Skip to content

The Grey NATO – 374 – Our West Coast Time (Diving, Driving, Wind Up SF, the Vancouver Timepiece Show, & More)

Published on Thu, 07 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In episode 374 of The Grey NATO, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacy reunite after separate West Coast adventures to discuss their recent travels and share highlights from various watch shows. The episode begins with results from the "Best TGN Episode Tournament," where episode 35 "From Clipperton with Love" emerged victorious, defeating episode 254 about the Tudor Pelagos FXD Florida trip.

Jason recounts his diverse nine-day California journey that included attending his stepdaughter's experimental opera performances in LA, hiking in the Central Coast wine country near San Luis Obispo, driving the scenic Highway One through Big Sur, participating in a Marathon-sponsored freediving expedition at Jade Cove, and visiting the Esalen Institute. He also attended Wind Up San Francisco, though briefly, to participate in a panel discussion about the dive experience. The trip wasn't without incident—Jason crushed his iPhone and had to manage several days without it, leading to an unexpected digital detox.

James details his time at the Vancouver Time Peace show, which saw 20% increased attendance from the previous year, with nearly 3,000 visitors. He highlights several notable watches including Marathon's new CeraShell Navigator, Christopher Ward's True GMT with in-house movement, the 22 Studio concrete dial watch, and Aries Watchco's topographical map dials created specifically for the show. The episode includes four mini-interviews James recorded at the Vancouver show with Jason Hutton (show organizer), AJ Bars (Analog Explorer), Mike Pearson (Christopher Ward), and Matt Graham (Aries Watchco). After the show, James spent time with his brother in the BC interior, enjoying some much-needed downtime including his annual round of golf.

Show Notes

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode three hundred and seventy four and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynato.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacy. James, it feels like forever since we've spoke last and I think we've we're gonna call the superlatives on this episode.
James Stacy Yeah, I think we're gonna have a little bit of everything. Definitely been um a couple of busy weeks. We squeezed an episode in, you know, with Victor uh between me coming back from Geneva and then me going to Vancouver, you going to the West Coast for some adventures. And yeah, we'll get into kind of all of that um in this episode. But yeah, it's it's uh it's good to hear from you. How have you been uh more broadly?
Jason Heaton Yeah., good I you know I'm you and I are both just back uh within a a day or two and um I I don't know, I was telling you earlier I feel a little groggy. I feel like nine days on West Coast time. Um not not not that I can complain to you 'cause you were out there as well, but uh it just kind of set me on a weird I don't know, trajectory here. I'm feeling a little little little sleepy, a little kind of out of it. But uh anyway. Good I'm good enough to to record, let's put it that way.
James Stacy Yeah, I definitely should have had a another espresso before we jumped into this. But uh we'll maybe it'll be a lower a lower wavelength, James, today. We'll see.
Jason Heaton Yeah, uh you know, one thing that did happen and uh it it happened on my trip, which we'll get into later, but um I managed to crush my iPhone last week. Um and I've been without since then. It's Tuesday morning. And it's I I have never damaged a phone, I've never lost a phone. So I wasn't sure how it would be. You know, I mean, especially when you're on the road, a phone is kind of, I wouldn't say crucial, but it's super helpful, obviously. I've got Apple Pay. I've got the airline, you know, boarding passes, I've got you know direct Google Maps and music and everything else on there, as we all do. Um so I wasn't sure how it would go. But you know, fortunately I had my laptop, which has iMessage so I could check messages and and emails and that sort of thing. But it I'll have to say it's been kind of liberating to not even have a phone because because it wasn't even an option. You know, like I've I've tried the kind of detox, digital detox, where you know you you you just don't look at it or you delete some apps. But in this case, like I didn't even didn't even have a phone. Yeah, I'm I've I've kind of enjoyed it. This this might have been my opportunity to uh you know jettison it all together and just buy like one of those dumb phones, like a flip phone or something. But I I ended up ordering a a replacement, a refurbished one, which is related to my final note today, but um it it's uh waiting for me at FedEx this morning so I'll be back in back in uh 2026 here uh within a couple of hours. Um but yeah, that was that was kind of a kind of an odd one. I had set it on top of uh my rental car uh when I was getting uh changed after after a dive that I'll talk about here shortly. And um and it must have slid kind of down towards the back and wedged between the, you know, when you open the tailgate, like in that hinge area.
James Stacy Oh yeah. And then when I went to just start
Jason Heaton to close it, I heard this, you know, god awful crunch. Um and I thought maybe the screen was still working. A lot of them do, but it was just spiderweb the whole thing. And it's just uh the funny thing is the phone itself still works because the you know, I hear it buzzing when I get messages and that sort of thing, but Oh do you remember that? Which is kind of an
James Stacy interesting similar problem. But yeah, uh in some ways we have some sort of a curse out at the out in the uh you know diving that
Jason Heaton but since you've been back, how how have you been? Yeah,
James Stacy since I I got back uh late Friday and and uh then so I've had a I've had a couple more days to get back to this time zone than you have. Um definitely feeling yeah, like you say kinda groggy. I was doing a lot of s kinda resting on the weekend. Uh built a barbecue for the first time in years for my father.
Jason Heaton Wow. Uh highly recommend a higher
James Stacy end Weber barbecue. Went together very nicely. Seems to be great. And I you know it's it's something we say a lot this time of year, but it was a a a long, kind of dark, kind of cold winter here.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. Same for you, Jason.
James Stacy Yeah. And it's just really nice that it every these days, pretty much every day, it's like over fifty Celsius or fifty fifty Celsius, good mistake, 'cause I'm doing the math on my over fifty Fahrenheit. Yeah. Uh sunny and that kind of thing. So I I went uh when I was out west and we we can get into it, I spent the day outside uh with my brother and got a solid sunburn and even that felt kinda good. Uh just just to kind of so far. First of the
Jason Heaton year. Yeah, right. Always good. Yeah.
James Stacy But look, before we get into all that, we do have the update from the best TGN episode tournament. Uh big shout out to Jackson B for leading the project, developing the project.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And to uh of course
James Stacy our uh long longtime friend and uh and kind of background collaborator Tom Place uh for kind of putting together the starting points of it all. Jason do you want to run people through how it went and and what the sort of final results were? Because this is if I had predicted like maybe one of the less popular shows, I might have hit on the one that that won.
Jason Heaton I'll echo your thanks to to both Jackson and Tom for for really spearheading this putting it all together and then running it. Um Jackson did a great job and we kept getting updates from him, which was a lot of fun. And um uh another TGN crew member, Kai, uh put together a full Google Doc with the full bracket. So if you want to see kind of how everything played out from the round of 64 all the way down to the last two, um, we'll throw a link in the show notes to this Google Doc that has the full bracket, which is kind of fun and interesting to see how people voted for the various candidates along the way. And the voting just closed last night before we're recording this. Um it came down to from Clipperton with Love, which was um episode thirty five. I mean, wow way back, double digit episode.
James Stacy We peaked. We peaked a long time ago.
Jason Heaton That one um over episode two hundred and fifty four, so a more recent one, I think this would have been late twenty twenty three. This was about uh us our our trip to Florida with um with Tudor to check out the new Pelagos FXD where a number of us were the trip. I mean it was great. So that was uh that was a lot of fun. I remember that episode and I remember, you know, that trip very, very uh lovingly. It was a great time. And so it was kind of fun to see these two kind of come down to it. And the the from Clipperton with Love won the over the FXD trip report. So Jackson forwarded on this quote from Tom Place because he thought it would be interesting to read. Um, Tom is kind of the uh our unofficial TGN historian. I think he he's listened to every episode.
James Stacy Archivist, you know, well over
Jason Heaton you know, probably one, twice, three times in some cases. And uh so here's a quote that he said about the winning episode. There was never a doubt that from Clipperton with Love would make it into my top 64. Trip reports have become part of part of the core of TGN. Everybody loves a good adventure story, and some of my favorite episodes are the detail-heavy retelling of their recent adventures. Shades of Jacques Cousteau and Blue Water, white Death, Camera Gear, Diving gear, and watches. This episode has it all. And not only do we get a James trip report, we get a full dive report from Jason as well. Classic TGN for sure.
James Stacy Yeah, I guess uh looking at looking at that at that um sort of full breakdown from Kai. I think you can tell that obviously brand episodes are popular to some extent. Certain guests can be super popular. Don Walsh made it quite a long way, actually got beat out by Clipperton. And you have to wonder if that's a matchup that if it cycled again and they weren't in the same round together, where that would have ended up in the finals.
Jason Heaton Oh sure. Yeah. Yeah. And
James Stacy then and then clearly these these ones that that kind of capture the full scope of of what we like to talk about, whether it's diving and gear and watches and adventure and that sort of thing seems seems to be represented by both episode thirty-five and two fifty four. And to some extent, there's some of that on today's episode too. So uh hopefully this is a good episode to talk about or look back at those um those sort of high points in uh in the backlog. Certainly the Clipperton one is I look back on uh very fondly, but I also remember it was it was at a time when we were when the show was still kind of growing and finding its initial audience.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, we were only 35 episodes in,
James Stacy we were doing an episode every two weeks there. So and I remember getting some feedback online from people who were like, this guy took a trip with Oris and then wants us to listen to him talk about it. And I I I feel like that that con some of these comments would like kind of always colored my view of the of the episode, but I'm glad that it it seems to have resonated more long term uh with the lasting audience. It's it's so crazy how much different our lives are from 35, episode 35 to now. But you know, try try and get out on boats, try and get out on adventures and that sort of thing. So a good one. And and a huge thank you to everybody who voted and and certainly like we said to Jackson B.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and and I think two two takeaways for me are um that you know this is this is a good indication of the types of episodes that people like. And I think we can use that information as we craft, you know, future episodes and and types of episodes, I guess. And and the other thing is, you know, episode thirty-five, um, you know, you went on this epic um adventure w you know with Horus for you know a couple of weeks out in the middle of the Pacific. And, you know, I don't remember what my I'll have to re-listen to this episode, I guess, but what my dive report was about on that one. But it it was a time when you know we were both kind of brimming with trips and press trips and adventures and we were getting out a lot. And at that time we were also doing fewer um guests. We're we just didn't do any chats, interviews on the on the show, which is something we've done more of. And I I I feel like it's kind of been representative of how TGN has changed. I think it's become you know, you and I, our lives have changed considerably. Um both um you know older and maybe perhaps a little more settled um and just adventuring less but I think uh the spirit is still there and we're we're just bringing in a lot more people, um interesting people to talk to and and that is also shown up in win in the number of guest episodes that showed up in the bracket as well. So um just a really fun exercise. And yeah, thanks, thanks again to Jackson and to Tom for putting this together and to to Kai as well for for assembling that uh that full bracket spreadsheet. That's great.
James Stacy Yeah, I think that went pretty well. And uh it was fun to kind of watch from afar uh where people were kind of landing and to see the the breakdown from Kai is fun because he's got the percentages in there. So you can kind of see some of these were exceptionally close, like the majority of the like there's a handful in here that are within the like forty five sort of percent uh trade between the two, uh which is exciting.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. But look, before we get uh
James Stacy too long-winded here, do you wanna dive into some uh risk check and then uh right into the main topic? We've got a talk about a couple of trips, my time at the Vancouver show, and then I've even got a few tapes with uh some special guests, some like m mini chats from uh from the Vancouver show itself, some names you know, some brand new names as well for the show. So
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um well I'm wearing the watch that um that I was given last week for this um dive, which I'll talk about when we get into our main topic. Um it was a dive that was sponsored by Marathon. And I have a new Osar 41mm that with the Arctic dial. This is the automatic search and rescue watch. You know, one that I believe just debuted last year um with those oversized markers and the white dial um it's on the it's got the the three piece rubber strap so it comes with that longer extension for for wearing over a dive suit. Um and it's great. So I took it diving last Thursday, the same day I crushed my phone. And it's a good trade-off, you know, Osar and Osar in and iPhone out. But uh yeah, I'm I'm loving it. You know, it it's so great to have a a marathon um again i I had the the jumbo day date automatic which just I found just a little too heavy as much as I love that watch I was wearing it less just because it wasn't terribly comfortable um so I moved that one on. So it's it's nice to have a uh m a more reasonably sized one on my wrist and and I just I just love this thing. It's it's it's almost cartoonish the the oversized markers and then against that uh white dial it's it's a pretty spectacular piece.
James Stacy Absolutely. Yeah, that's a that's a good one for sure. Uh I also saw Marathon's newest sort of addition evolution of a of a classic model from their line. I'll I'll get to that when we get into uh chatting about the Vancouver show. Uh today I although I I have been wearing other stuff for the last little while, whether it's the the Hodinki L E or I've got a an Aries uh Diver one here as well, which I was really enjoying over the weekend. Uh yesterday uh Perlator showed up with my polymesh. So I'm back on the aerospace.
Jason Heaton And uh and I just I mean this straps
James Stacy nuts. I I promise I this won't be the only thing I talk about on wrist check moving forward. I will take a break from the aerospace Tuesdays I'll wear something else. Uh, but the the polymesh is just absolutely crazy. It's such a a neat thing to have and to wear. A couple times I've kind of like had to check to make sure it was still on my wrist. Like if it was under a sleeve, you can't quite feel it with with uh how thin the watch is and uh and yeah, so I'm I'm wearing the aerospace, I've talked a ton about that, and then I just took delivery of the Ming poly mesh for a long-term review. Uh so if you have any questions about the the the bracelet, whether it's sizing, comfort, you know, all those sorts of things, uh, let me know in the Slack and I'll do my best to answer those questions as I move through it and and those questions can inform what will eventually be, you know, a story, maybe the other side of the summer, once I've had some time to really wear it it, beat up a little bit, that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton Nice. I can't wait to see that um that strap uh hopefully in July when when we meet up uh in Chicago. Wind up
James Stacy Chicago. Yeah, please do bring it. Oh I'll
Jason Heaton I'll have it. I'll have it for sure. And uh before we move on, I mean a a little birdie told me, uh little birdie being you, um that that I'm not gonna divulge the details about, but uh you have yet another Anadigi watch incoming. I think I think we need an intervention here.
James Stacy Yeah, theoretically it'll be on next week's episode. It could be the risk check for next week's episode. It's a a watch from a brand I've never owned before. Uh and and certainly there's some folks on the Slack who knew what watch it was immediately as uh as I I sourced it via the Slack. Uh but yeah a little a little trade happened you know in the in the back channels and I've got uh I've got something kind of fun coming my way. And it's a sort of a new experience and I think it'll be a cool thing. But uh we'll certainly find out. Hopefully it arrives that you know we're recording on a Tuesday. Hopefully it arrives by Friday, so I have it for the weekend, which would be kind of fun.
Jason Heaton I'm I'm I'm so excited to uh Yeah,
James Stacy I got a real problem these days. Yeah. But that's a gr that's
Jason Heaton a good problem to have. It's a great Yeah,
James Stacy it'll be fun and worst it's one of those ones where like worst case uh it can go to you if it doesn't really work for
Jason Heaton me. I'm hoping it doesn't work for you.
James Stacy We can we can we can you know it can be the uh brotherhood of the traveling you know ridiculous anti digi fortune
Jason Heaton yeah uh but yeah so that that's
James Stacy another fun one uh always scheming on always scheming on anti digis haven't bought uh a co-pilot yet.
Jason Heaton Right. U theh citizen or or the the
James Stacy wingman, uh or or those ones. So yeah, been uh been eyeballing a few, but uh this one this one kinda found me, which is nice.
Jason Heaton Cool. All right. Well let's uh let's jump into our main topic um and and kind of get on the stories from from our runs to the West Coast. Um you were up in Vancouver and then moved a little further um uh into the interior as they say um and uh I worked my way up uh the California coast. So we were both out in that time zone last week. Um where do you wanna where do you wanna start here?
James Stacy Uh well why why don't you walk us through your trip and and what you got into? I just rambled on about the aerospace for a bit. then And we can get into uh the Vancouver show and and some of the stuff I did that weekend. Uh and then we can feed right into the the chats that I recorded at the show. It's just four this year. Uh it was a it was a busy show. I had a plan to do something kind of fun with uh Ken Lamb, and then I then we realized it might be more fun to do like a proper crossover episode uh with form and function podcast. James was at the show as well. Uh so I think that one in,stead of doing a five minute chat or a ten minute chat with them, we're gonna try and do something more fun in the coming weeks. So just stay tuned for that one. Um but we we recorded a few kind of fun chats. But I'm excited to hear about yours. You've got quite a varied trip here. You started in LA for opera, if I remember
Jason Heaton correctly. Yes. And and then you
James Stacy went um you did a little bit of like the winery hiking thing and then some diving and then a watch show.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it was uh I It's quite a tour. I would almost say that um the past two weeks or I don't know, two two weeks and change of my life have been some of the most varied and interesting of of my life. I mean I you know I it was just um the last episode, I believe, that we kind of did a rundown of the Defender Trophy, which was also out in British Columbia out on the West Coast. Um and then to go from that to to come home for you know less than a week and then get back on a plane and fly out to LA for for this amazing kind of variety of activities. Um was really uh just kind of a fun kind of kept me on my toes. So yeah, I flew into I went out with with Christy um to Los Angeles. We flew out there on a Friday, and um that night uh we went to an opera performance and it was um it's it was an experimental opera um, kind of three acts or three different short operas, each about twenty minutes long. Her daughter, Nellie, is um a very talented vocalist. She was kind of the um I don't think it would be a stretch to say she was kind of the star of of the three, at least two of the three um different short operas. Um, and I'll just preface this by saying, I am not an opera buff, I don't know much about opera. You know, we have and we have an opera singer in our midst in the crew with Michael Pandolfo, um, whom I met at the at wind up in San Francisco, by the way, to bring things full circle. Um and I'm not sure I'd be one to sit through, you know, a three hour Wagner opera or something like that. But these were actually quite quite good, quite entertaining. They had very modern kind of topics. One was about a um an unnamed um woman pilot who crash lands on a small island that's inhabited by these giant crabs. Um if if that sounds kind of absurd, it was it was a bit f uh funny um but also poignant. Um there was sort of an Amelia Earhart overtone to that one. Um and and and then the other two were were equally diverse and interesting. And um it was in a very small venue. It felt very I guess it felt they this whole trip felt very California um i in that like the operas, we went actually two different nights um for reasons I won't get into, but um they they did them on a Friday and a Saturday night. But it felt very artsy. It felt like the LA arts scene, you know, it was in this little kind of warehouse space. Um, the woman that kind of oversees this space um was uh kind of a former um I wouldn't say she was a well-known actress, but she she has some renown. She was in Edward Scissors Hand. She was um Sam Shepherd's wife back in the in the 70s. Her name was um uh Olan Jones um and uh she was in one of the pieces. So that that was kind of interesting. And uh yeah, so so that was that was good fun, you know, to kind of go to this this uh this opera opening for for those two days. And then we had a couple of other days um kind of kicking around LA and and managed to to get down to Venice Beach as you know, as as one should do when you're when you're out there. Um caught some skateboarding action. It was kind of windy and sandblown, so we didn't like sit on the beach or anything like that. But we wandered through Venice Canal and looked at interesting houses. Um, ate well, went to a great bakery one morning. And uh yeah, so you know, I I'm not a huge city person when I travel. I'm not one to kind of like to linger in urban areas. I like to kind of fly in and catch the vibe and then maybe get out of town for some other activities. Um and so um I think our our you know three days or two and a half days in in Los Angeles were enough for me um before we uh before we left in our rental car to head up the coast to our next stop. I guess the one thing when I think about the the times I have kind of passed through LA is just how amazing the weather is. You know, Southern California weather is just it's just unbeatable. I I love that mix of kind of dry air, cool breeze, warm sun. Uh it's it's just so good.
James Stacy It's just an an air, a space where like you get up and you you you feel that perfect sort of temperature and maybe maybe you're close enough to the ocean for a bit of that breeze and you're like, I need to be outside.
Jason Heaton That's that's gotta be the rest of my day. Yeah. And obviously
James Stacy some, absolutely fantastic hiking, great food, killer driving, if that's what you're in for.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It's a place that I used to
James Stacy go to more often, and then I totally lost sync with it during uh during and then following the pandemic.
Jason Heaton And I just haven't had the excuse.
James Stacy And every time I think about it, or you know, Apple serves me a photo of, you know, Sarah and I we rented a Miata on Turo last time we were out there and did uh did a couple of a great like early morning drives in uh in the canyons, you know, stunt canyon and and in that area.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Every time I think about it, it's like, yeah, I
James Stacy gotta get back out there. There's a bunch of people I haven't seen in forever uh out that way. Um and it's always an easy place to like put a a really like kind of relaxed hangout
Jason Heaton yeah together as well. Yeah. Uh so yeah. Yeah. More
James Stacy west I mean I I think I've just at a point where I just I'm I really do love traveling as much as I ever have. It's just so much of it is work travel.
Jason Heaton And I don't mean it as a complaint, just as like
James Stacy that's the reality of the scenario. And sometimes that means you go to Japan for three days, not two weeks. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Or sometimes it means you go to Geneva during the cold season and you just kinda sit around in hotel rooms and uh and you know and sit and look at a laptop. But other times you get to go to LA or you you get to go places w which really feel like when you get there they kinda like spur on activity.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Which is nice. Yeah. And you know, the other thing is, you know, earlier you talked about the long, cold, dark winter that we kind of just endured, and it it just felt like an awakening to like go to that, you know, check into that lovely Airbnb in Santa Monica and then like look over the fence and see like a tree that was brimming with peaches, you know, and there was like a banana tree and there's just everything's in bloom and it's just I mean it's yeah, it's just something about that that's great. So yeah, speaking of driving, um there was a good deal of driving, except it wasn't exactly a a great car for it. We had a Chevy Equinox, which um Woof I nickname I nicknamed it memory foam because it it just felt like this kind of plush, you know, lack of just it just kind of wallowing. Yeah. Anyway, it was just it was a pretty
James Stacy pretty annoying video. I've been in I've been in a modern equinox and
Jason Heaton I when I I say this, mean it as a
James Stacy dig, but I don't think it's actually mean. If if if you'll follow my my it feels like a car designed by someone who doesn't like to drive and would rather not have to.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But if they have to get in the car, it'll be comfortable
James Stacy and the tech is good and like it's the right size and
Jason Heaton yeah. And like it makes a lot of sense for
James Stacy a rental vehicle. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Well I think I mean look, we'll uh we'll get to we'll
James Stacy get to what I toured in uh in uh in in in the BC interior. Uh some of you can guess what what is kind of available readily in the in you know eight hours inland from Vancouver. Uh but yeah, you so you you left LA and you drove up the coast or what route did you take?
Jason Heaton Yeah, we we went up the coast um to um just as far as you know near the San Luis Obispo area. We stayed in a town just outside of Arroyo Grande, if anyone's familiar with that area. Um kind of they call it Central Coast, you know, wine country, you know, just kind of those rugged mountains, the ocean not too far away. We were in a tiny house, uh Airbnb there, which is actually a really nice one. It wasn't the kind um I I've stayed in my my share of tiny homes and they're they're great. They're fun. Um but you know the one thing is you know, you to to get into bed, you usually have to climb a ladder and you're up above and aloft. This one was cleverly designed. It felt spacious and you know had a nice little kitchen and and you know decent sitting area and an outdoor deck with a a little kind of solo stove scenario there. And uh so that was really quite nice. And then we were there for just two full days and managed to fit in on a hike at an area called Lopez Lake, which is kind of a state recreation area, kind of nature preserve. Um sadly there was a a big fire there last year that really devastated a lot of the national forest area that uh prevented us from going a little further afield into the into the more well known hiking areas there. But we we managed a good ten mile hike kind of up and down with like a thousand feet of elevation gain. It was a good good workout on a beautiful day. We ran across in very close quarters a a black bear that I think we Oh wow. I don't know if it uh it was m who was more surprised we were or it was, but uh that was kind of exciting. Is that a black bear or is that something bigger and more menacing? Um 'cause you know, it was it was like right over the crest of a little hill. And uh um it as soon as we kind of saw each other at exactly the same time and the bear went kind of shuffling off into the into the forest. Um but it it certainly woke us up. There was a at the trailhead there was a it was a kind of a mixed trail for mountain biking and hiking and there was a a little rack full of um small kind of miniature cowbells with a velcro um attachment piece that you know presumably for the mountain bikers so that you could warn hikers that you were coming. And we each took one as kind of a bear bell. But we got kind of annoyed when we were hiking because they were so noisy that we stopped using them and tucked them into our backpack. And then once we saw the bear, we're like scrambling to pull these bells out and you know, hike the rest of the way wearing wearing the the noisy bells, which is always a wise thing to do in bear country.
James Stacy Yeah. So we did this hike and then
Jason Heaton the next day we kind of chilled out in the morning a bit and went to uh a winery. Um the the winery was called uh Leticia, if anyone's familiar with that. And uh, you know, sat outdoors looking at the looking at the vineyards uh on a hillside and uh we we were served, you know, four different wines uh to try and ended up buying a couple bottles to bring home. So that was fun. Um I'm by no means any kind of a a wine expert or wine snob or anything like that. It was just a it's just kind of the thing you do in California. It's just like sit out on a beautiful day and uh and have a few glasses of wine. So that was uh that was really pleasant. So um that turned out to be really kind of a a it was a part of the trip that I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I'm I wasn't familiar with that part of California. Um and it really ended up being a really pleasant surprise. It was really, really nice before we we set off further north to um to the big Sur area. And and um speaking of driving, um Highway One is now open um after all the landslides of a of a couple of years ago. And I remember driving Highway One years and years ago. I think it was like a teenager. I didn't do the driving. I think I went with my parents and we didn't do the whole length of it. But uh have you ever driven the length of Highway One?
James Stacy Not the length of it, no. I th I think I've I've talked about the calamity that was Cole and I were supposed to drive from Ventura all the way up to
Jason Heaton you know past that big bridge. Yeah.
James Stacy Um like into Big Sur. And he and I were in the middle of a conversation together and I was paying no I was the one driving. We were in a loner Land Rover, Range Rover, extended SVR, like an SV, like a 500 horsepower giant, looked like something a very successful dentist would drive. And uh it was white with like rose gold accents. Anyways, we left uh like I got in and typed in Moro Bay, which is now I'm remembering that's where we were going. And I couldn't get CarPlay to work, so I used the built-in thing GPS in the system and just took the first thing it gave me. It was a good distance away. And I was like, I guess that's where we're going. And I got in the car and just started driving. And and like I should have, I should have cued in quite quickly that the ocean was on my right, not on my left.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But I remember thinking at the time, like, well,
James Stacy I'll drive down, get on the correct highway, and we'll go north. And then we just got into a conversation and pulled away from the ocean and just drove all the way back to LA.
Jason Heaton Oh no. And uh when we realized
James Stacy like we were almost back in Venice, when we r fully realized where we were, I just wasn't attention. I was just following the GPS. Uh I we I was going to I don't remember one of them is M O R R O Moro. Yeah. And one I took M-O-R-O.
Jason Heaton It was like a different little area or something.
James Stacy It was something like that. Anyways, called my production team. I'm like, all right, we're not going to do the Moro Bay shoot. Um I'm going to turn this thing or point this thing north and go through Bakersfield as fast as humanly possible. Uh I was just predicting less in f speed enforcement.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh, which ended up being accurate. And
James Stacy uh and once we got car play going, so I could use ways and that sort of thing. But yeah, I've I should have had that drive. Um and I've driven from essentially from like Big Sur up into San Francisco.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I haven't I haven't
James Stacy done that stretch from like Venture to Big Sur.
Jason Heaton Oh yeahah.. Ye Yeah. It was quite a road though. It it is quite a road. And you know, we we did set off from um Arroyo Grande and then it was just uh you know, not that far to go before we hit Moro Bay, which is kind of the beginning of Highway One there. And it's you know, there's this big famous Moro Rock just offshore, and then in front of that, these huge uh stacks from the uh the nuclear plant that's there. It's it's quite dramatic, kind of an entry to the to the highway. And then once we got on that, it's just this ever-narrowing, windy, you know, beautiful coast road on these precipitous cliffs over the sea. It's just spectacular. I mean, it it's just sadly, you know, the equinox wasn't exactly the the car to be in, but it was fine. It was, you know, it did its job. And uh so from there we we drove up to a a small area called Lucia and stayed in a little lodge there. Now, this was an area that back when we were planning this trip, you know, the real impetus for this trip was to go out for this, you know, Christy's daughter's opera performances. And then it happened to coincide with the week of wind U inp San Francisco and as part of Wind Up, our good buddy Chris Sowell and team, you know, the kind of the usual suspects, Brock, Ben Lowry, et cetera, you know, kind of put together this uh wind up in a bay, except in this case it was wind up in a cove. Um they had planned this pretty cool dive outing in Big Sur, and it was sponsored by Marathon and Prometheus Design Works. And so the reason we chose Big Sur to stay is because that's where we were gonna I was gonna meet these guys to go diving on on that day, uh which happened to be last Thursday. And so we stayed in this lodge that I I don't recommend. It was called Lucia Lodge. It was overpriced and not that great. The location was beautiful. Um, but I won't get into that. But so we we stayed there for a few days, and then last Thursday I got up early and drove down to the campsite where um the team was was staying as part of the kind of this wind up in a bay adventure and um from there we we just drove a little ways down the road onto the shoulder and we went diving at a place called Jade Cove, which as the name suggests is famous for its uh its n naturally occurring jade that is not only washed up on the beach if you're lucky, um, but it's also underwater um uh with with some abundance actually. It's it's it's well it's it's a well-known place. Um it's hard to get to. The um the cove itself is down a cliff. You have to kind of hike in from the road through you know poison oak and um kind of thorny bushes and whatever else, and then you get to the edge of this cliff and they actually have ropes um anchored into the side of the cliff, and you kind of have to hold on as you're going down. I wouldn't call it full-on repelling. Um, but in some cases you do go down backwards and hold on to the rope with both hands to kind of keep yourself from tumbling over the edge of this pretty tall cliff. Um and I think it, you know, if it had been wet or raining and muddy, I think it wouldn't have been doable. So we hiked down to the beach with with some care, um all of us, and uh we were kind of led by a guy named Aaron uh Podash, who is based in Oakland and he's a diver since the nineties. Um, who's helped out with Wind Up in a Bay in years past and he kind of knows the area and had scouted it out. And when we got there, we looked and and Aaron kind of judged that scuba diving would be a little too difficult due to the surge. And he had dove there a couple of weeks before to scout it out. And it was kind of that washing machine kind of turbulence and surge. And so instead of, you know, abandoning the whole thing, and these guys had considered actually driving up to Monterey and just doing a dive there, we decided that we would do some free diving. So we left the tanks and BCs in in the cars and just went down with our wetsuits and fins and masks and some weights. You know, climbed clambered down the cliff and went on to this tiny little black sand little shelter of a you can't even call it a beach, it was a pretty small little cove, and went into the water and um did a bunch of kind of snorkeling around and free diving. And and it was it was it was choppy. There were kind of some big swells um and kelp that you kind of get tangled in every now and then but uh all in all it was great and i you know i wore a seven mil hooded wetsuit and you know everybody else was kind of in similar exposure suits and and you know the water was cold, it was probably mid-50s. Um, but it was great. It was it was a blast, it was a beautiful day. Um, and and just to kind of be in the Pacific Ocean, just kind of you know, diving, looking for jade, I found a tiny little sliver, um, our good buddy Chris Sol found a a pretty decent sized chunk that I think he can make into a nice little pendant or something like that. It's it was really cool to see. Yeah, it was just it was just good fun. So that was uh that was Thursday. And then climbed back up, crushed my phone, um, you know, changed into my street clothes and then went back up to Lacia. And uh and then the next day was yet another varied kind of activity because uh Christy and I had booked a day at the Eslen Institute. And as I hinted on our last episode, Esselin is the place where in the very last episode of Mad Men, Don Draper kind of goes to to chill out and kind of find inner peace. And you'll see him like sitting cross-legged on the lawn with his eyes closed, and then he suddenly um has the inspiration for the um the Coca-Cola jingle um supposedly in that one. But um it it it's a bit of a throwback kind of established in the sixties, hippie yoga retreat. Um they're hot spring fed pools. Um, there are meditation huts and uh a farm on premises and uh the food was great. There's like a dining hall that you know if you pay for the day pass, you get you know access to the entire property and and they have really good kind of home grown, homemade food there. And we just hung out all day from, you know, eight thirty in the morning till about eight at night. Um just did a variety of activities and just kinda hung out and looked at the ocean. So it was uh that was really fun. Um that
James Stacy sounds great. So yeah, I mean to
Jason Heaton go from from diving to to that um after the winery and the hike and and the opera um it it was quite the quite the week.
James Stacy And then after that, did you make the way up to wind up? Because I know you made it to the show and said you'd had a good time.
Jason Heaton Our end goal of the trip was to kind of get to San Francisco where Christy's other daughter lives, and so we were gonna spend some time with her, but before that there was some uh a timing concern because I was uh kind of on the hook to uh sit in on a panel discussion about that dive that we did in Big Sur at the windup show, and that was at two PM on on Saturday, and so we we got up and and left Big Sur and did the drive and and drove directly to um Fort Mason, which is where the the show is there in San Francisco. And I hadn't been to a wind-up San Francisco before, but it's a' great venue. Its right down there by um on the bay near, you know, next to aquatic park and within view of Alcatraz. And um, you know, there was a food truck outside and a couple of electric conversion vintage Ford Broncos. Uh one of the one of the uh exhibitors was Kindred, which is a company that does that out there.
James Stacy Oh, sure. Yeah. And those were cool. That was fun
Jason Heaton to look at. So yeah. Ended up uh you know, parking and and going straight into the show and and first person I bump into was Kyle Snarr, who was actually the the moderator of uh of this panel discussion. So we chatted a bit.
James Stacy Showed out, Kyle. And uh yeah, and Kyle
Jason Heaton had been down in Big Sur as well, kind of art directing that the photography for the the dive day. You know, wind up was a bit of a blur. You know, I we we kind of rolled up around one thirty in the afternoon. The panel was at two. Christy and I did a quick lap of the show. I wanted to kind of introduce her to some people and say hi. And s and so we kind of did that. I my I made my way to to Christopher Ward and um, you know, as as is expected with these shows and with our buddy Mike Pearson, you know, absolutely, you know, eight people deep all around the booth and Mike Mike holding court and doing his thing and um I tried to get his attention at first and and he didn't see me and so we kind of I was like had to get back to to the the room for this uh two o'clock discussion. And um but you know bumped into Rob at Topper and Neil from Citizen and Jonathan from Brew did the quick rounds, uh, the folks from Paul and Katie was there. So just got got to say hi to some people. Uh was you know stopped along the way by a few people with TGN caps on to say hello, which was really cool. So thanks to everybody
James Stacy that's great. Kind of pulled me aside. Sorry
Jason Heaton I couldn't spend more time, but I was in a bit of a It's
James Stacy a good crew. It was a good group. Yeah. There um
Jason Heaton uh Patrick from Prometheus Design Works was sitting there. I finally got to meet him. Um great great company, great gear. Um and uh Marty from from Marathon sat in and I got to chat with him a bit. Um, you know, we'll see him another couple of times this year in Chicago and again in Toronto, of course. And then did another lap and finally did get to say hi to Mike Pearson and you know, he pulled himself away and gave a big hug and said hello and then had to jump right back into it. But uh the funny thing is I didn't you know I my my goal really was to because you know we had other things to do in the evening so I had to get out of there but it was nice to be able to say hi to some folks. But honestly I didn't even look at any watches. I mean all the booths were and this is a good problem to have, all the booths were just packed with people.
James Stacy Yeah, I heard I've I've heard from from folks that it's an exceptionally well attended show.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. It was it was crowded. I mean it was um not not that you couldn't walk through walk around, but just like getting time at the booths was uh was difficult.
James Stacy I was at the Doxett meeting in Geneva and and they brought up uh they brought up Topper and the the Great White and they're like, and I don't think we'll send Jason another watch after what happened to the last one. And I said, What do you mean the last one? And they said, Well, it you know, it got stolen, it got lost, all of this and I said, You sent the last one to me.
Jason Heaton Huh. And I was like, Do you mean the the two fifty
James Stacy T, The Great White that took forever to be delivered? And she's and uh Jacqueline from Dox is like, Yeah, that there was like a whole saga. And I said, was anyone ever gonna tell me? And uh and I'm like, so now I'm worried that they thought that I had stolen this watch the one I wrote about for Hodinki I borrowed, which was like the I think it was number 01 or number zero, the watch was fully sold out.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And um I got
James Stacy a shipping label, put it in a box and sent it away. And then I remember like weeks later,
Jason Heaton huh? I got a call from FedEx saying like,
James Stacy Hey, we need we need some details on this watch. And I said to FedEx, I said, guys, you you waited like three weeks to call? And they're like, Well, we're just getting to it now. I said, You know, people are probably waiting for this watch.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And sh the person on the phone, of course, could
James Stacy not have cared less if I if I was actively paying them unless I guess I paid them more than FedEx was.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And uh and so
James Stacy I I gave them the details and I gave them the contact people for Topper and and I texted them and I said, Hey, just so you know it I thought this was delivered a month ago, but I guess not. And then apparently there was a whole saga after this where the box showed up at the event where they were showing the watch with no watch in it. The box had clearly been kind of opened up. And then there was a whole saga where of course like the police were involved. It later showed up on eBay. I believe it was recovered. Again, I'm ho I hope I'm allowed to tell this story.
Jason Heaton Wow. Um I felt terrible at this
James Stacy meeting. I was like, you know, if any of you wanted to d fill me in at any point.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And uh and so yeah, I
James Stacy don't know um that I will be able to review future topper uh LEs uh should they exist. Uh if if if uh if you perhaps don't see the coverage, it might be because of this fiasco following that very cool two fifty T GMT gray white that
Jason Heaton they're never heard that one. That's that's crazy.
James Stacy I I I heard I yeah, I heard it from from Docs at the show and they're like, Yeah, we're not gonna send Jason another one. I'm like, I don't think you sent Jason the first
Jason Heaton one. I did I did get a chance. They did send me the first was it a 300?
James Stacy Yeah, I think the the 300. That was that was really cool.
Jason Heaton I quite liked that watch. That was great. Yeah no
James Stacy I I think they're good. No loom dial the the blue coloring, I think and it's very they're very distinctive as being from topper. Yeah. Uh so I I think they're quite successful. So they certainly good watches and I I've had plenty of praise for it in my story. But uh hopefully the story help helps to outweigh the material value of trying to track that watch down and and recover it after it was stolen. So
Jason Heaton Yeah, and Rob passed on a couple of uh he br passed on a couple of uh dox uh great white trucker hats that uh that he partnered with the standard H to to create. So um I've got a couple of those and I you know, I'll just announce this on the show. I think I'll I'll probably end up giving at least one of them away on the on Slack, so keep an eye out for that. Um once I get my act together and finish unpacking, which I still haven't done everything entirely, but uh yeah, so that was cool. Um but yeah, other than that, I bumped into Jim uh he actually his booth was the very first one I saw, Jim Worth from
James Stacy Jim. Giant Mouse and and my good buddy Kev,
Jason Heaton uh my old Alcatraz and dive buddy guy. Um good to see them. And uh, you know, sorry if I'm forgetting anybody else that I bumped into, but it was a bit of a whirlwind day and it was a lot of fun and uh yeah thanks to everybody for kind of hosting and just just saying hello and and that was it and then and then yeah a night in SF um went out for a nice dinner and uh then got up early and and off to the airport. So it was uh it was quite a trip. Good good nine day swing through California and that was uh kind of my end of of last week.
James Stacy Yeah, my I mean mine in some way starts at a at a good point to line up with um with windup. I went out for the Vancouver Time Peace show. Um you know, second year running for the show, uh same location in North Van. I went out uh a little bit earlier because there were some other cool events. I got out there Thursday to hang out with uh Jason Gallup from Real Dorf for a bit and to set up for a marathon party, you know, get some beers and all that sort of thing. Um we also went and did uh uh a kind of cameras and coffees hangout put on by Take at uh at Revolver Coffee. So I got to see Terry and Take and a huge run of the usual folks that would show up to that sort of thing. Very well attended, super fun. And then uh on Friday I was able to kind of kick around with um with Ken Lamb uh for a while, which is super fun. And then Saturday kind of kicked off the show. And you know, I think that probably a lot of what I talked about the show last year is very similar this year. So you could go back to that episode if you wanted like a breakdown. It's held in this really lovely large single room. Uh this year they had quite a few less brands showing but it allowed for a lot more breathing space and I thought that the general makeup of the brands was better. We had everything from I mean I'm gonna run through a few of my highlights, but obviously we had the the CWs, the marathons, the the micro mill specs, the Baltics, uh Maurice Lacroix was there. They also had uh of course like Isotope and kind of a lot of the brands, the core of what you would see at the Toronto show as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Was there and then some exciting
James Stacy brands that I kind of hadn't had any time with in the past. Uh you know, not needing to to break down every single thing. We'll get to the marathon party in a moment, and then a very cool thing I got to do on the Sunday uh before I headed inland to see my brother. But uh a few highlights from the show, I will have a full photo report on Hodinky, uh possi,bly as early as Monday of next week. Uh so keep an eye out for that as it'll go into more detail on some of these highlights. But there were a few watches that I saw that that I found kind of interesting, exciting, or noteworthy. The first one uh I actually think is is quite exciting, and that's the new Marathon Navigator, which is in CeraShell.
Jason Heaton I don't know if you got a chance to see this in
James Stacy um in uh San Francisco, Jason,
Jason Heaton but look, the navigator is a known quantity.
James Stacy It's been around for a really long time. It uses like a r nylon resin sort of case. Um, I don't want to be unfair to marathon, but they've shared similar feedback towards me. The the bezel wasn't always great. Now they've moved over to Cereshell, which is a similar thing to like bio ceramic.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And they haven't really changed the price.
James Stacy I think the watch is a few bucks more. It's a significant update on an already pretty good watch. It's now, I think it's like a uh a direct competitor depending on your on your need for a high accuracy quartz to the steel SS nav D.
Jason Heaton Huh. The the bezel feels awesome.
James Stacy Watch wears really well. It's super light. It doesn't feel like plastic. It doesn't feel like nylon. It feels like like you could convince me that it was steel or maybe a titanium. It's very light. It's well coated. Uh so far they're they've done like the full black treatment. Um but of course being Cerachel being like a bioceramic, theoretically, many colors are possible. And I just thought they did, you know, a really nice job. Yeah, so it comes in just under six hundred bucks uh US uh depending on whether you want the date or no date. Um I got a chance to wear it around for a day and then I had it at the party as well. Really, really excellent update to an already pretty solid watch. And I think if your complaint of the other one was that the bezel didn't feel like it does on most watches, look nice and clicky and smooth. That scenario has sort of been sorted out for this uh new model. So a good looking piece for sure. And uh a nice update. I also got a chance to see um Mike had the Christopher Ward True GMT.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah. Um, which is you, know, a
James Stacy a full on movement from them. Um you know, very modern, maybe not uh entirely my aesthetic, but of course I love the functionality. I think the five day power reserve is noteworthy. The sizing is really good. I got to try it on like a very um soft and pliable like orange rubber strap. Uh a pretty solid watch. And I I think again, sort of at the upper range of of what Christopher Ward makes, a nice offering, especially if you're looking for a travel watch that's outside of the aesthetic of a GMT master. Right? Like if you're not looking for one that looks somewhat like a Rolex, uh, I think this is a a great option for sure. And yeah, that was uh that was a fun one to see. Their booth was absolutely rammed, like you said. Uh there are people around it for the entire thing. Uh next up we saw oh this one was super cool. If I had never heard of this brand before so uh shout out to you if you have uh 22 Studio and they make a concrete dialed watch. You've got to click this link. The watch is absolutely just so cool and pretty in person. Oh,
Jason Heaton that is cool. It's uh very much like a fully circular
James Stacy case with like a hooded lug or or or a a non-lug like the strap mounts right into the underside of the case. And they have a bunch of different styles, but this is one for me that really stood out at the at the show. The idea is uh it's two pieces of or it's a a piece of concrete dial that's very beautifully rendered and then it it's kind of double slanted, feels very architectural, but the idea being that it's showing day night
Jason Heaton or the passage therein. Yeah. Uh with a
James Stacy lighter side and a darker side. And then it has a a very cool magnifier for the date display. This is a watch that if you get a chance to see in person, if they happen to be at the Montreal show or the or or the Toronto show, I didn't ask or uh uh so I'm not sure. Uh or if they show up at a wind up, don't skip 22 Studios booth. It's really cool. They do a bunch of uh pens that you can buy, both ball ballpoint and and fountain that are made out of concrete. And I swear you'd pick them up and you'd swear they were ceramic or similar.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh just some really, really cool stuff.
James Stacy The price is a thousand bucks for something like this, which felt super reasonable. Uh, really, really cool brand that I'm quite excited about. There'll be uh photos of that. I'll put the links in the show note, of course, but there'll be photos of that watch in the photo report for uh hodinky as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah no really cool I'm just I'm clicking around their website and they've got other really wild kind of interesting colorways in here too the horse edition neon I mean just just really innovative. I mean, it's just nice to see somebody breaking the mold a little bit. That's great.
James Stacy Breaking the mold and and I think when I looked at it and they said the dials concrete, there weren't prices on the table. I was just expecting three, four, five thousand dollars.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, it's a it's a basic movement, but that's
James Stacy fine. What what do you really need in this? It's clearly more about a design forward option versus the mechanics of it all.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh and I yeah, I just think a really successful,
James Stacy very cool thing. Uh so if you get a chance to see that stuff in person, absolutely jump on it. And especially uh whether in photos or in person, take a look at how the hands mount to the center of the dial because they come up vertically and then extend horizontally over the dial is very cool.
Jason Heaton Wow. Uh next up, uh just speaking of stuff
James Stacy that I always like and designs that I find exciting, isotope was there and uh got a chance to see a handful of their new stuff. They have a new moonshot chrono in like a blue-orange colorway, like sort of in the in the vein of like a uh golf livery uh that looks really cool, very bright, very punchy. But the really interesting one was the uh on V jumping hour.
Jason Heaton Yeah, which is again sort of a fully
James Stacy round, it does have uh lugs, um, but they're quite short and integrated. Uh jumping hour watch where the aperture of the jumping hour is a floating ring over the hour display.
Jason Heaton Okay. So it's the ring that sort
James Stacy of jumps revealing kind of like a mystery watch, but a little bit different in in expression. And I just thought this was super cool. On wrists, it's really great. It's uh it comes in at quite a nice size, um, being uh 40 millimeters by 40 millimeters in in either direction. And uh because it's kind of short and stout, it's fourteen millimeters thick and it it wear it wears quite nicely. It's it didn't feel like over thick because of the very short lugs. So that one was very cool to see in person. It's always fun to see isotope stuff in person. And I know that they they have a good presence at a lot of shows, but certainly if you make it out to Toronto to come see Jason and I do whatever we're going to do, maybe a marathon party, don't skip their booth. Um it's always an exciting one. Moving right along. Um, oh, I got to see a couple that I hadn't seen in person before, and that includes the Bocroft Contour GMT. Uh, this is a little bit of a dressier take on a GMT. It's uh twelve hundred and fifty bucks. Uh, I thought it was quite successful. It's 39.5mm wide, uh, 12.6 thicks, 46.5 lug to lug, and uses a Miyota 9075. So, like I said, it's a little bit dressier, but they have kind of a distinctive hand shape. It's all very sort of organic coated and then otherwise a fairly conventional steel bracelet, steel case, that sort of thing, uh a good one to see in person. Um and uh they had a couple of colorways. I I thought the sort of blue green, the bright blue green was quite successful in person, which I think they call tropical teal, if I remember correctly.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and I'm actually seeing an eight ninety nine price. I think you said something over a thousand eighty. Oh okay so that that
James Stacy must be the Canadian. Good good call out. Yeah, it's it's tough when we do this. I I apologize to the audience if I I might have Jason check prices moving forward as I I don't want to run a VPN while we're trying to do the the call. The timing for the call needs to be as close to accurate as possible.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. I think eight ninety-inen with a bracelet,
James Stacy a nine oh seven five. And if you wanted something that again doesn't look like a military inspired watch, doesn't look like a Rolex inspired watch, uh, a nice offering as well. Uh and I I was just kind of impressed by the dial execution and and that sort of thing, certainly a strong price point. Next up, one that I was quite interested in, uh, I hadn't come across this brand online or otherwise, and that's the Canopy Field One. Uh, so it's Canopy Watches. Uh, I met I met the fella from the brand. His name is Escaping Me as we record, of course. Um, but they make a handful of watches. Currently, a field watch in full titanium and a dive watch. And the canopy field one, especially in the orange colorway, I justed really lik it. Jason, can you confirm the price on that one?
Jason Heaton $5.99. Oh. Very real. Yeah,
James Stacy $599. So yeah, I'm $8.35 Canadian would would seem a little bit dear, but imagine if you took um some inspiration from you know from the basic field watch idea from Hamilton, but applied numerals. Uh I think a more successful handset, uh date at six, um, that's separated from so you still get the six marker. Uh nice size. Uh like I said, full titanium. Uh so you're looking at uh it's a grade two case. It has DLC coating for hardness. It's thirty nine millimeters by ten, forty six, uh lug to lug, twenty millimeters, but includes a full bracelet and then you have a hundred meters water resistance and uses a nine oh one five. So pretty straightforward, nice price point. And this is one where I'd watch people like walk by or as I was sitting to take a photo, once there was one or two people at the booth, there was suddenly five or six and everybody was kind of picking the watch up. It doesn't weigh anything. The color work that they're doing here is really fun. And I just, you know, it's nice to see some competition into that price range for something aesthetically very easy to understand, but with little twists, whether it's the color, the titanium, the included bracelet, that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I was impressed by it. It'd be a brand
James Stacy I would I would probably keep an eye on. Yeah, the colors look
Jason Heaton good. I like the blue dial. That's uh that's sharp.
James Stacy And then another fun one, and I actually have one of these in for uh review is the Aries uh quartz version of the diver one. Um they were trying to f come up with something kind of fun to do for the Vancouver show, and uh one of the guys at Aries took a bunch of the dials and wrote slowly refined topographical maps of some of the mountains around North Vancouver.
Jason Heaton Oh wow. Uh you know, you'd have grouse
James Stacy or or dam or uh maybe crown, Seymour, Cyprus, that sort of thing. And I I think it's really hard to nail this. And this is what I said to them. Like it's not that difficult to find a topographical map or figure out how to laser etch it onto a dial. Like that's something you could, but actually refining what is being translated to a dial so it's not goofy. Uh, I think is quite a task. And I really, really thought these were rad. Uh, so I've got one in, I've got the one with C-moor on it, and on the back, they've uh engraved the coordinates. So it doesn't say C more or anything like that. You have to go to Google and type in the uh coordinates to actually get which mountain is shown on the dial.
Jason Heaton Oh wow. I'm not sure it's something that they're gonna be
James Stacy offering as an extension, but maybe we'll see it at the next time we see them at a show. Uh I really have a fondness for these watches. You know, they're uh you and you'll hear from Matt, uh, who runs the brand uh a little later in the show. We had five minutes um to for a chit chat, but they're cutting their own cases and uh and they're doing some nice work. And I think the price point, especially if you're good for quartz, uh comes in at a pretty reasonable number for kind of how sturdy. It's a bit of like an American take on a a uh Zen, uh maybe a little bit more entry-level than Zen in terms of the price point. Uh but great loom, uh solid uh you know, sort of sport watch uh design, good hands, uh, and then just when you take such a kind of stoic, straightforward, very obviously very like military inspired design and then add in the flourish of the topographical map on the dial, it it really spoke to me. I dug it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'd love to see that one. That's really neat. And then I I was just looking at the webpage for that watch and um they're running a a Ronda seven fifteen Li, which they're saying is a five joule gold plated Swiss analog quartz with a ten year lithium-ion battery. Um so that's nothing to sniff at. That's pretty great.
James Stacy I just sent you a photo as well if you want to check your now uh repaired phone. We we have had to recare or now replaced phone. We had to record this in two pieces uh due to an interruption from young master Stacy. And uh and so it during that time you now have a phone, so I can text you a photo. I guess you would have gotten it on your computer either way. But
Jason Heaton that is cool. That's a cool one. Yeah, isn't that quite successful? Yeah. Yeah. I like so
James Stacy that'll be in the show notes. Um I I won't have a probably won't have this photo in the show notes, but it will be in the uh in the in the photo report for for Hodinki in the next couple of days. So uh yeah, I've been wearing that a ton. I've got it on like a big pan or eye style leather and, it's just like it's not that big a watch to be fair, but it wears really nicely and they they feel very high quality and I like how much of it they're doing uh on their own in their own space.
Jason Heaton Yeah. What else? You got another couple of cool ones here that I'm curious to hear your impressions of.
James Stacy Yeah, for sure. So the the the next one on the list is actually a brand new watch to me, and I think quite a quite a brand new brand. It is called uh Mount West Watchco. And uh I met the the founder, owner of the brand. And what stands out for me, the watch is uh probably it's kind of a mix of aesthetics. It's very technical, it's very modern looking. But uh Jason, the bezel, if you turn it, I'm I'm I might have this backwards, but it's the same concept depending on maybe two different rotations. If you turn it counterclockwise, both the interior and exterior bezel turn.
Jason Heaton Okay. So there's an interior twelve
James Stacy hour bezel and an exterior uh timing bezel.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um a lapse time bezel.
James Stacy So if you turn it counterclockwise, I believe both will rotate. And then if you turn clockwise, it leaves the um it leaves the interior bezel at that location. I guess it's probably the other way around to work in a bi-directional
Jason Heaton shutter. Yeah. It's one of those things that in my mind
James Stacy it's very difficult to explain if I'm not holding the watch.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Basically it's two nested bezels.
James Stacy Um one of them uh can be rotated with the rotation of the outer bezel, but if you go the other way, it stays in place.
Jason Heaton That's a neat concept. It's a really cool execution
James Stacy of two bezels, great loom, um, and and I think quite an interesting sort of uncommon sort of design language um that I I could see them refining over time. But yeah, it's a he calls it a dual unit directional bezel.
Jason Heaton Wow. I like that. You know what? I'm also looking too at the website and the the dial and the hands, the way that that the our hand is skeletonized with a small window that just displays the twenty four hour scale.
James Stacy Yeah. Um that's uh just uh in
Jason Heaton a smaller circle on the dial. That that's clever too. I mean I I I just like these small brands that are just thinking a little differently and like putting attention to detail. I mean, we've come such a long way in in the past decade and it's just this is a good example of that.
James Stacy And then just so we can be it it looks like everything's on pre order, one thousand four hundred fifty bucks on uh uh steel, and then there's uh other versions that are limited and have a slightly higher price point.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I think the like the loom dial versions. Yeah.
James Stacy But yeah. Yeah. 1450, uh, it's called the Summit, and it's a 39 millimeter case. It's steel, uh, eleven point eight millimeters, uh, two hundred meters of water resistance, and it uses a Solita SW200. Um, so in many ways, uh, if you think of a a pricing direct what from a more major brand it'd be like a Doxa two hundred T.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. Uh next up I I had more
James Stacy time with uh yet another I had yet another ten minutes with a micro mill spec, the mill graph, uh and they have two versions that really stand out to me. They're doing a mill graph in white, uh, which is very cool, but that's I don't that's not new. It's just one that I enjoy seeing. And then they're doing this project sabotage, um, which is uh like a the white version but with a lot of orange included. So you get an orange uh Rhea, you get orange accents on the dial and and and some of the uh chronograph hands and then you get an orange uh rubber uh strap and this is a black badger project. Uh so that's where you see some of the color come from. I I just think this looks exceptionally cool.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I think that this is a brand
James Stacy that maybe the first time actually I think the first time I saw them was at the first Toronto show.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that makes sense. Like the first time I held the product in my hand. Yeah.
James Stacy And I just thought this is kind of expensive. And now every time I've seen them, I go like, nah, they're just kind of like offering a different take on this price point.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I I really, really and I'm not even
James Stacy that much of a chronograph guy, uh, but the the milgraph that they're putting out in any of the versions, but certainly this project sabotage with uh with James at Black Badger, I just uh I just think it's rad. Uh I really like the the Milgraph in white as well. Uh Jason, I'm seeing 5,500 USD. Sorry, I'm seeing 5500 C A D. What have you got there?
Jason Heaton The project sabotage is going for 3850 US. So oh
James Stacy yeah 5200 Canadian. So 3850. So yeah, not a low price point.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Obviously it's uh I don't know, it's
James Stacy it's it's maybe right around longines pricing for a chronograph.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. Um but I I think quite a cool thing,
James Stacy you know, left side crown, left side buttons for the chronograph, which I prefer what what little I use a chronograph.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um I I think these are quite uh quite
James Stacy successful. So shout out to uh to the folks at um micro mill spec as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah, nicely done. Next up I got to
James Stacy you know be hands on with everything from Elliot Brown. I feel like we've talked about the majority of it. I don't think that there was a a major new release. Got to see our friends Jem and Guy and catch up with them. I think we we should probably do another one with Guy sometime in the future. Maybe he and Jem with a couple of pints at the Toronto show or something like that. But uh I know that
Jason Heaton yeah in person would be fun. Yeah, I think it'd be plenty
James Stacy of fun in person. Oh, and the uh speaking of in person, the other thing that I got to see uh at the show that I'd seen on the site, you know, we covered it on Hodinki is the Baltic Our Demond and Labradorite. So this is their um hours and minutes only world timer with like a watch a little watch with a world time bezel and the the Labradorite is one of the three colorways of for the stone dials. I I I you know I like Baltic stuff and then when you see it in person you like it so much more. It's there's something about what they do with their proportions. They just nail
Jason Heaton it. And this is like quite a
James Stacy small watch on your wrists. I really, really, really, rather liked it. Uh I I was thankful that um they almost immediately sold out. Like I think by the time I made a third lap of the show on Saturday, they had sold all of them.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So I didn't have to consider whether
James Stacy or not I needed a stone dial, you know, bezel world timer. I don't, to be clear, but a very, very good watch in person. So and then finally to wrap it up, uh, you know, obviously there's a lot of fans in the TGN audience for RZE and maybe more specifically their UTD 8000, their very tough digital watch. Um it doesn't seem to be on the site yet, so I probably shouldn't break what might be a launch embargo for them, but there's some new colorways coming that that uh the guys showed that Huey and and Kirk showed at uh at the event and also at a a very cool um gear swap that they did uh during Saturday as well with uh with some of the folks from Revolver Coffee.
Jason Heaton Oh nice um but there's a new some new colorways coming
James Stacy that'll be worth if you like a a wilder take on on some coloring for for a watch like that, it's definitely worth keeping an eye out, uh, for that to come out as a it was quite successful in person. That's a few highlights we'll have uh a bunch more in the photo report on Hodinky uh probably, you know, in less than a week from when this episode drops. Uh certainly we get to the end of Saturday and I boogie from the show over to um uh over to Rohldorf uh to get ready for uh the party with marathon. It was very well attended. It was nice and busy. Uh we went through all the beer. Uh I think we had maybe two or three French blanches left uh by the time the the night kinda wrapped up. Uh everybody seemed to really enjoy themselves. If you were at the party, thank you so much for coming. Uh if you couldn't make it, uh we'll do another one at the Toronto show as we have in the past and uh you know it's it's starting to become something of a tradition um for the Vancouver show as well. But yeah, a huge thank you to Rolldorf for providing the space and figuring out an incredible spread of food. We'd way too much food. It's all really, really excellent. Um, and then uh, you know, huge thank you to Marathon for continuing to partner with us on w what's become like something I look forward to and and like to do a couple times a year for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it was fun to see Marty just uh a couple days after he spent time with you, he said it was a great time. And yeah, Harrison was there and he was uh yeah, marathon's become a a really fun, fun partner.
James Stacy Yeah, yeah. Sadly, we miss Harrison. He didn't uh to the Vancouver show. So shout out Harrison. Uh we missed you there and at the party. Uh, but I'm glad you made it out to San Francisco and uh I'm sure we'll see you uh at Toronto or sooner.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um after that, I mean that that was
James Stacy the end of um Saturday. It was you know it was a late night by the time we all got to bed after cleaning up and that sort of thing. And then uh the next day I went back and recorded a few chats, uh which we'll play in just a moment here. Um and then that afternoon and evening I actually had a a fun opportunity for a few of us um including um Ken and James, uh Ken Lamb and James Crichton from uh the Form and Function Podcast, and of course Ark and Watches for Ken, uh, to go check out uh Bradley Taylor's workshop. Uh so Bradley Taylor is uh uh watchmaker in uh North Vancouver. Uh have met him a couple times. Obviously he was on our uh Toronto show Potluck last year.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um from uh from the Toronto show.
James Stacy He came up on stage to talk about uh making watches. Uh his third series essentially and his first watch with a full in-house made movement uh was just released uh in the last uh week or so, the Ardia. And uh and so we got to go and see where he makes it and it's like an industrial shed uh in North Van you know in in an industrial park and it was just it was such a cool experience to go and see where he's got you know has CNC machines creating some of the plates and he's using special uh camera and visualizing systems to make sure everything's perfect. He's using a rose engine to do the guichet and the uh engraving and such on the dial. And it's uh it's really is quite fascinating and it was very cool to meet him and and get to do that. Uh we were walking around the shop and he uh I mentioned this in in the story that when we when the watch launched, but uh we were looking at all the various, you know, he just has all sorts of implements for doing various things.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And he was showing us his like little bead
James Stacy blasting station. It looked kinda like a like, you know, you put your hands into two holes and then you can hold something and bead blast it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I was like, hey, you know,, well could we
James Stacy bead blast something? He says, Yeah, of course. So we bead blasted. I took the blade out of my benchmade and bead blasted the titanium scales.
Jason Heaton Oh, nice. Uh that I've got and it was
James Stacy just one, it was super fun uh to do, and two, I think it looks really rad.
Jason Heaton So I I shared a photo of that already on the
James Stacy Slack, but uh if you happen to miss it, drop me a note, I'm happy to share it again. Uh super fun. And and Bradley, if you're listening, thanks so much for the hospitality and uh the truly incredible glass of whiskey and a slice of pizza and then we went and uh had a steak. And yeah, that rounded out Sunday. And and while we're on the topic of thank yous, a big shout out to Craig from Hide Time Leather. He made me a wallet, uh which he gave me and I've been using it for the last couple days. It's quite nice. I'll I'll include a show a link in the show notes there. And then also Nathan from Good Works Department. Nathan and I have had sort of a uh ships in the night scenario with he quite some time ago, he tried to send me um a Tash in Michael Mann book, like a book that covers all of Michael Mann's work. Um obviously that's very much up my alley and uh and it didn't work out there was a problem with the shipping and all these other things and he brought it with him to Vancouver uh and hand delivered it. So I now have this book. I went through it a couple of times with uh a couple days that had off after the show. Uh but yeah, big shout out to uh to Nathan and to Craig for uh the very kind gifts..
Jason Heaton Uh-huh And that wraps up my time in Vancouver.
James Stacy The next day I uh flew to Kelowna and then drove from Kelowna to uh Kristova uh BC which is near Nelson uh which is where my brother lives and hung out with him for a couple of days, played my annual round of golf. How'd you do? Uh I think that's how you know you get better at golf is playing it once a year.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh got a solid sunburn.
James Stacy Uh and and really just kinda hung out. Uh it was it was nice to kind of kick back after two big watch well, one very big watch show, one sort of medium-sized watch show, all relatively back to back. So it took a couple of days and and just kind of hung out and you know, had some hot dogs and that sort of thing. It was a it was a good little hang.
Jason Heaton Oh, that sounds amazing. Wow, that's a packed week. I mean, I think uh we we both had really diverse weeks. Um, kind of with some watch stuff bookending it. Um that's really cool. I didn't round of golf in. It's been years since I've golfed, but uh
James Stacy Yeah. I you know, it's one of my brother's favorite things and the course in Castlegar is uh I mean it's like a mountain course. It's beautiful.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It's not that expensive. Nobody's
James Stacy taking things crazy seriously there. It's not very intense. I really look forward to doing every time I'm I'm kind of out there with him. So nice to get that in. And then otherwise uh drove back uh to uh Kelowna and flew home on Friday. Um and oh and uh to fill in the blank from earlier in the show, I had a um uh a Subaru uh XT, uh I think quite a predictable car for that part of the world. It was fine.
Jason Heaton Yeah. This one was quite nicely spec'd.
James Stacy I'm not sure um that that's the average for uh for these, but uh it was a nice enough vehicle and certainly good for that drive through the hills. Uh you know, you go over a pass or two to get there. So um it's nice to have something, you know, with uh with a bit of power to move around.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Nice. But we're not even done
James Stacy yet. It's a long episode. It's gonna get even longer now. Uh I'm gonna jump into uh four kind of mini interview chats that I did from the Vancouver show. That includes, of course, uh Jason Hutton, who runs uh the event entirely. We've had Jason on, I think, every time that we've done these sort of show coverage uh episodes. Uh, then we have AJ Bars from the Analog Explorer. We have our old pal Mike Pearson with Christopher Ward, and then finally Matt Graham from Aries Watchco, which is a guy who I've chatted with many times and always kind of figured we'd do one of these. Uh, and we finally got a chance to sit down for just a few minutes. So let's jump into those and then we'll come back for some final notes. All right, Mr. Hutton, always a treat to have you on. You're uh numbering among the our most common guests. Uh we're sitting here just outside the show in Vancouver. It's an incredibly beautiful day. You you bring the best weather possible to this uh often very rainy and gray city. How how you feeling?
Jason Hutton I'm feeling great actually and the weather's been great and uh people have given me credit for the sunshine here. I don't know if I should take it 'cause they're putting a lot of pressure on me for next year, but uh yeah, it's couldn't ask for better weather than this. Credible.
James Stacy I was joking with another uh one of the vendors at the at the fair and they're saying, you know, they've only come to Vancouver on these weekends and this is now their opinion of what the weather in Vancouver is like and it's I mean with two days of literally perfect weather.
Jason Hutton Today if you closed your eyes you'd and and then like
James Stacy just kinda zoned out you'd think you might be in Miami. It was like really warm in the sun, we're right on the water. The venue's great this year. How how how you feeling about the fair?
Jason Hutton Yeah, the fair's been amazing. Uh we have some really interesting brands that have come uh to take part this year. A lot of attendees our attendance is up by about 20%. So uh we'll probably come in just under around three thousand uh visitors for the weekend which is a great turnout. And one thing I've really noticed this year is a lot of people are traveling to Vancouver from different destinations across Canada and the US and internationally to take part and enjoy the watch fair and uh this is amazing. It's very fulfilling for me to see that.
James Stacy It's a nice thing because the the it really feels like the fair kind of slots into a fun weekend in the city. It
Jason Heaton does. So you could come down and spend an afternoon or you
James Stacy know you and I are here a little bit more than that. You live down here essentially for the these past couple of days. But I think
Jason Hutton There is. It's a really you know growing up here it's such a beautiful city and we're on the north shore which is really close to the mountains. We' basreically the at the foot of mountains. So you can enjoy nature, you can pop across, go to downtown, you're right by the water, hang out here. There's lots of cafes, restaurants, great food. It's it's a good vibe here.
James Stacy And how has the show evolved from last year's outing, which was the you know the first time that you brought the show to uh Vancouver?
Jason Hutton Uh the biggest thing that I noticed is the audience, of course, we have a lot of people coming back for the second year. Uh a lot of people last year, they didn't know quite what to expect because they had never been to a large-scale watch show before. Uh so this year they had a little bit more familiarity coming. They had saved some budget. A lot of people came with a bit of a mission, let's say.
James Stacy That's great. And then I I know you're busy guy. You've got a a a raffle or a draw to run in just a moment. So just a couple more questions, but I'm curious, you know, this has been an another great weekend here, but you've expanded the calendar this year, end of May. Correct. You've got Montreal. How's that shaping up?
Jason Hutton It was shaping up very well. It's probably going to be a very similar size show to Vancouver. So we're expecting about 2,500 to 3,000 guests. We have around 36 to 37 brands participating. It's in a place called the Salon Richmond 1861 which is actually a very large church built in 1861 that's been converted into event space. It's really spectacular. So uh in Montreal in the summer is an amazing, amazing location. So I think we're gonna have a lot of fun uh at that venue.
James Stacy That's great. And then and then we'll blink and it'll be September.
Jason Hutton It will be. And we have some amazing things in store for September with Toronto. Uh we're actually almost sold out of exhibit space for September. We're going to have 89 tables in the space this year. Last year we had about 72. But I'm not going to expand any more than about 89 or 90. We'll probably have 83 or 84 brands by the time all is said and done. We've got a lot of brands that I've been talking to for two years and they're finally they said I'm ready to come to Toronto. We've heard great things. The community is beyond excited. So there's so many amazing things happening for Toronto. I'm really looking forward to that as well.
James Stacy Yeah, that's fabulous. And and we'll still have the media space and all that kind of stuff. We'll be able to do some podcasting and that sort of thing.
Jason Hutton It's going to be a lot of fun things happening. Well that's great, man. Look,
James Stacy thanks so much for taking five minutes to sit down and chat about the show. Congratulations on another another great outing, great weather, uh lots of great crowds, and uh and yeah, brands seem pretty happy.
Jason Hutton Thank you so much, and I appreciate your folks' support and all of the watch community. I mean, this is what it's about. We're here to have a great time and connect, and you're a big part of that. So thank you to you as well. A
James Stacy pleasure as always. Thank you. Alrig, thereht you have it. A quick chat with Jason Hutton, who runs the Time Peace Shows, now Vancouver, Montreal, and of course Toronto. Next up, a kindred spirit in AJ Bars of the Analog Explorer. Alright, yet another segment from the uh Vancouver Timepiece show. We're sitting in a really fun open air sort of area. No clue what the audio will sound like, but it'll be okay. Uh AJ Bars, an absolute treat to have you on the show. Analog Explorer. Not the Analog Explorer, right? It's Analog Explorer or either.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Well, no, I actually I'm both. I'm both. The analog explorer, yeah. I am the.
James Stacy That's great, man. It's a treat. We chatted a little bit yesterday, and uh and it's you know, it's always nice to uh to catch up with you. Man, I feel like there's a lot to talk about whenever we do these things. We won't cross that paths that often. No, once a year maybe. I feel like we we try and d we like doing similar things and looking at at watches in a similar way. How have you been?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham I'm being great, man. Just doing the dad life, doing the diving life, doing the academic life, and then there's the watch life, you know, just balancing it all out.
James Stacy You're a busy man for sure. That's exciting though. And uh and so how's how's analog explorer going?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham It's going good. Uh I love the Timece Pea Show. Hutton is always great to invite me up and stuff. And it's in I mean it's in my backyard. You know, being in Bellingham. As long as I can get across the border and as long as one participates with me on with traffic, we're good. Sure. But uh no, I I love I love the venue, I love North Van. Uh you know, I I love all the brands and stuff, you know, to see Remy from Baltic. Like it's it's like I don't know, it's kinda like a fraternity up here. It's like I come up here and it's yeah, I I see the same people, see you and stuff and catch up and it's
James Stacy Yeah, for me, I I I think I said this on a previous episode, like it's a little bit more of like a social or almost like a vacation-like event. Like it's not that diff much work to carry a camera and shoot wrist shots from people I know that brought cool watches to the show. Yeah. And there's some interesting, like notable watches being offered or shown or sold here. Uh Baltic being one of them. Got to see the new world timer. Thankfully it sold out before I went back to the table, so I don't have to think about that. Uh, because I was kind of tempted. And it's the the dial, the stone dial is one thing that Labradorite, but it's the size, like the proportions of their watches are so pleasing. And it is one of the things where you know, as obvious a statement as it is, like it makes sense to want to do with children running around. So it's uh hopefully a joyful background. It should be fine. But yeah, it's nice to see these watches in person, put them on your own wrist, chat with the people from the brands. Like it's something that to a certain extent you and I probably can take for granted because these people are an email away or a phone call or you'll see them somewhere. Um but not always and then if you're if you're part of the civilian public I guess or whatever scenario.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham You have to go to a boutique or yeah, and that that's what I really like about being up here, especially through my feed, is you know, I'll have people as I'm posting shots and stuff and I'll shoot off the cuff like you know, like you saw uh they have a light box here this year, which is great and stuff and some lighting. So like uh I had a lot of people ask about like Makado, the the record player watch and stuff by ondo ondo and stuff and getting that on wrist because people are asking, like, how does it is is it bigger, is it smaller, how does it fit? And I was able to like facilitate that online, which is great. Uh my friends over in the UK and stuff, they were hitting me up about some other brands and just being able to just be able to speak to it because they're they're here, you know. Yeah, no, I definitely love love that the fact that we can kind of I don't know report out, but you know, get get information. For example, at the hangout last night, I ran into two people uh from Bellingham. They came up, uh practically my neighbors, they're a couple neighborhoods by, and uh they knew me from the other show, the Bellingham Podcast, and they're cominging up and they're talk. And there's a Farer. They were bummed that Farer wasn't here because they were here last year. And uh the the watch uh that the wife was interested in, I was like, I actually I bet you I have a photo, just ping me on Instagram, I'll send it to you. Oh well, I kind of want to see it you know I want to get my hands on want to get it on wrist I looked at her wrist I have mortal size wrists so I was like we're about the same wrist size I bet I tell you what I have I probably have a picture on wrist ping me and I'll send it to you and that we can get a vibe because there's
James Stacy Well look, I'm I'm I'm curious. Uh I was trying to think of like what the the narrative through these conversations because there's four or five of these that I I plan to do in the next the the rest of this afternoon. I guess m I guess the first one for me is do you get a feeling that with with everything that's going on in the watch world right now, that having a niche is like a kind of a saving grace?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Yes. Yes. Uh like I was talking to Sean over at Twenty Two Studio, the fact that I I I had to have very cool
James Stacy watches in person. Oh absolutely. But bananas
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham like to to that was one of the the brands that my my friends were asking me about because I said concrete dial.
James Stacy Yeah. And they assumed the color. No no
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham no. Concrete dial. And then of course it's a it's a thicker uh watch case and stuff but because the short lug it wears great you know and being able to see that type of thing but that's a niche. The fact that he's been doing it for 12 years type of thing totally flew under my radar. Didn't have any idea but be able to sit down with him and and you know understand as an academic like you know talking about where his uh formal training came from and that type of story. It's niche and story. Like if you it's not just what you're marketing, but you're honest to gosh, where did you come from and how did you get here? I think really resonates with most people. Um as opposed to what you're marketing like, oh you know, I'm not saying that not not uh a watch brand's history doesn't matter, but like an uh a sense of authenticity for sure um and a niche and you're like 90% there, I think.
James Stacy And how about like how about for you and your niche? It can be difficult to know what to focus on now and and not even what to focus like we don't like you wouldn't know what the good or a not good or a not interesting watch is but like what do people want to know about?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham I think my niche has really always been like where especially when it comes to watches or anything analog, you know, the the whole concept of when I started this was to be disconnected, to be more present and stuff. And that was, you know, back when my son was born, 2016 and 2017 and stuff. And it's interesting that kind of full circle, like, you know, the the fact is is that today more and more people are talking about being more disconnected and there's apps that help you be more minimal and all this other jazz. But for me, like when it comes to watches, like that was that was the thing that I rallied around is the fact that go out and do something. Like, you know, just like TGN, like, you know, Heaton got a dive watch and he wanted to dive, you know? And that's kind of been the niche for me ever since is, you know, going out and doing stuff. I don't uh whether it's my Baltic Aquascaf and you know climbing Mount St. Helens or diving with my Doxa, you know, the cut off of Whitecliff. You know, that's what more and more it doesn't matter if uh as I write or as I'm podcasting, like those stories, it doesn't matter if you're a diver or if you're not in the Pacific Northwest, like everybody loves those stories and seeing and hearing what it's like because we have such a distinct vibe up here. I mean, I'm I'm I'm Captain Get Out on the Belly and Podcast. Like I I like being out in our outdoors, you know, and bringing those stories and the quirks that come with it. Good ramen places in uh Vancouver, you know. Oh,
James Stacy dambo, yeah. I'm full I'm sloshing around. I'm full of dambo at the moment. It's delicious.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Yeah. So I mean that's that's always been my niche and that's always where I'll be. Like I I don't ever claim to be a hodinky or anything like that. I just tell I like finding stories. Like this this uh for the the show, I was really kind of focusing on like community because between last year being the uh the shifting sands of global trade. That was really the focus of what I did last year because it impacted all these guys because it was latest in breaking. And I don't do breaking news, but like that was the vibe. This year it's you know talking, talking to Mike and and and hearing about community and what CWard has been doing for what 22 years and fostering community and what they do for community. You know, all these brands are really looking at that. And I like those stories. Makado watches, hearing their backstory, you know, a bucket list trip because uh uh the one of the owners, the the wife, was diagnosed with stage four cancer and you know, luckily pulled through it and stuff, which is hyper rare. Hearing those stories, and then oh by the way, there's watches.
James Stacy The that TI diver is pretty pretty pretty cool for the money.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Yeah, yeah, the the boken. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's great. It's great on wrist.
James Stacy Yeah. So that's always what I kind of look for
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham is my niche is finding the stories behind behind the purse
James Stacy Well well I've got you for a few more minutes. What is it that you're like currently like up to the minute kind of pumped about? And it doesn't have to be watches, just like in life. What do you what do you jacked up
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham about? Oh man, that's a great question. Uh because
James Stacy you're a nerd like me, you like the tech, you like the gear.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham I could go anywhere with that one. Uh honestly, just travel, the fact that you know that we can travel again, you know, cut the pandemic really hit me hard, especially. But traveling with my son, I have a nine-year-old. And it's fun, like, you know, I I traveled, uh my wife and I traveled before we had started a family, and now that we have our child, like everything is the global education plan for him. And so like we've been, he's been to Japan, he's been to France. You last season we were at uh in the UK and uh climbing Pennyphan in in Wales, you know, going through Pandarin and uh just being with him and seeing him learn, because I'm an academic, like I I love to see how learning appro uh it just is approached. Sure. And seeing it in my own kid and kind of thinking in terms of his eyes. That's what I'm jazzed about. More than gear, more than watches, you know, uh travel and and or just living life with my kiddo. I don't care if it's traveling to a nice covered area like this, you know, he would have a heyday on this little bouncy mountain thing, you know? Same. That's just family for me, man.
James Stacy For sure. That's great. And and what's on the hit list as far as planned experiences in the next little while?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Uh so in the summer we're actually we have another trip back to uh France. We have some very dear friends. Uh my wife has a lifelong friend uh from a foreign exchange student. They you know, back in high school type of thing. They stayed uh basically sisters ever since and so every time we go to France we stay with uh them in Nantes and Angers that area but uh this trip we're gonna be uh flying into Nice. I want to uh dive the med. I haven't dive dove the med yet. Um so Nice Marseille maybe and then uh take the train up. I've got some colleagues up in uh Paris, say hi to them, and then onwards to Angers for uh uh for the wedding.
James Stacy Oh that's fabulous, dude. That sounds like a great trip. Yeah. Well look, thanks so much for being on, obviously, but we we would be remiss if we didn't sort of wrist check. You have a cool oh that's quite a scream from that young
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham man. We'll
James Stacy let him pass by. I'll start that again. Uh look man, while I've still got you, I'd love to do a quick wrist check because you're wearing something
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham fun. Uh uh yeah. So I've got my uh uh my Doxa, my the OG Clive Cussler. Uh and then on it is uh a uh two s uh two-stitch strap, it's a leather strap um that he did as a NATO, my wife uh looks great
James Stacy on the leather NATO. Yeah, yeah. So
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham it's just a map. And he cuts it up. Usually it's a two piece strap, but my wife for my birthday uh asked him, could you make it into one of those one piece straps? And he's like, a NATO. Yeah, for my my husband. What watch does he wear? Well it's a doxa diver. I got you. Don't didn't say uh didn't matter. And so this is one of two straps. He has the other one. So he only made uh this one and the one that's on his wrist. So it's kind of cool. But yeah, I love my Clive Custler. Um and then I've got of course the marathon from last night, the marathon uh wrist compass. But yeah, I love diving with this. I love traveling with this. It's probably my favorite watch. Um my wife got me this watch for my 40th birthday. Fabulous. Which is also the same year that I became a master diver and a dive master and there was a lot of firsts. Very cool. So it's good watch
James Stacy for it. Yeah. All right. Thanks for being on, man. Anytime.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Thank you. All right. That was AJ Barst.
Jason Heaton Be sure to check out his excellent substack, analog
James Stacy explorer.com, and the show notes for most of what else he spoke about. Next up, we've got our pal Mike Pearson. He's with Chris for Ward. He's been on the show many times. You likely know his name, you'll likely recognize his energy. Let's jump into it. Alright, man. Uh old hat on the show, obviously. Here, uh, which has nothing to do with your age but merely that I think you're the number one guy to have on the show that isn't official host.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham But the word old still hurts too much. Mike
James Stacy Pearson from CW. How are you my friend? Brilliant.
Jason Hutton Now it's been a great couple of days. The sun is
James Stacy shining. Yeah we couldn't find a place to sit. There were children having too much fun. God bless them around us. We're just walking. This is a walk and talk, maybe a new format for the show.
Jason Hutton It's very impressive. We need some steps instead of standing there
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham as well. Dude, I the the first day we
James Stacy got here, I was walking around with uh with Ken Lamb and a couple other folks, and I think I put down almost thirty thousand steps.
Jason Hutton In that room. No, no, no. All around. All
James Stacy around the city on Thursday. Yeah, yeah. But uh I haven't been keeping up. There hasn't been a trend. Um not when the
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham show starts. He's standing at three booths.
James Stacy For sure. I mean for you uh absolutely, yeah. I slept in today. I came to the show late after getting a bowl of ramen. How's the fair been for you?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Uh this is the second year that this show's been going on. It's the second year that we've been here. And for Christopher Ward as a brand, it's the second time we've ever been in in Vancouver. And I was just saying earlier that the appreciation of the community that we came back was a big surprise actually but I think it was quite nice because as we keep going across all these countries and all these different cities I think they know that we're going nowhere and I think for places like Vancouver it matters.
James Stacy And what's new uh what's new in the Christopher Ward world? That's I can't I don't say that queen.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham The world of Christopher Ward. Uh well what have we done this year? This year we've got a little bit um I think mature. I think we've evolved a little bit more. Last year there was a lot of things that were being added all the time I think we all saw lots of launches every other week but that was needed if you if you look through the collection there were colours and there were styles and materials that we were excited to bring out this year, you might have seen last week that one whole part of our collection actually left the website, the Sea Lander, which is the best-selling collection we've had, and it's a staple diet of Christopher Ward. Nice and exclusive. Uh, it's not gone away for good it's just having the evolution and I think that's a telltale sign of the brand uh and obviously that's on the back of the Sea Lander having its own in-house movement now. So the true GMT launched just a few weeks ago and that's been excellent.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I got a chance to play with that uh
James Stacy a couple times over the last few days, and it really is excellent. Truly modern in its execution. I don't really know what to compare it to. Um essentially no butt
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham It is thick, but we kind of made it go away with the box crystal. 30% of that case is crystal. And everyone's surprised. And that's again why we do these events so people can uh take away the buyer's remorse or the guesswork of buying, uh being an online brand. But and that
James Stacy comes in around four? Yeah. Yeah, uh
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham US, yeah, just around four grand, yeah. It's based off yeah, we've uh since Belcanto, a lot of people have had to go back into Christopher Ward to see how involved we've been way before I joined and way before Belcanto. This is the 12th year that we've had an in-house movement. That was SH21. That's now rebranded 001, 03 was loco, that's a year ago this week. And the only reason why that came out as three is because this, the true GMT, was uh behind schedule. It's three years of work to get the complexity of a true GMT into the collection. And now that it's ready, we can we're not gonna change the numbers and it's kind of very much of a Christopher Ward thing to yeah, this is how we've done it. Exactly right. But it's also kind of going back to the the aesthetics of the old GMT, sorry, the old uh in-house movements, or even Belcanto retelling the story that it came from the the jump hour. Uh every single part of Christopher Ward's atelier line, be it in-house module or movement, has had a history. But so many people are still new to the brand, so it' its's uh uh it keeps going and I like the chats as you know. Yeah. But I think a lot of people need to be explained or at least understand where we've come from. It's not money being thrown at it. It literally is a reinvestment of what's been before to where we are tod
James Stacy What's the sort of range for the brand these days? What's the starting point that gets you to the 4000 and then the Bell Canto's a little above that?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham talked to Mike and Peter who own the brand, uh I talked to the guys who were around my level at director, and then you talked to everybody who's part of Christopher Ward in England uh and Switzerland and I said what's Christopher Ward to you? And they lived through Belcanto. So a lot of them had gone like that's the
James Stacy Christopher
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham But I believe it's something different. And this is what I've tried to put into the teams that I've now got here in the showrooms is if you go straight to Belcanto, you miss how we got to Belcanto and tr Tiedrid andent Sea Lander and twelve, a thousand bucks, fifteen hundred, SW three hundred in titanium, nothing really goes over two grand. That is bread and butter, Chris for Ward. We still have one um uh cost certified um quartz movement in the Valor, but that's that's it really. The rest of it really is a grand 1500 average. And then you start to go to the uh the modules, so moon phase, 2500 bucks, the jump hour, three grand, uh, then you've got Belcanto, depending on the style, nothing really goes over five. And then with the twelve X in the the new black steel, the black DLC, that's again six. The ceilings are really there. And it's not because we're trying to push it. What I keep trying to tell the team as well is that we're not an aviation brand. We're not a dive watch. We are Christopher Ward, which means we've got lots of breadth and width and we're we're stretching in the nicest way. And if you see the table, if you come to the shows where I put Atelier, it's not because it's the best in the middle, it's because what surrounds it needs a story to how we get there. So there is always method, hopefully, to the madness.
James Stacy For sure. You know, I'm curious, it's something that's been kind of kicking around in my mind, especially as we start to I think you've seen this in in from f certainly from CW side, but just in the world of watches that you've repped over your career. Does the price sensitivity that we're experiencing right now is everything can feel quite not Christopher Ward or the stuff that's necessarily at a timepiece show like like the one in Vancouver, but the more like broad spectrum of luxury watches. Uh the pricing feels high these days. It
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham does feel high. Do you think it's unfair and
James Stacy and and I like this perspective because you know you'd have some skin of the game with Christopher Ward has some in-house mark models, but they're not all in-house. Do you think this push from 2012-2013 where everything had to be in-house has maybe kind of put us in a bad spot as far as pricing?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Your smile said everything for me because there's a lot of the education that some people in the watch world on both sides of the mic uh and the both sides of the counter have to really relax on. I think if you come into you talk to any watch person that I've met today or through my entire career, the aesthetics are what come first and the com the complexities around the movement are what really matter. The execution of casing, um, how does the uh the anti reflective coating look? How do I look at that dial? What that storytelling? That still for me remains the the right thing. And if you are looking for maybe my post-COVID world, the way that we're dressed today, going into a place that we're selling watches today, that might have been not have been the norm in twenty twelve. You had to be buttoned up. You had to look a certain way the the relax the relaxed atmosphere of that today's way of doing business I think is the best way to be but it also means that if you are looking at watches and you are looking at complexities you look at in-house movements it,'s amazing how much people have missed what what goes on the inside doesn't have to be in-house. But I'll give credit to the community. They see straight through that. They'll buy what they can afford, buy what they like.
James Stacy I think on that on that topic that you were bringing up about being able to see and touch and and experience some of these in person, uh I know one of your maybe maybe it's not fair to say just yours, but one of your pet projects for the company for the last while is meaning these showrooms. So if you can't make it to a Vancouver or Toronto show, which is of course a lot of people that would be listening to this, uh what's the scene if you wanted to to see a Christopher Ward in person? Because you're not the only brand that's bringing watches that are very online coded. You know, think nomos, um, all who also make great watches and uh and and I think even to a certain extent brands like Zen are now really trying to give people the options of like everybody who's gonna buy this without seeing it has already bought one or two. Everybody else needs to like come in, shake a hand, see everything and kind of zone in. How how does that factor into the success you think?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham For Christopher Ward is everything for in my eyes, uh Mike France and I spoke when I first joined the brand and he's like, what's the plan? And my first thing to him was, leave me alone. Like as in like, I'm gonna hit the road and I'm gonna hit it hard because 20 years of this brand being around, it's built off of trust from the community. So I I think in the two and a half years of the brand I've been to over a hundred and twenty different events. There's a heck of a lot. Too many. And my wife's brilliant for it. Too many. But also in that time we've opened three showrooms and those three showrooms have been able to bring in thousands of people. Hundreds for New York and Virginia is still quite new. And next week I'm going to announce Chicago as the fourth showroom. The fifth will come after that. But they're not in major metropolises because that's where I want to get the business. They're in places where that's accessible. So these this this strategy of mine is very uh old school. I believe in retail, but more than anything, I believe that the trust over the that counter, which is traditional, is where you know they become ambassadors of the brand. They are salespeople, but they are the voice and the face of the brand. On my strategy, and with Christopher Wall strategy, we empower our team to be more than that, and there's no glass. There's no pretentiousness, and I say that with respect, and there's no barrier. It's a case of you can come in and take away the buyer's remorse, take away the guesswork. And actually, if you are going to have the watch shipped, you're not going to be, and this can happen with DHL or FedEx or you know tariffs, you're not screaming at the internet. You can actually say hey, Mike or the team that works for me, can you help me? And we will. And that has been a huge thing to calm the world down. Hopefully we get to be better at as well.
James Stacy Well it's interesting to see brands that are are very much rooted in the internet and kind of DTC practices start to take the good parts of customer service and of face to face and the hangouts and the meets and the greetings and that sort of thing. You have brands that would never sell online have come to that world and you have brands that only sold online crisscrossing to to to borrow some of the best practices from the other
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham side. Because they weren't even allowed in bars or booths. Nope. And now they're some of the first appointments. Because it's direct information, right? I
James Stacy mean back in the early days of a blocked watch or Hodinki, certainly like Watch Report wouldn't have gotten uh a press pass to SIHH. That's ins absolutely insane. You would have to have had a magazine uh and all that kind of stuff. And I think that probably took time. I was probably just on the on the very junior end of not being part of those conversations in 2010, 2011, 2012. I just, you know, would show up. And I think Basel World made it easier because it was this very open door sort of thing, you know, it's thousands of vendors. And then you're you might be in Germany, you're not sure, but you could talk to a guy about buying
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham half a million. Yeah, exactly.
James Stacy Uh an espresso though somehow very hot and acidic. Like just incredibly hot and acidic. And then but you could buy, you know, five hundred thousand spring bars from from that guy if you need toed for sure.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham I miss those days. Basil was great man, it was
James Stacy a good time. Yeah. But the evolution of what we're doing,
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham I think it's all full circle because at the end of it, it's very rudimentary, but it just takes one person like me across from a table of another person who's interested to learn, just talk their language, break it down, be honest, be uh transparent. Yeah, shows like yours with what you do with Jason has helped that as well. We all are part of a community. Um, I love it though. After all these years, I still love it. I love being here.
James Stacy Well, with the birds chirping in the background, I think that's uh that's about all we need for the tape. Nice to see you, dude.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham And Jimmy. Thanks, pal.
James Stacy Alright, that was Mike Pearson chatting strategy and more for Crystal Ward. Always a treat to see Mike, especially on a nice sunny day in Vancouver. Next up, and to close out these mini interviews from the Vancouver Timepiece show, we have Matt Graham, the owner and founder of Aries Watch Company, which is a family-owned sports watch brand based just south of Vancouver in Washington State. All right, Matt from Aries Watchco, an absolute treat to have you on. I've known you for a couple years. How's uh how's Vancouver treating you this time?
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham It's good. This is uh the only show that we do actually. It's local
James Stacy to us. We're uh you know, ninety minutes south of
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham the border, so being born and raised
James Stacy up here, like the cows are the same, the rain is the same. It just feels like home, even though it's an international show. So we love it up here. We we think we have a good place here. And just on the on the bare off chance that there's a few people listening that don't know the brand that haven't come across uh some of the social media presence or some of the other watches, uh why don't you give the the quick elevator pitch on
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham We make operational mission timers. I started
James Stacy the company in 2018. I had left I had had a career of service with the government, left that in 2018 and set out to build the operational mission timer that I wish I had had. And that started with our diver one and then went into the field one. And now there's just variations of those, quartz or auto. We cut all our own steel, uh, north of Seattle dials and movements are Swiss. We have in-house watchmakers uh doing from regulation all the way through to complete. Um, and that's us. It's just try to if you could build the watch you wanted, how do you do it? And then the differentiation between well are you going to be a watch company or just a brand? And I've from day one been like we're gonna be a watch company. And the one thing and we had a very brief we we just led into this conversation when we chatted in Toronto last September. Yeah. We were sitting at a pub somewhere, and I realized it would be a fun question. It's been kind of sat in my mind since then. You know, you said that you you were making the watch, you that Aries is making the watch that you would have liked
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham Yeah I went I went through a lot of them and
James Stacy all of them are great, but the characteristics kind of didn't exist in one singular watch when I started the business. And what the sins, sins I'd had, marathons I'd had, the JSAR, Brightlings, uh the Brightling Emergency that we talked about earlier, just saw one at the show. And all of those have characteristics of what I wanted. I wanted exceptional depth, I wanted longevity within a battery, I wanted loom that was just crazy. The loom is to be fair,
Jason Heaton you're not you're underselling it because the loom is nuts.
James Stacy Yeah. Specifically the bezel. I think you guys
Jason Heaton might be like class leader. I I shoot loom shots for part of my living, and yours does the easiest stuff to get a real bright basel out of it.
James Stacy Yeah, that's cool to hear. That was one of those things where it so the loom and the depth. The loom, my design envelope around the loom was it's not up to me
Jason Heaton when I gotta get up at night and go to work. Right?
James Stacy You're gonna wake up, it's gonna be dark and you're gonna go. And you have to have it working. You don't have to charge it. You don't have to do any of that. And the same with the depth. Like we're sitting here right on the dock right now and it's like it's not up to me today if I gotta get wet right circumstances can dictate that we're getting in that water and we don't want to have that wrist piece where it's like oh I can't even mow my lawn if I'm wearing my watch I, can't get wet. And it's like, nope, let's let's
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham take those performance envelope and push
James Stacy them out. So the other thing that didn't exist at the time in 2018 when I started was make a sub $650 thousand meter 10-year battery guaranteed for life American cut dive watch. Wasn't there.
Jason Heaton Right. And I was like, okay, let's
James Stacy make that. Let's build it around that. And from twenty
Jason Heaton eighteen uh to now, how's the what's the price point been for the brand?
James Stacy Uh we're at seven forty nine. Yeah. So it's bumped up
Jason Heaton eighty. Yeah,
James Stacy correct. Yeah, yeah. Um and that's the the Rhonda seven fifteen L I. So it's ten year battery.
Jason Heaton I'm not sure you're keeping up with inflation there. So kudos. And you know,
James Stacy interesting and we you know, from a big business perspective. We didn't. We we we haven't done that. And we also didn't do our like I said, our dials are Swiss, our movements are Swiss. We use the EDA in our autos, we use the Ronda seven fifteen. We import those directly from those manufacturers and, so all of those tariff pieces nobody ever saw from us. We didn't change a single thing, we just ate it more. And it was like at some point, this is going to be even, and because we cut our own steel and build everything in-house, we have the ability to be responsive to that.
Jason Heaton So with the cutting your own steel thing, that I think that that sounds like a casual thing to say. And then I've been to huge Swiss brands. I I mean I saw I w went on a uh multi day tour with Tutor the other day and Tudor has a uh manufacturing partner that makes their cases.
James Stacy Sadly no no Joseph Baum in uh Okay. So being a part of gun making and
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham programs where you would have to go get things
James Stacy made. So I spent my time at the Central Intelligence Agency, and one of the things that they do exceptionally well that I continued to carry with that is it is the people around the table that you're going to change the world with.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham And with those people around the table
James Stacy and a can do attitude, you just
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham go knock it out. So for me, from a
James Stacy machining standpoint, we're in the Pacific Northwest. Boeing is there. We have a very diverse machining infrastructure, and I
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham door to door, I need this made, I
James Stacy need this cut. And starting
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham with a vendor, bringing that vendor in-house,
James Stacy and then now we have bought that vendor out, so we fully own our own infrastructure. It gives us the ability to make those changes and those adjustments and be able to own that
Jason Heaton more. Um I didn't
James Stacy come from the watch world. Yeah. I came
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham from a love of the watch world. Sure.
James Stacy And not knowing what I know now, you're like, oh, this isn't the way this
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham is done. Right. But to me it's but
James Stacy in some ways that can be a superpower. Sure. Ignorance is bliss.
Jason Heaton It absolutely certainly is. But yeah. And I'm you know, you mentioned being able to do things, make adjustments, do things quickly. Uh you made something just for the fair, just for this show. And if you had told me on paper what it was, I would have said, well there's kudos, but it was almost certainly gonna be goofy. And then you guys pulled off so it' nots goofy at all. Talk about the kind of topography dials.
James Stacy It was executed well. So Elliot Brown, the Gemin guy from Elliot, were in the office Thursday evening and talking with two of my sons workforce, one's a watchmaker, and one does machining and finishing. And we were all sitting around the table and they had asked us what are we bringing up to the show that is special? Great question. We hadn't thought of it.
Jason Heaton For sure. Um in so And then you're just to quickly interrupt, I apologize. No, you you have an issue where it's hard for you to keep anything just constantly available on the site. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham And so we talked around it'd be
James Stacy neat to do a a topo dial, a topography dial, and we as the boys kicked it around, they're like, let's get
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham topo from the site. Let's take the mountains and the hills in and around Vancouver, laser the
James Stacy topo on the dial, and then on the
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham back use the GPS coordinates as the serial
Jason Heaton numbers. Caleb
James Stacy built those Friday and we brought 'em up Friday afternoon and now
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham they're gone. Yeah. So I
Jason Heaton think that's one of those things where it's it's too easy to go too literal, too close to a map, too and or so um so kind of uh figurative or non-literal, like that you it doesn't have a footing and you don't know what you're looking at. Whereas this it just you guys did a just really lovely job with it. So kudos for doing something so quickly.
James Stacy It's uh thank you. And one of the
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham things that comes from owning your own process is you get the ability to work out
Jason Heaton how it's gonna work. For sure. So the amount
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham of trash that we've had to topo or
James Stacy you know make and then just be like, hey man,
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham this isn't working. To be able to refine
James Stacy that with the the steel that we use and you know having our own in-house laser piece, we're just able to
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham to just kind of find something and translate it. So it's very niche.
Jason Heaton Yep. And we're in that slot, but
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham you know, we love it. It's that
Jason Heaton last like five percent that goes on top of all the stuff that you guys have already kind of built into the bedrock of the watches themselves. Uh what do what are you excited about?
James Stacy Everything. Really everything. We're
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham we we don't do a lot of models.
James Stacy So it's the diver, it's the field, and then from within that,
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham there's we're we're we're not the brand that
James Stacy just kinda Pander sounds
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham bad, but we see that, right? Like you
James Stacy go to places and it's like, what are we gonna try to do new? And we're like, what we're gonna try to do new is continue to execute what
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham we do better. So cut it
James Stacy cleaner, make it tighter, and be able to drive it on. So from ours, we have GMTs within each of those and then our next big project is keeping that same field case and diver case
Jason Heaton do a chrono. So I've been I
James Stacy think that would match the brand real nicely. I've been working on that for
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham a bit. There's a chrono a way that I want to make it
Jason Heaton a chrono fan. Oh, a huge chrono fan. Love 'em.
James Stacy And I wanted to do a variation, right? Everybody's got that same
AJ Bars / Mike Pearson / Matt Graham three button piece and using the and I
James Stacy kinda wanna I have a way I wanna do it. If I can crack the code on that then that's that's what's that's what's coming.
Jason Heaton Well very cool Matt. Well look thanks for coming on for a few minutes. Thanks. It's great to hear about what's going on at Aries and always nice to see ch see ya at the fair.
James Stacy Yeah, I love watching your stuff. So thanks for including us.
Jason Heaton Appreciate it. Absolutely. All right. Well that was fun. And uh you know if you hung in till the end there, uh I think it was probably worth it. Um good good crew of uh of folks there for your chats. Nice to hear from Matt. He's kind of a new new entity on the show. I know we've we've at least talked about AJ's stuff in the past and of course Mike and Jason have been on the show. But uh yeah, fun to have a a new guy on there with Matt and uh yeah great fun. Yeah, that that puts a good good wrap on uh on your West Coast swing.
James Stacy All right. Well, before we run the clock well past the one hour mark, uh although I think we may already be there, you want to get into some final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Um I'll go first and this is very timely. Um and and like literally like within the past several hours um you know i talked earlier about crushing my iPhone on my trip and um while I was still on the road um I decided I would order a a a replacement for it to be waiting for me when I got back home. And I went through a website called backmarket.com and again, I'm I'm sure plenty of people have heard about this and there are other resources for refurbished phones, but um, you know, Christy had used back market in the past for a couple of her phones and recommended it. And so I went ahead and and and just jumped on there and and ordered um a replacement. I just got the exact same phone um because I had a case for it. I'm cheap that way. And I just got another iPhone 15 Pro which it suits me well. I like the size of it. And I even got the same blue titanium color. And it fits right in this Pella case that I had talked about in a final note earlier. But uh I'm just uh I didn't want to spend an you know close to a thousand bucks or more on a new phone. Um and back market sells you know refurbished equipment. I mean they sell laptops and tablets and gaming consoles and smartwatches and that sort of thing. But uh yeah, it's just a good resource for um a refurbished phone, which f for me made a lot of sense. I'm not necessarily an early adopter or need the latest and greatest and my iPhone 15 was working just fine um other than ruining it um which was my fault so it was it was good and I think yeah exactly um I paid just between five and six hundred bucks for this and it was refurbished and ready to go and then between our first half recording and second half recording I spent half a day you know updating apps and remembering logins and that sort of stuff which isn't very fun but uh all came out for the best and uh yeah, I can recommend back market, uh kind of given my personal endorsement, if you will. Not being paid for this or or you know, we haven't gotten any sponsorship things from back market, but I I just happen to like their service. So yeah. Yeah, that great's.
James Stacy I recognize back market from ads on the New York subway. That's what I know them from. So I I'd seen it in the past and had never been to the website. Um and
Jason Heaton I yeah, like I said, promise this is not
James Stacy an ad or even buzzMarketing. Jason bought the phone. And uh you you mentioned that you're not an early adopter and like I w I also am on a fifteen pro. I will admit that I am almost embarrassed by how
Jason Heaton how interested I would be in a folding
James Stacy Apple phone. Oh,
Jason Heaton yeah. Like where it could be the tablet or
James Stacy the phone. You know, I I like that. I like those features on the Android one, but I'm pretty tied into the Apple world. Uh and there's more and more rumors
Jason Heaton or you, know, I don't know, AI renders,
James Stacy I can't tell anymore. Um interesting. That that that might be coming in uh in September is usually when that stuff's announced. So I'm also I I don't like upgrading the phone mostly because of the experience that you had where you have to figure out the phone again.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um it's it's never
James Stacy i I feel like there was a time where you just kinda plugged it into your computer and like iTunes figured it all out, but now you're like logging into iCloud and then waiting forever while it figures out what you have and what you don't have, and then you know there's an app that's not made anymore, and you had it on your old phone, and it's all this kind of stuff. So
Jason Heaton yeah. Dumb. Yeah, dumb
James Stacy and not fun. But speaking weirdly, speaking of Apple products, I have one to recommend that's ten dollars. It might be among Apple's cheapest products. Recently I got myself a pair of Sennheiser
Jason Heaton HD 600, which which are sort of medium higher end uh audio file sort of headphones. Yeah. Uh entry level to a certain type of specification, but very expensive if you don't know headphones, if that makes sense. And uh I have uh a new audio interface from Audien on my desk, which has a headphone amp and that powers them. They need a fair amount of power to be used. And then I was just kind of curious, like I spent all this money on the headphones and I'd like to sit in bed and listen to the headphones, but I don't want to unplug the whole interface that runs my monitors, that's running this microphone, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I started looking into like what could I plug into my phone that could power my headphones? Um, I will say that uh this Apple DAC dongle is ten dollars and basically it's just the adapter to go from USB C to a 3.5 millimeter audio. Yeah. Um it does not power the Sennheiser. So like you can listen to it. It's okay, but you can tell that it's you're straining it. But I will say that on any more reasonable headphones, headphones that are like 32 competents, that sort of thing, or IEMs, it's really, really good. Like if you have a pair of headphones that you don't really use anymore because you you like me, you the AirPods are okay okay enough to be used, but you have something that doesn't require, you know, X number of milliwatts to be driven with some headroom. This is a nice ten dollars. Uh it it works. Obviously, iPad or phone would be fine. It I think it's uh oh the there's one thing to consider. If you're in the EU, they are half of the power. They're probably less of a deal. The North American spec of this dongle is uh so it's an amp and a DAC, like in the USB connector. Yeah. So it's nothing like superpower. I think it's one volt, but the EU one I think is a half volt. So this my my recommendations may not stand if you're in the U. But if you've if you've largely gone to Bluetooth but you have a pair of headphones that you used to love that are wired, yeah. And and you've got ten bucks burning a hole in your discretionary funds, uh by all means snap one of these up uh and then run high res audio through it. I thought it sounded really, really good, especially on these really inexpensive. I actually don't know the brand, but I I bought like a $50 or $60 pair of IEMs, like Chinese IEMs, some time ago. I I guarantee they were a final note a few years back. And they absolutely scream through these things. So there's plenty of power for small drivers. Uh it sounds great. And it I think a lot of my like saying that it sounds really good is colored by the fact that it's ten dollars. Most decent audio equipment is not ten dollars. Yeah. So that's the one. And then if you do get that and you'd like to listen to a song that I've been obsessed with lately, uh check out Chelsea Hotel number two, which is Rufus Wainwright's cover of the Leonard Cohen song. It's absolutely awesome. It's been stuck in my head. I've been like waking up thinking about it, like humming humming or thinking of the lyrics. Yeah. Uh it's just a great song. Huge Rufus Wainwright fan. Um and and this one I certainly remember from back in the day and then you know I stopped listening to it or or whatever. I I think a lot of my playlists just have cigarettes and Chocolate milk on them. Another absolute favorite song of all time. Um, and but I've been adding this one in. I mean, Rufus Wainwright, largely known to most people for a cover of a song that Leonard Cohen was involved with with Hallelujah on the Shrek soundtrack back in the day. Mm-hmm. Uh I love these uh I love these songs. I uh obviously I love a good cover as well and Chelsea Hotel number two. Uh absolutely goes. So if you happen to got a pair of headphones that you really like, give it a listen. Uh that's that's this week's recommendation uh. Uh a thing you could consider buying and and something you could listen to either way. Yeah, that's a good pairing. Yeah. Nicely done. Yeah. All right. Well that's a full episode. Yeah.
James Stacy Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for
Jason Heaton listening. If you'd like to subscribe to get the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or even consider supporting the show directly and maybe even grab a new TGN sign NATO, please visit thegreatado. com for more details. Music Throat is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. And we leave you with this quote from Gerard Day, who said: one day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching.