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The Grey NATO – 343 – Slack Crew & A 2025 Part 5 [Our Own Shows, Designing a PR Event, BB vs. Sub, & How Many Straps Do We Own?]

Published on Thu, 04 Sep 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In this episode of The Graynado (#343), hosts James Stacey and Jason Heaton discuss recent events and answer listener questions from their Slack community. Jason shares his experience at the Minnesota State Fair, while James talks about his new 3D printer and a minimalist Apple Watch Ultra case from Ed Jelly's Elro Industries. The hosts then dive into various listener questions covering topics like career alternatives, watch choices, hobby scheduling, and their extensive strap collections. They discuss upcoming events, including the Toronto Timepiece Show, and share their final notes about a vintage-style watch strap and a versatile travel bag.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 343, and it's proudly brought to you by the always-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you so much for your continued support, and if you're listening to the show and would like to support us, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacey, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, Jason Heaton. How are we doing, Jason? I'm doing pretty well.
Jason Heaton We're front-loading our shows this week because next week is a short holiday week, being Labor Day in the U.S., and you wisely suggested that we record a second episode this week, so we're only a couple days out from our previous one. Yeah. But it's a nice idea.
James Stacey Yeah, we haven't done a ton, but with Labor Day and then knowing that I'm going to be stepping back into a very busy job after nearly two months of not managing the day-to-day, just kind of the longer-term stuff for Hodinkee, I just figured Tuesday, Wednesday, these are all going to be a complete joke as far as time management. So if we record today, it's a Thursday. I can probably edit this tomorrow, kind of have it ready. And look, we were kind of due to get back into the Slack crew. And as we had obviously a great run of guests, I actually just started lining up a couple more guests that I think are going to be really cool. Yeah. So maybe that'll become part of a future evolution of the show is like more guest work. But we had a great run for the last little while with guests that have been a lot of fun. And we just thought we'd jump into a quick Q&A. uh for for that but we'll get to that in just a moment i do want to do a little bit of housekeeping right at the top and then we can kind of cover what what you've been up to for what the last 48 hours since we recorded last or maybe a little longer because we recorded monday but uh just very quickly uh if you're going to be in toronto for the toronto timepiece show and you can stick around for sunday evening we would love to have you at the marathon party The RSVP link is in the show notes. If you've listened to the last three episodes, I've rambled on greatly about this. We would absolutely love to have you. We are at about 85% capacity right now. So there's still room for a handful more people. And honestly, those numbers we could probably squeeze. We're not really interested in turning people away. And yeah, I think that's probably going to be an incredible night with Marathon like it was last year. And then very quickly, if you would like to get a question into our kind of supporter side Q&A episodes, we've taken a break with those since May because of my pending and then arriving child. And we're going to get back into that in September. And we've got a ton of great questions coming in. But if you would like to send in a question for that, please record the question into the voice memo app on your phone and then just email us the file, thegraynadoatgmail.com. You don't need a description. Just send us the file and we put it in a folder and we get to them in order. But we're going to be doing a ton of those for the next several months to catch up, make sure everybody gets the value that they want from those Q&A questions. I think it's going to be good. So if you have a great question, could be about watches, could be about something else, feel free to send it in to thegraynadoatgmail.com as a voice memo. Alright, buzzed right through that. Jason, what have you been up to for the last couple of days?
Jason Heaton The previous episode, 342, we recorded on Monday. We normally record on a Tuesday, but we did it on a Monday because Tuesday I had plans to go to the Minnesota State Fair, which did pretty much all day on Tuesday. And I hadn't been to the fair in, geez, a couple of decades. Kind of my previous experience had been like just hot day, too many people, fighting crowds, food I didn't really care for, etc. But... And we went on Tuesday and it was a good time. It was very low key. I think you have to go to these things with kind of, I don't want to say low expectations, but almost no expectations and just sort of take the day as it comes. And it turned out to be fun. Actually, I was thinking as I was walking around the fair, which hasn't changed much since the last time I was there in terms of kind of the general... I guess, ethic. You know, these things are very homespun, hands-on, everything. You know, raising animals, doing crafts, you know, food preparation, all that kind of stuff. And as I'm looking at our notes here, I'm looking at what you've got coming up in Chit Chat, and I feel like the State Fair is like, it kind of feels like the antithesis of all that, and it's kind of refreshing. And it was... It was a good time. And then yesterday I got together with an old buddy for lunch. And I want to give a shout out to Ed Estlow, an old friend of both of ours. Local guy here. Wrote for Gear Patrol when I was there years ago. And we've been chums for, gosh, quite a while now. And Ed is having a significant birthday next Monday. So we went out for lunch yesterday. I hadn't seen him in close to a year. And it was really, really nice to sit down and chat with him. So happy birthday, Ed, in advance of next week.
James Stacey Yeah. Happy birthday, Ed. Good guy for sure. Hope you're listening and hope you're well and your family's great as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah, he's definitely listening because we talked about the recent episodes. So I know he's a regular TGN listener. And thanks for that, Ed. And again, happy birthday. That's kind of the news from my week. What about you? I kind of gave away your stuff here, but you've got some new stuff.
James Stacey We can get into mine in just a second. I think that I don't, I definitely, I kind of agree with what you said about the fair. We're like, I don't see you as being a county fair guy. Like, I don't know if I've ever seen you eat fried food. Maybe a rare exception, that sort of thing. But I can't imagine like Jason Heaton eating a beef tail or if you did the fairs around where I grew up, there were these, my favorite was these things called Panzerollis, which it turns out like were started by a family of someone I worked with years later at Future Shop. which became Best Buy. All of you who aren't Canadians are chuckling at the moment. But Panzerolis were like little pocket pizzas. Like if you imagine essentially the size and relative shape, but not quite the same consistency as like a chicken ball at an American Chinese food restaurant. Like that, but filled with pizza and deep fried and then dipped in marinara. And I used to go to the fair just for that. Like when I aged out of caring about rides. And that sort of thing. And I would go and see the rabbits and the chickens and a couple cool cows and grab some Panzerolis and get out of there. Especially on the night when you could just get in if you brought in some canned food for the food bank. That used to be the move. But yeah, I think it's something I should probably look into. for the fall with my daughters, I think they would have a blast. They're kind of right in the right age to have some independence. Sure, yeah. To sort of kick around and check out the scenario on their own. And they love rides. Rides and games and all that, yeah. The animals. That's a good reminder that the state fair could be a good time. You just have to be in the right headspace. You have to be prepared for crowds and loud noises. And I love the demolition derby. I think my kids would like that too. Yeah. Maybe we check that out this fall. That's a good idea.
Jason Heaton Def Leppard was playing at the Grandstand, which we didn't see, but you definitely saw a lot of black t-shirts with the Def Leppard logo on the front there yesterday.
James Stacey Def Leppard. Wow, that's a serious fair. I remember as a young man in high school, my band didn't make... Didn't win the school battle of the bands, so a different band played the battle of bands at the fair on the Thursday night. Definitely not to the caliber of Def Leppard, but there was a very talented young man who made an excellent attempt at Comfortably Numb in front of a large crowd. So good for him. But yeah, the fair is a good idea. And yeah, like you said, my chat for this week is quite a bit more 2025 than the county fair. So I spoke about it on the last episode. I just finished building or assembling and calibrating. It's now telling me I have to lubricate a Y-axis or something like that, a 3D printer. So I did take delivery of a Bamboo Labs A1, sadly, separately from another shipment of filament. So I have a printer and not really anything to print, but hopefully that arrives today. So look, this is something I would love to talk more about on the Slack. I guarantee there's people, not just Ed, who we spoke about, and I'll bring up his product in a moment, Ed Jelly, but... I guarantee there's a lot of this. So if you're into 3D printing, there's a maker's channel. So that's like number sign or pound sign makers. You can check that out on the Slack. And that's where I'll be kind of sharing what I hope is a bunch of wild successes in 3D printing. But who knows? It's a very cool thing. It was not difficult to build. I don't really have a space for it. So that's kind of the next task is where to put it. How big is it? Like the size of a sewing machine is what I'm picturing. Yeah, I think that's about right. And it needs a bit of distance on each side because one of the axes is controlled by a sliding plate, which can extend. It definitely looks like something from the world of Alien. I'm also really enjoying Alien Earth. So seeing these things, it does feel like this advanced technology. Of course, not as advanced as what they're... They're up to. But yeah, so I got that. And then on the same kind of trajectory, I believe I spoke about on a previous episode, but Ed Jelly from our Slack and he works for Tactile Turn, who we absolutely adore. Ed started up a small company called Elro Industries, making this thing called the Minifone Ultra MPU case. And it's like a 3D printed rectangle of orange plastic that you put your Apple Watch Ultra into. and it essentially makes it like a not quite a dumb phone but like a mini phone so the idea being that you're not carrying your phone around you can't sit on instagram you have to decide when you're going to catch up on all of the tgn slack that sort of thing yeah but the their general comms the ability to take a phone call uh the find my service like all that stuff you're still you're still getting so it's like a miniature or a more minimalist phone experience and And so I ordered one of those and it arrived today, both out of some curiosity for 3D printing and the way that Ed has kind of, you know, in such a short order built this little company and set up a page and all that kind of thing. I think it's quite fascinating, the business side of it. of being able to, you know, develop a product and put it online quite quickly. Yeah. And I'm hoping maybe we could have Ed on to talk about that in the future if people would find that interesting. But I got this thing today, screwed my Apple Watch Ultra into it, and I haven't touched my phone in hours. Wow. I'm getting my messages. I very quickly figured out how to make like a playlist on Pocket Casts that would reflect on the Apple Watch. So I was able to sit and listen to a couple of pods while I put the... the Bamboo Labs A1 together, and I'm just a fan. So it's $30 from Ed for that. It comes in orange. You can get it with either stainless or black hardware, and it's got a little lanyard loop built into the print as well. So that one might become more of a final note in a future episode. I'm going to use it for the next couple weeks. with the intent of maybe not having the phone in the same room where I sleep, and also not using the phone nearly as much on weekends. You know, I think it's very difficult to not have the phone in your hand when you deal with a team that's all over the world, Monday to Friday, but I would love the ability to still have, you know, messaging and phone calls and some of those features, but not the rest of it on the weekends and that sort of thing. So Shout out to Ed for that. I think it's quite a cool thing. I sent you the link. What do you think of the idea? And the execution's neat too. It looks cool.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's great. I mean, you know, two things. I think this is the kind of thing I can see taking off. I think I can see this being, you know, for the person that doesn't want to go full dumb phone, but also just doesn't want to be so tethered to carrying around a big, you know, iPhone. Like this just feels like I could see this trending. I could see something like this taking off. And it also reminds me, you know, There's such a level of creativity with this and kind of smart design that it immediately makes me think of some of these brands that we've mentioned in Final Notes in the past or somebody like a Discommon or something that's making these unique... objects i guess that this common stuff is crazy some utilitarian you know the tumblers yeah i mean yeah i think it was a partnership with mccallan yeah i mean just beautiful stuff something that you're thinking a little bit outside the box and you're doing something like in this case with you know with such a ubiquitous object that everybody's wearing that you know kind of changes it entirely um and i think it's really cool so yeah congrats to ed for coming up with this i think it's really great
James Stacey Yeah, like I said, I'll report back once I've had more time to use it, and I have to get the cell service linked up so that it can work fully independent from my phone, that sort of thing. But you want to jump into some risk check, and then we can hit some questions? Yeah, sure.
Jason Heaton I'm wearing something that I don't know that I've mentioned, but I recently got a... one of the Blancpain Swatch Scuba 50s, kind of the 50 fathoms, you know, Swatch. And this one in particular is The Green Abyss. I had written a story for Blancpain's in-house magazine, Lettre de Brassus, recently about my Philippines experience. That'll be published, I guess, in an upcoming issue. And as a kind of a thank you for writing that, they... they sent me one of these and I immediately took it off the stock strap, which I don't care for terribly much. And I ordered a matte Supreme strap NATO from crown and buckle in their grayish or, you know, I guess it's grayish, right? It's sort of a beige gray blend with dark PVD hardware. And it's kind of a perfect match for it kind of picks up on the faux aged loom on the, on the dial and kind of plays off the green case. And so, yeah, it's looking, It looks really good and it's such a fun watch. I wear it quite a bit. Because of the dark case and then that big kind of domed bezel, for such a fun, inexpensive little watch, it has this sort of almost like a tactical feel to it. It's kind of dark on the wrist and wearing it on a lighter NATO, it feels good and it weighs nothing. So I'm really enjoying it quite a bit.
James Stacey That's awesome. Yeah, great. Great, solid piece. I haven't seen that that the color spec, the green abyss in person. Yeah, but I've been going through, you know, with the last kind of week of more free time than I'm going to have. I've been going through my entire office and kind of tidying things up and finding watches and putting them back in the boxes and just kind of organizing things, getting an idea of. what i've got and i sold a few things on the slack in the last few days which was a nice very freeing feeling uh to see watches go to a good home but i you know i dug out my my um the ocean of storms and yeah they're they're a great watch if you tie them up with the with the correct strap something that kind of matches and doesn't too matchy matchy with the watch Yeah, right. What are you wearing today? I'm rocking the Halios Seaforth 4. So I got this in April when I was in Vancouver. It's a special version that Halios made with a loom dial and the titanium bracelet. And it's hard to say how much I enjoy this watch. It's just an absolute blast. It's the right size. It's got a lot of glow to it. It feels special and distinctive. It's Halios. I've been a fan for... Man, over a decade at this point, right? Well over. Yeah. And I just think they're still nailing it, and they haven't really evolved things like their pricing. I still think they represent a great deal, and it looks like the orders are – I bring it up because I was on their website a couple days ago, and it does look like their order – list is back open. And, you know, so if you've been considering one of their watches, the C4-4 especially, it looks like they're kind of catching up with supply on that, which is nice.
Jason Heaton Yeah, Halios just goes back to those very early days. I remember doing a review of one of their early dive watches. I can't remember what it was called, but this was back in, I don't know. Maybe like a Laguna or a Delphin. Yeah, the Laguna as well. I remember that one. But yeah, just such good stuff.
James Stacey And it reminds me of the early days of TGN.
Jason Heaton We talked about the Turtle Seiko and we talked about Halios quite a bit. Those were two watches that came up a lot and it's... Cool to see him still around. Helios is kind of an OG micro brand now. It's really great.
James Stacey Yeah, and then just in April when I got this watch, I also have Mike Pearson. Shout out Mike Pearson. I hope you're well. I hope to see you in Toronto. Mike Pearson, who's now with Christopher Ward, but had been with, you know, Braymont when we met him when I was first kind of getting into the industry and covering watches. I had loaned him when I still lived in Vancouver. So, you know, back into 2018 or maybe even earlier, I had loaned him my Tropic blue dial steel bezel. And I got that back and I've worn it a couple of times. And it's just a sweet thing. You know, some of them have come and gone. I'm at the point now where none of them are leaving. I'm just happy to have Hallios almost for the sentimental value. Like it's just a brand that I've... I love and I feel like I can still love them for the same reason as I did when I discovered them in, man, it must have been 2009, 2010. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. You know, the yellow, I had a very early yellow dial. I had the blue ring, all that kind of stuff. And I kind of wish I had hung on to all of them just for the fun of it. Yeah.
Jason Heaton I've still got my blue dial, pastel blue dial Seaforth as well. The no date, no bezel one. That's a great watch.
James Stacey Yeah, that's one that we auctioned mine. Yeah, right. My C4 12-hour bezel pastel, we auctioned it off. And I'm fine with that outcome, so I'm not going to say I regret it. But that is a watch I miss. I hope it's found a long and lasting home in the person who put up some serious cash on that auction for charity. We should consider doing another one of those at some point if we can pick a watch special enough from one of our collections and let it go for charity. Let us know in the Slack if you have an idea. Maybe we do it for Project Recover. Maybe we can pick it democratically on the Slack, something like that. But it'd be fun to do it again. It's been a solid year, and I think you and I are pretty rotten with watches. Yeah. Anyways, that's that's some risk check. You want to jump into crew and I can give a brief explanation as I'm, you know, well, well practiced at this. Yeah, go for it. This is part five. Yeah. Part five for this year. So on the extreme chance, I mean, it would be thrilling, but I doubt it. But on the extreme chance this was your first ever Graynado episode, the normal format for our Q&A is done on the paid side of the line. It's actually one of the main benefits you get if you decided to pay $5 a month or $100 a year is access to a monthly Q&A episode that's done like a radio show. So it has... pre-recorded voice memos that are sent in and we kind of treat it like somebody called in or or or you know you get to hear the person's voice and then we answer it and we are a few months behind on that several months but we're going to catch up in the fall um with those and and so once a year we kind of flip the whole concept on its head and we open a thread on the slack which again is on the paid side and we tell people to offer up their text questions sometimes we get people who don't want to send in audio questions and sometimes it's just more fun because it's like a group thing to ask the question and we ended up with i don't know 80 plus questions i think this round yeah and so we're we are now five installments in this is the fifth installment and i think that's a fairly concise uh answer but uh yeah these are questions from the the slack community uh that are offered up as as sort of topics for uh for discussion so we have this this first one from andrew And it's a bit of a complicated question, but I think we can all follow along. You are going to be the star of a new fictional TV show where you solve crimes in the ocean taking place in Florida along the Gulf, essentially a cross between deep sea detectives and Magnum PI. Honestly, great elevator pitch. Let's talk to Apple. Let's see if we can get this going. Jason needs a fifth career, for sure. As the star, you are tasked with creating the look and overall aesthetic of your character. You can keep your current professional backgrounds, but you may embellish slightly to support your crime-solving capabilities. you need to select the following to create your aesthetic. What would you choose for each of these considerations? Thinking of your location, your profession, your need for proper attire in Florida and overall gear while still remaining somewhat inconspicuous. So, Jason, I guess the ask here is, as in your case, successful but aspiring thriller novelist writer living in Florida, also solving crimes on the side. What would you pick for your car, your signature outfit, your watch, your sunglasses? And how would you name the show? And I guess I would answer the same as. an aspiring, you know, hopefully successful watch writer, podcaster, that sort of thing. Maybe some photography in there as well. And again, it's Carr, signature outfit, watch, sunglasses, and name of the show. And do you want to start? We'll just go back and forth. You want to start with Carr? Yeah, sure.
Jason Heaton First of all, I love this question. I think I'm a big fan of Deep Sea Detectives and, of course, Magnum P.I. And I can't help but think of There was a series of, just as a quick aside, but there was a series of novels written by a writer who used to be an editor-at-large at Outside Magazine back in their heyday, whose name was Randy Wayne White.
James Stacey And he wrote a series of... That's a tough name to say quickly.
Jason Heaton yeah his hero was named doc ford and the guy was like a marine biologist and lived in florida kind of at the end of a dock in like this little fishing village in the keys or on the panhandle or something and he was always getting pulled into these these kind of investigations and murders and things like that and this totally reminded me of that and i guess okay i'll jump into the car because i the first one that leaped to mind was total anti-Miami Vice sort of thing sports car. I want to go with one of the new Ford Broncos, a two-door, with the top off as much as possible when it's not raining. I just think it feels like kind of a Florida car, like something you could pull up on a beach or kind of a sandy back road in the... In the Everglades or wherever you are. Tow an airboat. Yeah, tow an airboat, put some scuba gear in the back. Maybe you got a dog riding shotgun. It's just, they're such great cars and I see them around here and I'm always kind of smitten with them. So I feel like that's a good car for this sort of hero. So that's my pick.
James Stacey I love it. That's a great choice. Would you do, would it be like super off-roady or something a little bit more mixed, maybe some extra lights?
Jason Heaton No, I don't think, yeah, I'm not going to go full, you know, like super kitted out. I think some bigger wheels, I've seen a lot of them just come straight from the factory with kind of larger.
James Stacey They come with huge wheels from the factory, yeah.
Jason Heaton Big wheels. I'm kind of fond of the kind of the retro colors, you know, like the light blue, I think is a nice kind of that retro light blue with like a white roof.
James Stacey Like Telecaster blue, Fender blue.
Jason Heaton Yeah, exactly, right.
James Stacey Yeah. That's great. I love it.
Jason Heaton How about you?
James Stacey I would say mine's fairly similar, but it's a twist. And I think, you know, I think you and I might be developing slightly different characters for the show. Yeah. Mine is a Myers-Manks. Oh, okay. So it's the same idea. No roof. Mine would be a Myers-Manks, probably in a relatively subdued color, but like... Maybe some Baja design lights added on, you know, for chasing guys through the glades or whatever. And a little bit of extra wheel, maybe an interesting engine choice. And then, you know, the ability to strap on some scuba tanks on the back, like a little bit of extra kit. Maybe it's a longer wheelbase version that I've kind of modified, you know. yeah, I, I think I just love, I'm obsessed with the makes. Yeah. Um, I think it, it, it captures what I would want from a sports car, but one I would actually use and enjoy and, and doesn't feel like mean on the road or dangerous. Like they're just kind of lovable, beautiful, cool, fast things. Yeah. Yeah. And I love, you know, I love that they're stick and, and I love that there's an electric one and all that kind of stuff. So it'd be a Myers makes for me. Yeah. Yeah. Good. A crash bar, extra lights, scuba rack, that sort of thing. Yeah.
Jason Heaton I'd love to see that. That's great.
James Stacey Yeah. All right.
Jason Heaton Why don't you stick with the theme here? Why don't you go with the signature outfit? What are you going to be wearing here? I mean, Florida's, you know, your choices are kind of pretty limited, I would say.
James Stacey I would say so. I don't know how badly I would want like shorts to be my thing for television. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Um, I just, I don't want to go back to PI with the, with the old UDT shorts, the frogman shorts.
James Stacey Maybe, maybe like as a special, as a little treat for the audience. Yeah. Once a season. Yeah. Right. Like Bond coming up in, uh, in Casino Royale. yeah right but yeah i think it would be like green fatigue style pants but nothing too tight like something something more in a in a mid-century cut and then like a white linen button-up all of it fairly loose wow okay and uh and then um a very tan would be that would be the third part it's i know that's not technically an outfit Well, but it would be it would be a tan thing. But yeah, I think because I like the fatigue look, even if you were wearing like sandals on the beach, it's the you know, like a green army style. It wouldn't have to be a cargo pant necessarily, but just like a green fatigue style pant and then dress it up a little bit with like a button up in linen that would keep you nice and cool. And, you know, maybe some chest hair and that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I'm with you on the, on the linen shirt. I was, I was headed down that road as well, but I'm going to go with shorts and I'm going to, I'm going with, you know, the shorter, the better. I mean, as in the immortal words of James Stacy, you know, they call them shorts for a reason. And, uh, you know, that's, that's what I'm, that's what I'm rocking.
James Stacey So, um, and yeah, I hadn't really, you doing baggies or like Orla bars or something custom. Could be anything. I don't know. As long as it's short. As long as it's short. Yeah, the shorter the better. There's like 70s three-stripe Adidas in red.
Jason Heaton Oh, yeah. Well, speaking of those, I remember you had kind of a wild pair in Florida when we were there.
James Stacey They weren't striped, but I remember those were pretty. I'll just wear those. Yeah, sure. Yeah, we start a whole clothing line based on that.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and I guess a cap of some sort. I'm kind of anti-cap these days. I wear so many ball caps, but I'm like... It feels a little cliche now, so I was thinking maybe something more like a wider brim, like a boonie hat or something, but I don't want to lean too hard into that. And then the sunglasses, which we'll get to later, but that's got to be a key component of any outfit.
James Stacey Oh, for sure. We'll get to that. So how about for the watch? What direction are you leaning for the watch? I want to see if we're in the same wavelength here.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I mean, it's got to be divey. It's got to be... Look, the obvious choice would be Doxa in this case, but I think... I'm thinking back to the modern iteration of Hawaii Five-0 that was out there with Scott Kahn. And I can't remember who the main actor's name was. It escapes me at the moment. But the lead character in that was always, I think he switched around a little bit, but he wore kind of an unconventional choice. He wore like a kobold. which always kind of looked good and it's like if you catch your eye and you're kind of if you're kind of a watch nerd it's nice and specific too yeah it was specific but i'm going 50 fathoms i'm going big 50 fathoms and i think uh nice i just think it's you know it's not a sub it's not a doxa um not on a bracelet um just just maybe on a nato but yeah i'm just gonna go blanc pan because i think it's one of those kind of classic dive watches and i think it would have a very kind of a signature look for this guy
James Stacey I like that. Yeah. What are you doing? I'm guessing Doxa for you? Nope. I'm going a different direction. Okay. So imagine this. I've got a sort of pale metallic green Myers-Manks, black roll cage. I'm dressed how I explained I just was with that sort of look. Interior's probably tan, maybe like a tan canvas, like it was made from Filson bags or something like that. Oh, yeah. And then on my wrist, most of the time, because I think there'd be sequences in the show where we'd be kidding up for diving. Yeah. And I have a different option for diving, but most of the time it would be a 16758 solid gold GMT Master. Whoa. Yeah. I think it's like it's if it's just it's just one of my most favorite watches ever. I'll never buy one because I don't think I could actually pull it off. But my character, the character of this person with the Myers, with the tan, with the linen, he's in and that's the one. And then just every now and then. And to be clear, I would not be taking the sixteen seven fifty eight off if I was diving. But I would also strap on an Aqualand. okay just for the cool of it yeah that would be my that'd be the i know it's two and you asked for one if it's just one like that would be the signature watch of the show it would be a yellow gold black dial black bezel 16 758 gmt master totally insane would cost most of what the meyers costs yeah uh but i you know i had a pleasure of wearing a similar reference that james lambden owns the one of the last times i was spent any time in florida and it's just i just loved it i wore it around with a aloha style shirt and had a tan at the time and it was great i think i think it's a good florida i love the black on it's a great choice but yeah yeah cool
Jason Heaton Sunglasses are easy. I'm going with American Optical Aviators, or I guess take your pick. You could do Randolph Engineering. They're glasses I own.
James Stacey They work really well. At this point, I would feel weird if I saw you in different sunglasses. Yeah, gotta go that route. Yeah. How about you? For me, I'd go Persol Calligraphers. Yeah. Yeah, my favorites. I actually just tried to replace... I'm very sad about this. I tried to replace the lenses in mine, which were scratched up, and I bought some of these second-party, third-party lenses online, which have been great for my Ray-Bans, but in the process of trying to get the lens out of the Persols... which are tension fit, I snapped the frame, the like acetate. So I might have to hunt down another one, but they were not inexpensive to begin with, but I love the way they look. I love the way they feel. They kind of like, they have a nice lens. I've always kind of appreciated those and they come in a bunch of different versions. So I could kind of always be wearing the same glasses, but have maybe like a light blue lens for, you know, if I'm, if I'm dressing up to go to like, go to Miami for the night to solve something, that sort of thing. yeah so yeah that's where i would land on that uh all right finally um i i guess you can pick if you're calling it the name of your show i guess it's two things the name of the show and the name of the crime fighting organization yeah i i only planned i didn't i i took it as one or the other from how it was phrased so i only have my crime fighting organization planned if you give me one moment i can try and think of the name of the show but yeah if you if you have any please uh jump in with yours
Jason Heaton Yeah, I mean, I'm leaning into my name of my little business and my blog. I'm going to Swim Proof Confidential. So that's P-R-U-F, Swim Proof Confidential, kind of a little bit of a wink at the Rolex crowd. But yeah, that's what I'm calling it. I guess my detective agency or whatever you want to call it, it's going to be called Swim Proof LLC. I don't even have to change my business name to move in that direction, just expand my business.
James Stacey Yeah, I don't have a great name for the name of the show because I should have planned better for this. But it's so we're going to go with like the Florida Files. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and kind of lean into it that way. And that way, maybe you could even end up with like a, you know, a subtitle, the Florida Files. And then one season was called something, you know, after a comma. Yeah. That sort of thing, which would be kind of fun. And then for my like, you know, if I had to hand out a business card to a lackey of the bad guy, it's TGN Holdings. Oh, uh, is, is sort of the, that's good. You know, I'm, I'm in shipping and receiving. Yeah. Or, or, um, you know, yeah. Yeah. Sort of very, very fun question, Andrew. Thank you so much for that. Uh, that was a blast to kind of think about. Exactly the kind of question we like. We like those push through. Yeah. We had a good time with it.
Jason Heaton All right, we got another fun one coming up here from Scott who asked, Justin Hast and Andrew McCutcheon corner you at this year's Watches and Wonders after one too many Negronis and sausages and challenge you to a tug of war. The loser winds up in Lake Geneva. And before I go on here, if you don't know who Justin Hast and Andrew McCutcheon are... They're pretty ripped, muscular guys. Just look them up on Instagram. They're fun-loving, but very fit, very strong guys.
James Stacey Shout out to both of these guys. They're kings.
Jason Heaton They are so confident that they will win that they say you could pick a third person also at the show to stack the deck in your favor. Who are you calling? this is tough, but I think, you know, you and I, I mean, we're pretty fit athletic guys, but Justin and Andrew are, you know, they're next level. I think that might be a tough, tough challenge. We're going to need, we're going to need a third person.
James Stacey Yeah, there was an era where I might have been able to stack up against Andrew, but just with Mr. Hast, I think he could pick me up and throw me in Geneva. I don't even think it would ruffle his suit. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think so too. It's a different world there. But yeah, who did you come up with for the third? I guess conceivably from people who would be in Geneva for Watches and Wonders.
Jason Heaton Oh, and I'm wondering if we're going to pick the same guy. I'm going with Ken Lamb.
James Stacey Oh, Ken Lamb's a great choice. Really good choice.
Jason Heaton I mean, not only is he a big, strong guy, but he just seems game, kind of itching for a fight, itching for a tug of war. I think he would... He's got the right mind game for it. I think so, too. Yeah, so Ken's going to join us, and I think we're going to win that one. That's great.
James Stacey Yeah, I think Ken Lamb's a great choice. I went with Mark Koslerich. You know, a proper Midwestern boy and as tall as the day is long, definitely strong, competitive. Yeah, he has the edge for sure. I think if you're going up against a Justin Haas, I need a Mark Koslerich on my team. And thankfully, I have Mark Koslerich on my team. He's one of Hodinkee's most prolific and storied editors these days, and he does a great job. But yeah, I think that's who I'd be asking. Mark, you got a minute to kind of help anchor us here. Yeah.
Jason Heaton I'm not sure how I'd feel about winning with a third person, but whatever. I'll set my pride aside and just avoid jumping in the lake.
James Stacey Look, if you end up in Lake Geneva, things aren't that bad. That's true. That's true. It's a very nice lake. Yeah. All right. Fun question, Scott. Thanks so much for that one. Let's dive into the next one, which is from Headers, who said, you've done a Cole P., which is a reference to leaving the writer side of the watch world and going into the PR event management side. Cole used to work for Hodinkee and now works for Tudor. and does a great job with them. And he's saying you now have a cross of the dark side of PR management for a watch brand. And he's got a three-part question. What brand do you choose to work for? And then B, it's your big launch event for this brand. What are you organizing to impress these watch journalists? And C, what watch are you launching? It could be an existing model or a dream model from that brand.
Jason Heaton you want to go first jason sure yeah um mine's pretty easy you know i've got such a soft spot for blanc pan and i've done kind of a lot of work with them and i just they've got such a rich set of stories and great watches and and kind of being an avid diver i think you know it's kind of a no-brainer that i'm going to pick a brand like that and then and then a suitable activity to launch a watch and and i'm going to bring these watch journalists to iceland and we're going to dive at silfra which is the Kind of the crack in the earth that divides the North American and the European tectonic plates. You can dive between them. That's something I've always wanted to do. Water's very clear. There's just Google Silphra and you'll see a thousand photos of incredible underwater topography and very clear water. Very cold. So these are going to have to be tough, tough watch journalists. But we're going to do that dive there and kind of take in all that Iceland has to offer. And then the watch that I'm launching is a watch that, um, you know, he says can be an existing model or a dream watch from that brand. And the one, you know, they've, they've released some kind of cool stuff in the past few years, but the one that, that we haven't seen yet is, I don't know what the official name was, but the 50 fathoms, I've seen it referred to as the three H bund. So three H meaning, Oh, sure. Tritium marked dial. Um, Bund meaning it was made for the German Navy and it's the one that has the sterile bezel so no markings on the bezel except for the zero mark kind of like what Unimatic has emulated over the years and kind of made their trademark with some of their their U1 models and I just think Blancpain seems like they're kind of ripe to kind of do a limited edition one of these years with with that watch I'm not sure that that you know kind of military dive watch thing lends itself to a dive in Iceland but I don't care it's a cool watch and I think it'd be a great great trip to launch it yeah great for photos yeah this is gonna be good yeah yeah right I think that's a great idea good good pull all around I would want to go on that trip yeah for sure all right what do you got
James Stacey All right, I'm going with my first love, Seiko. You know, it's a brand that I would absolutely enjoy trying to translate to the North American market. I think they have a lot of challenges, but some incredible product. And alongside with Seiko, so they're saying, what are you organizing to impress the pesky watch journalists? This would be a live-aboard dive excursion. uh, out to really anywhere that's warm and clear and, and fun, uh, probably somewhere in the Caribbean. Uh, maybe Jason's running, running the dive side and I'm running topside and we're teaching underwater photography and all that. But the main goal would be those who come along, you do from the time that you leave the dock, you start getting certified. Oh, yeah. Cool. So we're bringing on people who haven't dove before. Obviously, we bring along some friends and people. We could return the favor to Cole and get him on a press trip. We could have you there, have me there. We would need, of course, Chris Soule and a few others we could come up with as far as to stack the deck in terms of the people to help lead the experience. But I would bring along people like... people I know in the watch world who would love dive watches, but never really had the excuse to get certified because what are they going to do after they get certified? They're probably not going to dive a ton. And this way you would remove all those barriers. You leave, you start doing your book work on the boat as you're under motor, and then you go through the process of the certification throughout the experience. And for the watch, I'm dreaming here, which is an amalgamation of two of my favorite Seikos, both of which I've dove with and really loved. So it's an SPB 143 or the 453, the current generation. It's a split generation scenario with the brand currently. But it's the SPB, you know, skin diver style watch, but it's crossed with the SUN 023, which is like a 45 millimeter travel GMT with a kinetic movement. Oh, nice. And I want to put those two together. So I want a kind of classic 40-ish... millimeter dive watch i think 40.5 is fine with a proper you know water resistance and a relatively traditional look and feel yeah and then cross that with a kinetic flyer gmt movement and it would be the you know the prospects traveler And this would be the PADI edition. So PADI would be underwriting this, helping us with the certification, making sure it's safe. And obviously, you're not going to be able to do your pool dives on a boat. So we'd have to be bending some of the expectations there. But yeah, I think you'd partner this up so it would have a PADI logo on it. And otherwise, it would be an SPB kind of crossed with an SUN023 in terms of functionality, which would give you a kinetic... super accurate, really easy to wear Seiko that also kind of hits the format and the wearing experience of an SPB 143 or similar.
Jason Heaton I love it. Sign me up. I'll bring you on my trip. You can bring me on your trip. Let's do it when we cross the Rubicon and move to the PR side. Good question there, headers. Let's move on to one from Matt Meskel, who asks, I have a big birthday coming up later this year. I'm considering the Tudor Black Bay Monochrome, the 14060M Submariner, or the 124060 Submariner. The Tudor is closer to the vintage sub aesthetic, but with a modern movement and is the most budget friendly. The 14060 is the last of the tool watch subs with the jangly bracelet, an already worn charm, but isn't much less than the current sub. And the modern sub is all brand new and shiny and is mine from day one. Plus, both subs have the Bond tie-in, even though not the exact model in a movie. He considered the Pelagos, the 42 and the 39 for various reasons. Didn't excite him, but he wants our opinion. Any thoughts to share on the monochrome and the Submariners or anything else he should be considering? Pretty long question, but pretty simple in terms of he's looking for our opinion on Tudor or a modern sub or I guess the last of the drilled lug five-digit ones. Where are you headed with this one?
James Stacey I think it's, you know, there are in many ways, despite being three watches that are in exactly the same sort of vertical, three pretty different watches. I would start that if the monochrome isn't too big, then it's an excellent choice. It's a really good watch. It just, it wears a little, like I wouldn't buy it because it wears bigger than a 58, which is more the zone that I would want for a watch such as this. And a 58 wears very similar to a 14060, which is something to consider. The other thing I would want to make clear is, and I don't really, there's no way for me to say this without sounding like it's a dig against Tudor, and I don't mean that at all, but if you're wanting a Rolex and you buy a Tudor, that might not be the right reason to buy a Tudor. I own Tudors and I absolutely adore them and I will own more Tudors and you could just buy them for what they are. And honestly, for what Rolex they aren't, such as a P39, there's no comparison in Rolex's catalog. That said, if you're buying a Tudor to try and fit a Rolex sized hole, I don't know if you'll be as happy with it as you would if you're buying the Tudor because that's the one that you loved. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And again, it's not a dig against Tudor. Between a monochrome and a six digit sub, I would take the monochrome even if I wasn't paying. It's just that that's my preference between the two watches. If that's all aligned, go with the monochrome. It's less expensive. It's nice and modern. It's brand new for you. And it's a great looking watch. Just make sure you try it on first because they offer a bunch of sizes. So you might as well try them all. It's like going to the store and only trying a large or not trying any of them and just expecting to be a certain size. To further complicate it, if it's otherwise, like if any of the stuff I've kind of delineated doesn't make sense to you, just buy the 14-060. Basically a perfect Rolex dive watch. I absolutely adore them. I love the aluminum bezel. I love the smaller form factor. I love the shape of the lugs. I love the bracelet. You can get quite a modern one, modern to the generation. And they did evolve the bracelet over time and that sort of thing. Like I think Jason, yours is from the tail end of that watch's overall offering. And I think it's a great watch and one that I very much like. The last thing I would say is, you know, like a 14-06-0 doesn't really leave much to be desired, especially if what you really want is a Rolex. Um, there's a lot of them available, so you can be picky. Uh, I agree with the pricing, but I don't know. I don't know if you can just walk into a Rolex dealership and buy a new six digits up. If that's what you want, that's what you should buy. And if you have the money and all that kind of stuff, of course. Yeah. Um, but for me, again, if it was, if both were 12 grand or whatever, eight grand, nine grand, 10 grand, whatever they're going for currently today in your area, I'd probably lean towards the five digit, but I feel like that bias has been well stated on, on the show. Um, uh the very last thing i would say is uh cross cross price with um the smaller 50 fathoms the uh just just so that you at least know they've been on the market like the 42 has been on the market for a little while and uh and the even smaller version that came out earlier this year is is you know probably starting to break into its cycle of second hand so at least know your pricing and then finally really last is uh don't at least don't forget to at least try on a 58 and a 54 Yeah, good point. Because if you want a vintage Rolex experience, I think that's what you get in the 58 and the 54. Yeah. And they've evolved them. There's a lot of different versions of 58s, for example. Fewer on the 54, but definitely, I think, try them on before you make that final decision because you might find that... you know, quote unquote Goldilocks moment where it's, it's the right thing. It matches your budget. It's the right size. It matches the, everything you want kind of lines up. And, and I would say you kind of have to pick of those three watches, which one best represents what you want. If it's the Tudor, you're going to be very happy buying the Tudor. Yeah. If it's the five digit and not the six, don't buy the six, but if it's the six, don't buy the five. Like, you know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Does that make sense? A very rambly answer.
Jason Heaton No, and I don't have much to add. My only caveat would be it's a big birthday and it just sticks in my head that I'd want something new from a retailer, if possible, of course. So I say go modern sub if you like the aesthetic and the feel of it and you can afford it. And then just wear it all the time. Otherwise, get the Tudor. I think what Tudor represents to me is... what, you know, we've talked about it so much, you know, what Rolex was in kind of... Well, it's like a meme at this point. Yeah, exactly. And they're just built so well. They've got a cool story. You can still kind of talk about it and think about it as kind of a sister brand to Rolex. But yet there's this slightly unexpected aspect to it that has kind of this interesting twist. And I just feel like... I don't know. If I'm headed this way between those two modern watches, I go Tudor. And whether it's the monochrome or like a 58, either one you can't go wrong with. And then the last thing I would say is get it engraved. Those watches are made to be engraved. The backs are just sterile and ready for words or initials or a date or something.
James Stacey Just make it yours. Yeah, good advice all around. The new for your birthday makes a lot of sense for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah, well, happy birthday, Matt. You probably submitted that quite a while ago. I hope we didn't miss your birthday, and I hope you got something good, or if not, let us know what you get.
James Stacey Yeah, whatever you picked, give us an at on Slack so we can follow up. I would love to know what you picked and if you're happy with it and that kind of thing. Yeah, that was a good one. Thanks for that question. Next up, we've got one from Joshua who said, are there any plans for 2025 TGN events? Will there be meetups around Wind Up Chicago and the Toronto Timepiece show again? Are you considering any other TGN meetups or events? Great question. Obviously, getting to this in the fifth generation or the fifth installment of Slack Crew Name means we're a little behind. Obviously, we didn't get to wind up Chicago largely because of the timing of the arrival of my son in early July. Kind of kept me home for the last little while. And then we have an event, both a live taping of the show on the Saturday at the Toronto Timepiece Show. And then Sunday night, we have the Marathon Party event. I don't know that we have anything else planned for the balance of the year around American Thanksgiving. If I'm traveling down to my wife's spot where she grew up in Pennsylvania, we often do a little hangout in New Hope. And we'll share that on the Slack as we have in the past. And by all means, I would like to do that. It's just difficult to plan the travel with children and everything today. As soon as we have that plan locked in, yeah. I'll be sharing that on the Slack because it's one of my favorite things to do on that Saturday around American Thanksgiving. We've done it a couple of times and we've got a couple of people, Jan especially, who help out and make sure it comes together. So, yeah, I would say that that's what we probably have tentatively on the plans.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's been kind of a weird year, I guess, you know, for a variety of reasons. And I think, you know, we'll see what comes in 2026. But, you know, here we are approaching. Well, by the time this episode goes up, it will be September and then Toronto time show. And then we're getting into fall and the holidays. And so. Not much time left. I did enjoy meeting TGN folks at the Paulin launch last week in New York. And as you mentioned, you know, doing something in November, possibly in Pennsylvania. And I just think those kind of smaller impromptu meetups are fun to fit in. But other than that, yeah, just Toronto. And I hope we see a lot of you there. It sounds like we've already got some good signups. So that should be fun.
James Stacey Yeah, for sure. Thanks very much for that question, Joshua. Hope to see you either at one of those events or something else we put together in the future. Next up, we've got a question from Frank, who simply asks, how many straps do you have? Under 100 or over?
Jason Heaton Oh, man. This is a quick one. I've got so many. I've got way, way over 100. I mean, just too many. I mean, so many. It's like a bag of snakes at this point, like a burlap sack of cobra babies or something that you spill out. There's way too many. I'm sure you're the same. You organize yours a little better than I do.
James Stacey Oh, I wish I could say that's true. I can't sit behind the microphone and accept such a lie. No, they're everywhere. Every horizontal surface in my office has a random strap sitting on it. I have that DeWalt thing that I wrote a story about. I'll put that in the show notes if you care. You can buy it for like 20 bucks and organize your straps. But the minute I can't find a strap in there, I empty all of it, find the strap I want, and then just haphazardly put it back in and it becomes a mess all over again. I have straps in my nightstand. I'm looking at two shoe boxes of straps. um just next to my watches that i should organize and do i would say i'm not over 100 i'm probably over 300 yeah yeah um and that's not including like a ziploc bags of the tgn nato's i'm not i'm not counting those yeah because jason probably has another two three hundred of those yeah um But yeah, no, the strap thing, and I'm not even going to apologize for it. I don't feel bad. At any moment when I get a chance to give somebody a strap, whether they get a new watch or I help somebody pick a watch or they mention that their leather strap on their whatever has kind of salted out and broken up or whatever, I love being able to just be like, Oh, you know, come to the come to the world where they all, you know, end of the line for every strap and just open up a bunch of boxes and people can kind of dig around. So, yeah, I have a ton of straps for sure.
Jason Heaton All right, Frank, I'm sure that was a predictable answer, but thanks for the question. Let's move on to one from Chris P. who says, if at all, how do you program your hobbies through the week? Meaning those that take time, like running, diving, and Swiss chalet. Do you just think, I'm going to go for a run now and go? Or do you keep to a schedule to try to maintain order and develop acceptance of others?
James Stacey How about you, Jason? I think you and I probably have pretty different ways of approaching this.
Jason Heaton I would almost say that something like running or mixing a day on the bike or a swim or go kayaking or a strength workout or something, I'm not even sure I consider those hobbies necessarily. I just build them in. kind of roughly every other day. And I, I'm kind of a morning exercise person. So I walk the dog, um, every morning faithfully at sunrise. And then I oftentimes will just come home, throw on my running shoes and go, and it just becomes part of my routine. So I'm not even kind of building that in. It's just, it just is, it's like having breakfast, you know, I just don't do without. Um, Diving was kind of a bigger hobby kind of time commitment a few years ago. And I think that was always just a couple times a year. So it was kind of revolving around a press trip or maybe a vacation. And now it's kind of more of, I guess, quote unquote work, whether I get invited to do something like I did in the Philippines in February or something. But in terms of true hobbies... Things like playing with watches or fixing Land Rovers or reading. I don't schedule it at all. I fit it in when I've got a few hours on a weekend or in the evening or during the day if I've got some time. I don't at this point have a hobby like woodworking or building something that you just consume five hours at a time that you actually have to schedule. My stuff's just sort of fit in when and where I've got the time or the need. So that's that's how I do it. What about you?
James Stacey Yeah, I don't like I definitely don't treat the exercise as a hobby because a hobby for me like comes when you have free time. Yeah. And I think if if I treat that like if I treat my workouts like that, I am lazy enough that I'll just never I'll be like, oh, I didn't have time today. yeah which is the whole reason why i'm at a standing desk that has a treadmill under it so in my current mode i mean back in back when i worked a day job i would go to the office in the morning quite early i'd come home a little earlier than most people and then i would start my workout whether i was running or weights and i just alternate every other day was one or the other and then sundays i wouldn't work out or run As far as the exercise goes now, I basically start my day fairly early, and I'll have a new thing starting this week with my son and figuring out a new schedule and what works. But Hodinkee is a 12-hour-a-day thing, maybe not active work. But definitely being on top of communications, being able to jump on a last minute phone call or a meeting. So it's quite busy. And I find that it's a little quieter in the morning. So I try and get up, make some coffee and get on the treadmill to do my email. Yeah. And I just, you know, try and do an hour ish. of six kilometers um and then lately i've transitioned as i lost enough weight to be able to wear my weight vest without maximize it without going over the weight limit on the treadmill so now i'm walking weighted which is nice um and and i've been i've been enjoying that i haven't kept it up as as much over the last couple months with the changes uh in in my life otherwise but uh when i do it i feel really good and it makes me feel good um as far as other hobbies A lot of it ends up just being in the evenings or the weekends as I have time. You know, every now and then you do get like a weirdly quiet day with the day job. Yeah. And then, you know, on a Wednesday night, I've got to edit TGN so that that handles most of that time. But by the time Thursday, Friday comes around, maybe Friday afternoon, the minute that I have time or often I'll find that I'm going to transition. Like maybe I finish my emails that are going to get me to the weekend and I don't have a meeting, but I might have a couple of phone calls. And over lunch, I'll try and do something else, whether it's like take the camera out for a walk or, yeah, or, you know, just something that kind of goes to the other side of the brain, get a little bit of movement in. I find a lot of times like if I'm failing at stuff, if I'm in a bad mood, if I'm a bad person, all that kind of thing, it's because I'm not moving. Yeah. And like even like a half hour walk around my relatively boring neighborhood, if I can make it to some trees, I'm pretty, it just kind of resets a little bit.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. So I would say that. But as far as hobbies, like, yeah, a lot of it, a lot of it are attached to my kids. So when we have time, we will play some video games or we'll go play some volleyball in the park or something like that. But yeah, I don't I don't currently have like regimented hobby time, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas for workouts, at least if you're like me and it sounds like if you're similar to Jason, you have to be regimented about it. Yeah. Right.
Jason Heaton All right. Good question, Chris P. Well, the next one's from Swimming Remy, who asks, you've been tasked with giving your TGN counterpart a different career for the next five years that's not in the watch space. What career do you give him? Mine's so easy. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm just going to go first. I mean, I actually had two options for you. One is, I mean, you could fill in the blank here, but I just chose Bentley, Bentley test driver.
James Stacey Oh, sure. Okay.
Jason Heaton Aston Martin, I thought of. I don't know, Bentley. I just remember your Continental GT Escapade over in Austria. And I just, I don't know, I picture you kind of roaring around in a Grand Tour or something, you know, just testing out new Bentleys.
James Stacey Yeah, checking out the mountains a bit.
Jason Heaton Or I just, I really, I mean, I actually genuinely would desire to see you host some kind of a Top Gear type show, like just a, or be just a full-on automotive test driver, writer, you know, journalist, host. I think you could do that for five years or 50 years.
Unknown Cosplaying as Henry Catchpole.
Jason Heaton Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. The Canadian version of Henry. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
James Stacey I like both of those for sure. I really hemmed and hawed on yours. I came up with a ton of ideas and then I really narrowed it down and I think a trail surveyor for the park service. So your job is literally to go for hikes, take pictures of where things need to be fixed or maybe new routes. Yeah. And you just be outside for five years. Oh, yeah.
Unknown Okay.
James Stacey I'll do that. Yeah. I mean, I feel like a lot of people listening are like, yeah, that could be for anyone. Yeah. But it wouldn't interrupt your ability to write books. Right. Yeah. It would make it harder to be an active freelance writer, but arguably you're in a position where you've largely dialed that back. Mm-hmm. And you'd be working for the government, so you'd still get, you know, good pay and retirement and time off to go diving and all this kind of stuff if other opportunities came up. So I thought this would be one that, like, I think it suits. I think it's one of these things that, like, spending that much time outside is something that you and I might do if other constraints were removed from our life. Yeah. But if it was your career for the next five years, you wouldn't even feel bad. You go, well, I'm only going to do this for five years. I'm going to know every trail in the three national parks near where I live or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And I also think knowing you, I've walked around cities. I've walked around rural areas with you. You just pick up garbage everywhere you go. Yeah. And I think you just like you want to leave the place better than you started. You know, Sarah does this as well. And and I think it's such a there's a trade in there that I think would make you really good at going like, oh, this hike was good. But imagine if it went up this slope or or, you know, maybe this needs a sign here. Maybe you get lost or you'd see someone on the trail with their Bluetooth speaker and maybe have a gentle the type of conversation I don't have the temperament to have. to you know let them know maybe maybe don't do that with your speaker or your dog has to be on the leash or and it would give you maybe you could take ruby with you i thought i thought that would be kind of like for five years maybe not for the whole life but for five years a pretty cool job yeah i love it i'll do it and i can maybe even get a praniky-esque cabin to make my home base that's that'd be great hey i like that even more that's awesome All right, solid question, Swimming Remy. Thanks so much for that. And that one I think would be really fun to kind of maybe pick somebody else you're close to on Slack and suggest what you think that they could do for the next five years, which could be a pretty good time. I'd be more than happy to dive into that for like Chris Soule and Jake TS and that sort of thing. Tom Place. Tom Place, right? Ken Lamb, yeah, yeah. So we could have a good time with that for sure. But let's get to this next one. We've got two left from Jackson B. who says, you get to pick one thing. It could be something complex like cooking a precise dish, the ability to fly a plane, etc. Literally anything to do perfectly for the rest of your life. You are the master. There's no one better in the world than you. The cost is you have to pick some activity that you have to do every single day that you will never complete successfully ever again. Something will always go wrong and it will end in some degree of failure. What do you choose to do perfectly? And what becomes your Achilles heel? This is a tough question. I really kicked, especially on the Achilles heel side, kicked back and forth on it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, this was tough. The one thing that I would like to be able to do absolutely perfectly is I have struggled with automotive wiring. And the fact that I own two old British vehicles can tell you that I have this... It's kind of like a Sisyphean struggle. I fix one thing and another thing goes wrong. I spend way too much time twisting wires together, soldering, tracing faults and bad grounds and stuff like that. I have such an admiration for people that have the patience and the aptitude for automotive wiring. And I think I would love to be an expert at that. I would just I would love to be able to kind of just diagnose and confidently fix stuff as it as it goes wrong, which it does from time to time. So that's that's the one thing I would like to be able to do absolutely perfectly, because I plan to own these old vehicles for a very long time and I need that skill. So please help me. And then what's my Achilles heel? Well, this is kind of a small thing. But I kind of pride myself on being able to kind of cook perfect eggs, like a fried egg with a yolk that doesn't break or a poached egg that stays runny just perfectly when you split it open. And I guess if I have to give something up, that's going to be my Achilles heel. The yolk's never going to be perfect in my fried or my poached eggs. And it's going to frustrate me to no end.
James Stacey We landed in somewhat similar territory. So for mine, the first thing that came to my mind for the thing to do perfectly would be gamble. Oh, wow. Because I don't have that. That's not a vice for me. Yeah. So I think I could keep this under control and not go so hard that nobody would ever take a bet again. But you could place wild... prop bets, you could place wild wagers and know that you're going to win. And I think that would be both delightful to experience and also there's a lucrative element to that. That said, I do think that's kind of like bending the intent of this question. So I'm going to go with something actually like much more meaningful to me and it would be like photography. to be like a world-class photographer would be amazing. And I would trade a lot for that. And the thing that came to my mind wasn't as specific as making eggs, but making breakfast. I would accept that I would never successfully make breakfast again. Small trade-off to be in this world, there's no one better than me at photography. And I wouldn't need to be that successful. Like I wouldn't have to be the best ever, but to be like world-class would be amazing. That's a fair trade-off, you know, just a lifetime of eating soggy cereal or something like that. Yeah, just like whatever I did, I made a huge mess. I burned. It's always getting burned. And you just go like, all right, I guess I'm probably just not. The honest chance is not only am I not going to be good at making breakfast, I'm probably not eating it either. Yeah, right. So maybe there's a built-in ability for me to have some kind of automatic intermittent fasting as a solution. But I still have to deal with the heartbreak of ruining breakfast every day to some extent. Maybe not every part from what was described, but like I burned the toast, but the eggs were okay. Yeah. Or maybe the other way around. All right. There it is, Jackson B. Thanks for that question. Very funny.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Last one from Johnny, who says, what's something you've purchased for under $100 in the past 12 months that's had a positive impact on your life? Deceivingly difficult question, I guess.
James Stacey Yeah.
Jason Heaton Where do you come down? Do you have anything in mind?
James Stacey Yeah, but it took me some time. Like I slept on this question because I wanted it to be like meaningful, my answer. And I didn't want it to be a trinket. I wanted it to be something that changed like a mode that, you know, changed my lifestyle in some way. Yeah. And the treadmill was more than $100. My under desk folding treadmill, which I highly recommend, was more than $100, but less would be, you know, the barrier to entry to get into non-alcoholic beer that you like. It might take you $100 to try Athletic Brewing and Sapporo Zero and Guinness, and you try a few to find the one that you actually like. And look, I'm not in the position where I'm going, I'm not drinking beer, I'm not having alcohol ever again. But the positive element of replacing some of those drinks with something that was... much easier on my liver, much easier on my waistline, much easier on my sleep has been very positive. And yeah, the first few you go like, well, this doesn't drink like beer. But if you get them cold enough and you find the one that you like, it's kind of like a beer adjacent thing. The same time where you might be having a beer. I'll have you know the one I found recently that I like quite a bit and it's a shout out and to be very clear I will take their money but I haven't if they wanted to is Coors Edge if you want something that drinks like a normal largely like a normal Coors get it really cold it's pretty good and this is the other pet peeve for maybe expand it on a pet peeve episode in the future not every beer needs to be a tall boy beer world oh yeah yeah They get too warm. I can't drink them that quickly, especially if they have alcohol in them. And these Coors Edges and I still absolutely adore the Runwell IPA from Athletic Brewing. Those are kind of the two that I'll have in my fridge. If you came over, I could offer you a variety of Sun and Hill beer. That's what we've got right now that has a variety of levels of alcohol and then a couple of non-alcohols as well. And I think for the $100... find the one or two that you really like, and you might waste a hundred bucks. You might have to give some to your neighbor or whatever, if you really hated whatever you bought. But I think the impact is positive and it really doesn't feel like that big of a trade-off.
Jason Heaton Well, you've put me to shame because not only is your choice very admirable and high-minded and healthy, but it's exactly the opposite of mine because I chose a bottle of Harris Distillery gin as my under $100 purchase. Yes, totally. Being in the Outer Hebrides back in May, we went to the Harris Distillery on the Isle of Harris and they had these beautiful bottles of... gin that they distill there and they, um, infuse it with, you know, local herbs as well as, um, seaweed that grows offshore there. And it has this nice sort of oceanic maritime flavor to it. Very local, very terroir as you, as you say with, uh, with alcohol. And, uh, yeah, it's just, it's a great memento. It's something that only comes out occasionally for a special sip because it came from a very remote place. Um, and it wasn't terribly expensive, you know, less than $50 actually. But anyway, yeah, that was mine, which is entirely opposite of yours, but that's what I'm going with.
James Stacey But I think they're complementary in that you put yourself in a position where you could enjoy something special as a treat rather than as part of the day-to-day flow. And the day-to-day flow can go to something that's causing less overall stress in your life. And look, you... You may be a huge beer nerd and go, that's an absolutely terrible decision to suggest this to me, and I don't like it at all. And that's fine. For me, this is the thing that made the difference, and I love that for you. It was taking something and going for the more special version.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Fun questions, everybody. Thank you so much for all those. And look, we're pushing the clock a little bit on this one. You want to dive into some final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, mine's a pretty easy one. It's actually a strap recommendation that came to me during the event that I was at in New York last week for Pollen. And one of the TGN listeners, Ahmed, was there and he had my old 14270 Rolex Explorer that he bought from me. It was fun to see that again, but he had it on a really cool strap. And it comes from CNS Watchbands, a brand we've talked about in the past out of Sweden. This is this thin retro style rubber strap called the Marlin Bando. Very clever name. that, um, emulates the strap that, that Marlon Brando had on his GMT master in apocalypse now. So it's, it's this very retro looking kind of lizard, almost lizard print rubber strap. Um, very thin, very pliable. It was, you know, I tried it on, I looked at it. It's very, it's quite soft. It's very comfortable. It has that kind of retro rounded buckle. Um, Um, and I've ordered a couple, um, for, for a couple of different sizes and I'm eager to get them, but I just wanted to, to kind of give a shout out to that. They're, they're on sale. I'm not sure, you know, if the full price of $39.95 ever applied, but it's marked down to $19.95. So good, good price. Um, just a really fun strap would look great on a number of, of kind of old dive watches or, or otherwise. So, um, yeah, thanks for that recommendation, Ahmed. And, and I can't wait to get them, check them out.
James Stacey Yeah, very cool. Good suggestion and a very good looking strap for sure. Mine this week is actually a bag that I bought some time ago. I talked about it on episode 334 as I just bought it. It's a bag available from RZE Watches, a brand I got to know and also Huey who runs the brand when I was in Vancouver. And I got interested both in their watches and we've actually seen the UDT 8000 show up on the Slack. I've got one here. It's a really solid watch. uh, like extra tough digital watch, easy to wear titanium, all that kind of thing. But the thing that I've used all summer, and I'm now willing to say that I do feel it's worth the, uh, the $115, uh, Canadian asking price, which really isn't that bad is called the quest voyage. It's a, it's a collapsible roll up kind of securable 30 liter like bucket style bag. Um, so I wouldn't call it a tote because it doesn't have any shoulder option. Yeah. Uh, it has kind of a double strap, uh, It has Velcro on the front so you could add another pouch or you could add, it has mall as well. And so you could add a pouch, you could add, you know, I've got like Velcro on patches and that sort of thing. It rolls up to be, you know, a little bit bigger than a couple cans of soda maybe. Like it's not that super large as far as... when it's kind of strapped down. But when it's open, it's just this kind of like large space you can put stuff in. And I use it for everything from, you know, taking the espresso machine to our cottage or picking up groceries. It holds a lot of non-alcoholic beer to stay on topic and that sort of thing. And I just really like it. And it's one of those things where like I bought it because I really enjoyed my time with Huey in Vancouver and I wanted to support the brand and that sort of thing. And I, you know, I like bags and I get some good use out of them. And this is the time of year where we're basically constantly putting things in Jenga like bags and then figuring out where they go in the back of the Jeep. And it's just been such a handy thing to throw some clothes, a little bit of gear, maybe throw a camera on top, zip it up and put it in there. It's not super rigid, but it is nicely made. You know, it largely is hinged around or like supported by two large like seatbelt straps that run the vertical length of the bag, give it a bit of structure. But I've just really enjoyed it. It's very useful and I love that I can roll it up uh cinch it down and put it under the seat in the jeep so i don't forget the the laundry bag or the the grocery bag and that sort of thing yeah looks great i love the i love the design of kind of tactical but also um i love how small it rolls up that's really cool yeah yeah good stuff uh i think they've done a nice job with it and uh and it's definitely something that i i would recommend if if it have If you have used, I know they make a smaller version. I didn't find this to be too big, but obviously it depends on what you're carrying to and fro, whether or not you would want one smaller than this, but this is the 30 liter. So a decent size. Nice. Good.
Jason Heaton Cool. Fun show.
James Stacey Great questions. Really fun. So great questions. Yeah.
Jason Heaton All right. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit thegraynato.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from Albert Einstein, who said, I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.