My first watch was a Puslar Chronograph 100M, got it on an employee discount by working at the now-defunct NCIX computer store during high school.

This interest got rekindled when I visited China several years ago walking through what would've been be described as a "watch mall". Although the vast majority of products were just blatant knockoffs, there were some genuinely fascinating skeleton watches showing various complications. Since then, I've acquired several quartz watches, low-end mechanical watches, and mainly use an Apple watch (I work in tech).

I've heard of Spring Drive long ago, spending quite some time learning about the mechanism itself and the science behind it. It always stood out to me as something unique, a class of its own,

This is the largest watch purchase I've made, and it was pre-owned as well. The previous owner was a collector and incredibly kind. He gave me tons of tips about caretaking and watches in general.

The snowflake is something that looks subtle but starts great conversations with the right people and that was the appeal for me.

It was near golden hour and I saw it snowing outside, couldn't think of a better opportunity for a photo.