Hey, all. I'm a late career software engineer in the aerospace business, though before that I was a mechanical design engineer and a manufacturing engineer, still all in aerospace. I still look at things and say "how do you get a cutter shaped like that in there?" I've been a WIS for maybe six or seven years when I bought a TAG WAN2110 from a GM dealer at the Tucson Gem and Jewelry show.
I had been a time jerk since I was in my teens, bringing a seriously damaged Elgin pocketwatch I found in a dirt lot back to life. I had to replace the hour and minute hands, crystal, third wheel upper jewel and one pallet jewel back to life. For instance, the pallet jewel wasn't going to arise from the dead, so I crafted one from the hardest material I had on hand, the tang from a file. I broke it off and shaped it down using various stones until it matched the shape of the broken stone (I had both pieces).
For the crystal, I took a piece of 1/4 thick acrylic and sanded it until it looked like a crystal. It was a keeper until halfway though my freshman year when it was stolen from a locker. But the thief didn't get too much, I had no idea of lubricant at the time; thought a watch just ran on it's own happy merits.
I was fat, dumb and happy for much of my adult life. At some point, my FIL passed and my MIL gifted my son a Rado he owned. She then took it back (yes, she was a real work of art, RIP) only to gift it to another grandson.
Sometime later , my wife called me up and said that she'd found a watch that was a really good deal and could we buy it to make up for the lost Rado. I approved but only later found out I was approving on a $1000 watch. WTF!
A few years later, I was at the same venue with my wife (approving another $1200 purchase for my son) and said, Fsck, if we can afford to spend that much on a watch for a teenager, it's time for me to buy a watch. Since the vendor in question had a bunch of WAN2110's for sale at $1250, that became my pigeon and that's what I walked away with.
That was a gateway watch, or at least it opened me up to buying more than one watch. The next year, I bought a Tissot Seastar with the Powermatic 80 movement for less than $500 (damn, a new diver for so little) but then at the same show I bought my TAG WAK2180 you've seen on other threads.
Now being a full blown WIS, I've bought a couple of Omegas (Speedmaster '57, SMPO), a Brietling diver, a couple cheap Tissots, a Milgauss and a stable of four TAGs. I've also purchased my wife several TAGs. The nicest is a WAY1390 Aquaracer in all ceramic to wear on dive trips.
Oh, yes, we are avid divers and try to go on several trips a year. Our last trip was to Raja Ampat (first time) and it's everything it's cracked up to be. I'll slowly dribble snaps and vids of the trips when I can.
Here's a shot of the SMPO in it's working enviroment:
Here's a shot of a Manta Ray from Raja:
Got lots more where that came from.
Good times!
