Category: Feel Good Stuff

The Sopranos: The Final Scene

By Joe Berk

Very few (if any) final scenes have sparked as much discussion and controversy as the final Sopranos scene.  Tony Soprano and his family are meeting for dinner at Holsten’s in Bloomfield, New Jersey, the fictional mob wars between the New York and New Jersey families have ended, and we think all is well.  Their favorite local restaurant is Holsten’s, which Tony mentions in the series.  Is it a real place?

Absolutely.  And it’s good.  We found Holsten’s and had lunch there (it’s at 1063 Broad Street in Bloomfield, New Jersey), and I was surprised.  The place has to be the most famous small local restaurant in the world, and you’d think with the kind of publicity they’ve had, they wouldn’t be very good.  People from literally all over the world (more on that in a minute) find their way to Holsten’s.  But it is good.  Very good, in fact.  More on that in a minute, too.

I was able to park directly in front of Holsten’s, and as I was getting out, I noticed a young couple scrambling to cross the street and get into the restaurant.  I had an idea why, so I slowed down a bit.

Okay, to make what I’m going to show you make sense, I need to tell you a bit about that last scene up front.  In the photo below, there are three Holsten’s locations you need to know about.   The photo below shows them as you enter the restaurant.

As you enter Holsten’s, there’s a long lunch counter and booths at the back of the restaurant. Arrow B points to where the likely hitman initially sat. Arrow A points to the small hallway that leads to the restrooms, where the shot that took out Tony was fired from. Arrow C points to the booth where Tony sat, enjoying his onion rings, when he got whacked.

That young couple racing to get into the restaurant?  I was right.  They were hustling to grab the booth all the way in the back, where Tony, Carmela, and AJ sat.  In the Sopranos scene, Tony was flipping through the mini-jukebox on the table.  Today it’s the only table in the restaurant that has that little jukebox.  They used to be at every table in any New Jersey diner.  Notice the sign denoting the booth, too.

We sat one booth up from the Sopranos’ booth and we started talking to the young couple I mentioned above.  They were doing the same thing we were: hitting locations that appear in different Sopranos episodes.   Sue told them we were from California.   They told us they were from (get this) Poland!  Yep, they flew all the way from Poland to do what we were doing.  These folks were serious Sopranos fans.  Check out his tattoos:

This is beyond being a mere fan, I think.
Impressive. Christopher, Tony, Silvio, and Pauly. And before you ask: Yes, I know these are fictional characters.

You no doubt realize by now that I am a serious Sopranos fan. But I don’t have any tattoos denoting any of the characters in The Sopranos, and I have no plans to get any.

We had a lunch, and (as mentioned above), it was surprisingly good.  I had a tuna melt.  We ordered a plate of onion rings.  Just minutes before he got whacked, Tony Soprano said they were the best onion rings in the state.  I’ve sampled a lot of onion rings in New Jersey, and I think he was right.

The menu was simple. Our lunch selections were excellent. The people from Poland thought so, too.

We left feeling pretty good.  I grabbed one more shot with my cell phone.

A parting shot: The Holsten’s storefront.

About that last scene:  The audience never does find out exactly what happened.  Tony looks up as Meadow (his daughter) is entering the restaurant, and the screen and the sound suddenly go to a silent black.  Most people thought their TVs had gone out.  I did.  Then the credits start rolling by, and we realized that one of the best series ever, all six seasons of it, were over.  It was brilliant.

Take a look, remembering the locations I pointed out in that photo above.

The Sopranos ExNotes Wrap Up (for now)

Well, sort of.  I’m not entirely done with The Sopranos. This is the fourth (or maybe fifth) one of our blogs on The Sopranos, and I don’t have any more planned until the next trip back to the Garden State.  About that “maybe fifth” business:  One of The Sopranos episodes takes place in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.  I rode the Pine Barrens when I did the piece on Jerry Dowgin’s Honda 305 Scrambler (rest in peace, Jerry).  The Sopranos episode didn’t actually take place in the Pine Barrens, as anybody knows who’s ever been there (it was filmed in a forest somewhere in New York, and they didn’t even have pine trees).  Parts of that episode were funny as hell, though, as you can see in this clip:

The other three Sopranos blogs we’ve done recently are:

Please let us know if you enjoyed our Sopranos sojourn.  Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

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The Harley-Davidson Museum

By Joe Berk

I’ve been a motorcycle guy nearly all my life and I’ve owned several motorcycles.  Only two of them were Harleys; the first was beautiful but terrible in many ways (a ’79 Electra Glide Classic).  The second was beautiful and it was a great machine (a ’92 Heritage Softail).  I think Harley’s styling on past models has been awesome.  Bottom line? I’m not a Harley fanatic and I’m not a hater.  It’s not likely I’d ever buy another Harley, unless I came across a cheap XR-1000 (and that’s probably not in the cards).  All that said, I can tell you that the Harley-Davidson Museum is the best motorcycle museum (and maybe the best anything museum) I’ve ever visited (and I’ve visited a lot of them).

First, a bit of logistics about the Museum and our upcoming blogs.   We were in Milwaukee specifically to visit the Museum along with a few other Milwaukee highlights.  The Harley Museum is too much to take in with just a single visit, and it is definitely too much to cover in a single blog.  Our Milwaukee schedule allowed only one Harley Museum visit, but I’ll cover it in three or four blogs.  This is the first.

Sticking to the logistics for a moment, the Museum is easy to get to.  Plug it into Waze and you’ll drive right up to their front door.  There’s plenty of parking, and we snagged a handicap parking spot right at their front door (my handicap tag is the silver lining to a 2009 motorcycle accident).  We visited the Museum on a weekday, so it was not too crowded.  I’m guessing that’s not the case on the weekends.

Admission is reasonable at $24 per person; for us it was a little less because we qualify for the geezer discount (that knocks it down to $20 per person).  Knowing Harley’s customer base, I think a lot of folks get in for $20.

The interior lighting was subdued.  Flash photography is allowed, but it’s hard to get decent photos with flash.  Nearly everything you see here is with ambient lighting.  I had to crank up the Nikon’s ISO, so you may see some graininess in my photos.  Mea culpa.

The Museum has three floors, and the building is huge.  There are several permanent exhibits and a few special exhibits (ones that change from time to time).   The exhibits (both permanent and special) include:

      • Motorcycle Galleries.
      • Mama Tried.
      • Mi Papi.
      • The Engine Room.
      • The Archives.
      • Military Motorcycles.
      • Clubs and Competition.
      • The Tank Wall.
      • Art and Engineering.

Motorcycle Galleries

The Motorcycle Galleries are on the first and second floors, and they dominate the Museum.  The Motorcycle Galleries is an appropriate name. The first part is a 180-foot, three-motorcycle-wide display of motorcycles from Harley’s first 50 years, starting with their very first model.  The second part features later Harleys.

It was a well assembled exhibit and the motorcycles are beautiful.  As I walked the line and took in the motorcycles, I realized I had seen more than a few of these bikes in books.  Seeing them in person was special.

Mama Tried

Mama Tried was a custom bike exhibit, containing all sorts of custom Harleys (not the wigged-out choppers you see at the motorcycle shows).  I’m not sure what the name (Mama Tried) is supposed to mean, but I thought the exhibit was good.  I was liked seeing the Knucklehead customized by Shinya Kimura, whom we’ve written about before.

Mi Papi Has A Motorcycle

You may remember that Joe Gresh wrote an ExNotes review a few years ago about the Spanish language kid’s book, Mi Papi Has A Motorcycle.  The book impressed Gresh; apparently, it had the same effect on the Museum staff.  There’s an entire hall with large storyboards taken from the book.

The Engine Room

The Engine Room was enlightening.  I always found the history and names of Harley engines confusing.  VL, UL, flatheads, you know…what do all those designations actually mean?  I’m a mechanical engineer and I never could follow it all.  The Engine Room made it all clear.  We’ll have a future blog on it.  This was one of the best parts of the Harley Museum.

The Archives

The Archives were something I’d read about before.  An elevator takes you to the third floor.  The archives are not open to the public, but you can peer in through a double wire fence.  One of Elvis Presley’s motorcycles was near the fence.

Military Motorcycles

The Military Motorcycles exhibit features the Harleys used in World War II and it was the best exhibit of its type I’ve ever seen.  This is a topic I’ve been interested in for a l0ng time, going back to before I wrote The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles.  There will be a separate blog on this exhibit.  It was awesome.

Clubs and Competition

The Clubs and Competition exhibit features a board track with vintage race bikes and projected images of motorcycle racers (and accompanying engine sounds), vintage Harley hill climbers, and Joe Petrali’s land speed record Knucklehead.  The Petrali streamliner was awesome.

The Tank Wall

The Tank Wall and the tank exhibits were intriguing.  I’ve seen photos of it many times, but to see it in person had more of an impact.  To me, the tanks and the engine are what make a Harley.  It’s well done.  I felt like a kid in a candy store more in this part of the Museum than anywhere else.

Art and Engineering

The Museum has a relatively new Art and Engineering exhibit, which is intended to show how art combines with engineering at Harley-Davidson.  I was disappointed, especially because it was one of the main reasons I visited.   I felt it was superficial and that it was basically a Harley-Davidson commercial, with almost nothing beyond a very light explanation of how Harley engineering is influenced by art.  I get it; they go from sketches to clay mockups to metal, and they select colors along the way.  Got it.  They use CAD.  Got it.  Willie G is a wonderful human being, and so was an earlier designer/stylist named Brooks Stevens.  Got it.  I kind of knew all of that before I got on the airplane to go to Milwaukee (except for the part about Brooks Stevens; that was new to me).

When the motorcycling world discovered Willie G 50 years ago (in the days of the Super Glide, the XLCR Cafe Racer, the Electra Glide Classic, the Low Rider, etc.) there were lots of stories about how Harley went to motorcycle events and studied how riders customized their motorcycles.  That was good stuff and those were good creativity inputs, but there was none of that in this exhibit.  I was hoping to understand how Harley selected the style and the performance parameters for the new Sportster (a nice-looking motorcycle) and the Pan America (an ugly motorcycle, but all ADV bikes are), and maybe gain some insights into where Harley might go in the future.  There was none of that.

I’m probably not a fair judge in this area.  I taught engineering for 27 years at Cal Poly Pomona, I’ve had motorcycle engineering assignments related to Harley and other companies, and I wrote a book about engineering creativity.   To be fair to Harley, they weren’t targeting retired engineering professors when they created the Art and Engineering exhibit.  The exhibit had nice visuals, but for me it was devoid of any meaningful content.  That said, we took in nine exhibits at the Harley Museum and only this one didn’t measure up to what I expected.  The rest were all outstanding, and 8 out of 9 wins is a pretty good score in anybody’s book.

So there you have it:  My Harley-Davidson Museum impressions.  Sue and I had a good time.  We were there for about three hours, but it would have been easy to spend the entire day.  My disappointment in the Art and Engineering exhibit notwithstanding, I strongly recommend that anyone who rides or has even a passing interest in the American icon that is Harley-Davidson visit the Museum.  It’s a bucket list destination.  I’m glad I went.

At the tail end of our path through the Harley Museum, there’s an area with current model Harleys where you can sit on the bikes and take pictures.  A nice guy from the Czech Republic offered to take a picture of Susie and me with my cell phone. It looks good.  Our smiles are real.

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ExNotes Review: The 600 m.o.l. Black Helicopter Pilots in Vietnam

By Joe Berk

This is the first of several book reviews to follow in the next few weeks.  The 600 m.o.l. Black Helicopter Pilots in Vietnam is the true story of the second wave of Tuskegee Airmen.  The first wave included the Black aviators who flew combat missions in World War II.  There have been movies made about those men and their accomplishments are well known.  The second wave refers to Tuskegee airmen trained to be helicopter pilots by the famed Alfred Anderson, who trained the first wave for World War II.  Their exploits and the paths they blazed are not nearly as well known.

I happened on to The 600 m.o.l. Black Helicopter Pilots in Vietnam as a result of visiting one of the pilots featured in the book, a man who was my first boss when I was in the Army in Korea.

The story is fascinating on many levels, not the least of which is the story of the author, Dr. Joe Ponds.  He was one of the more or less (that’s where the “m.o.l.” comes from) 600 Black helicopter pilots in Vietnam who flew Huey and Cobra gunships during that war.  The book begins with the author’s end in sight:  A cancer diagnosis with only a few months left to live.

What do you do with what is essentially a death sentence diagnosis?  Dr. Joe Ponds decided to tell the story of the Black helicopter pilots who flew in Vietnam.  Theirs was not an easy path.  They faced institutionalized racism and discrimination in both civilian and Army life.  These men managed to overcome limits imposed by others and they became U.S. Army aviators.

The 600 m.o.l. Black Helicopter Pilots in Vietnam covers seven major topics:

    • A brief history of discrimination in America and efforts to overcome it.
    • Dr. Pond’s experiences in gaining a officer’s commission in the US Army, and then becoming a helicopter pilot.
    • A discussion of the different types of helicopters flown in Vietnam.
    • A review of the kinds of helicopter missions in Vietnam.
    • Stories from several Black aviators featured in the book.  All were interesting, especially the ones who flew medevac helicopters.  Those helicopters flew with no armament whatsoever, and they were literally sitting (or hovering) ducks when they flew in to retrieve wounded soldiers.
    • A list of the approximately 600 Black aviators who served in Vietnam.
    • A chapter describing how Dr. Ponds’ cancer went into remission and his subsequent activities on several fronts, including mentoring young people, counseling, helping first responders cope with post-traumatic stress syndrome, motivational speaking, and more.

The 600 m.o.l. Black Helicopter Pilots in Vietnam was a great read.  I know you’ll enjoy it.

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Rescue Diver Certification

By Mike Huber

With an open schedule and in need of some routine I took it upon myself to enroll in a Rescue Diver Certification Course.  With still being in Thailand and continuing to dive while learning every mistake not to make it only made sense to become more proficient if not for myself, then for the fellow divers around me.

Returning to Koh Tao Thailand seemed the perfect place to take this course.  With so many dive shops on the island and being unsure who to use for this next level class I did what I always do.  I went to a bar and chatted other divers up.  One shop that seemed to always be spoken highly of was Scuba Shack.  It was not only a great decision to choose them for their professionalism, but it was right next door to where I was staying on Sairee Beach.

There are several requirements prior to beginning the rescue diver course. One is having an advanced scuba certification which allows you to dive to a depth of 30 meters and further educates you on proper buoyancy while underwater.  Having just taken this a month prior helped me as the fundamentals were still fresh in my head.  The second was to obtain an updated First Responder course.  This part of the class was half a day and entailed covering CPR, proper bandage application, and procedures on how to help others in numerous types of emergency situations from car accidents to everyday incidents you may come across anywhere on land.  Once that was completed and I passed the online course, the real challenge began.  Scuba rescue operations while at sea include incidents well below the water’s surface.

The water rescue portion was what I was really itching to learn.  It was a challenging experience both mentally and physically.  Many of the scenarios involved how to identify and treat divers who are exhausted, panicked, or unconscious.  Another major prop I will give Scuba Shack is the actors in these scenarios did a fabulous job (I think I may still have a lump on my head from rescuing the panicked diver).  The most work was in having to rescue an unconscious diver underwater.  This included how to bring them safely to the surface, how to bring them to the boat while they are yelling for help, and providing rescue breaths every 5 seconds (including doing wo while taking both your gear and their gear off).  It was humbling how much work and focus it took to perform these tasks with precision. My partner, Naz and I managed to successfully perform these tasks both solo and as a team.

Upon completing our final skills test (which was an underwater navigation search and rescue), we both relaxed on the boat celebrating with some coffee and fresh fruit when we heard several people screaming for help in the water.  It was the final exam. Naz and I had to rescue three divers needing help.  We had to prioritize each one and work as a team to safely rescue them all in order of priority.  We performed this successfully.

We both passed our course, and our confidence and diving abilities greatly increased from attending this class. Naz is currently in the Dive Master Program with Scuba Shack on Koh Tao.  She will be an excellent dive master.  My travels are continuing; I’m currently examining a map and selecting the next country I’ll visit.

I want to thank all the wonderful people at Scuba Shack and our instructor Sita on the great experiences during this class and on our fun dives we performed several times each week.

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The Sopranos: Asbury Park

By Joe Berk

Asbury Park, New Jersey, is another Sopranos location.   In the series, several episodes depict Tony Soprano’s dreams.  It’s a well-worn cinematic technique, but David Chase (The Sopranos writer) did it well.  In the Asbury Park scene, Tony has been diagnosed with cancer and he pours gasoline over himself and self immolates in front of his minions.  Tony’s a good guy, you see, and he wants to short circuit his suffering and spare his friends the hospital visits associated with his impending lengthy illness.

In the video above, the building that spans the boardwalk is the Asbury Park Convention Center.   You can see it and the boardwalk, along with the beach (what we in New Jersey call “the shaw,” as in “Let’s go down the shaw…”) in the photo above this blog.

On the Asbury Park boardwalk, approaching the Convention Center.

In a later scene during Tony’s dream, Tony shoots Pauly Walnuts inside the Convention Center during a card game.  Throughout the series, Tony’s relationship with Pauly is complicated.  Pauly is probably Tony’s most loyal minion (along with Silvio Dante), but Pauly is constantly getting on Tony’s nerves.  The character development The Sopranos is very well done; it is one of many areas in which the show shines.   You probably can tell I am a Sopranos fanboy.  I am what I am.

Inside the Asbury Park Convention Center. The red arrow denotes where Tony (in his dream) shot Pauly.

The coin-operated binoculars you see in the video are no longer on the boardwalk, but they were there when I was a kid and I remember wishing I had the coins and the height to be able to see through them.  The benches you see in the video (on the boardwalk, facing the Atlantic) are still there.

Inside the Convention Center. It was built in 1929. I don’t think it is still used for conventions.  It would be cool if it did.
On the south side of the Convention Center, looking east at the Atlantic Ocean. In The Many Saints of Newark (a recently released prequel to the Sopranos), Dickie Moltisante (Tony’s childhood hero), murdered his girlfriend (and former stepmother) in the Atlantic at this spot. It’s a complicated plot.
Looking north along the Asbury Park boardwalk (on the northern side of the Convention Center, which was just behind me when I took this photo).

On the day I visited Asbury Park, contractors were erecting a stage right on the beach for a Bruce Springsteen concert the next day.    General admission tickets were $350; select seating tickets went as high as $4,000.  These were not scalper prices; these are the prices that were published for the event.  I learned this talking to a young lady inside the Convention Center.  I still have my New Jersey accent, and just for grins, I told her I went to high school with Bruce.  I didn’t, but I was having fun.

On the north side of the Convention Center, looking south. That stage to the left is where the Springsteen concert was going to be.

“Really?” she said.  I am Bruce Springsteen’s age, and young people are easily fooled.  I think she believed me.

“What was he like?” she asked, wide eyed.

“Truth be told, he was a first-class pain in the ass,” I answered. “Even in those days, he wanted everyone to call him ‘The Boss.’  It was weird, but we humored the guy.”  Her mouth opened in amazement. She was buying my line, but it wasn’t true.  There’s only one boss, and his name is Tony Soprano.

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Ride Oklahoma!

By Joe Berk

Unless you have visited Oklahoma or you live there, you probably wouldn’t think of Oklahoma as a motorcycling paradise.  But trust me, it is.  And finding the best rides in Oklahoma is easy, thanks to Oklahoma’s Tourism and Recreation Department.  Sue and I are always looking for interesting travel destinations, and as a guy who writes travel pieces for Motorcycle Classics magazine, my antenna goes up when I hear about great roads and great destinations.   Several years ago when I was working for CSC Motorcycles, we attended the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show.  In the vendor display area, Sue found a booth manned by the Oklahoma tourism folks.

One thing led to another, we received a package of travel information that would choke a brontosaurus, and shortly after that we were in Oklahoma.  I have a friend who retired in Tulsa, we visited a bit, and we hit a bunch of great destinations in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and the surrounding areas.  I wrote several blogs about our visit, and several Motorcycle Classics Destinations articles.   These are the blogs:

But even with the above, we barely scratched the surface of what Oklahoma offers.   The materials the good folks in Oklahoma mailed to us included the Oklahoma Motorcycle Guide.   It suggests several rides, complete with maps and two or three pages on each ride.  The Oklahoma Motorcycle Guide is impressive.

A few suggested Oklahoma rides. Click on this image a couple times to enlarge it.

Imagine that:  One of our states issuing a motorcycle travel guide!   More good news?  It’s free, the latest version includes even more rides than does the version I received several years ago, and you can download it immediately at this link:  Oklahoma Motorcycle Guide Free Download

Trust me on this:  If you’ve been looking for your good next place to ride, Oklahoma needs to be on your list.

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A Tale of Two Two-Tone GMTs

By Joe Berk

Some time ago, we wrote a blog comparing the Casio Marlin and Rolex Sea Dweller dive watches.   This one is similar; it compares my nearly 40-year-old two-tone Rolex GMT II to a recently-released Seiko two-tone GMT.

Two GMT watches: The Rolex GMT Master II (left) and the Seiko two-tone GMT (right).  in the photos here, the Rolex has a much richer appearance; in real life, the Seiko looks just as good.
A close up of my Rolex GMT Master II, purchased new in 1986 when I was still a yuppie.  Note the cyclops lens over the date.  It really works.  The older I get, the better it works.
The Seiko two-tone GMT, purchased a few days ago.  The Seiko also has a cyclops lens over the date.  It’s a cool and useful touch.  This is a very nice watch.

I’m a sucker for a good-looking watch.  Many of my retired friends take pride in not wearing a watch, and many young people don’t wear watches (they’re glued to their cell phones all day; they can get the time there).  I always wear a watch.

The first watch I ever owned was a gift from my parents.  It was an inexpensive Timex that was completely unexpected, I loved it, and I wore it for years.  I first recognized watches as a status symbol and a cool thing to own when I was in the Army, and like all the other lieutenants overseas, I bought a Seiko chronograph at the Base Exchange.  After the Army came the aerospace industry where a Rolex was the status symbol, and when I was back in D.C. lobbying Congress to buy Aerojet cluster bombs instead of Brand X (Honeywell was Brand X for us), a jewelry store had the Rolex GMT Master II you see here.  I wore it full time for years after I first bought it, and then only intermittently after that.  I felt the Rolex was pretentious around clients, and I was afraid it would reinforce a feeling that they were paying me too much (which they were).  Now that I’m retired, the fear of being pretentious has been replaced by the fear of getting mugged, so I don’t wear it very often.

The hands of fate. The top arrow points to the bezel, which can be rotated in relation to the GMT hand (lower left arrow) to tell time on a 24-hour scale in a different time zone. The second-from-the-top red arrow points to the minute hand. The arrow on the right points to the conventional hour hand.  If you look closely at the inverted diamond at 12:00, you can see the bezel is slightly off.

So what is a GMT watch?  Basically, it is a watch that allows you to tell time in three time zones.   If you wanted to, one of the time zones could be Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is the time at the Greenwich Observatory in England.  Most of the time, I could care less what the time is in England, but that’s where the GMT descriptor originates.

Today, there are multiple approaches for time telling in different time zones, but the classic approach (and one followed by the Rolex and Seiko watches in this blog) is through the use of a third hand and a bezel with 24-hour numbering.  The way it works is this:

      • The standard hour and minute hands tell the local time.
      • The third hand can be shifted to tell the time in a different time zone.
      • The bezel can be rotated to tell the time in a third time zone.

There are variations on the above (like switching local time with destination time, etc.).  All of this may sound like a solution looking for a problem, but trust on this, when you travel to different time zones, it’s a very useful feature.

The Rolex GMT allows you to “step” the hour in one-hour increments by use of the winding knob when the knob is partially pulled out (some folks say this makes the Rolex a “true” GMT).  On the Seiko, it doesn’t have the “step” function; use of the winding knob advances either the third hand or the conventional hour hand without the one-hour clicks (depending on which click you bring the stem out to).   To me, either approach is acceptable.

The Rolex GMT Master II retails today for $14,050; the Seiko goes for $475.  There’s a lot more to the pricing story, though.  Prices on a Rolex are all over the map, and Rolexes sell for well above their suggested retail price.  Some, even used, sell for three or four times their suggested retail price.  I don’t know what my Rolex would sell for today as a used watch, and I’m not really interested because it’s not for sale.  The Rolex will eventually go to one of my grandsons.  I paid $3287 for it new in that Washington, D.C. jewelry store in 1986.  I could easily get my money out of it if I wanted to, but like I said, that’s not going to happen.

An all stainless (i.e., non-two-tone) Seiko GMT. These go for $317 on Amazon. It’s a good-looking watch.

Staying on pricing for a minute, the two-tone Seiko GMT is a relatively new model, so I couldn’t find it discounted on Amazon.  If the two-tone coloring is not important to you, you can get the all-stainless version on Amazon for $317, which is a smoking deal (it’s $158 less expensive than the two-tone version).

My Seiko GMT was an impulse buy.  Sue and I went out for lunch and there was a small watch shop a couple of doors down.  They had the two-tone model, which I had not seen before other than in online watch forums and Seiko’s website (I was in Tokyo last year, and I didn’t even see it there).  I asked the shop about a veteran’s discount, the guy said “you bet,” and mine set me back $402.  I like supporting local businesses, I like doing business with shops that offer a veteran’s discount, and I liked being able to see the watch in person before I pulled the trigger.

My Rolex runs fast, gaining about a minute a week.  That’s adjustable and would no doubt be corrected if I took the watch in for service, but I’m probably not going to do that.  I’ve had the Rolex serviced twice.  The last time was 25 years ago at the Rolex service center in Beverly Hills (where else could it possibly be?).  Rolex clipped me $1000 for the service.  I wasn’t happy at all.  After the servicing, the numbers on the click-detented bezel were offset from where they should have been, and when I bitched about that, they remounted the bezel.  It was better, but it is still offset a bit.  Within six months of that service (which included replacing the crystal), I noticed a gouge on the crystal.  I had worn the Rolex for 10 years before that and never had a scratch on the original crystal, so I have to wonder if I really received the sapphire crystal I paid for.  A servicing today will probably be about $1500 if I get the crystal replaced and the bezel numbers remounted.  It’s not likely I’ll spring for that.  Maybe I will.  I don’t know.  It’s something I think about now and then, but then I think about getting out on the range with a milsurp rifle or riding my motorcycle and I forget about it.  So far, the Seiko is keeping perfect time.  I’ll let you know if that changes.

The Seiko is a new watch, so I haven’t had it serviced yet.  Poking around a bit revealed that a typical mechanical watch servicing costs from $200 to $250. I think my local guy would probably be less than that.  It’s quite a bit lower than what a Rolex service costs.

Both the Seiko and the Rolex are automatics.  That means they are mechanical, selfwinding timepieces.  The good news is there are no batteries, and it doesn’t matter if I stay out in the sun long enough to charge the solar power source.  The bad news is that if I don’t wear an automatic watch for a few days, it stops.  When that happens, prior to the next time I wear it I need to wind it and set the time.  The Seiko, fully wound, has a 41-hour power reserve.  The Rolex has a 70-hour power reserve.  Rolex gets the nod here.

Regarding cosmetics, the “gold” bezel on the Seiko isn’t really gold; it’s plated.  The accents on the Seiko hands and the watchface are similarly gold colored (i.e., they are not real gold).  The Seiko’s jubilee bracelet links center areas are left a natural stainless steel finish.  On the Rolex, they are gold.  Another thing to note:  On any Rolex, wherever you see something gold, it’s real gold.  Nothing is plated on a Rolex.  The bezel, the watchface accents, the hands, the winder, and the jubilee bracelet are all solid gold.  Both watches look great, in my opinion.  The real gold obviously drives the cost of Rolex higher than a Seiko, but not enough to explain the $14,000 (or more) difference.  Most of the price difference is prestige pricing (Rolex gets away with it because some folks think they need such a thing).  I used to be one of them.  I’m not anymore.

About that jubilee bracelet:  What they refers to are the smaller links in the watchband’s center section.   Non-jubilee watches have bigger, single links instead of the jubilee bracelet’s three smaller links.  To me, the jubilee bracelet makes a real comfort difference.  The non-jubilee bracelet just doesn’t feel as good.

The Seiko is a much thicker case, and it sits higher on the wrist.  It’s enough to be noticeable.  The Rolex is thinner and I like the feel of it better for that reason.

Note the increased case thickness of the Seiko (on the right) compared to the downright thin Rolex. Rolex gets the nod here.

The Seiko’s stem winder is a push in/pull out affair.  The Rolex stem winder unscrews, which theoretically makes it more waterproof.   I don’t wear my watch in the shower any more (ever since I ruined a G-Shock by doing so), so the difference is meaningless to me.

One last area I’ll touch on is the clasp design.  Hands down (pardon the pun) the win here goes to Seiko.  The Seiko’s clasp has three retaining features compared to the Rolex clasp.  The fear, of course, is that the watch clasp comes undone and the watch slips off the wrist.  It could be damaged by a fall onto, say, concrete, or worse, go unnoticed.  The other fear is pickpockets.  I don’t know how difficult it would be for a pickpocket to lift your watch.  I once had a guy (a magician) remove a watch I was wearing without me noticing it.  That watch had a leather band and I later learned there’s a trick to it.  I don’t know if there’s a comparable trick for a metal bracelet, but if there is, I would think the Rolex would be more susceptible to such a thing.

The Seiko (on the left) clasp has three retaining features; the Rolex (on the right) has only one (which is a small dimensional difference between the outer clasp and the mating pin on the inner clasp). The Seiko design is better.

The bottom line to me is that the Seiko is a hell of a deal for under $500, and if you are looking for a watch that offers all the advantages of a GMT and is dressy, the Seiko is a good buy.  I own both, and I think Seiko hit a home run here.

There are other approaches to a GMT watch.  Citizen has a different dual time approach with their Nighthawk and Blue Angels models.  Many digital watches (some identified as GMT watches and some not) can display the time in different time zones at the touch of a button.  Casio has several cool models that do this.  The Citizen and the Casio watches are reviewed on our Product Reviews page.

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The Wayback Machine: Riding in High Temps

By Joe Berk

With the temps hitting over 100 degrees out here, I thought it might be a good idea to rerun a blog we ran a few years ago.  Let’s stay cool out here, folks!

I visited Chiriaco Summit and the Patton Museum last week (we’ll have a blog on it soon) and it was awesome.  But wow, was it ever hot.  As in 111 degrees when we left, and that’s not an unusually warm day out there in the Sonoran Desert.  The next town over is called Thermal, and a little further north there’s this place called Death Valley.  Death Valley recorded a whopping 131 degrees three weeks ago.  Sensing a pattern?

Looks like the Mojave, doesn’t it? Nope. That’s Joe Gresh in the Gobi Desert. Gresh and I rode across it after coming down off the Tibetan Plateau. It was a bit warm out there.

Yeah, it gets warm in these parts, and in other parts of the world as well.  Hot weather is not ideal riding weather, to say the least, but sometimes we find ourselves riding in shake and bake conditions. I’ve done it. I rode a 150cc scooter all the way down to Cabo and back in Baja’s hottest month of the year (September, when it was well over a hundred degrees every day).  It was humid down there, too, once we crossed over to the Sea of Cortez side of the peninsula.  We were literally entering the tropics as we crossed the Tropic of Cancer.  Whoa, that was rough riding!

Simon Gandolfi, suspenders flying in the breeze, riding my Mustang replica bike south of the Tropic of Cancer in Baja California Sur. It was one of the hottest rides I ever experienced.

When we did the Western America Adventure Ride with CSC and the guys from Zongshen, we rode through the same corridors described earlier above, riding across California and the Mojave Desert, through Joshua Tree, and on into Arizona with temps approaching 110 degrees.  That was brutal riding.

King Kong and Mr. Zuo in Joshua Tree National Park. That was another brutally hot day.  Higher higher temps were still in front of us when we later rolled through Amboy, California. This picture became the cover photo for 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.  You should buy a copy or three (they make great gifts).

The ride across China that Joe Gresh and I did had similar challenges.  It started out hot, then it got cold as we rode into the Tibetan Plateau, and then it became brutally hot and humid as we descended into central China and rode east to Qingdao.  That was a 38-day ride, and I’d guess it was well over 100 degrees for at least 30 of those 38 days.

The risk, of course, is heat stroke, and it’s often not the kind of thing you can feel coming on.   You’ll think you’re okay one minute, and the next you’re waking up in an emergency room wondering what happened.  If you start to feel a headache while riding in hot weather, you are already perilously close to heat stroke.  You need to stop, drink copious amounts of water, and get some shade.   The better approach, though, is to not let yourself get anywhere near that condition, and that’s what this article is all about.

It almost seems like heresy to say it, but my first bit of advice about riding in hot weather is:  Don’t.  Given the choice, postpone the ride.  But let’s assume that this is not an option, as was the case for each of the rides mentioned above.  Okay, then…here’s my guidance on the topic.

12 Hot Weather Riding Tips

One: Don’t ride naked.  I’m not trying to be funny here, and I’m not implying you might be the kind of person who would go down the road wearing nothing at all (although there is that story about Gresh riding around with only a bathrobe).  Nope, what I’m talking about is not shucking your safety gear.  You have to wear it.  All of it.  ATGATT.  All the gear, all the time.  You can’t peel it off just because it’s hot.  It’s saved my life.

My Viking Cycles mesh jacket and the mighty Enfield.

Two: Wear a good mesh jacket.   These are available from several sources.  I have a Viking Cycles jacket I’m wearing these days and it works well.  I wore a Joe Rocket mesh jacket on the ride across China and it made a big difference.  You can get them from Viking Cycles, CSC Motorcycles, British Motorcycle Gear, and other sources.  Trust me on this…you need a ventilated jacket for riding in hot weather.  EDIT:  We’re getting interesting comments advising not wearing a mesh jacket in hot weather.  Make sure you read the comments below, and for those of you who responded, thanks very much!

Three: Use a cooling vest.  These things actually work, but they’re not as easy to use as it sounds.  They don’t work for long, but they work.  The idea is you soak them, and then wear them under a jacket.  The airflow causes the water in the vest to evaporate and that cools the vest and you.  I’ve found that on really hot days these vests need to be remoistened about every thirty minutes, but you should be stopping that often anyway (more on that later).  It’s the remoistening part that I don’t like.  It seems like they take forever to soak up water when you remoisten them.  I’ve found it easer to just get my clothes wet (see the next point below).

Four: Go soak your head (and everything else).  Don’t laugh; I’ve done this.  On the Baja ride I mentioned above, it was so unbearably hot that we took to pouring water down the inside of our riding jackets and inside our helmets at every stop.  We became rolling evaporative coolers.  It helped.

Five: Change your riding hours.  On the really hot days, I like to hit the road at 0:Dark:30.  Get out and get a hundred or so miles in before it gets unbearably hot.  You’d need good lighting on your bike to do this (I generally don’t like to ride at night, but I’ll make an exception when I know it’s going to be hot).   This is difficult to do when riding in a group because it’s hard to get everybody moving that early.  If it was just me and Gresh or Welker, we’d leave way early and get in a couple of hours of riding (or more) before the sun comes up.

We knew it was going to be brutally hot riding through Joshua Tree and the Mojave Desert, so we left just before sunup on the first day of the Western America Adventure Ride.

Six: Drink a lot of water.  The problem with riding in high temperatures is you don’t realize how much water you lose through perspiration.  My advice is to stop every 30 minutes and drink a bottled water.  Like I said above, most of us ain’t spring chickens, and you might be wondering if this means you’re going to be stopping a lot to pee.  Hey, it’s a common old guy problem, but it won’t be in hot weather.  Drink a lot of water; you’ll lose it through perspiration as you ride.

Seven: Avoid alcoholic beverages.  Alcohol will cause you to dehydrate more rapidly, and that’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do here.  You shouldn’t be consuming alcohol on a motorcycle ride anyway.  Drinking any kind of alcohol while riding in hot weather is just stupid.  Where I found you really have to watch this is when riding in a large group (there will be one or two riders who have to have that beer or two at lunch).

Beer is good, especially when it’s a Tecate at the Old Mill in Baja overlooking Bahia San Quintin. But save it for the end of the day, when the bikes are parked for the night.

Eight: Stop regularly to cool off.  Find a bit of shade or someplace air conditioned, and get off the bike to cool down.   When I ride in hot weather, I usually stop to cool off and rehydrate every 30 minutes or so.

Stopping to cool off at the Tropic of Cancer. Wow, it was hot and humid down there!  We were off standing in the shade, drinking bottled water.

Nine: Keep your tires at recommended pressures.  Another thing you definitely don’t want on a hot day is underinflated tires.  Tires flex with every rotation, and flexing causes the tires to heat.  Throw in high road surface temperatures with underinflated tires, and you’re flirting with a blowout.  This is especially important to remember if you’re one of those guys or gals who deflate their tires for dirt riding.  Don’t forget to pump them back up when you get back on the asphalt.

Ten: Don’t speed.  Tar melts on hot days, and melted tar is slick.  Factor that into your riding when it gets toasty.

A meal fit for a king, but not for lunch. You wouldn’t want to ride in hot weather immediately after this Baja seafood extravaganza.

Eleven: Eat light.  Don’t over indulge.  Heavy meals put a strain on your digestive system and your heart, and that can elevate your body temperature.  When I was involved in testing munitions out in the Mojave on hot days (where it was sometimes over 120 degrees), we always brought along melons for lunch and nothing else.  We didn’t need to keep them cool.  They were a great treat, they seemed to make it a little cooler on those horrifically hot days, and they help to keep you hydrated.  Good buddy Sergeant Zuo seemed to know all about that in China, too.  We were riding through Ledu in central China one ferociously hot day when our favorite Chinese NCO stopped the group, disappeared, and returned with a couple of watermelons.  That was a welcome respite and a marvelous treat.  We ate a lot of watermelon in China.

Gresh taking a break in Ledu, China. That’s the Yellow River (China’s Mother River) behind Uncle Joe.

Twelve:  Lighten up on the low sodium schtick.  A lot of us older guys try to watch our sodium intake.  When I was in the Army, they actually gave us salt tabs on really hot days when we were in the field, the theory being that we needed the sodium because we were losing so much through perspiration.  I later heard the Army reversed that practice, but the fact is you lose a lot of minerals through perspiration.  I don’t worry about my sodium intake when riding on hot days.

So there you have it.   You know, most folks who ride motorcycles these days…well, how can I say this delicately?  We aren’t spring chickens anymore.  Motorcycling tends to be a thing mostly enjoyed by full-figured senior citizens, and we have to take care of ourselves, especially when we venture out on hot days.

If you other ideas about hot weather riding, let us know in the Comments section.  We love hearing from you.

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The Sopranos: Paterson Falls

By Joe Berk

Another one of the stops on my New Jersey Sopranos tour was Paterson Falls.  Although only about 40 miles or so from where I grew up, I’d never been there.

I knew of the town, though.  It’s an old industrial village with waterfalls, which meant that in the early days of our country it was perfect for industrial development. The falls provided hydraulic power, and that could be used to drive machinery.  Indeed, it’s where Samuel Colt built his first run of revolvers, which are known (not surprisingly) as Paterson Colts.  Paterson was established as the nation’s first planned industrial city in 1792, with its readily-available hydraulic power and close proximity to New York City and the Atlantic Ocean.  Paterson manufactured silk cloth, steam locomotives, textiles, paper, firearms, and aircraft engines.    It is centered on the Passaic River, which flows into Newark Bay and from there to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Passaic Falls are contained within the Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park, which is (as the name implies) part of the U.S. National Park system.  All this was news to me, which is kind of amazing when you consider that I grew up a short 40 miles to the south.  I’d never known any of this, and to learn about it at my age was surprising.  I’ll give the credit for that to David Chase (the guy who created The Sopranos).  Had that show not sparked my interest, I’d still be ignorant.

So, let’s move on to the scene in The Sopranos that caught my attention.  It’s the episode in which Mikey Palmici (Uncle Junior’s driver and bodyguard) throws a drug dealer off the bridge over the Passaic Falls:

That episode you see above occurred later in The Sopranos.  There was another scene in the very first Sopranos episode on the same bridge shown above in which Hesh Rabkin and Big Pussy Bompensiero (two of The Sopranos characters) threaten to throw a health insurance company executive (a guy named Alex Mahaffey, played by Michael Gaston) off the same bridge if he didn’t cooperate with a Sopranos scam to defraud the insurance company.

When threatened with a swan dive off the bridge, Mahaffey gave in to the Soprano family’s demands, but alas, his Sopranos career was over; Michael Gaston never appeared in another episode.  But that didn’t mean Sue and I wouldn’t see him again.  In one of our trips to New Jersey, we rode the Air Trans shuttle between the airport and the rental car facility.  Just before we boarded the shuttle, Michael Gaston was leaving the car we entered.  We didn’t bug him, but we made eye contact and he knew we knew who he was.

Michael Gaston, an actor we bumped into on the Newark Airport Air Trans.

There’s a lot more to Paterson, though, then simply having been a location for a couple of The Sopranos scenes.  Here’s another video that describes Paterson’s history:

Today, Paterson is undergoing a renaissance, as the old factory buildings are being converted to loft apartments.  Yup, Paterson is being yuppified.  It looks like an interesting place to spend more time, but my schedule didn’t permit doing so on this visit.  For us it was roll into town, grab a few photos, and bail.

A view of Passaic Falls. This is a beautiful area.
The wood-surfaced foot bridge featured in two different Sopranos episodes.
Another view of the bridge. It’s closed to the public. On the Internet, it says it’s for safety reasons. One of my police buddies told me it’s because there were too many suicides from this bridge.
Another view of the Passaic River and its Falls in Paterson.
While we were visiting the Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park, this rather plump groundhog was doing the same. My Dad used to hunt these in New Jersey with his .243 Model 70 Winchester and the farmers loved having him do so. These woodchucks may look cute, but they destroy a lot of crops.

One thing I know for sure:   I’ll return to Paterson.  I’d like to explore the city, its museums, and more in greater detail.

Want to see our other visits to The Sopranos locations?  Here they are:

The Sopranos Mansion

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Koh Tao, Thailand

By Mike Huber

Having a new addiction to scuba diving, it didn’t take me long to learn that Koh Tao (an island in southern Thailand) was another mecca for my new hobby. Koh Tao wasn’t a very large island and I was a bit concerned I would succumb to island fever.  The big difference is now I would be spending much of my time underwater, thus making the island much larger and more exciting than previous islands I had visited.  This new hobby opened up a new world to me just as learning to off-road on the BMW GS1200 had done. They both were previously unexplored frontiers that drew me in and begged for more exploration after each experience.

Koh Tao isn’t exactly easy to travel to from anywhere as you need to fly or bus, and then take a 3-hour ferry out to the island.  This to me made it a great destination as I knew those that were there were far off the beaten path and would be well grounded (mentally, not geographically).  Although the island was touristy, it was small enough that it was easy to make friends quickly. Another draw to this isolated location was that almost anyone that was here long term had the same line “I came here to visit for two weeks and never left and that was X years ago.”  This clearly told me it was a great place to set up a home base for a while and improve on my diving skills.

Outside doing a short blast up to Cambodia and some rest time in Bangkok (yes, it is possible to rest in Bangkok), the past month has been spent in scuba classes (to include advanced diver and rescue diver certifications), fun dives, spending time on the beach, and really just taking a few moments to enjoy chatting with someone at a bar while being fully present in life. The laid back island vibe and hospitality was something that had been missing in my previous travels due to my constant moving.  Koh Tao is where I was learning to finally slow down and really embrace the moments without tripping myself up with the racing thoughts I previously had of “what’s next?”  This provided an important step into my new lifestyle.

The happiness of being in the moment with my focus on watching my dive log fatten and my circle of friends grow is all I need at this time.  As I wrap this article up while sitting at a beach bar with a cold Chang beer sweating next to my laptop, it has me thinking if one day I will tell others “Yeah, I just came here for two weeks but that was X years ago.”

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