My personal Omega Saga:
I received my first "good" watch in 1987. It was a TAG Heuer Formula 1. Several things immediately became apparent about this watch. It sucked, it had strange traits, it was bizarre looking and oh yeah, it sucked. The TAG was a watch that would suddenly stop for a few seconds and then continue on it's merry way. It developed an unusual crack in the crystal while strapped to my wrist in the back of an F/A-18D, that several months later miraculously healed itself. It ate batteries like a Lincoln Navigator sucks unleaded gas and the straps were replaced twice in a 18 month period.
After two years of unhappy cohabitation with this modern marvel I did what any good American would do....I gave it to my brother. Free at last from the burden of the TAG I sought my next "good" watch that would become my companion for the next 10 years. The watch I found and immediately purchased because of it's outstanding design and features was the 1989 model Omega Seamaster Professional. Over the course of 10 years the Seamaster was exposed to environments that would have utterly destroyed even the best of sport watches. The Seamaster accompanied me around the world twice, keeping time in such extreme evironments as Kuwait, Somalia, Equitorial Africa and Southeast Asia. The Seamaster never missed a beat, it was on my wrist in swamps, deserts, unpressurized high altitudes and just about anywhere else you could possibly conceive of putting a human being. It was banged against rocks, hammered by high G forces, blast overpressures, you name it, the Seamaster was exposed to it. As you can imagine after 10 years of this kind of exposure, the Seamaster was looking a little worse for the wear. I figured it was about time to add a new Omega to my collection....Part II of the SAGA tomorrow.
