ThatRaymond.com

My shaving experience

March 16, 2016

I’ve been shaving now for 15 years of my life. For most of the first 14 years of shaving, I used a Gillete Sensor Excel twin blade “disposable head” razor. My dad use to shave with the disposable BIC razors, so that is what I started with when I was learning. So, these two options are all I knew until a year ago when my brother introduced me to the old style “safety razors,” aka “double edge” razors. He bought me a Merkur handle and an assortment of 6 types of blades, a few blades of each type. I tried them all over the last year and have loved the experience. Some blades faired better than others. The Lord Platinum blades did very well and were my favorite. However, when I went to order those when I ran out of all my “sample” blades, I found many reviews stating that quality control was lacking on these and some blades were great while others were horrendous. So, I started the search for the perfect blade. After hours of research, combing through forums and reviews, I settled on the Astra Superior Platinum blades. I read that they were good for a quick, easy shave. So I ordered a pack of 5. At $2.50 for 5 blades or $20 for 50 blades, they are very cost effective. And I have to say quite honestly, they shave even better than the Lord blades did. The easiest double edge shave I have ever had, and the most enjoyable of any razor I’ve used period. I got mine from royalshave.com, but I’m sure they are available elsewhere. RoyalShave.com did ship very swiftly and I like their website, so that is where I will be going next time I order more. Which might be soon, I’d like to get a pack of 50 before I find out that I can’t find these awesome blades anymore!

And, because I care about these things, I found out where they are made. It turns out they are owned by Gillete and are made in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thank you comrades for the wonderful work on these blades!

Posted in Home and Homestead, Personal | Comments Off

What do you EDC?

January 26, 2016

EDC is the acronym for “everyday carry.” Most times this is referencing things in your pocket that you might carry. Many people include things you wear as well. For me, this means my EDC stuff includes: keys, pocket knife, wrist watch, and cellphone. I suppose depending on how you interpret the term, I could also include my cross necklace that I never take off. These are all things that regardless of where I am going or what I am doing, I have on my person. Since I work in a school district, my pocket knife I bring to school is actually a small safety ceramic cutter made by Slice, it gets the job done most times but I miss having my normal pocket knives when this is all I can carry.

The reason I’m posting about this though is because it got me thinking about the types of EDC items. For me it breaks down into two categories: those items that I have only one of, and those that I have options for. My keys and cellphone I only have one of, so that is what I carry. My cross necklace, I do technically have others, but always wear the same one. But for pocket knives and watches I have options. I’ve found that having 4 or 5 options is ideal. My pocket knife collection includes blades ranging from 1.75″ to 3″ (plus the tiny ceramic one) and different styles. Depending on what I’ll be doing that day I decide what to carry. My watches include a dressy analog watch, an older Timex, and my normal everyday watch which is an old Fortis manual wind watch. I’d like to add a quartz watch like a Bertucci A-1S as an everyday watch for when I’m splitting wood or working on cars etc so I don’t damage the Fortis. Someday I’ll do that. But at least my pocket knife collection is complete. I see no need to purchase any more pocket knifes for the rest of my life, unless or until one goes missing or is damaged beyond repair. I like that feeling. I have five total and each one was very carefully selected for certain attributes and qualities. None were horribly expensive either with the entire collection being worth only $125, or $25 per knife (though it isn’t evenly distributed like that).

Posted in Personal, Ponderings | Comments Off

My version of the Shinola Runwell

January 11, 2016

I love the aesthetics of the Shinola Runwell Men’s Green Face. However, it is quite pricey at $550 for a watch. Sizing is reasonable on the small version (36mm) and ridiculous on the largest (47mm). They are all the same price. So I decided to use a brown strap and emulate the look with my new to me 1975 Fortis mechanical hand wind watch. At 34mm it is close in size to the smallest of the Runwells and I think it looks great! The strap came from clockworksynergy.com again, like last time.

Of course, the benefit to the Shinola is that not only does it look great, but it’s made here in the USA as well!

Left: 47mm Shinola Runwell Men’s Green Face, Right: 34mm 1975 Fortis Mechanical Hand Wind w/Brown Nato

Posted in Made in the USA, Personal | Comments Off

A new time piece

December 31, 2015

12 years ago, Christmas day 2003, my wife (then my girlfriend), game to me a Timex Carriage watch. For the last 12 years I have worn said watch and it shows it’s wear. After the band started to fail, and has been repaired, I decided I needed a new watch. Being short of cash flow, and always interested in something different, I decided to go the used watch route. In this case, very used. I stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon where there are many manual wind watches from the early 1970’s to mid 1980’s being sold on eBay from India. These watches are frequently cleaned and the dials repainted, then shipped out to the US. I found a 1975 vintage Fortis watch, 17 jewel ST96 swiss movement, in great shape for $12.50 shipped to my door. The band it came with was new, but garbage. It broke when I tried putting it on and wasn’t going to be repairable. So it is wearing the gray cloth strap I wrote about earlier. Pretty slick, right? And at 34mm case width it is the same width as my Timex and perfect for my slim 6.5″ circumference wrist.

** Edit **
I let it run out to see how long it’s power reserve is, 49 hours 20 minutes! Since I wind it every morning I have no concern about it running down on me now.

1975 Fortis manual wind watch, swiss ST96 movement

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The perfect, comfy, watch band?

November 16, 2015

Timex Carriage with cotton strap

After my metal watch band broke on my 12 year old Timex Carriage, I needed a replacement. I decided against metal due to the coldness in the winter. And against nylon due to it’s plastic nature and the fact that it just isn’t environmentally friendly at all. I finally found a band though, made of cotton! Unfortunately, it is in limited supply because the company is no longer making them. No matter, I got one and it is SUPER comfy and I think it looks great to boot!

When I ordered the strap from Amazon, it came in after just a few days. Unfortunately they sent me a 20mm band instead of the 18mm I needed. I emailed the company, Clockwork Synergy, directly and they resolved the issue by sending me the proper strap as well as a return envelope to send the wrong one back. They were very friendly as well, so much so that I plan on buying another strap from them soon. This time I think I might go with nylon anyway, because I really like the “Heavy Duty Nato” (sometimes known as “Zulu”) strap that they sell.