Recently I was listening to an episode of The Grey NATO, a podcast focused on “adventure, travel, diving, driving, gear … and most certainly watches”. The hosts fielded a question from a listener who expressed some discomfort with IWC’s Big Pilot’s watch because of its associations with World War II and its development for the … Read more
The “welcoming for all” mantra of the hospitality industry was put to an ultimate, high-stakes test on January 6, 2026. In a move that sent shockwaves through the hotel community, Hilton Worldwide Holdings abruptly terminated its relationship with a Hampton Inn in Lakeville, Minnesota. The catalyst? A viral video of a front-desk encounter where a … Read more
A friend posted this image on Facebook. It’s an interesting bit of political messaging, but I’m not going to unpack the civil rights argument in the meme. Human rights deserve their own, more sustained discussion, which I’ll leave for another time and place. Instead, I want to focus on something else that struck me about … Read more
My recent extracurricular reading has focused on understanding more about the luxury industry. That includes the history and sociology of how we, as human beings, interact with and develop desires for luxury goods and experiences, and how large corporations like LVMH have fueled and monetized that desire through marketing, particularly to larger middle-class audiences in … Read more