Skip to content

The Grey NATO – 366 – Slack Crew & A [Part 8]

Published on Thu, 26 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

In episode 366 of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts James Stacy and Jason Heaton cover a wide range of topics. Jason discusses his first-time experience donating blood and announces a charitable auction of the prototype CWC crew watch, with proceeds benefiting Second Harvest Heartland food bank. Bidding is open exclusively to Slack members through March 9th. James provides an extensive behind-the-scenes look at his recent trip to Switzerland with Tudor, where he toured multiple manufacturing facilities including case stamping operations, dial production (including hand-applied luminous material), and bracelet manufacturing. He was particularly impressed by the mix of high-tech automation and traditional handwork involved in producing Tudor watches.

The episode also features Part 8 of their annual Slack crew Q&A, addressing questions about watch collecting philosophies, stories about being late, the balance between gear acquisition and skill development in photography and other pursuits, favorite budget items, and essential everyday carry items. Both hosts emphasize that education and gear work together rather than being mutually exclusive, and share their appreciation for both high-quality investments and budget-friendly options. The episode concludes with final notes about the Explorers Club photo contest, AI detection techniques, and architectural design of NYC subway stations.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacy Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 366, and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGNor Suterpp crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you're listening and might want to support the show, please visit thegreynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacy, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, Jason Heaton. Jason, how are we doing? Well, if I'm honest, I
Jason Heaton 'm I'm feeling a little little low energy today. It'll run down. It's kind of a kind of a gray, chilly day here. Um and it just occurred to me as I was looking over our notes that there was one thing I was gonna mention that I'm not doing it to pat myself on the back, but maybe to encourage other people to do is um I gave blood last week. Um I've I've always been a little squeamish around needles, and I've strangely enough, this was the very first time in my life I've you know deliberate Maybe I'll lean on that as an excuse for feeling run down. You know, I'm down a pint since uh late last week. Yeah, too depleted. Jokes aside, I I do think that um or I do wonder if after you give blood it, wasn't a terribly cold day that day, but I remember just being really cold for the rest of the day, and I thought, you know, if you're operating with less blood volume, you know, there's probably a good chance that that's uh that's anyway, that's my armchair phlebotomist uh little bit of uh theory there. But um yeah, it was good. I, you know, I uh uh I was surprised to learn. I think there was a statistic that said only 11% of the, at least in the U.S., the population is eligible to give blood based on maybe you're taking drugs or you you know, a health issue or whatever. And and of those and I don't know if it's of those, but only three percent actually give blood and there's a real shortage. So I felt kind of compelled to kinda do it and it was easy and it was uh made me feel good. So um Did you get a cookie? Yeah, they got a cookie at the end and some apple juice. So I felt like a kid. Ye
James Stacy ah. Oh good stuff. Yeah, that's that's a good reminder. I mean it's it's one of those things like not something we talk about, obviously not really the generalized purview of the show, but a good reminder that it's something that you could do and if you're able to. I didn't realize the numbers were that low. I'm sure they're similarly low in Canada. Yeah. Um definitely something to focus on, especially if they're doing a drive in your neighborhood or something like that, and and it's even easier. Yeah,
Jason Heaton right. And I've got some fun news to talk about in a bit here, but um before we get to that, uh you've got some other housekeeping stuff around the timepiece show
James Stacy ? Sure do, yeah. Uh uh just uh uh we're gonna do reminders every episode moving forward, but the Vancouver and Montreal Time Peace Shows, the tickets are available. That is the end of April and the end of May. By all means, please visit timepeace show dot com. I myself will be at the Vancouver show. We're organizing another event with a marathon and rolldorf and co. Uh those details are up in the air currently, but I mean last year worked really well. So if you happen to come last year, if you're among the the amazing crew of people who showed up to last year's event on the Sunday evening. I'm I'm looking to repeat that basically. And then now there's a new show this year in Montreal in May. Tickets are available at timepeacshow.com. Happy to support uh those guys and the local shows here in Canada, especially with it being a free thing. You just got to get your name on a ticket. And if you make it to Vancouver and want to hang out, please pay attention to the first few minutes of the show as these plans come together and then also the meetups channel on the TGN Slack if you're on the supporter side. Any and all details once they're locked in in terms of RSVPs and that sort of thing will start there and then uh transition to uh kind of the public side of the show. So there's that as well. The next one is actually one that came to us through the Slack in a couple different manners. I got a few DMs about it. It showed up in the Straps channel. And it actually has to do with the also the 10th anniversary. So it's it's tent yehar of TGN this year, but it's also the tenth anniversary of one of our favorite strap makers, that's Erica's originals. And uh I feel like we've been talking about Erica's originals for a long time and it turns out we have and we've been talking about them for about ten years. Yeah, the whole tenure of our show. Yeah, exactly. So uh th this year for their tenth anniversary, and this isn't an ad, um Erica didn't reach out. We we haven't spoken directly. It's it's it's through intermediaries and that sort of thing. But just a fun heads up that Erica's originals is doing essentially a an limited uh order pre order of of a strap for each month of the year. And for February, uh they did it as a gray strap as a nod to TGN because I guess according to what the the text they put on the website. We were sort of early supporters of their brand and and kind of brought them some audience, which is you know very nice to hear. And as a little nod to TGN, they did one of their Mistral Straps in gray and a couple of those have popped up on the Slack. So we just wanted to say uh you know a big happy tenth to Erica's originals. They make kind of the the premium option of the sort of paratrooper. They're really nice quality. I've got a couple of them and and have been wearing them apparently for for a decade. Uh you know, you get older every day apparently, but it it's it's nice to see Erica and her team uh you know continue to make some great straps for everybody.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's exciting. Uh congratulations to Erica. Um, you know, uh I I remember it was after you know the Tudor and the the bronze Black Bay and the the the M M strap that that came with that and I remember um getting one of the the actual original MN straps and and wearing it throughout um that time in in Basel um on a different watch that I had with me. Um I was it was really exciting and then Erica started selling them and then I remember she I don't remember how this worked out. It's really fuzzy in my memory, but I remember corresponding with her, maybe it was while I was at Gear Patrol or something. And I she would send me bulk Erica's strap, you know, her straps, and then I was selling them kind of with a with a small markup of my own. It was she was kind of selling to them to me wholesale and then I was turning. Your distributor. I was a distributor, yes. I think I was her first US distributor. Um probably just through Instagram or something like that. And they were, you know, they became kind of a hit and then you know we talked about it and now they're just and other people are making similar ones, but I think hers are still kind of the kind of the standard bearer for the for that type of strap. And and this one looks great. I love that blue with the with the gray. It's really sharp. I might have to picked one of these up. Very cool
James Stacy . And yeah, I want to get into a sort of download from my time in Switzerland with Tudor. Obviously, last week we had Cole on the show. We can get into some of the the BTS on that as well. Uh, but first up, you have kind of a fun announcement of uh of a little bit of a a charitable uh scenario for the crew and and for all those listening. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Um this is pretty exciting. I it kind of just occurred to me a few days ago 'cause I've been looking for a way to um may maybe to raise a little bit of money for for a good cause and uh a cause that I've given to in the past and and feel really good about, and that is uh Second Harvest Heartland, which is a a really big established reputable food bank here in Minneapolis, and they work with close to four hundred food shelves and nonprofit partners around uh Minnesota and into western Wisconsin. And you know, lately they've they've had a real high need for for food assistance for a number of reasons uh here and in in western Wisconsin, and um I was looking for a way to kind of raise a little bit of money to give them, and it occurred to me that I have the I still have the prototype CWN one. So this was the very first watch that CWC made when we were cooking up this idea for our crew watch. And this was a prototype. So this was the first titanium fixed strap channel case. Um they put a a modified dial in it. So it doesn't have the little TGN um sort of Easter egg at the bottom like we have on the official version. It still says Swiss made, but there's no quartz text, just says CWC, and then they hand dipped or hand painted the the orange on the tip of the second hand, because that's what we had kind of asked for. Um the bezel, you know, we had requested um instead of their standard elapsed time dive bezel, we wanted to use the the bezel insert, the 12-hour bezel insert from their C Falcon quartz chronograph. But that bezel shape did not quite fit the one that they had made for this titanium prototype. So Malcolm at at CWC actually glued on the the the aluminum uh bezel insert onto this uh this bezel. So it's it's glued on it it it's holding up fine it held up fine um and then the back is engraved with the TGN logo and and then it has a a serial number of XXX twenty four, because this is a prototype. And um he sent me this watch just in time for me to wear for the fan dance back in twenty twenty four, back in June of that year. And it arrived at at a little cottage that that I had rented in Wales the day before the fan dance. I strapped it on, wore it for that run, and wore it a little bit after that. And then of course the production versions came out and off we went. So this has been this has been here sitting, ticking away in my box in the dark for for um a couple of years now and I think it's time to auction it off. So would like to offer it up to our community um as uh as an auction piece with the proceeds going to Second Harvest Heartland. And kind of the way we want to run this is um the bidding will open as of right now, as of uh 6 a.m. on uh the 26th of February, Eastern time. And we will end it on Monday, March 9th at 9 PM Eastern Time, uh US Eastern time, so that we can then announce the winner when we record the following day for episode 368. All right, so here's how the bidding is going to work. It's only open to Slack members. Uh it is the crew watch after all. So for simplicity's sake, we're not going to be uh presenting this on Instagram or through email, just just to keep things a little bit easier. Bidding will be handled through the specific TGN Slack channel that I've set up. It's a hashtag CWN1-auction. And there's already a note in Slack, so you can be directed to that. Just add that as a channel if you want to bid. And the winning bid uh needs to make the donation within 24 hours of being announced. And by that, what we'd like you to do is make the donation directly to Second Harvest through the web link that we've provided. Um, this is for simplicity, but also so that you can get the tax break. Um, this is a nonprofit organization, and as it's a donation you should be able to get a tax break uh at least if you're based here in the United States. Um you'll just need to show us the receipt um that you've made the submission and then we'll get the watch sent off to you. Shipping will happen uh after the watch has been paid for and we've confirmed that uh you know, through a receipt to second harvest that you've paid. We will ship anywhere and we'll cover the shipping, but any duties or im you know import uh costs will be at the expense of uh of the recipient, uh if it's international. All right, I think that's uh that should cover it. Um if you have any questions you can certainly get in touch with us. James, did I miss anyt
James Stacy hing? No, I think that covers it. Look, I think uh I think this is a fun one if you're wanting a one of one as much as you could possibly get like a true prototype. I think if this is something where where uh we could find some value in it. You and I aren't really precious about these things. Um we're you know, we don't have plans for uh a TGN museum in in Bien someday or or something like that. Uh you know, if this if this can can raise some money for a food shelter at a time when you know fo,od scarcity is a a major issue. And you look at the scope of of second harvest. I mean, you wrote down here six hundred and twenty-one hunger relief programs across fifty-nine counties. Yeah. That feels like like this watch finds a home. Maybe maybe it's not something you wear around, maybe it's just kind of a a token to something you found cool or interesting or a n a nice way to connect with uh with the show in the last ten years of the show. Um, but in put some food on the table for some people, that feels like a good trade to me. Yeah
Jason Heaton . Two little short um additions that I I should have mentioned. This watch actually, because it was the prototype, does not have the high accuracy EDA movement in it that we have in the production versions. It has the the standard ronda quartz that they use in the in the CWC divers. And then obviously there's no warranty on this watch. It's it's as is, it's running well, it's in good condition. Um I'll post some pictures of it in Slack, but uh obviously there's no warranty on it from from us or from CWC
James Stacy . Those are just kind of the the footnotes. All right, good stuff. Well, uh bidding starts. I mean, if you're listening to this and it's before March 9th, bidding is still open. Um, but uh from the time that this episode lands until March 9th at 9 p.m. E.T., we will have uh the bidding open and uh Jason describe the ways that you can bid and uh and yeah, we'll contact the winner when the time comes and then we'll announce the whole thing on episode 368. Uh yeah, with with that in mind, let's let's take a quick look back at last week's episode. Very,
Jason Heaton very cool episode. Yeah. Before you give the download, I just got to say that episode was I felt like you guys were talking to me there. I mean, we we had we had you know custom titanium bicycles, we had an Alpha Romeo. We had a a Land Cruiser. Um and a BMW compact. I mean, come on. I I had one of those back in the nineties. I mean, it's just it was such a great episode. Great to hear Cole's voice again. So um well done to both of you guys. Thanks, Cole, for filling in there. That was
James Stacy great. Yeah, it was an absolute treat to see Cole. And then a quick note, if you happen to download the episode quite quickly, there were some audio drops at the start of the conversation, and that's just an editing error on my fault. A huge apology on my front. Uh a few hours later, uh, once I got back to the hotel in Switzerland that evening, I was able to uh to update that file. So if if you if you were annoyed by a couple of audio drops, a couple of dead air segments, um, kind of around the first twenty-two, twenty-three minutes of of uh of the show there. That's repaired. Feel free to go back and download the file. Uh, should be all sorted out. But had a great time uh with Cole, a really fun conversation. Glad to see that those six dollar headsets that we use. And yeah, as far as the trip went, I it's hard to really delineate everything because it was like fourteen stops in two days on their on their sub essentially their supply chain. And so we started at EMP, which is where elements of the movements are made, like the base plates and bridging for the movements are made. We also saw Joseph Baum, which is where their cases are created. This is where they do the essentially the case blank stamping. This is probably where I saw one of the two coolest things. So Joseph Baum is in Les Normands it's inde anpendent company that serves of like a broad spectrum, but they we watch them make, you know, a variety of black bay cases. Or and then more interesting to my personal concerns, we watch them hot stamp titanium cases for Pelagos. Wow. And it's medieval. The video is so cool. We have a video series that will come out covering all of these steps in the process. Yeah. Uh which is what we were there shooting along with every other, you know, great wat
Unknown ch outlet and blog that you might like
James Stacy . Uh from there we went to DTEC or detec uh and this is where we saw them making elements of the tutor bracelets and clasps. So I saw like huge, you know, I don't know probably 14 foot long pieces of titanium that are essentially precurved and created to be like if you open the clasp on a Pelgos 39, the little arm in the clasp, the two folding arms. And it's cut shaped. And then we even saw how they very carefully machine the way that the that class lays into itself when it closes. Sure. Yeah. And then possibly the most interesting one, especially if you're not if if you didn't feel emotionally moved by the hot stamping of the titanium, which fair enough, but we did get to see literally a dial being made from huge reels of brass to the final dial. And it's so many steps that we would run out of time in this in this uh episode to cover it and and it'll be a a a big part of the video that we're working on. Starting with the raw material, forming it into a blank uh consideration of like uh pressing and can and creating every marker as well as done by Montremo, which is an independent company that does a bunch of other brands. We saw tons of other brands uh you know being worked on there as well, and then that goes into dial cutting. Then you s we watch somebody so we were able to watch people make the the blue and the pink dials for the black bay chronographs. Oh, sure. They hand mix the colors and then like spray a big tray for the lacquer of the pink or the blue. We got to watch them do all that. And then the protective layers, uh, we got to watch the galvanic coloring. So the on the let's say the pink dial has black sub-dials, so they coat the pink and everything except for where the subdial will be and then they're able to dunk it it sits in a bath for 12 minutes or something and comes out black which is very cool. Then we get to see the pad printing which, is, you know, all of the dial text, the mark the sort of like railway mark, like not the actual markers, but the the minute track that's printed on the dial is all done. And this is like a human being sitting there swapping the dials, pressing it, swapping the dials, pressing it. It's very, very much more uh manual labor than I would have expected in these processes. Mm-hmm, which is rad. And then we got to watch kind of the last step in the process som,ebody hand apply the luminous material into the marker. Wow. Which I didn't know that's how it was done. I always just kind of assumed you produced the marker and a machine put a little bit of loom in there. Yeah. We literally watched a lady with essentially the loom equivalent of a tattoo gun with like a foot pedal on the floor and a microscope. Squeeze a little bit of loom almost like icing, but like minuscule, like you know how big a marker is. Yeah. And you you could actually see them, and it's just the the level of dexterity is incredible. And I watched her do a bunch of this. I got to hold like a jar of loom powder, which is very fun if you're me. And then as I was leaving, I'm like, man, I would love to try that. And they're like, Yeah, we got a doll you can try that on. And uh and I got to sit down. I didn't fit at her desk, she was a much smaller person than me, so I had to use the little pump with like the side of my foot, and then you realize how quickly I don't have a lot of microscope experience in my life. I mean, why would I? Yeah, but then I also realized how quickly I've never had to move something under a microscope, like my hand with the tip of this. It's like a knife edge or like a almost like a pin edge that you can paint with the loom. And I did two or three of the markers and they took a look at it and they're like, yeah, this is this is what everybody kind of does when they try, but it's not great. Yeah. And it definitely wasn't. Um but very impressive. It was it was a weird thing to see a watch that's so mass produced have such a a mix of really high-tech elements and what what really felt like just normal watchmaking or or traditional watchmaking in some ways. Like I from a business standpoint, I don't understand. Like tutor watches are not cheap, to be clear. But I don't really understand why I guess I guess it's it's a lep certain level of quality that you get by having somebody do the loom by hand or lay the markers by hand. But in my mind, all of that was done by a machine. Right. Like I'd seen the final assembly and I'd seen these processes that could you know cut a case, but then they go, oh, but we stamp our cases. And you go, okay, well, that's you know, it's automated, but there's it's still it looks like something from a blacksmith. Like I was watching titanium Pelgos cases come out of a little oven on like a metal conveyor belt glowing red over to a thing, stamped and kicked out. And it's just like this is uh it's just a level of of process that feels so much more than you might expect if you watch somebody build a Seiko mod on uh on on YouTube, right? Like it's all this weird mix of super high-tech multi-stage machine machines that will take three weeks to be like switched into a new workload and then they just run. Yeah. Whether they're processing or or you know cutting and f finishing the the plates for the movement or or whatever they're being used. And it's it's this fairly sizable network of all these different companies, some of which are fully independent, some of which are owned by Tutor after the company had, you know, worked with the brand for 60 years or whatever. And yeah, it's a it's it's a big mix. And I I mean I I maybe I didn't find things like the movement blanks being cut that interesting, but dude, the dial in the case, wild. Really, really cool. And I
Jason Heaton 'm I'm struck too by well, two things. One is the there's the the the actual work that's being done, the machining, the handwork, etc. But then there's the whole tracking behind the scenes, which is the boring side of it, admittedly, but like, you know, all the the tracking of all those components while they're being moved from one facility to another and then assembled into a final watch, every piece has its own, you know, part number, you know, from remembering back to my technical writing days, you know, and then all of that has to be tracked and built into one watch. So if you know, it's just yeah, it's just crazy. And then also this is one brand, admittedly a big brand. The fact that Switzerland runs on, you know, pharmaceuticals of course and but and banking, but watches and so many brands are you know, some not to this many are not to this level of integration, but just th it it's incredible that this is going on in that small country, um, all over the place with all these these very specialized machines and and craft craftspeople.
James Stacy It's really remarkable. So much of it has like a human being moving a tray of something or putting two watches into a machine, making sure that they come out, a little computer gives them a number and they go, all right, that one's good, and they go back onto a tray where they then, you know, go on to the next stage. Yeah. It's this real give and take between people and machines. And I guess in my mind, you think of the manufacturing ability that allows a brand like Tudor or of course Rolex to make upwards of a million watches a year for the Rolex number that we've all quoted since they used to be, you know, reported in COSC. You go like no no wonder that these things are kind of expensive. Like I'm not I'm not saying there's not markup along the way and it it's clearly an incredible business with a lot of profit, but I don't think this is something where where they're where they're really, you know, cutting all the corners and justing happen to put a few things together in Switzerland and then handing it off to a distributor. Yeah. And all of all of Tudor's production is reflexive. It's all uh like they don't keep stock of anything. Like I even kind of inquired, I was like, Hey, you know, if I let's let's say just hypothetically for me, just for fun, if I wanted to take home a ranger thirty six, yeah. And they're like, Yeah, we don't we don't have one to sell you, we don't have a store here. Right. They're like you know, a dealer would would place the order for that watch and then we'll build it. Yeah. And yeah, well that's interesting. So yeah, it was uh I've I've been on a my handful of manufacturing tours, I've seen pieces of watches, pieces of cars, I've seen pieces of cameras made. I've never really seen this amount of scope where they said, like, yeah, it's gonna be a busy couple of days. And it really was. It's gonna be a busy couple of days, but you'll see as much essentially as much as we're comfortable showing you. And you could tell there's like a lot of these companies probably don't ever have people in there who could see the other brands they work on, who could possibly share industry secrets, that sort of thing. And I think it it that's probably why you don't get this level of kind of access or or experience that often. Yeah. Um but yeah it was I was there with a handful of other great sites and uh you know the the the whole crew everybody you would expect to see there was there, so everybody's gonna have a you know a similar story to share in the next little while. Uh I'm excited to kind of digging into what we were able to capture and and applying the visuals and that sort of thing. But it was a as you can tell as I just rambled for X number of minutes, it was just a ton to see in two days. Maybe the busiest sort of press trip, if that's what you want to call it, I've ever been on. Wow. Amazing you had time to meet up with Cole to do the the episode. You did that before you did that first the night I got in. We did that after uh dinner, so it was late and I mean I think you can hear it in the recording. Um a little goofy, but uh it was late and then editing it, that's probably why I made the editing mistake was, you know, I was editing it very late the next day when it was gonna go up hours later. Yeah uh in uh in Switzerland. So yeah, but it was good. It was great to be out there. Um obviously a brand that I I don't need to like sugarcoat in any way, brand. I I have fairly strong feelings about. Um and the stuff that I like from the brand I like very, very deeply and have bought and own and the Sarah has a tutor and and all that sort of thing. Uh so it was kind of cool to to you know, go behind the scenes for that sort of thing and and I'm hoping it turns into a pretty good video set of videos, something like that, uh to share. So you you were filming or did you have some el I was filming some elements and then uh my colleague Max was filming the higher quality stuff. When does that uh one of those stories start to appear? Uh as soon as possible. Yeah. I mean and I I th I think it's something we'd love to share, but it's also not something that I'm gonna cut corners to get to get out faster. Yeah. But yeah, that was the uh that was the tutor trip. Flew back uh Friday. Uh and have been feeling pretty not under the weather. Like I don't feel ill. I just I can't get my I don't know, I'm not really sure how to describe it. Just feel low energy. Yeah. Yeah. Sleepy maybe. You need a couple of weeks at home. You've been traveling. I mean, jeez, Japan and Switzerland, yeah. Yeah, I'm home. I'm home for a few more days. I go to New York next week. Uh so that the very possible that our next episode will be recorded uh remotely or extra extra remotely. Not in our not in my studio. Yeah. They're all remote. Yeah. Yeah. Should be good. Uh should be good visit down a couple days in New York. Um just mostly just for meetings and that sort of thing. But we should be able to see a couple couple of interesting watches that won't be out until uh more like April. So we'll see. All right. Well speaking of watches, let's do
Jason Heaton a quick risk check and dive into our crew and A. Yeah. Uh you want to go first? Sure. I'm I'm going quick. I've got my CWN one not the prototype um that we're auctioning. Um this is the the first production version, uh zero zero one. Um have had it on the rubber NATO for quite some time and it's just it's it's an easy wear, so that's what's on today. How about you? It looks like you're you're back to you you''rere back to I'm back to my old nonsense. Yeah. I've
James Stacy got the uh got the aerospace on. Yeah. I've been uh I've been wearing it a ton. Uh on the weekend I switched over to the Doxa, the two hundred T uh which is great. I don't know the Doxa 200T just makes almost no sense when it's just it's so cold and so snowy here. And I just like I looked at it and I go, yeah, I really need winter to be done. Yeah. I need this, I need this watch to be like back in its natural habitat or maybe I need a you know a a dive vacation or something like that. But the truth is I'm probably just going back to the aerospace. You know, just I I'm I'm absolutely loving it. It's it's really hitting a certain type of nerd value appeal that uh that that I'm liking and uh yeah hasn't hasn't worn off yet since it came in so that's a a good sign. All right. That's what I got. But uh we're already pushing a pretty good episode here. You want to dive into what are we up to part eight Yeah, I know. We're this is still the tw lingering on from 2025, and we have plenty more after this. So many questions. Yeah, right. Yeah. All right. There's no reason to belabor this. These are essentially just text questions from the TGN Slack. If you'd like to get into the TGN Slack, it's as little as five bucks a month, and it's a great place to hang out and explore all sorts of different hobbies, including, of course, watch appreciation. About once a year, we ask that crew of people to offer up text-based questions instead of the normal audio-based questions that we do for a monthly QA. But let's jump into the first question, which is from Ben V. Yeah, Ben's asking us
Jason Heaton um whether or not you guys consider yourselves watch collectors has come up on the show multiple times now, which certainly does. Um, I think the general consensus was that a real collector has a theme to their collection, and anything outside of that is more watch appreciation, accumulation, or hoarding. If you were forced to be a proper collector, and your watches all had to fit within a theme. What would your specific theme be? I've got a few ideas. James, what about you? I think we've talked about this uh a few times. Um anything parti
James Stacy cular? For me, it's probably travel watches. I would say that you know the majority of my watches are ones designed to be useful for travel or additional time zones. Um I guess the other kind of in t there's like sub-collections, I guess there's sub a subcollection of titanium sport watches is is forming uh in a way that I can't really necessarily deny. And then I g if if we were going down like the single model, I I'm over time I think I'll probably end up becoming an Aqualand uh collector. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But all of those watches all have a second time zone functionality or the ability to be, you know, sort of modified to show two time zones. And I think uh I think there's you could make the argument that kind of the overarching theme, my overarching interest in watches, what I've you know, my my chapter of the Hoodenkey book on watches was about travel watches, watches that account for multiple time zones
Jason Heaton . Yeah, that makes sense for you for sure. Um, you know, I'm reminded by this question of an article I'd written for Hodinki years ago about my friend Myron, who um focused his collection or kind of he he he he has a a good number of watches, but he narrowed a specific version of his collection to what he called confusing fall warblers. And uh it was his own term because he'd read like a ornithology book about confusing fall warblers, all these kind of book, these birds that look similar and just have nuances that separate them. And what he was collecting were these, you know, these small Hamilton field watches that were made like in the 70s and 80s and sold through various retailers like Orvis and LL Bean and Eddie Bauer and things. And um, some were automatic, some were quartz, whatever. And he he just started collecting all the variations of that. Um, and I it was such a narrow focus. And the thing I remember him telling me that he liked about collecting those watches was the affordability of it and how there was such a low-stakes sort of collection. And I think that's if I were to start over and and collect with a narrow focus, I would I would definitely want to choose something that was outside of like my daily wear stuff. So I'd probably stick to vintage or neo-vintage if you want to call it that. Um you know with with something like you know, twin crown supercompressors, um, or dive chronographs from the 60s and 70s. Um, these aren't all affordable necessarily, but um, you know, I I wouldn't go big. I wouldn't be like, I'm I'm only gonna do you know Rolex divers or you know sea dwellers or something like that. Maybe I'd go into like the dirty dozen British military watches, although some of those are obscure and expensive. But I think by having like a a vintage collection that you just sort of over the years, you just kind of keep the you know, an eBay notification going or you know, you notifications on watch recon or something where you're just always kind of looking for something but not urgently. Then you can just wear right you can just have a smaller collection of daily wear stuff, modern stuff that you wear on a day to day basis. And then you'd kind of just keep collecting these little little vintage pieces. Um I think that's kind of the route I'd go. Um so that, you know you're not not breaking the bank and you're not kind of going crazy, you know, chasing and chasing. So yeah. Yeah, I
James Stacy think I think that makes sense for sure. All right. Nice question there, uh, Ben. Yeah, thanks so much for that one, Ben. Next up, we've got one from CX who says, Be on time, be on time, be on time. What are your best stories of being late? Could have turned out to be a positive or a negative or somewhere in between. I uh I I struggled this because I don't I'm pathologically early. Think about how much I travel. I'm still two hours. I'll still do the two hours before my flight. Um I have a deep, deep, deep discomfort of being late uh for things. And certainly like ov over time I've had flights be delayed and that sort of thing, so you end up getting places late. But I don't know that's I don't know if that's really me being late. Yeah. Maybe that's just a you know, I I feel like I'm on a a perfect streak and I'm unwilling to be flexible with that concept. I'm sure I'm sure there's a st there's stories in there somewhere, but like you know, once uh very unexpectedly, very out of character, I slept in and missed a flight home from New York. And uh and I I you know I I was so kind of distraught uh by this. It was on it was on Halloween. I was gonna miss Halloween with my daughters. Uh, that I was able to make it to the airport, talk my way into an earlier flight, and I made it home just in time. Wow. So like uh it's it's not in my nature. Uh I'm I'm always the guy kind of standing in front of the restaurant. Yeah. You know, kind of waiting. I'm there too early to pick my kids up every day. Um, all of that time. You know, I I think there I even have that thing that I've se joke people joke about on on the on Instagram and in memes and stuff where it's like, oh I have an appointment at two thirty and I'll like kind of get into like I'm gonna leave for the appointment mode by like eight o'clock in the morning. Yeah. And just like backwards. I've got an appointment today. That's basically my whole day. Yeah. Yeah. And Jason,
Jason Heaton I don't know I don't know you to be late either. No, I'm I'm similar. I I do like to be early, especially for you know things like flights or whatever. But even you know, I've I've tempered my you know, if somebody says come for dinner at seven, I I try not to get there at, you know, six fifty 'cause I I know how inconvenient that can be when you're g
James Stacy etting ready to host a dinner. Yeah, but like I'll be I'll be outside. Like I won't go to the door until seven. Oh whatever. Yeah. But I'll be on their block six minutes before I shoe have and I'll just sit in
Jason Heaton my car. Yeah. Right. Well I've got one story and I'm not sure it exactly fits because it's kind of the story about being late and being early. Um It was actually for my very first real job interview after after college. You know, I got an English lit degree and was kind of doing various odd jobs, but then I f I found this ad um for a a technical writing job at this uh company, an engineering company. And um it was at you know, I don't know what time, 10 a.m. on a Thursday or something. And I I got all dressed, you know, it's probably jacket and tie in those days. Um got in my I had a had a dark blue Volkswagen Fox. I don't know if you remember the Fox. Um it was a little two-door kind of it was it was not one of the better received Volkswagens. It wasn't a great car by any stretch, but it was it was mine and I liked it. And I remember driving to this job interview and I was headed there, I think it was, I think it was in the winter, fall or winter, but I started to see antifreeze um running up the the front of the hood like towards the windscreen like it was flowing up out of the radiator and I was driving on the highway and I realized I had a radiator leak and I remember having to get off the highway and take a look and you know it was antifreeze kind of bubbling out of the radiator cap and whatever. Um, I don't remember what I did to fix the situation, if I just waited for it to cool down or if I added water or whatever I did. But anyway, it made me late to my job interview for my very first technical writing job. And I remember kind of squealing into the parking lot, all in a panic, you know, probably all sweaty and anxious and whatever, running in the door of this place and apologizing profusely to the two people that were going to interview me and they said, Oh, your interview isn't till next Thursday. So so I was I was a I was like half an hour late, but I was a week early. Um, but they did interview me that day and I got the job. So that was the the happy hey there you go. I like
James Stacy it. Yeah. I don't I can't really explain the the you know there's there's a few things that cause me like a great deal of stress. And I think you've seen some of this. Being late's one of them for sure. Mm-hmm. Um, and then the other one is like being in the way. And I have like such a a high low tolerance for other people who are in the way, like people, you know, in Canada and I you see it in the States, I'm sure m less so I I notice it in Europe. But just people standing where people are supposed to walk. Oh yeah. Doorways, busy busy hallways, though like a little of a sidewalk to check their phone. Stopping. Yeah, stop like step to the side. Yeah share the sidewalk. Yeah. Right. And there's no um oh man, this this whole question just brings up so many pet peeves. That's a a a topic for another time. I think we did a pet peeve episode and and I I still get text messages and and uh memes about um uh leaf blowers. Oh sure. Uh my stance has not changed. Uh so th there it is. Uh but yeah, thanks so much for that question, uh CX. Uh I I I don't know if that's exactly the answer that you wanted. Um and and someday when I'm late for something, uh I will I will eat that huge plate of crow, but it I'll I'll be as stressed as anybody else that I've made, you know, wait for me. So there it is
Jason Heaton . Alright, next one uh we have a question from Russell who goes by Cascade Watching on Slack and he says um as a photographer I place equal or even higher value on knowledge and skills over gear. I have a specific use case. Instead, I invest in seminars, etc., to better hone my art. What are your examples where you've chosen an educational path versus gear to better yourself in a chosen pursuit? And to bring this back to photography, who are your favorite educators. All right. I think this is kind of a a it's a it's a good bit of wisdom that that I've followed and I think you do too, James. It's you know, you you don't necessarily need to keep buying better gear to make yourself better, especially photography is a really good example case for that. Um you subscribe to that, I'm guessing
James Stacy . Yeah, I mean I like I would say within the scope of photography, I think that it's really difficult to disconnect one from the other if you want to get better. You know, I think we've been really clear uh in preaching that like for watch photography you can you can do the the the starting points on your phone. You you don't need to buy the gear. But there is a point where if you want a certain outcome, that's what all that's why there's all this gear. Right? Yeah. And that's not even just for that's not even just for uh wa for what for cameras, right? That's for if you want a certain outcome in watches. There's that's why there's so many different ones. If you want a certain outcome in uh a pursuit behind the wheel of a vehicle like you can't take a sports car up a uh you know a rutted out track and you can't really take a a land cruiser to an autocross day like the you know different tools for different uh solutions and I think that I I would see the you know the ability to learn as being as important as learning about the gear or how to use the gear or to find inspiration, right? I think they're it's in my mind it's all this kind of like tangled up mess. You know, it took me 15 years probably to get to a point where I don't think about my gear anymore, really. Yeah. Um and, even even with the trade to an SL2 from the Q recently, that's in the last couple of years, kind of the last major evolution of my space. It was only because I felt like I knew exactly what the limitations of the queue were for my work and the exact ways that I could address those limitations with a new piece of gear. So I'm a big fan of um not saying that it's one or the other, that it's it's education over gear or or otherwise, but consider it all. And then if whatever's holding you back, that's what you have to address. If there's a piece of gear that that you have you have now become a better photographer than that piece of gear, then you need to address that. But if your limitation is that you are in the right scenarios and you're not getting photos that you like, that may or may not be the gear. That could be your settings, that could be the way that you're planning for the photography. It could be you know many different elements. And some of that can be resolved by uh a a purely educational path, which I I agree. And if you look at Russell's account, which Russell, I hope you're okay with this, I'll include this. It goes by the same name. Cascade watching. Russell's a fantastic photographer, so it's it's it's worth listening to uh his perspective. His Instagram's lovely, but I don't always see this as being one versus the other. Photography is a gear heavy kind of world and there's always uh like a bit of a two-team thing where the gear cycle, the watching the YouTube videos of this new lens or that new body and wanting to upgrade and that sort of thing can be looked down upon by people who are more more about the inspiration, the art, the education. And I think all of that's great. And I think a lot of people get into photography or any other similar art without a focus. And sometimes it's the focus on gears what gets you into it. And if that I think that's fine. I mean I would joke in past lives when maybe I wasn't saying the nicest thing that you'd see people somewhere you let's sayide the s of a racetrack or somewhere else with a lot of gear and clearly no clue how to use it. Yeah. And it's kind of like the dentist on Surfa Safari. He's got the money and now he's got the time. He's retired maybe and he's got this 600 millimeter lens, but the animals are four feet away from the front of the Land Rover. Right. Like you just you brought you at the wrong stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think it's important to, you know, one, if it's your job, you're gonna have to cover all these bases. The gear has to be what you need to get the the final outcome. If you're in it for a hobby, I would say a hobby is just supposed to be something you like doing and you find uh sort of fulfillment in. And I've known lots of people who the the thing they liked was researching gear, buying gear, and then using it, often with very little evolution to the quality or art of their photography, right? So I think classes and reviews certainly important and that can also be the hobby. Yeah. But at at a certain point I also think we live in a world where everybody has a seminar or a PDF to sell you and you should be careful who you are, you know, how many times you take the credit card out for someone to tell you that wide open isn't good and then the next PDF is, you know, you have to shoot wide open. Yeah. Yeah. When when I first got into this, the idea of watch photography was quite novel. And I remember spending all of my free time 'cause I had no money. It was a huge thing for me to buy my first hundred millimeter lens for one of the most expensive things I'd ever bought, aside from the camera body I I put it on, right? And I remember just I just spending hours upon hours on Flickr looking at product photography and insect photography, which seemed like the most developed type of macro work out there. Yeah. Or at least the most popular on Flickr. And with Flickr, you could go in and see, okay, so they used a they used a 5D with the hundred and the extension. And then you could click on that person, and then you could find them talking about the gear they made they used. So you it was kind of like you didn't have to separate gear from the process. Yeah. You could see the final outcome and start to understand oh so you would use that lens in this scenario or or or you know like like what what's the bare minimum that I would need to make something work? And the more and more I get into photography, like with the weird exception of like I want to take pictures of animals at the zoo with my daughter, so I bought a big dumb lens for that. Yeah. Otherwise, watch photography, like you need enough resolution and you need the ability to focus close enough that you can wear it on your wrist. Mm-hmm. In many ways you could do this with a phone. It would just take longer. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it would be very difficult to do watches and wonders with a phone. I dare you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That'd be that'd be there's a hook. Everybody would have a great time. Yeah. It'd be a great ad for Project Indigo. Um but yeah, I don't know. I don't see them as being that separated. Yeah. But it also depends ever I think it's one of those things kind of like we've talked about with like the the arc of the appreciation for Rolex. That we've talked, you know, where you you start off and you don't really like Rolex and then they're kind of everything, then they're just a brand like a brand that you respect. Yeah. And I think I I think that's how I feel about most of these elements. If they're if they're taken as like one, I might have been more militant at one point in my career or my time and and then now I'm not. My suggestion is always like one, whatever camera you have on you when you have to take a picture is the best possible camera. Um that was a Chase Jarvis thing to bring up an exact pursuit. I was a big Chase Jarvis fan when he used to do a lot more um like creative sort of tutoring online. Uh Alex Stroll, I went through his entire program years ago. And that that include business that included like business elements and file handling and producing shoots and all sorts of stuff, which I did use when I used to do way more photography than I do now. There was an era where I kind of actually functioned kind of like a photographer, um, among the other things, but these days I pick up my cameras to to take eighteen shots of a watch and then I put the camera back down. Um I use 'em way more in the summer. They get dusty this time of year. I you know, I just don't take them out that often. But yeah, I I don't I w I wouldn't say that one is at the cost of the other or that one path is more righteous than the other. But I definitely think that um there are there are groups of people who ignore one side versus the other and it it's more about the gear. And y I mean you see it in watches too, where it's it's more about the cycle of what's new, what could I try, what could I order, and I'm selling stuff and I've been in that cycle before for sure. And then there's others where it's what's the story, what's the background, what's the context. And I think when you put both of those together, that's where you probably become the best sort of uh version of yourself
Jason Heaton . Yeah, I think the the the the approach of of kind of one or the other uh ignores the fact that um the gear is part of the appreciation of the whole pursuit. I think, you know, with photography that's you know, I'm sitting here actually on at my desk here and I've got my old Nikon DF with a three hundred millimeter old Nikon lens on it, one of the old metal long lenses, um, that I I just enjoy looking at it. It's a it's a great piece of gear and I love pulling it out and using it. That's a case where it's not the most definitely not the most state-of-the-art or up-to-date camera. It's quite a few years old now, but um I just enjoy the tactile pleasure of it um of of using it. And I think um to ignore that, you know, some people the gear part of it is is not that important and that that's great. You know, I admire people for that um to a certain degree. But um I'm reminded of this quote by the the the cyclist Eddie Merckx, the Belgian cyclist back in the 60s and 70s, who said, Don't ride upgrades, ride upgrades to get better. So you know his point was you know, don't you don't have to buy the the better bike to make yourself faster. Um just ride up more hills to to get fitter. And I I kind of subscribe to that. I think um this question kind of ties into the next one from Anthony, um, about kind of budget gear items and things like this. And I I tend to get kind of stingy with with buying gear, whether it's um you know, bike gear, dive gear, photography, um, you know, cars, anything like that, where I'd almost rather buy something good uh the first time around and then just kind of work my way into it and try to kind of earn the earn the the level of the gear that I bought. You know, so you know you buy something nice and then you know you you've really gotta try hard to screw it up with that gear. Like you you it's on you to kind of make it work for you. And I think that's that's been my case with you know, I just look around and most of my stuff is is high quality, but it's it's quite old. And um you know, when it comes to educational stuff, uh the one I don't do a lot of seminars or pay for a lot of online courses and things, but the the one thing, and this is not a either or thing with gear because it was it involves writing. Um, I think I'd mentioned when I was writing my my novels, I had I was subscribed to Masterclass, the the that video series, and and the author that I followed was not someone whose work I read, but was just superb, and that was Dan Brown, the you know, thriller writer who wrote the Da Vinci Code, etc. And he just had this great series on how to write a thriller. And he just he's a great educator. And I I just I anybody that's interested in writing fiction, specifically in the thriller genre, I I recommend if that's still available, um, looking into into Dan Brown's master class. And and again I'll I'll dig it up in the show notes. The the gear is not um th th other than a MacBook and you could certainly just use a typewriter or or write it longhand if you're that way. Um so there really isn't a either or in this situation. But um we talk about kind of seminars or education, that was one that I found particularly valuable.
James Stacy So yeah, good tips. Yeah. Yeah. I think uh, you know, I think uh the the other the final side of it in my mind is like you have the gear, you have the education, the technical knowledge, that sort of thing. And then you have style. And I think you really have to apply the first two to do the third thing. And I think when you're when I'm on Instagram and I see an account I'm really impressed by, uh I do miss the the sort of flicker days of being able to go like wait, what did you use for that? Yeah. And just be able to see it, because you can't do that on Instagram. And I think the the style element is is that is the the you know that third heat that really makes something special and and often the style can exist totally outside of a cons of a s specific consideration for gear. I mean you see people in in this most recent wave of sort of um sem what I would call semi-analog photography, whether it's a digital camera with a sort of manual or old school lens or a simply an inexpensive digital camera from a previous generation being used in a more creative way now. And whether you apply those or even in some ways film photography, and you see people who really didn't didn't start from the gear or the technical aspect. They came at it purely from a creative element and were kind of unencumbered by the other two. And I think that's something I've never I,'ve never really unlocked. It's always been a technical pursuit for me. Yeah. And I'm always concerned with what's the minimum focus distance of this lens? What's the uh, you know, what's the dynamic range that I'm gonna get from this one? You know, is this the right application? Um, will this give me this sort of a look? I, you know, I I watch movies, you watch something like Sinners and you go like, wow, what did they use? How what did how do they get this effect? How do they make it look this way? And and I think the that real the real last level is all three. And I think you know, there's a a a great and very recent chat with uh the cinematographer from Sinners on Big Picture, and I think she gives you a really interesting sort of blending of these three elements. The technical element, the the creative style, and the consideration of gear and how it all plays forward. Yeah. And I think that's something to consider once you're at a certain level for, sure. Gear definitely can't get you there al
Jason Heaton one. Well, I think with that in mind, it's a good segue to Anthony and Parks' next question, who's um asking about um our favorite budget items. And the reason I think this ties in is um he says a lot of times items discussed come with a hefty price tag. What are some personal pieces of gear you enjoy that won't break the bank but still punch above their price point? Sure. I you know I think it does tie in because I think we're talking about kind of using gear to its fullest extent versus you know just getting better at a craft. Um but I did struggle with this with the specific notion of of budget gear um when I considered the the way that I buy gear. So I'm I'm curious what you thought about this and maybe let you go first and maybe that'll help me out a little
James Stacy bit. Yeah, I I feel like this is something that I'm I'm very yin and yang where s some things I've been doing it for so long that I want I really want the best option. But other ones I've never really been let down by a certain version of something that could be considered budget. Like think of like a Swiss Army classic. There isn't like a $500 version of that that I want, or or even that necessarily exists. That's kind of just a perfect thing in at in in in what it is for thirty dollars for something kind of small, maybe forty-five, fifty bucks for a larger one. Just a normal Swiss Army knife. Yeah. I love my O Light O Clip Ultra, but the standard one is $30 and it's great. If you don't need the the UV torch and if you don't need the additional lumens, don't spend for it. The standard one's great. Heck, the O-Lite i Mini 2, this little tiny thing that charges in a USB port and like magnets into its own little cap, but is otherwise a keychain. Yeah. All the all the guys on the marathon team have one on them. I I saw them for lunch not that long ago. I think they're 12 bucks. Don't overthink it. Yeah. Spring bar pliers. You can definitely go buy the expensive Swiss ones. And if you're a watchmaker, you probably should. But if you're just doing this at home, they make them for like under $40. And we've been talking about them for years. Yeah. I think it was Horafix maybe, or I don't remember the brand, but I've had one pair for a very long time. That's not expensive. Pretty easy. Yeah. Uh think about my love of twenty dollar mesh bracelets. Mm-hmm. I don't need to spend more money on a mesh bracelet. I haven't been convinced that even the brands that are selling you a mesh bracelet with your watch are spending much more than that. Yeah. And there's exceptions, of course, titanium, tapered ones, things like that. But for the most part, they're just a mesh bracelet. Don't overthink it. Yeah. The oh, we we talked about it in the past, the Moraniv Companion. Mm-hmm. The uh the you know, it's a fixed blade like camping knife. Man, you can spend a thousand dollars on a camping knife if you want. If you you know, w these are twenty five dollars and I absolutely adore mine. Great, great piece of gear, uh, for the money. Oh, the two kayaks I bought my daughters last year. Yeah. There were uh currently uh the in tax challenger is a hundred and twenty five dollars a kayak. I think I paid half that. Great piece of gear for the money. I think you can get a great tent these days for a lot less than we used to pay for a tent. Mm-hmm. Well, with our continued love, and we would be one of the few exceptions where if a brand wanted to sponsor the show, we might actually think about it, Night Eyes. Oh yeah. And if you total up all I've spent on Night Eyes, it's it's expensive, but any given single piece of gear, it's like seven or eight bucks. It's great. Yeah. I have them on every bag. I use them all the time. Yeah. I th I think like look, there's there's lots of stuff where, yeah, if we're talking cameras, I'm kind of at the end for me. Mm-hmm. I'm spending a lot, you know, occasionally I'm spending a lot of money on a camera because it's, you know, it's work and that sort of thing. Um, but for a lot of stuff, I I s I think I still operate largely in the budget space. I'm using a couple year old phone. I won't upgrade a phone just because there's a new one out. And I yeah, I love Swiss Army knives. I love cheap little flashlights. I love uh twenty dollar fix blades if I'm kicking around in the woods at the cottage. Like there's there's lots of stuff you can get that uh kind of in the budget range. There's a few things I think you kind of have to spend a certain amount to get something that you could keep long term, but not always. Sometimes that can be a relatively low m amount for for the space. I think for me the you
Jason Heaton know, if if I I struggled with kind of my favorite budget items because for one thing I wasn't sure what budget meant. I think when I when I go to buy a piece of gear, it's usually for a very specific purpose. I I've kind of I'm at the point now, I think, you know, maybe probably my age or whatever. I've just I've just got so many multiples of everything. I I was thinking the other day, I've got way too many backpacks, way too much outerwear, you know, hiking boots. I mean, I I could live two lifetimes and and not need another pair of hiking boots or another backpack. And I just think um stopping and consid I guess my way of budgeting is I I've got a lot of you know good quality stuff. I I seldom go for top top of the line stuff. Um because usually you can find something as good just by doing some comparison shopping and reading some reviews about like what like with when it comes to dive lights for underwater photography, there's a a a Swiss brand called Keldon that make these multi-thousand dollar super high powered dive lights and they're kind of you know the industry standard, they're what the the top photographers are are using are videographers. Um but I found that there was a a company in Canada called Kraken that makes uh similar lumens um and and kind of build quality for a lot cheaper. Um is it budget? I don't know if I can qualify it as budget because they were still quite expensive, but um that's kind of the way I I function. I I I I look at what's what I need and look at maybe what's the um you know top of the line and then look for what's what's a a lesser priced if not equivalent something that comes close and also just considering you know thinking like taking a breath, taking a day or two, taking a week um or a month, and thinking like, do I really need this? Like do I need a new pair of bike shoes? Do I need a new dry suit? Do I need a new lens? Do I need a new, you know, whatever it might be? And um oftentimes that uh taking that little bit of extra time makes me consider that maybe I don't need it at all. And I think that I feel like it may be a bit of a dodge to to Anthony's question, but that's kind of the way I budget. So I'm actually, you know, spending less on things by just not spending at all because I'm just using what I have. And uh also looking for used stuff or end of season stuff. Um there's a a great used outdoor shop nearby here called repair layer that just sends sells, you know, lightly used or seconds or end of season or repaired stuff. Um and I get a lot of outer outerwear and skis and they sell bikes and all that kind of stuff there. And it's um it's just great. So th that's kind of my my way of getting around that question
James Stacy . Yeah. Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that. I think that's a good point. And yeah, I mean for me there's some things like like I think a backpack is a good example. I've never been that thrilled by an inexpensive one. They you know, they last, or maybe that like you have them for a little while and then you move on to something else. But once I spent a certain number where like it fit my uses, and then you you know, I don't always prescribe to the dollar per use math. I think that can be kind of like a silly way of looking at some things. But for adventure gear, that sort of thing, if you know that you're going that that those skis will be used X number of times a year and your old ones need this or that or or you know, that that it's not just like a cycle of of updating or upgrading. I I yeah, I think some things are you definitely get the value by knowing I'm not gonna outgrow my shoes. Right. Might as well just buy ones and be done with them that last a really long time. Um so yeah, I think we're where where something like you know the the moroniv is one option, I I wouldn't probably do that when it came to boots or a backpack. Yeah. I would spend more money. I'm not saying top end, but somewhere in the middle is where the you know the the where the the lines of like the rising abil the rising quality meets the rising price and somewhere in that meeting point where you're not paying just for the branding, just for the fact that it's expensive, but also you're not cutting corners on, you know, the things that will matter. Yeah. So yeah. It's always a consideration, but there's definitely stuff that doesn't cost a fortune. All right. Good question, Anthony Parks. Thanks so much for that. Next up we've got one from Gibbons who says, What are 10 items you can't live without? Okay, okay, we'll call it nine because obviously a watch will be one of them. Yeah, I think uh I mean I I think it's all stuff that you would kind of predict m and my list is fairly boring. So I'm I'm I'm sure I'll share a few uh I think I'll share a few things with you. Like if we're really talking about the stuff that I kind of pick up and touch most days, you know, and 10's kind of a pretty small number for that, but it's a watch, a phone, a computer, my AirPods, let's call it like a pair of Levi's 501s. Uh, if I really had to pair it down to something else, like my my favorite kind of thing to wear on the top half of my body for most of the year is like a a a medium weight fleece. Mm-hmm. Uh a zippered fleece. I have one that's gotta be fifteen plus years old from MEC mech here in Canada. It's a polar tech fleece. I wear it all the time. It's great. A pair of decent boots, give me my red wings or my blunts or Clark Desert boots. So not all a fortune, but that's kind of a scale there for you. Pocket knife, sunglasses, and and then the last one, like if we're really scoping in here, I'm not gonna live without swim trunks. So give me a pair of swim trunks. Yeah. That's my ten. Not not super nothing really like bre
Jason Heaton aks the mold there. I almost think you uh I'm just gonna take your list. I mean uh it's almost this exact same list. Um yeah, it's so boring to say phone, computer, and airpods, but that's those are my touch points every single day. I gotta have them. I have to have them the same way and I gotta have a watch. Yeah, yeah. Bluntstones for sure. Um I threw in um I threw in running shoes. I I tend to you know become more of a runner, just a casual runner, just a you know, four times a week kind of runner. And I just think you know, my running shoes, uh whether I'm traveling or just around here, um, are something I would have a hard time living without. Um clothing-wise, you know, I kind of live in fial raven pants these days. Um, but also, boy, I get a lot of wear out of my Planet Earth shirt, my um uh my Volabok shirt. I wear that thing um all the time. You know, it's a great travel shirt. It's a great kind of I can kinda dress it up. It's it's uh great for kind of hiking and that sort of stuff. Um a dive mask, I think, you know, I look you can always rent the other stuff. You can you know or if you're just like on a trip going to a lake or vacation, drive mask is is great to have. And then um I I I just put coffee as one of my items because I I just can't live without coffee. And so whether or not that's the the apparatus to make the coffee or the coffee itself or just the ability to buy a coffee wherever I go. Um, you know, it would take a few days for me to wean myself from that and I'd be pretty much a wreck by the time I did. So um that's one thing I can't live without. And then of course, yeah, a watch. So for number 10. Nice.
James Stacy Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thanks so much for that one, Gibbons. And with that, we still got final notes to get to. So we'll uh we'll hold off on the other questions and get them into uh into the next uh Slack crew and a part nine coming who knows when, but probably sometime, not too far from now. Uh Jason, do you want to dive into some final notes? Put a bow
Jason Heaton on it? Yeah, let's do it. I recently came across uh through a newsletter and then went to their website, um there's uh there was a photo contest w through uh the Explorers Club where they um just pulled up a number of just amazing photos from over the years um that that won some awards this year and they're they're pretty great. I mean they're you know nowadays it feels like there's always a photo contest, you know, the underwater photographer of the year, the wildlife photographer of the year, yeah, you know, news photography, etcetera. Um but the Explorers Club predictably has a pretty great selection of them. And uh we'll throw a link in the show notes for these because I just think some of them are great, especially this uh I don't know. The first one is the one that really arrested me and kind of caught my eye, and it's from a photographer named Luciano Sapienza, um who was taking pictures of uh a P thirty eight lightning that was lost in you know in a like two hundred sixty eight feet deep below the Greenland ice sheet. Um I actually need to read the story on how it got there and whatever. But um he was there documenting the kind of research and recovery and and kind of investigation of this thing. And it's just a it's just this o otherworldly remarkable photo of a of an you know, old, you know, warplane uh deep in the ice and it's just it's just a really wild, dramatic looking photo and then uh some other really great stuff in there. So um yeah, just uh you know we had a couple of questions or a question in there um today about photography and uh I just think this is uh it's a great it's a great link. It's a great photo contest. Always love good photograp
James Stacy hy. Yeah there's some incredible photos in there they can some of the cave diving stuff and the one or two in sort of a jungle setting that the the lights incredible so that's uh that's a good one for sure yeah solid solid recommendation yeah uh mine this week is a pair of YouTube videos both exceptionally different but both two that I kind of attached to in the last week or so. The first one is from the Corridor crew. If you don't know Corridor Crew, they're kind of well known for VFX Artist React, where it's uh they are a VFX house that's also very YouTube savvy. Uh they do a lot of really cool stuff on YouTube, but the the series that they're most well known for is this artist React, and they sit on a couch and they watch clips of special effects and computer graphics from all range of films and then kind of break down how it worked and whether it was successful. It's a great series. I highly recommend it. I think I've talked about it in the past. Recently, um, because they have such a fine-tuned eye, they've been doing a series where they debunk AI and try and teach you how to be able to tell if something's AI. Yeah. And it's a really good series. And it's the kind of thing that like I should probably share with my parents. I should probably share with a few people I work with. And that sort of thing, where it's just like, it's getting so good at certain types of content. May maybe I'm gonna be maybe this is the old guy warning you about something that doesn't matter and this is all gonna flame out, but I have a feeling that that the knowledge of being able to tell when something's AI generated, especially when it comes to people in video, feels so dangerous to me and so easily exploitable to people who didn't grow up questioning this, right? Um, and especially if we're gonna live in a world where YouTube isn't gonna mark things as being AI. So there's no natural way of going like, well, it's got the AI symbol, like it's not real. And I think I think this is a nice starting point to help kind of raise one's literacy on the topic. And they do a nice job. They're funny. The channel is an excellent channel. It's something I watch every week and and really enjoy. But I'm I've been enjoying the stuff that they've been doing you know for a long time they were studying uh how deep fakes are done and you know that guy that does the Tom Cruise videos on Instagram and now it feels like the technology has kind of like washed well beyond that and has made a bunch of other things possible, including entirely fake people and and that sort of thing. So it's not just face swaps or tracking of of a of another famous face onto your own, but whole other options of of personalities that are uh AI based. Yeah. Good stuff. So that's the first one. Uh the second one, like I said, it's hard to imagine something much more different. Um I've Sarah and I have been going on sort of a progressive run of architectural digest videos on their fantastic YouTube channel. And one of the ones I watcheded and really enjoy and and I've been watching this uh same guy kind of break down his name is Michael Weitzner and he's an architect and he breaks down uh NYC subway stations from the oldest to the newest. Oh and kind of how they integrate with the city and the design and why they look the way they are. And there's some things where like I didn't notice because I don't pay I guess I don't pay as much attention as I think I do to some things, but where the actual design of the part of the subway station that extends up onto the street will tell you what that station can do for you. Mm-hmm. Like just the shape of the roof and other elements, like a very thoughtful, th theoretically intuitive, or at least a visual language based in design. Uh, I really love this video. I mean, it's it's got a one and a half million views, it's three years old. So some of you have already seen it, but I absolutely loved it and I'm I've been loving this channel. Um, as you know, Sarah and I will Yeah, that's good stuff. That's a that's a good rabbit hole to get down uh architecture YouTube videos. I'll start with this one and go from there. That's great. Yeah, and it's nice to like some of the times I watch a lot of YouTube where it's just kind of like it's borderline nonsense. Yeah. Uh or I lose two hours to like great old clips of top gear. Uh they've really figured out the algorithm uh to to just compress certain types of content from twenty years of that show into two hour things of just the silliest challenges. I'm in. I'm down. I don't have the self-control. I love all of these. Yeah. Um, but this feels like I finish it and I'm like, oh, that's fascinating and I really learned something. And then the next time I'm in New York, I'm looking at these things, it's great. Big fan. Yeah. Very cool. So yeah, that's my uh those my two
Jason Heaton final notes. All right, good ones. Um and a great episode. Yeah, we uh we really covered a lot of bases here from your tutor tour and your chat with Cole and we're um auctioning off the the prototype CW CWN1 so get your bids in if you're interested in that um for a good cause. Um but 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 and get in on that Slack, please visit thegrayNATO.com Music throughout a siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Ar
James Stacy chive. And we leave you with this quote from the philosopher Plutarch, who said, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.