchen this week. |
| Andrew | I thought you had like an Ebola patient quarantined in your kitchen. Right. the contractor plastic up with the zipper down the middle. I was like, this isn't, this is bad. Why are, why'd you let me in here? |
| Speaker 1 | Right? Yeah, no. Uh, it's ET actually. We have ET on a bed in the, uh, no, they, they, in fact, last Monday, last Monday, uh, about 10 in the morning, my wife calls me, uh, not quite, not quite frantic, but just like sort of, uh, perplexed and, uh, says, Hey, these contractors are here and they say they're going to rip out the floor. And I laughed and I was like, tell them no next Monday. So because, you know, when you do when you do a kitchen, right, they were taking our cabinets and it's pretty intrusive. Well, yeah, it's going to take us time. Right. We hadn't like emptied out the cabinets or anything. And so, yeah, they came back the next week. They came back on Monday. And so they reinstalled the cabinets yesterday. That's felt that felt like they've at least rough in. done the rough in on the cabinet. So that felt like, okay, we're getting close to being back. So they still have to put in the floors, you know, at least the finish grid on the floors. They have to finish up mounting the cabinets. They're not, I'm not sure what, what needs to happen still. But so it's like by the time we get back from California, we'll have a kitchen again. |
| Andrew | All right. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. Yeah. It's been rough. I believe it. |
| Andrew | It's been eating keto, not out of a kitchen would be very hard. |
| Speaker 1 | We just are not on keto. Yeah. We're just not on keto because it was going to be impossible. Yeah. It was going to be impossible. So, but we got to talk about how you are because you're, you're actually, uh, I had a big life change. |
| Andrew | You had a big life change. One week ago, actually almost, almost to the minute, uh, my wife had a baby. So as of last Saturday, we are now a two child household, uh, which is, uh, It is not the transition, the challenge of transition I expected it to be. One to two seems to be a pretty manageable because it's like we went from a two on one defense to man to man defense and we can both manage that. Sure. I imagine the jump from two to three is really the game changer there. You know, I wouldn't want to do that. |
| Speaker 1 | I think that it's probably not, you know, I think, uh, you know, we had this conversation recently where I said, it's really hard to explain, but at the end of the day, it's not harder. It's just different. And I think that it's hard to understand it because, I mean, it's just like with your baby, right? You cannot understand how much you're going to love that baby until it's there. |
| Andrew | Yeah, he's pretty okay. |
| Speaker 1 | You know? Jerry's still out though. And so, but also like the difficulty of having a second baby, it's like, well, yeah, it's hard and yeah, it sucks, but it's never as hard as you think. It's both as hard as you think and significantly easier. Yeah, I can get behind that. You know? |
| Andrew | It's really hard to explain that phenomenon to someone who's not been through it, I think, but... The one that always shocked me was how people always talk about how kids are so expensive, and they don't really get expensive until they get a little bit older. When we had one, we didn't really notice a financial difference until he went to daycare. And that's when kids get expensive. Daycare. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, daycare and soccer and basketball. And yeah, they just had to get a little bit older. iPads. Yeah. Chess tournaments. |
| Andrew | Yeah. Airplane tickets. Fucking airplane tickets. They don't get a discount for an airplane tickets. Nonsense. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, I'm really glad to have you back. In fact, I didn't expect to have you back. And then you had messaged me the other day and said, when are we going to record on Saturday? And I said, well, Andrew, I've actually already lined up a co-host. I've already replaced you for Saturday, so I don't need you. He said, well, can I come? And then we had to negotiate terms. But alas, here you are. |
| Andrew | Here I am. Short, unpaid paternity leave. Got to get back into making that money. |
| Speaker 1 | And that's a good segue to introduce our guest for today. Let's do it. So we have with us Instagram user at grog.jd, better known as JD. Correct. J.D., and J.D., you are several hours ahead of us right now. Yes. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So you... It's not too early for me to add whiskey into my coffee. |
| Speaker 1 | Yes, I think that's right. I think that's right. And God bless you for it. J.D., A, thank you for joining us. You're welcome. And B, why don't you introduce yourself for the folks? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Okay. On Instagram, I'm at Grog JD. I'm also one of the several people behind the Traveling Watch Project. 50-some years old and got into watches pretty heavily a couple years ago and that's what led me to you guys. |
| Speaker 1 | Fantastic and JD, I'd be remiss not to mention that we were probably not going to a top 10 in the world mustache. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Thank you very much. It was something that was actually my wife's idea. It took her several years to talk me into it. |
| Andrew | Okay. That's unusual. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | That's very uncommon. And now it's like, I get tired of it and I'm ready to shave it off. And then somebody makes a comment about it. So it's like, Oh crap, it's got to live another day. |
| Speaker 1 | Have you found that it's become like part of you, like you are less of a man without it perhaps, or at least there's a concern of that? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | I don't know about less of a man, but yeah, it's part of me. First, I have to be a man to start with, but I see myself just as an older boy. Sure. But yes, if I decided to ever commit a federal crime, the first thing I would do would be shave the mustache. |
| Andrew | Definitely. Well, I would do it after after you commit the crime. Well, yeah. Yeah, because that would be a big indicator. Yeah. Oh, we're looking for that guy. |
| Speaker 1 | You know, J.D., we're actually we don't have guests every week. We do. We do try to I think our as our show sort of matures. We've tried to incorporate more and more guests because people have gotten tired of hearing the only things we have to say. But we have to be a little selective, but it occurred to me pretty early on that you're a really natural fit, you know, going through your Instagram page and having had some conversations with you in the past over DM or whatever. You know, we say this a lot on the show, but you just are kind of people, right? You dig a good whiskey. Yep. You dig a good beer. Yes, sir. ride, you ride classic style bikes and you ride flat pedals. God bless you for it. You dig on watches and you dig on watches in a way that is not the typical, not the typical, hey, I've got an Orient, I've got a Citizen and perhaps a quirky Swatch or Casio. Like you really got deep over the edge. And so we'll apologize to your wife to the extent we've influenced that. So so assuming she'll listen to this, our apologies extended to you. But would you call yourself a serial hobbyist? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yes. Yes, I think I would, because I find that there's something that I latch on to. And then I really going to go down the rabbit hole with that. So with guitars and amps, I Ended up writing for National Guitar Magazine for a while, did a lot of amplifier mods and built tube amps and pedals and stuff. Got into skateboarding pretty good for a little bit in my early 20s to early 30s. Started racing bikes and I was just cool tooling around with that for a while and then went down to rabbit hole and started racing cyclocross. Uh, and now I still have like 30 pairs of tires hanging up in my shed. So yeah, when I got the watches, it was kind of the same thing. |
| Andrew | Sounds about right. Yeah. That sounds very familiar. Yeah. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. You know, uh, I actually don't even ride, uh, my bike all that often anymore. Uh, but I also have about 30 pairs of tires, which is, which is, about 29 pair of tires, too many for a guy who rides his bike as often as I do in the garage. Well, J.D., I think that the reason that we brought you on the show, in particular, the reason we wanted to bring you on the show is because you are one of a small handful of guys who are running this, as you mentioned, the Traveling Watch Project. And for those of you who don't know Traveling Watch Project, is the username on Instagram. But this is a project born out of the minds of these fellows who are veteran advocates and watch enthusiasts. But why don't you tell us a little bit about what Traveling Watch Project is, how it got formed, and what you guys were trying to do with this thing? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, so there's a group of modders, There's a gentleman who's on Instagram as Evel Custom, E-V-E-L, Custom. He kind of got us together. So, DIY watch and straps, Stazzo, and Davey Jones, 1905, 2014. I don't know why he went such a long Instagram handle. |
| Andrew | Or a long date span. Yeah. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, I really hope he's not that old. Or dead. Or dead, yeah. That would be kind of creepy. But, uh, we, uh, so Evo Custom got us together to work on a couple of different projects. Uh, and as happens when you're in this group, everybody has different ideas and we just start talking about crap in general, like you guys do on the show. Uh, and one of the guys just threw out the, a traveling watch project that they heard about what was on Watch You Seek before. And we thought, well, that'd be kind of cool to do. And we kind of battered, bantered that back and forth a little bit. And finally I just said, okay, let's just do it. I got a couple of watches. I got more than a couple of watches. Uh, okay. So I just kind of took the ball and ran with it. And then I told the guys, okay, here's the plan. I've got the, I've got the watch, here's the Instagram and let's go. So that's, that's kind of how it started. |
| Andrew | So when you say got everyone together, did he just kind of, were you guys in contact previously or was this just a DM from clearly another watch enthusiast that was like, Hey man, let's talk about watches. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So Evo Custom just kind of put together a DM group on Instagram because he wanted to work on a project and he wanted to invite the other four or five of us in to the group. And from there we started a WhatsApp chat group and we just started working on a project and hopefully in about three, four months, we were able to announce what that project is. But, you know, as we were talking and shooting out other random ideas and just talking about life in general, the Traveling Watch Project kind of got born from that. |
| Speaker 1 | So this is, then this is a good opportunity to say the Traveling Watch Project is a discrete project, but there's something else in the, in the works from the same group of fellas. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's exciting. We won't dig too much on that. I can tell you're being a little bit cagey about it, so we'll let you maintain your secrecy. |
| Andrew | So now's the time to tighten the screws. |
| Speaker 1 | I assume that when the time comes to talk about that project, the folks will be able to find that information if they're following Traveling Watch Project. Absolutely. Yeah, good. Good. Well, what I'd like to do here is talk a little bit, because I think this is maybe the neatest part of the Traveling Watch Project, because it's not just a, hey, here's a fun thing type deal, but it's actually a little bit bigger than that. Can you talk about what the purpose of the Traveling Watch Project is and what the ultimate goal for that is? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah. So to me, the Traveling Watch Project is not so much a way to get everybody to experience a really cool watch, but just a way to connect people together. And with that, you know, one of my watches, it's a SMK 805. We got a different dial on it and a DIY watch and straps built a new strap for it. But other than that, it's a pretty standard watch. And the idea wasn't so much to, you know, again, to really say, Hey, this is a really cool watch. Everybody check this out. It's just a way to connect people. And with that, trying to just kind of pass it along from person to person, uh, throughout the country. And we've got quite a few people actually over in England, Australia, a couple of people in, uh, Southeast Asia as well, Philippines, uh, who wanted to be in on this. Uh, and the idea is to get the watch all the way around the world, basically. And then whatever date that is, it might be a year from now, it might be two years from now. Uh, we'll put together a, book of all the pictures of all the different people who've hosted it, the places they've taken the traveling watch. And then we're going to auction the watch and the book. And then we're going to take the proceeds and donate it to the Veterans Watch Initiative. So that is a watch school out in. I got to look it up, I think Delaware, but the watch school was started by a gentleman just to train returning veterans and especially wounded veterans who've had some, you know, disabilities or inability to find other work, I should say. And I will say we're not officially affiliated with them in any way. I did try to contact them to get the okay to use the name or not and haven't really heard back. I imagine they've got their hands full. So we just decided we're going to run with it. This sounded like such a great idea that This is something we really wanted to support. |
| Speaker 1 | I love that. I love that. And so the idea of the Veterans Watch Initiative is they train folks to do watchmaking. Folks who have got combat experience that are maybe dealing with the realities of trying to reenter society. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, that is exactly it. People who are trying to deal with their PTSD, who maybe just don't work real well around people for whatever reason. They find that, you know, being by themselves and being able to focus on working on watches kind of really helps get them centered, I guess would be a way to say it. |
| Andrew | Sure. Real meticulous tasks are incredibly therapeutic anyway. And that's a, that's a really interesting idea. How did you come across the, the Veterans Watch Initiative? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | I think it was because throughout random watch trading, I ended up with a Boliva. And so I was trying to go to the website to look up more information about this particular model. And Boliva now is mostly, it seems like a fashion brand, not quite what they used to be, but they also support this Veterans Watch Initiative. And this was kind of like a little blurb on the bottom corner of one of their pages. So that sounds like a great idea. I kind of delved into it from there. And I watched some of the videos that the gentleman from NTH watches did when he donated some project products over to the veterans watch initiative. |
| Speaker 1 | And this is Chris Vale from NTH. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maker of fantastic watches. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | I've referred to it as Nth, but in the video he refers to it as NTH, so I'm not sure which way is the correct way to do it, but I figured it's his company. |
| Speaker 1 | That's super interesting that you say that. We've been down the rabbit hole on this one, but I was calling it NTH watches for years, and we've got corrected by a listener that said it's Nth, and then Chris actually confirmed to us that it's Nth, but I have also heard him refer to it as NTH. I like that. A man shrouded in mystery. Yeah. Yeah. He always gets to be right in that conversation. And now you're, JD, you're a Marine. Is that correct? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | No. No. No. My oldest son was a Marine. |
| Speaker 1 | Okay. Your oldest son was a Marine and, and your, your younger son is in the army currently. Is that correct? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | The middle son, actually he wrapped up a few years ago. Okay. Yeah. So he did his four years. |
| Speaker 1 | So, so gold, gold star family as it were. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Fantastic. I mean, not fantastic, obviously, but thank you for your contribution. Andrew and I are both currently Army Reservists through the National Guard. Andrew's former active duty. I've been a weekend warrior for my entire career, except when I wasn't. But yeah, so we love the idea of supporting. I think that we've... through the show sort of over time have always been, we sort of struggled with how do we, how do we make that connection? And I think when we started the show, we, we were even perhaps a little reluctant to, to discuss it. Do we discuss that we're in the army on the air? And I think that it was kind of a slow roll. Like we, we didn't know, you know, how much of ourselves should we put in the show and how much of our own, personal passion versus our watch passion should make it into the show. And then over time, I think we've been more comfortable with it. And that, I think, has more to do with just the support and not necessarily support for us, right? Because I don't think either one of us feels particularly in need of support with regards to our own service-related lives, but just the general support that we get from our listeners. You can tell that the community is the type of community that's just really on board to support veterans, veterans issues, service member lifestyles. |
| Andrew | I think too that watches are a hobby and a passion that are really... That aligns really well with veterans and service members because it's such a tinkery, such a specific and precise hobby that I think it just aligns really well with a lot of the character traits that are typically present in that community of people. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, in any event, I really liked the idea that this is an opportunity for us to participate in this veteran focused, but also watch centric project. So, uh, thank you. Thank you for, for, for doing this. |
| Andrew | Um, I have this watch on my wrist right now. |
| Speaker 1 | We've actually got the, we've actually got the traveling watch project here in hand. |
| Andrew | Indeed you do. Well, sort of. It's on my wrist. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, so it's in one of our hands, but not mine currently. This is a pretty neat watch. This is a watch similar to one I own, and a little bit less similar to one Andrew owns. This is the SNK, as you said, the SNK 80X that everybody knows and loves. Why don't you tell us about this watch, the genesis of the watch itself, because I understand this is a watch of your creation. So the genesis of the watch itself, and how we get here. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Okay, so one of my first modding projects was SMK809 that I put a dial in from the SKX007. I had seen somebody else did it, I thought it looked really cool, so I went ahead and made one. I liked it, ended up giving it to my wife for a while, ended up modding it after that. I made her a different one. The dial ended up in an Invicta mod that I put an H36 in and sold. So I was kind of missing it. So I wanted to put another one together. And at the same time, on Instagram, I came across the lady who was hand painting these dials. She goes by the handle of S-H-W-E-N design. Schwingular. So Schwingular design. Yes. So she hand paints those dials. I saw that and I went, that is really cool. Um, so I contacted her and she makes all the dials, uh, per order. So if you want one, you kind of have to contact her and say, Hey, this is what I want you to do. Can you make me one with a purple or a green or whatever? And, um, So I contacted her, she made the dial, I put it together, tried a couple different handsets, and with that, the stock SMK805 handset seemed to work pretty good with that design. So that's what I went with. I put a slightly domed crystal on that I picked up from Esslinger. Nothing spectacular. Also toyed with putting an NH35 or NH36 in there, but I did not because that crown is so small that trying to hand wind it is kind of futile. So the 7S26 movement does the job. |
| Speaker 1 | And so this dial, this is, you know, it makes more sense for you to pull up either our Instagram or Traveling Watch Project's Instagram. and look at this thing versus explaining it, but just for the purpose of the show, this has got sort of a dark green, light green on dark green. It occurs to me that this may be the Milky Way, but why don't you tell us what the design is here? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, so she kind of has a theme, and you can see on her Instagram page, and if you go to her website, that she does these custom painted dials, and they have this galaxy design. You probably could equate it to the Milky Way. I don't know what her original thought was, but she does these galaxy dials. It's what I remember them being called. And I thought, and I just emailed her and said, Hey, can you do one in green? She said, yeah, sure. Do you want to do some lume paint on it too? Yeah, absolutely. That sounds great. So off and running. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. Fantastic. It's a really, it's a really good looking watch. I don't know. I don't know how, how difficult it is to do this thing. |
| Andrew | Uh, I was glad that you said it was hand-painted because I was like, what, how, uh, this looks hand-painted, but it, it must be like, it's a fantastic dial. Like that really dark, dark emerald transitioning into a kind of a loamy, kind of a loamy green in the galaxy center. I love that dial design and the fact that she's doing them by hand and making them look so factory finished is really impressive, and a killer combination with that SKX dial, the handset, and then the lightning bolt second hand on there. Yeah, that Milgauss second hand really carries the design. Yeah, this thing looks like a space watch. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, I was trying out different second hands with that, and I just happened to have that sitting in my, you know, box of goodies, so to speak, a bunch of second hands, and that I'm just going to drop that on the dial. OK, yeah, we're going to go with that. |
| Andrew | Yeah, that's that's the absolute right choice for for a galaxy themed dial. |
| Speaker 1 | And I've noticed you polish the bezel on this. This is a project that I've also done on my SNK. Yeah. How did you do that? How did you do that project? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Dremel tool and barkeeper's friend. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah. |
| Speaker 1 | Fair enough. Yeah, I used Mother's Magwheel Polish and a Dremel tool, so... Yeah. Totally, yeah. You know what? I taped the whole case off, everything except for the bezel, and then it's in. The thing that I had trouble with when I polished my SNK bezel was I actually broke the top most chamfer, that top most edge. I broke it as I... I mean, I didn't physically break it, but I broke the hard transition there with the... Oh, yeah. with the sanding materials because I went in, I think I went in with, uh, uh, 1500. Well, first I, I brushed it with an SOS pad, uh, just to break the, the, um, blast, uh, to get sort of a smoother, a smoother texture and then 1500 and 2000, I think maybe 600, 1500 and 2000. But by the time I was done with everything, it just sort of folded over that top and it rounded that top off, which I didn't want. Um, Did you struggle with that with that aspect of this? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | No, because I literally did not do anything else except just take the Dremel tool to it with the buffing wheel. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, your transition, the transition on this is really smooth. Yeah, it looks great. You know, what I wound up doing to fix that is when I pulled the crystal, I glued a piece of 1500 to a flat surface, and I can't remember now what it was. Probably a piece of plywood that you've had. Something. Oh, yeah. You know what it was? It was a piece of that Danite. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was a piece of Danite. But I just took some wet-dry, hit it with some spray adhesive, put it on a flat piece of wood, and then set the watch just flat onto that and reset that top chamfer, which would end up working really well. I think that this is such a killer look, that polished bezel on top of a brushed or even a blasted case. You get that, it gives you some depth of character there in the watch. So this is a really fun one. Tell us a little bit more about this strap. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So yeah, the gentleman on Instagram, a DIY watch and strap, made that by hand. Initially, I just had a standard leather strap on it. When I first built it, I had a bracelet on it. But then as we came up with the idea of the Traveling Watch Project, I went, yeah, the bracelet's not going to fit everybody and everybody's going to have to resize it. So that's not going to work. We're going to have to go with a leather strap. And I had a standard leather strap. And as we're chatting in this group and I'm getting ready to launch the project, I initially had you guys lined up as the first stop. But then I came up with the idea, you know, I asked him, I said, hey, can you make a strap for this? And he was like, absolutely, sure. And he had made a strap for me previously, which I really liked. So I knew the quality of his work. So I thought, great, how about we do this? We make you the first stop, and you can make a strap for it. And then you get to put it on. And that was kind of his contribution to the project. And then from there, he sent it on to you guys. He had three or four different ideas and he sent pictures to us in our little modders chat group. And at the last minute, he said, I'm going to do this double stitch project. Okay. And I didn't know what that really meant. And then he sent pictures after he, he put that together and I went, Oh man, that works perfectly because the there's that angle with how he It looks great. The leather is really nice leather too. I don't know what this is, but it looks almost like a chrome excel type of leather, but it's got that waxy finish. It's the whole thing just works really well. So, well, so what's the, |
| Speaker 1 | What's in the future for this thing? So we actually have it right now. I think we're going to keep this thing for about four more days. Four more years. By the time these folks hear this, I assume this will be en route to its next location. It's got, this actually has some traveling to do in our hands between now and then. But then eventually it will hit the post from my hands to the post. So, so what's next for this thing and what's the ultimate goal for, for this watch? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah. So from you, it's traveling to down to California. Uh, it's going to kind of meander up in, you know, North and South as it makes its way Eastward. |
| Speaker 1 | Spoiler alert, it's traveling with me to California. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Ah, okay. With you from California, then you can put it in the post to the next stop. Uh, who's also in Sacramento. Well, not also. I don't know where you're going in California, but the next stop's in Sacramento, California. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, you know, another spoiler alert. There's an opportunity this thing gets hand-delivered to its next stop. Oh, awesome. More on that. More to come, because no promises. But yeah, that's a significant possibility at this point. And then what? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So one of the gentlemen, Stazo, part of our group, he's actually in Puerto Rico. So once it meanders eastward, north and south, it's going to stop to him. And then from there, I'm going to send it on to England. The lady who painted the dial, so Schwenn Design, she's going to host it for a little while. It's going to go on to Davy Jones, who's part of our group. Some of the guys at Half Watch Project are interested in hosting it for a while. Love those guys. Got quite a few stops within the UK. From there, I'm still trying to solidify a solid path to Australia. But once we get to Australia, I'll certainly have a bunch of interesting parties there. And again, through Southeast Asia and the Philippines. And then from there, it gets sent back to me. And then that's when we put together the book and put it up for auction. |
| Andrew | How are prospective host families getting their names on this list? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So just contacting me directly, so at Traveling Watch Project or at Grog JD on Instagram, just send me a direct message, say that you want to be in the rotation. We'll certainly put you on a list, which I've got a figure out a better way to manage the list. Because right now I'm handling, handwriting everything on a notebook. And then somebody comes in and says, Hey, I'm in Colorado, and I've already got the whole schedule map out. Okay, crap, I gotta fit it in here. |
| Andrew | Just double spacing on your on your handwritten list. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, I'm gonna have to computerize everything. Because as this project keeps going on, it kind of has a snowball effect. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. We got to really scale up everything. |
| Speaker 1 | Tell us about the auction at the end. The ultimate goal for this thing is to be auctioned off for charity for the Veterans Watch Initiative. What does that look like? Do you have any hopes and dreams for that auction? Where are we at with that? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | I have hopes to raise... I would love to hand over more than $1,000 to the Veterans Watch Initiative. Now it's, again, it's a little FMK 805 with a bunch of pictures. So, you know, it's kind of like the watch project or the auction not too long ago with the Tudor went for, you know, some ridiculous amount of money. It's a simple watch that anybody can get anywhere. But the idea is it's for a charity. And we're really trying to get a lot of money for them. |
| Andrew | And there's a cool story behind it. Do you have any plans in the works for this being an annual event that will have Traveling Watch Project 2019, Traveling Watch Project 2020, and kind of building some momentum in that way that it's, you know, hey, if you missed it this year, next year it's going to start on the west coast of the United States. Get your name on the list for next year's path. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, I did not think about that, to be honest. It was really a seat-at-the-pants type of approach, but I like that idea very much, so I might steal that from you at some point. |
| Andrew | Oh, yeah, you can... it's not even theft. That was your idea. We talked about it off-air. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, I love that. You know, we're We're sort of moving on in terms of minutes of the show, but we'd be remiss to have you on the show and not talk about your experience in modding on a more general scale. So do you mind walking us through sort of your path into watchmodding and sort of some of your favorite projects and maybe what you have working currently? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Sure. A couple of years ago, almost two years ago for Christmas, my wife got me an original grain watch. She had no idea about the brand. She just knew that I had kind of a passing interest at the time in watches and she knew that I like scotch and bourbon and the wood from the original grain was was interfered to be made from whiskey barrels. Right. She thought that was a great idea for me and I got it. I went that's a great idea and I started investigating with other people but okay watches uh... so that i thought it's read up more about watching and getting into the different what's a cool for what would be the next step up and of course uh... automatic mechanical watch would be the next step in there okay cool so i kinda got into the fmk eight oh five eight oh nine and then what what's next okay well I think I ended up with one of the courts, the Mecca courts is from Undone. And then as I'm reading up on all the different watches and going down that rabbit hole, I'm realizing somebody said something about mods. Oh, you can mod these. Oh, great. And as a lifetime tinkerer, that was just really blew up my brain. |
| Andrew | Oh no, new hobby. Yes, exactly. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Excuse to buy more tools, more parts. So from there I started modding the 805, 809. Unlike most modders, I did not go down the SKX rabbit hole. I have not had an SKX at all. I've had a 7702. I know, I know. I haven't either. But I got to the point where I realized I could pick up that Invicta Pro Diver, the 8926, 8927, 9094. It's got the better movement than the FKX. Yeah. You've got the 200 meters of water resistance. It's not really pro diver rated, but I live in Ohio. Okay. So I didn't really need that. So I've got a better movement and it's way cheaper. And if you, you know, keep tabs on, uh, Amazon, I use a, uh, email or app called camel, camel, camel. That'll tell you when there's a price drop on Amazon. And you can tell when you, what's your target prices. So sometimes I'll get these refurbished ones for like 50 bucks, 50 bucks, NH 35. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. That's movement price. Movement price alone is 50 bucks. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So I have a history of taking less expensive things and modifying them to make it work better. So I did the same thing with guitars and amplifiers and my race bikes. This was just an extension of that. I really like the Explorer, so I kind of went down the rabbit hole of trying to make an Explorer. And I did make a couple of Explorer homages, and I found that Personally, at this point, I'd like that 369 dial better in that sub-style case than I do by itself in the field case. Yeah. But, yeah, so moving on from the modding the Invictas and a couple of the other ones, I just, I'll buy one of those Franken watches from India, knowing that for the most part it's going to be pretty much crap, but I've got a case for $15. I can, yeah, I already know I'm going to put a new movement in. I'm going to put new crystal in it. I've got a different dialing. So I'll do things like that, or I'll just, uh, somebody like a juice tea. Uh, so Alexander James watches started out as a modern and has a line of parts. And I'll go to him and I'll just buy a case directly from him and just buy all the parts separately and construct watches from there. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, some of your favorite projects, you mind talking about some of your favorite modern watches, uh, whether in your collection now or, or since having moved on. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, I think some of the favorites as of now, I'm getting these hand acid etched dials from a gentleman in Poland. And you can see them on Instagram from time to time. I think it's L-E-S-Z-E-K custom. So let's check custom. He's also, or let's check Dioche. |
| Speaker 1 | Uh, I just saw one link to that in the show notes, but yeah, I'm looking at these right now. |
| Unknown | Dang. |
| Speaker 1 | Super cool. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So yeah, I saw a couple of those dials and went, Oh, that's really cool. And so I bought a couple of dials from him and after a while I bought enough that he started throwing in extras. And one of the extras was that, uh, kneeling soldier. And I really liked that. And it kind of fit in with the, uh, a veteran's tribute that we like to do. So, uh, so I kept cruising and putting together dial from that. And then he had one with the helmet, rifle boots. So I bought that from him and I liked it so much. I'm like, okay, can I buy more of these? Is there a way to do that? And he just kind of said, yeah, it's going to be a while. Right. Cause I'm actually making these. Yeah. So he's making them by hand and that's not the only thing he's got to do. Uh, so, uh, I don't know if you can see this one. I'll put up a little closer, but yeah, just kind of helmet, rifle boot in a black agency, uh, case, uh, with the Sapphire crystal. That's really one of my favorites right now. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Speaker 1 | Very cool. Very cool. Anything, any projects that you have in the works right now that you're willing to talk about? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, so I have a couple more of these dials that I'm putting together for some other veterans that I know, friends of mine. Other than that, as far as mod projects, I got a stack of parts. I don't know. |
| Andrew | You're always in the midst of a project, just by the nature of how many parts you have around. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yes. Yes. That and my incessant need to tinker with stuff. |
| Andrew | So yeah. What was your, what was your first mod project? When was the first time you cracked a case open and said, all right, I can do this. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Uh, SNK 805, the SKX dial. Okay. And I struggled putting the second hand on that. So I just said, screw it. I'm not putting a second hand on it. And it doesn't have the little minute markers anyway. It's just got the hour markers. So nobody needs to know that we're not looking at exact minutes and we don't need to know the exact seconds. Screw it. I'm done. |
| Andrew | All right. I like that. Cause I mean, who cares about the second hand unless you're until you're trying to sync exactly. And I know you, I mean, you ever sync like, eh, it's a, I woke up at eight. It's probably about 8.20 now, set the watch at 8.20. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, no, that's how I set my watch. I know. Yeah. Literally, oftentimes my watch is as much as seven minutes off and I just roll with it. Well, well, good. You know, I think this is the point of the show where we're going to transition. Anything else related to the Traveling Watch Project or related to your own mining experiences that you want to chat about before we transition over? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | I just say if anybody wants to be part of the Traveling Watch Project, follow us on Instagram, the little underscore between the words. Follow along. Part of the rules of the Traveling Watch Project are it's up to you to put up the postage to send it on to the next person. You have to put up posts or pictures. And don't be a jerk. That's really pretty much it. |
| Speaker 1 | And we've probably been a little bit negligent in terms of putting up pictures. So we're making it up to you by bringing you on the show, hopefully. With that said, other things. Andrew, my man, what do you got going? |
| Andrew | So I learned over this last week of paternity leave that paternity leave is a really expensive venture for me. Because I have a lot of time to just sit on my phone or the computer and find ways to spend money. And something an idea that you and I have kicked around a lot over the last couple years is some amateur blacksmithing. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. Yeah. |
| Andrew | And we both I specifically have adequate backyard and tool shop storage space to be able to host a mobile backyard hobbyist blacksmithing venture. And I am wondering if anybody out there, any of our list, because obviously there's people out there, but if our listeners have any direct experience doing this, because I've got a whole list of backyard hobbyist tools and I'm specifically interested in a forge. If anybody has any input on a forge, I've been looking at the Hell's Forge Portable Propane Forge. It's a single burner, ready to go propane forge. And I'm wondering if anybody has any experience with these or has experience with other comparable items. Because what I'm really looking for is something that's mobile, something that I can unplug from the propane, pack up, then when I'm using it, put it on top of its workbench and use it. So if anybody has any experience with that, I'm very interested to hear your ideas, your input, because I'm not going to build one. That's what I'm settled on. I will not be building one. As easy or difficult as it may be, I'm not going to invest that time into it. I'm prepared to buy just a forge. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. You know, uh, I think that there's a handful of tools. There's a handful of tools we'll need. We'll need a forge, right? That's the first thing we'll need. Um, certainly, uh, whether we use, whether we use flat bar stock or whether we start with, with, uh, steel, that's, uh, that's, uh, repurposed, right. Either way, you're gonna need a forge for parts of this. Uh, some people, hammer and bezel. Some people do stock removal. Either way, you're probably going to need a forge at some point. We'll need an anvil. That's probably the biggest sort of investment in terms of energy because we either get a very cheap anvil or we get a more expensive anvil. If we get the cheaper anvil, Uh, then we have to worry about anchoring and solidifying the base of it. So either way, it's not going to be simple. We also need a belt grinder. Uh, you know, I think that these grinders at Harbor Freight that are teeny tiny are probably the way to go for a first time DIY. But, uh, I know that there's a whole, uh, run of information on the internet about how to modify to make those slightly better. |
| Andrew | See, I was thinking about just building a, an easy mount for a belt sander. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, yeah, I wonder. We'll have to look into that more. There's some more tinkering to be done, but... And the purpose of you bringing this to the show is to say, hey, if you know... If you know, because I'm interested. |
| Andrew | I'd like some feedback that's not from a forum. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, yeah, you know, and I think both of us probably have watched enough episodes of Alex Steele. And every other backyard blacksmith or... Simple Life. I think actually Simple Life is probably my... In terms of just pure watchmaking or watchmaking, knife making pleasure, Simple Life is maybe my favorite of those channels. Alex Steele has transitioned onto these huge mega projects at this point, making tons of money, but it's less of the backyard blacksmith than he used to be, you know, now he's a mega YouTube channel. So, uh, yeah, very cool. I'm excited to see what comes of this. |
| Andrew | Me too. Hopefully some knives. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully some knives. Yeah. Stay, stay tuned. Uh, it's going to be the, uh, it's going to be the 40 and 20 knife podcast shortly. |
| Andrew | It may be right. It'll, it'll be under our umbrella media corporation. |
| Speaker 1 | So can we talk, can we talk a little bit about star Wars? I mean, I haven't seen it yet. Well, nobody's seen it yet because it just came out last night. Well, so actually half of America has seen it. |
| Andrew | Yeah. It came out two nights ago, didn't it? Uh, Friday night. Is it Saturday? |
| Speaker 1 | I thought it came out... And not only is Andrew a police officer, but he is on paternity leave. So he actually never has any clue. I have no concept of what day of the week it is. Or even often what time of day it is. No. You're like, is it the morning? |
| Andrew | Yeah. |
| Speaker 1 | I know it's dark. |
| Andrew | Yeah. But dark out right now could be like 5 p.m. |
| Speaker 1 | Right. So it is Saturday morning. OK. OK. |
| Andrew | You're we're here. I'm here now. OK. Happy weekend. |
| Speaker 1 | So, you know, we have kids that are six and eight and they're old enough now to be engaging in Star Wars with us. And we've watched episodes one through three with them because we thought, you know, for for kids, that's a fun place to start, particularly episode one. I'm actually sort of an apologist for that first the first quote unquote first slash second trilogy. But I think you have to be the Anakin Skywalker trilogy. I'm a bit of an apologist for it. I actually think it's pretty fantastic. I say what you will about Jar Jar Binks or some of the overblown juvenile nature of that very first Phantom Menace movie. I still or not Phantom Menace. Yeah, Phantom Mass, whatever episode one is. I actually really think that movie is a lot of fun. But but that whole first trilogy is, I think, a great place if you're going to start your kids, because it just starts off in more of a engaging, youthful manner. The story is probably not as complex or or or quite as quite as refined. Didn't have to be. But but then you get into episodes four, five and six, and I think if you've started with, you know, This is Darth, this is who Darth Vader is that gives him an anchor point. But so now we've watched one, two, three, we've watched four, five, six, and then just just in the last month, watched seven and eight. |
| Andrew | Did you where did you put Rogue One in the viewing? |
| Speaker 1 | We haven't watched it yet. We haven't watched it yet. And I think that maybe once we so so the plan was we're going to go see eight or nine in the theater. Nine will be their first theater Star Wars movie. I actually loved, loved, loved, loved episode seven. Not because it was a phenomenal story, because it's not, right? It's not a phenomenal story. It's a rehash of episode four, perhaps. But more because I just thought it was so much fun. And then episode eight, I think, really sort of gets into sort of new territory. Here's what I really want because in reading about episode nine, nobody has seen the movie outside of a handful of reviewers and everybody's already decided it's terrible. And when I say everybody, obviously not everybody, but this contingent of star Wars fandom is so terrible. It's just the worst. It's just the worst. I think it's just the worst. Um, you, you know, the movie came out last night. Meanwhile, on Thursday, there's articles coming up saying, you know, this is the worst movie that's ever been made. Uh, I, I just really struggle with the idea that in this day and age, it's so hard to please a fan base. |
| Andrew | There's also no way to end it, right? This is exactly the same issue that we ran into with season eight of game of Thrones. We have such impassioned fans, a, globally connected fan base and everyone wants something different. There is no way to please even half of that fan base. There's just not. There's no way to wrap it up clean. There's no way to meet everyone's expectations because it's so hyped up over 40 years of hype. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. |
| Andrew | How on earth do you live up to 40 years of hype? Yeah. You don't, you can't. It's going to be a good movie. I bet it's going to enjoy it. You're not going to check your watch. That is an indicator of a good movie. You don't have to check your watch while you're watching it. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah. Yeah, no, I think I think that's right. In any event, I haven't seen it, so I don't know how good it is or how bad it is. But I did want to talk about it a little bit just because I think it's a really fun thing. I think it's been a lot of fun to bring our kids into it. I'm super excited to go see nine. I think we're going to see that probably tomorrow, perhaps on Monday. |
| Andrew | Enjoy. |
| Speaker 1 | And we're just going to love it. |
| Andrew | I'm just sure we're going to love it. And if you don't, who gives a fuck? It's a movie, right? |
| Speaker 1 | It is. That's right. This is not the marriage of your oldest daughter. No. Right. Gosh. And it feels a little bit like some people treat it that way. Like we've spent 40 years grooming this experience, you know. Well, you didn't have shit to do with it. It's a story. Go enjoy it. |
| Andrew | Yeah. You don't get input. Write your fan fiction and write it how you want it. Damn. |
| Speaker 1 | So JD, Mr. Campbell, here you are. I've given you the grand task of providing another thing for the show. I understand you have one. Without further ado, have at it. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | So you guys turned me on to a couple of podcasts, and I have to thank you for sucking up a whole lot of my time with Hello from the Magic Tavern. Hell yes. But the podcast I have is called Living Adventurously. That was just launched by a gentleman called Alistair Humphreys. And the basis of it is, he's a gentleman who's done a lot of adventuring throughout his life. He's rode his bike around the world. He's drug a cart across the Sahara desert. He's done some really amazing things, but this is just him on a bike riding around England, talking to people about what living adventurously means to them. It could be something as grand as taking trips to Africa, you know, Sub-Saharan Africa, or going out to New Zealand. But he also runs into people who run a school for mentally handicapped people after, say, 20 or 30 years of working within the standard education system. And to them, just taking those people and putting them from an environment that's normally constrained and just bringing them outside so they can experience animal or experience being in the woods in whatever limited capacity that is, is an adventure for those people. So he touches really on all sorts of different topics. And I, so far I am really enjoying it. |
| Andrew | Is he just grabbing, I mean, obviously you can't just walk up to somebody off the street and say, Hey, give me an hour. But is he just, is he just touching every demographic, every group of people he can get his hands on anybody who will agree to sit and chat with him? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah, that's the impression I get. And he doesn't really explain it. uh, that that's how he set it up. But you get the impression that he, he's made arrangements with all these stops along the way. But yeah, and it just sits and talks with them. And then he has a deck of cards. He has them pull up the different questions out of these deck of cards and have them answer them. Like, uh, from where you're at today, what would you tell your younger self? |
| Andrew | Okay. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Um, or, you know, what does living adventurously mean to you? So, Interesting questions, not necessarily you have to have like a scholarship to answer. |
| Speaker 1 | Mm hmm. You know, Alistair Humphreys is this guy that if you if you if you recognize the name, you've probably seen, you know, I think he was a National Geographic feature person a number of years ago, but he's just he's this guy who's I think he describes himself as a micro adventurer, right? Yeah. And so this idea of these small sort of self-contained adventures to, uh, to, you know, fill those parts of your life that are, you know, everybody, everybody has some sort of grind. And so how do we, how do we break the grind? And we break it with, uh, we break it with doing things, genuinely engaging in things that, uh, are going to, to make you more full and to satisfy some of these, urges to break free from the grind. So, uh, you, you, you know, you brought him up earlier and I was like, gosh, I know that name. And it's, and it's occurred to me over the course of the show, how I know him. Uh, yeah, very fun. I haven't listened to the podcast, but, but I definitely. |
| Andrew | It's now on my list and you got a good plane ride ahead of you to, to do that. |
| Speaker 1 | Yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah, that's right. So maybe I'll check out some of those episodes, uh, uh, in the, in the drive perhaps, or, or in the air. America. America. Hey, you know, uh, this is, this is probably a great time for us to transition, but I, I kind of want to, there's one, one additional thing I wanted to ask you about, and I mentioned it earlier, but, uh, I don't want to, I don't want to end the show without asking you about the decision to write, ride flat pedals. |
| Unknown | Uh, okay. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Go for it. Because it's unusual for people who are serious, you know, quote unquote, bicycle riders to ride flat pedals. And that came about, The idea for me came about when I was riding, I was racing cyclocross. I'd been racing cross for about four or five years at that point. And we were coming up on a really muddy race that was going to be in the middle of January. And it was temperatures are going to be dipping in and out of the freezing area. And I knew that, uh, so for people who aren't familiar with typically serious bicycle riders, right. Shoes that clip into the pedals. |
| Speaker 1 | So you have a real positive contact, which counterintuitively is referred to as clipless. |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Yeah. Yeah. There's a long story to that. I can explain, but that's a whole different podcast. But yeah, they're called clipless pedals, but they clip in and you're very solidly connected. Kind of like ski bindings. Sure. But during these really muddy, freezing, snowing conditions, your shoes get full of mud or snow. They freeze up. You can't get clipped into the, to the pedals. Pedals get full of snow and mud and freeze up so you can't get your shoes in and you spend, you know, the half a lap flailing around trying to get your shoes in. I thought if I go to flat pedals, I eliminate that. You know, I can just jump on, honk on my pedals and get cranking without having to worry about getting flipped in. Um, that was the thought was kind of preceded by the fact that I watched a gentleman and I don't have it in front of me, but there was a YouTube video, of a guy who's a trials rider, but he takes a road bike, and he does some really amazing tricks on a bike, on a standard, you know, what you would see guys ride the Tour de France with road bike, and he does it with flat pedals. So I thought, if this guy can do these really amazing tricks on flat pedals, I can use them to just pedal my fat butt around a cyclocross course. So I started using them, I liked the experience enough in the off-season, I didn't bother to change them. But my other bikes, and again, like serial hobbyists, so I have many bikes. But as I was switching between the bikes, I didn't like the idea that I'd have to go, OK, I need my bike shoes for this bike. No, I can wear whatever shoes with this bike. I just like the idea of being able to hop on a bike and ride down to the post office without having to put my bike shoes on. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, you know, before everybody tunes out, I'll say I'm also an evangelist of the of the of the flat pedals. I think it's great. I was I was when I was really sort of getting into bikes and riding bikes, reading a lot of Grant Peterson. Grant Peterson is the the proprietor of Rivendell Bikes in California, which is they make these really sort of I think they he he refers to himself as retro grouch. Uh, but it's this sort of idea that lugged steel is better than carbon. Uh, classic, long, comfortable geometry is better than short, aggressive, twitchy geometry, uh, for 99% of people. He's sort of anti-weight reduction. He says, you know, if you want to reduce weight, uh, if you want to reduce weight, sit down, sit down, put your knees sort of put your feet flat on the ground. look at your belly button and unless it's completely flat, you should start there and not anywhere else. You know, he's just this very sort of pragmatic, uh, a little bit obnoxious from time to time, but in a way that, that it's attractive to me. But he is this, uh, he's got this, uh, idea that is fairly well developed and you can read about it. If you Google Grant Peterson flat pedals, uh, that a, the energy transfer thing is total bullshit, except for, you know, maybe two or three percent of the riders in the world. You're not losing anything credible. You aren't going to get aren't going to get hot foot, aren't going to get hot calf, which for me was the thing. The one time I've tried clipless systems, I thought, gosh, this is really uncomfortable on my lower legs. And I probably could have broken through that. But it was attractive to me in a from a financial standpoint. I don't have to buy new equipment. I can just get a $35 pair of flat pedals from Velo Orange and put on my Adidas Copas and go ride anywhere I want and then walk into a restaurant and not look like an asshole. I just think it's fantastic. |
| Andrew | You can look like it, but you won't sound like one. |
| Speaker 1 | Well, in my case, I'll tap shoes. I'll, I'll both look and sound like one, notwithstanding my feet. Uh, but yeah, so I saw that on your, I saw that on your, uh, Instagram and I thought I got to ask him about this because it's such a rare thing. And you know, anytime I ever do a ride with, with other people, they're like, what is wrong with you? And, uh, I knew that was going to be something that I was going to like about you. Uh, so glad to have you talk about it, Andrew. Uh, we are going to break. I'm going to take just a second to talk about both the Veterans Watch Initiative. Check that out. Google them. Check out what they're doing. Also check out Traveling Watch Project on Instagram. That's traveling underscore watch underscore project. Anything that you want to add before we cut for the day? |
| Andrew | I like clipless pedals. We have a lot of hills here and I have found that I am more comfortable climbing in clipless systems. I hate you so much. |
| Speaker 1 | J.D. Kempel, anything you want to add before we cut for the end of the day? |
| JD (Grog.JD) | Andrew, try the flat pedals for a while. We've got a lot of hills around here, and you'll adjust fairly quickly to going without them. Okay. |
| Speaker 1 | It'll be all right. Fantastic. With that, we will break. Thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20. Check us out on the Instagram, at 40 in 20. Also check out Traveling Watch Project, traveling underscore watch underscore project. Check us out on patreon.com if you want to support the show patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's how we pay for all of our hosting and the things and expenses that we occur in the production of this show. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. |
| Unknown | Bye bye. |