Archive for July, 2010

Just as my friends Sean and Kathy opened my eyes to the trend of buying your new spouse a special wedding gift, they have opened my eyes once again to the ‘push present’. If you aren’t familiar with the push present, it is typically a luxurious gift bestowed upon the new mother from her partner. If you have ever witnessed the myriad trials a woman undergoes throughout pregnancy and labor, you already know why she deserves a present! With that in mind, I didn’t give a second thought to Kathy’s gift from Sean. But what did surprise me was that Kathy gave Sean a push present as well.

Don’t worry, there were no medical miracles you didn’t hear about! While Sean didn’t actually do any pushing of his own in the delivery room, he did do a lot of pulling his own weight in the months preceding their little girl’s arrival. Chores that they once shared became much more difficult for Kathy to tackle in the last few months of her pregnancy, so Sean stepped up his game and took care of everything that would put undue strain on his wife. He began cooking dinner more often, taking out the trash without being asked, actually cleaning instead of just stuffing everything under the couch or bed – he became a really amazing husband! He pushed himself harder so she didn’t have to, making her life and pregnancy more comfortable and enjoyable than it might have been. The old saying goes, “A happy wife is a happy life,” and in this case it also made for a healthy wife, as Kathy was able to follow doctor’s orders to relax more often and not lift heavy objects. I can’t think of a better gift he could have given her than to ensure she and their child were safe, but he went ahead and added the gift of a luxury handbag he knew she wanted. Yeah, Sean is one of those husbands that make the rest of us look bad. But he’s also one of those husbands that got a push present!

We aren’t suggesting that you should take better care of your pregnant partner just so she’ll buy you something; you should be helping her in any way possible, present or no present. But if you’ve had your eye on a Môntrèk Divers Watch for awhile, and you know she’s been searching for the perfect gift for you, dropping a few hints might not be a bad idea. You know, go to the page of the watch you like best and casually walk away from the computer for an hour. Perhaps you’ve pulled up one of our Black Diver Watches. You can add certainty to your selection by writing a note next to the computer reminding yourself to ask for this watch for your birthday or Christmas. Or bookmark the page. Or say, “Wow, that’s awesome,” and go grab a glass of water. Get creative! After all, she’s got enough on her mind right now, and helping her choose your push present is just another way you can reduce the stress in her life. See what a great guy you are?!

The balance wheel has been used in watches and clocks since the 14 century. Until the late 1970’s, balance wheels were used for various products in addition to watches such as bank vault time locks, timed fuzes, alarm clocks, and kitchen timers just to name a few. With advent of quartz movements the main use for balance wheels is now in quality watches. WARNING – Self Promotion – For quality watches click here. But I digress  On many balance wheels you can see a set of 16 screws that are mostly decorative … four of the screws are sometimes used for adjustments however, many watches have perfectly good balancing wheels that are smooth with no screws. The balance wheels rate of vibration is measured in “beats per hour” or BPH (not to be confused with same medical acronym referring to a situation that we hope no men encounter). Quality time pieces usually have at least 21,600 BPH like these … Sorry, forgot the Self Promotion Warning that time  If you would like to read more about balance wheels click here.

We have been so busy with BARNEYS & Bloomingdales and the rest of our outstanding group of Retailers that we have been remiss in not continuing the saga of “The History of Time”.  And while time marches on, both literally and figuratively, man’s quest to keep track of it more accurately continues to grow.  Our last entry discussed the Clepsydra and how it operated with water.  While this was a vast improvement over other methods of measuring time, it became obvious early on that water was messy to deal with in so many ways.  It freezes in the winter and evaporates in the summer.  Additionally, any surface in constant contact with the same water that is being circulated will develop algae.  If you don’t believe me, come on over and look at the small man made pond with circulating water in my back yard … I’m going to go clean it right after this blog post . But enough of my problems, as you can imagine, all of these “water” problems just create inaccuracies in time and as humans, we just won’t stand for that.  So we need something dry that can be circulated.  EUREKA !!!  Sand … and thus the invention of the hourglass.  In hindsight the hourglass seems like such a simple idea but really didn’t come into practical use until the early 1300’s … several hundred years after the development of the water fed Clepsydra.  The construction of the glass itself was a technological achievement and in combination with finding a material that was coarse enough to flow in homogenous units created, well … timing issues.  And today, while we view sand as the contents du jour of hourglasses, early version worked with not only sand but crushed eggshells or pulverized marble.  If you would like more information oh hourglasses, check out this article:Hourglasses.