200,000 Subscribers

I hit 100,000 subscribers on the 9th of April 2019. This is 4 years after I launched my channel. About 1.5 years later, and I surpassed 200,000 subscribers on the 22nd of August 2020.

It needs to be noted that 2020 led to some growth that was out of the ordinary. While a large number of people were forced to work from home, my videos seemed to get a little bit of a boost in viewers as the offered people a solution to recording at home or getting a microphone for their conference calls. I don’t think I would have hit 200,000 subscribers in 2020 if I had not seen this growth. Thank you for the amazing support over the year.

I Guess I'm a Watch Guy Now

Hamilton Khaki Field Watch

I’m talking about watches because I want to. I’m going to walk through the watches I remember having and why I have fallen back in love with watches.

MY HISTORY WITH WATCHES

When i was a kid the only watch I remember having was a Shark, which is a watch specifically made for surfing, diving, and swimming. I stopped caring about watches for a long while, but when I was in college I was turned into that weirdo who was wearing a golden Casio calculator watch. How quirky, eh?

Then I wore a fitbit for a while but I wasn’t fit so they made me throw the watch in the trash. Following this I was sent a Seiko automatic watch by my father (SNK805). I wore this for about a year and a half until I went all in on the Apple watch for 3 years. It was so convenient to have perfect time, controls over music and podcasts, and the ability to ping my phone when I lost it. However, you had to charge it every night (and sometimes it wouldn’t sit right on the charger and you’d be without a watch the next day), but more importantly it tracked EVERYTHING about.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I saw a bunch of announcements that Apple was going to begin rolling out contact tracing and my paranoid brain started screaming. I took off the Apple watch in March and haven’t looked back since. I put on the old Seiko I had, and then somehow YouTube knew I had gone back to mechanical watches and they started recommending me a whole bunch of watch content and it really brought this love of mechanical watches out of me.

WHY I LOVE WATCHES?

In 2020, everything is digital, everything is connected, everything needs to be charged, and everything tracks you. Simply put, I love the idea of having one last piece of technology that does not require firmware updates, does not track you 24 hours a day, doesn’t push notifications to you all day, doesn’t keep you available for contact whenever someone wants, and something that WILL work as long as I spend 15 seconds winding it (or moving my wrist).

For some reason, no matter how stressed I get at work, or how deep into an excel spreadsheet I get, taking a few seconds to look at the watch it gives me a little bit of a reminder that nothing really matters and we’re all going to die anyways.that was a joke…kind of. It really does ground me and reminds me to slow down.

That’s the blog post. I wouldn’t be surprised if I make a video about some clocks or watches or something in the future.

Buying Stuff Made in the USA

Over the last few months I have been attempting to find alternatives to what I currently use that are being made in the United States. I made this decision to try and support local economies during the current difficult times. I also have learned a lot more about human rights violations occurring in China, and that made me want to actively seek to avoid purchasing products made in that country whenever possible as I have no way of determining which factories and companies are benefiting from those violations. If you want to learn more about my stance on this, I spoke on this topic for about 10 minutes on episode 224 of the BSP starting at around 21:00.

I wanted to share a few of these companies in case you’re interested in supporting the local US economy. I have also started a list on podcastage.com listing where stuff is manufactured (to the best of my knowledge) if you are at all interested in purchasing from a specific country or avoiding another country due to your own personal concerns: https://podcastage.com/where-its-made

CLOTHES

Flannels: https://www.vermontflannel.com/
Shirts/ Socks: https://www.american-giant.com/
Shoes: https://www.redwingshoes.com/
Beanies: https://www.rothco.com/

ACCESSORIES
Watches: https://weisswatchcompany.com/
Knives: https://www.thekershawstore.com/usa-made-knives/
Lighter: https://www.zippo.com/

OFFICE / HOME

Pens: https://www.spacepen.com/
Notebooks: https://fieldnotesbrand.com/
Leather: https://saddlebackleather.com/
Wooden Box: https://relicwood.com/
Canvas Bag: https://huckberry.com/
Bedding: https://www.redlandcotton.com/
Blankets: https://www.pendleton-usa.com/

AUDIO

AEA Microphones: https://www.aearibbonmics.com/
Earthworks Microphones: https://earthworksaudio.com/
Rupert Neve Designs Preamps: https://rupertneve.com/
Apogee Interfaces: https://apogeedigital.com/ (assembled in US)
OC White Boom Arms: https://www.ocwhite.com/