Welcome Back! Let’s get to work!
It has been well over 2 years since strapsense was updated. So much has happened in the watch world since my last review and I feel I have so much to catch up on. I wish I could point to any one thing that drove me away from my keyboard. But like most things it is not that black and white. I think what started out as a fun hobby/mission to educate readers and try out as many watch straps as I could show them started to feel more like a job or obligation than a fun way to enjoy the hobby. Or maybe I felt like my job was perhaps complete and there was nothing new to review except a new color here, or yet another version of a NATO strap trying to be different than all the other NATO straps in the marketplace. Whatever the reason, I just walked away from the computer. I put away all my binders of watch straps and closed the laptop. I cleaned off my workbench in the garage and put all my tools and jigs away. I carefully stashed all the extra yards of leather that had been patiently waiting their turn to be made into custom strapbutlers. In short the watch strap hobby seemed to fizzle out, like a sitcom that had run on long after its original cast was replaced. The sun was definitely going down on my enthusiasm.
And that is how it remained. Days turned into weeks, and those into months you get the picture. Life kept me busy with 2 boys and a new lake house oh and the fact we flew a mission around the moon with the Artemis I Crew Module propulsion system (yes that was a nerdy flex, but so what). I still dabbled in watches of course from time to time. Buying, selling, and trading still held some kind of compartmentalized excitement and the hunt was always a bit intoxicating. Watches came and went and all the while my tastes began to solidify into something that more accurately echoed my own personality. My watch collection became ever closer to the inner mechanical doppelganger I wanted it to be. I liked to tell people that my watch collecting strategy is like making a fine wine reduction. You add a lot of product at first and it is highly viscous and volatile. But with mechanical agitation and a bit of heat and mostly patience the goodness intensifies as all extraneous liquid evaporates and what is left is the purest most concentrated bit imaginable. I had reached what you could call a peak reduction in my watch collecting and my watches were in a perfect watch / watch strap harmony with my life.
Still, like an itch you cannot reach, or a sock left behind the dryer that you know is there and you swear you will get it ‘next time’, strapsense lingered on sans any input from me. I knew I had left behind a sizeable body of work which was, at the most modest assessment, not hated by the watch community. There was work to be done. Reviews left to make. Maybe an expansion of the website into a Youtube channel. Possibilities were only limited by my time and the Gordian knot of Dad duties that lay before me. In short, I had to wait until I untangled my more important responsibilities and then strapsense could live on. That time is now. No longer will I attempt to pump out 2-3 reviews a month though. They will come when they are ready. I reached out to many watch strap vendors and they are eager to have some new product reviewed. I am more than happy to oblige. Like before, I will purchase all my straps with my own money. If I am sent straps to review, I will always disclose that up front. Hold tight as the Horween Leather doors of the strapsense office are beginning to open again and I expect more reviews and a few new surprises along the way.