Monday, June 19, 2006

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

One of the great things about a Caribbean cruise is the shopping, the duty free shopping. But after living in Delaware for years, not paying taxes is less remarkable than it used to be. Frankly, I would have rather won an inordinate amount of money with the ten dollars Amy and I spent in the casinos. Gambling winnings made in international waters are duty free too.

Anyway, one of the things we did in foreign lands was buy new watches. Amy bought a cute Swatch number at an appropriately named Swatch kiosk on St. Thomas. I went more upscale on St. Thomas with a Swiss Made Hamilton Khaki Automatic from Diamonds International. No, I didn't pay as much as the linked one.

My watch is an auto-winding mechanical number. Which is great because I'm a mechanical guy. Its spiffiness is enhanced by a crystal on the back of the watch opposite the standard crystal on the watch face. Thanks to the crystal back, you can see the movement moving, springs springing, and the counterweight auto-winding the watch. For a mechanical engineer, this is especially cool. If this thing ever breaks, I am definitely taking it apart with my jewelers loupe and some tweezers.

The great thing about this watch is that I never have to wind it and I never have to change its non-existent battery. The crappy thing is that I have to wear it every day because it is powered by the motion of my body. And since this is a nice watch, I will want to wear something cheaper in situations where it could get beat up or dirty. I want to protect my investment.

Now I could just let it wind down and reset it whenever. I could also just wind it manually on days I didn't wear it. But auto-winding watches aren't really meant to be manually wound. It is a pain to do so. Another solution is to buy an inexpensive watch winder. This spins the watch to keep it wound even if I'm not wearing it. A good watch requires watch support gear I suppose.

I wouldn't have had this problem with a quartz Ventura though.

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