Marc, was there anything that caused the back issues in the first place, or just something that happened? Cool watches, good intro.

 

@Alpha

It would indeed make a good avatar but the one I use is a picture of the last Dobermann I was guardian to who as you can see was a rare Albino Dobermann and one of the best Dobermann's I have had the pleasure to work with his defence drive was off the charts and he was a big strong boy after I had him for a few months. I was very active in the Dobermann community and he came to me from Dobermann rescue as they didn't know what to do with him as he had behavioural issues most of which I managed to fix except for his hatred of motorbikes. Here is a picture of him the day I went and picked him up and a picture of him after feeding him up and giving him the right exercise and training regime.

Otis first Day by Marc Obermann, on Flickr

Otis 2nd session 7 by Marc Obermann, on Flickr

Hi Mothra,

Not really it all started with just bad back pain that turned out to be a pro lapsed disc that required a discectomy which is where they just slice off the protruding part of the disc. Unfortunately it turned out I have degenerative disc disease so as we have fixed one section of the disc's the damage has gone down to the next weakest level plus due to scar tissue that forms after each op I now have over sensitive nerve endings that even with the huge amount of opiates I take still leaves me in really bad constant pain all the time and severely limits my quality of life and activity levels. There really is no definitive answer as to what has caused it but IMO doing martial arts mainly Karate until my late 30's as well as doing lots of work with protection dogs may well of caused additional strains and damage to my back plus I also worked as Chauffeur which meant long 16hrs days sitting for to long in bad positions which most probably didn't help either.

Glad you like my small collection of watches and my long overdue intro.

Marc

 

Of that you can be sure...[emoji6]

Welcome!

 

Ouch man, I have one fusion on S1L5 and it changed my life for the better. Hope this works for you. BY THE WAY, the worst part of the surgery believe it or not was to get off the opiates so as hard as it is I would start reducing it slowly. Believe me, I know it hurts, but the Oxy is going to hurt you much more long term

 

@Sergio Maclean

I missed one vital bit of information in my post about my back problems and that it is that this all started back in 2000 and there are times when after surgery I've been good for 6 or 7 months and seriously reduced my med's but them then new problems have started. Also every six months I switch from Oxy to Fentanyl to try and reduce tolerance build up. l I have a great pain team that I work with and do daily exercise and some hydro workouts to. I am lucky to have a positive mental attitude and don't suffer from depression caused by my chronic pain unlike many suffers. Everyone including me wants me to reduce my med's as many believe the Opiates may actually be causing additional pain but taking them does reduce my pain and without them its unbearable. I was looking at getting a high frequency spinal stimulator implant but they require such a low level of opiate med's to be accepted that if I could achieve that I wouldn't bother having another risky surgery and an implanted device. Sort of between a rock and hard place just now and it is what it is so just have to cope with life as it is as really there is not much else that can be done. Glad to hear you only needed one surgery on those levels and all is good for you.

Marc

 

Hi all. My name is Jay. Im a police officer and have been for 21 years. I currently live in Northern Canada, very cold winters. I have a wife and two great kids. Im obsessed with automatic watches, and have made several hundred purchases, trades and sales to obtain several of my grails already. As my collections sits at this moment, i have 6 omega's (POC 9300 LM, Speedy 9300 ti, Aquaterra gmt 8500, speedy apollo soyez, seamaster ceramic and the seamaster bond chrono.) other brands in my collection include Rolex, Iwc, Corum, Zenith, Breitling, Fortis and BR. What my next grail- humm, I need to reacquire a breit navi world or the B01 navi. Aside from that, I think a white dial Daytona would look pretty good. I also need to reacquire a 3573.50.

My absolute keepers in my collection are my subc green, I bought it for the birth of my boy- its his at graduation, my Apollo Soyez- I have 4 corum bubbles, the two dive bombers are not going anywhere but I can see the other two, the night flyer and gangster leaving someday, and finally- I have a zenith defy extreme open heart that I love, it would be a very tough "let go" for me.

Well, i'm no longer a lurker, i'll start posting and meeting this great community for years to come.

I wish you all the best.
Jay

 

Welcome to the forum! And you have some very nice watches there...would love to see some snaps. I believe the cold we're experiencing in Chicago recently came from your neck of the woods, thanks for that by the way.

 

Hello everyone! My name is Nick, I am a 43 yo Pawnbroker in Southern California. I joined this forum to have a better understanding of Omega watches and I am also a watch collector of sorts. I buy, sell and trade watches for a living (many other items as well). I think I can offer this site a good look of uncirculated watches from time to time (pun intended!). I sell most of my watches in my retail store or on eBay. I look forward to adding my experience to the site when I can.

Best Wishes,
Nick

 

Welcome nick - should be interesting on both sides.

 

Hey Hijak, thanks for the welcome. Ive seen the crazy snow and weather you have been getting in your neck of the woods. You might be correct, we are having unusually warm weather here. Only hitting minus 20 Celsius a few nights, we should be well into the 30's by now. I'll try to post a pic here. Although at any given time i only have 3 or 4 at home, they rest are locked in my office at work. I sleep better that way.

Here goes for some pics.

 

Hello everyone, my name is Simon and I'm a development planner from Manchester (UK). My first "proper"watch was a Speedmaster Professional and my interest in quality watches has evolved from there. So, having been a long-term lurker I thought it would be nice to involve myself properly in the forum.

For those who are interested my current daily wearer is this (admittedly careworn) little beauty:



All the best,

Simon

 

Welcome Simon. I have to ask, where does jimmy lazers come from?

 

Hello everyone, I'm Leon.

I've been an avid watch fan ever since I've been able to read those big, old department store catalogs. As a young kid I'd pore over every watch in those books from Citizens and Seikos to the lofty Omegas. My first watch was a Citizen Automatic which I begged and pleaded my parents for months to buy me. One birthday they surprised me and I wore that thing for years until the markers shook loose and the watch fell apart.

For years I've simply relied on an assortment of cheap automatics and digitals or my mobile phone to keep time but I think that the time is nigh for me to put on my big boy pants and buy myself a good watch.

Why Omega...I guess it might be because my father used to keep a beautiful Seamaster in a drawer which he would never wear. Always had a fascination with it, and when he wasn't around I'd take it out and marvel.

As for day job, I'm a software developer living in London, UK. When I'm not programming I'm busy with photography and various other hobbies which kids and dogs sadly curtail (well, not that sadly - kids and dogs can be pretty awesome).

 

Welcome Leon. Do you have any watches at present?

 

Nothing worth mentioning to be honest...

Just the aforementioned cheap automatics; a Citizen, Orient and Seiko 5.

Only nice-ish watch I have is a Rado Jubile 151.0203.3...a graduation gift. Looking to purchase my first daily wearer from here or ebay. Seems a lot of learning to do and thanks to the help of this forum I avoided a costly mistake with an overly polished, badly redialled, Constellation.

Think I'm gonna take building my collection slow and steady. One watch a year...(hope my wife doesn't read this!)

 

All of us started somewhere, so nothing wrong with that.

If your wife has worries about one watch a year, let me know. I will have my better half call and tell her just how lucky she is.

And you should read the thread below right away.

http://omegaforums.net/threads/hypothetically-speaking.18735/

 

A bit left-field isn't it?

The BBC did an ad-lib radio show called The Mighty Boosh about 13 years ago and Jimmy Lazers was a once referenced invented character - I figured nobody would remember him so I've always used it as a user name since.

Worth a listen if you can download it - utterly surreal but quite entertaining!

 

Hi Leon, welcome to the forum (I can say that now I've been here more than six hours!)

Out of curiosity which Seamaster did your dad have?

 

Welcome to Nick, Simon, Leon and Jay! Nice to see more people join in the discussions. I agree with D-boy, we all started somewhere. Give it time and proper enabling from the gang here, and you soon will have a very nice collection which could include many of the pieces Jay already has...which begs the question: If you are in Northern Canada, how the heck are you getting these lovely and somewhat hard to come by watches??? Trips south? Sympathetic bush plane pilots?? Canada Post?? Spill man!