Jeff Stein is the real man of the hour...

Posted By: Derek Ziglar (zOwie) Date: 5/19/03 18:33 GMT

In Response To: Congrats. Derek & Chuck on a great site! (Dave Marskell (VanCan))

I say congrats to both as WatchTime credits the both of you, although I don't know who did what, but who cares!

We care. It is actually Jeff Stein who is the creator of OnTheDash. I did some architecture and plumbing on it, but only to meet Jeff's vision of what he wanted to accomplish with publishing his fantastic collected knowledge of dash-mounted Heuers. Chuck has contributed vast knowledge, effort and encouragement. In fact, it was Chuck introducing Jeff to me that started the ball rolling on this.

For the most part this is entirely correct... Actually my efforts might be a tad overstated on the above.

I've been laboring at a couple of places trying to get a web based Heuer presence for collectors for several years now. I haven't had much fortune. Around this time last year a fellow wandered into the TimeZone Omega Forum and asked some questions about the history of the Heuer Carrera because I hang out there and was (probably still am) the most outspoken Heuer Fan on TZ. Matthias Liebe-Kaufmann answered quicker than I was able to with some very servicable "framework text". This narrative was so "serviceable" that there really wasn't a great deal to add except that Matthias hadn't included any pictures. So I crafted a reply that interspersed Matthias' text with a bunch of pictures I had in my library and scrounged on the net and eBay.

People were pretty enthusiastic at this. I forget who suggested it, Matthias, myself or someone in the Forum, but Matthias and I started colaborating on a rather lengthy (and still growing) article on the history of the Carrera. I seem to remember starting the project full force around the first day of summer last year (21 June) and it was essentially complete by the first week of fall last year (21 September). Anyway, as is often the case, I don't really labor in secret when I am working on a project, people knew where the article was located and could follow my progress. And I have to say, I think I have received more email traffic on this one article than any of the other articles I've written or had a hand in creating. Of course the web crawlers latched on to it fairly early on in addition to mentions on TZOF and I received an excited email from some bloke named Jeff in the early/mid part of August...

Jeff asked me for my phone number so that we could talk which I was happy to send, and he sent along some pictures of his passion the Heuer Dashboard timers, which interest me, but not to the same level that wrist Chronographs do. Anyway over the course of our phone conversation Jeff mentioned that a) he was located in Atlanta, b) he was interested in startng a web page devoted to Heuer Dash Board timers and c) he didn't know much about HTML or servers/hosting, etc... My reaction was that while I knew a little bit about HTML's and hosting web content, the person with the best looking Omega Fan site on the web is Derek Ziglar (Sorry Eric So, RJ Broer, Speedmaster.nl, Kieron Gray, and OSPOG - No apologies to this "Maddox" character, his site is as the Chinese say "Fu King Ug Lee"!), and he happens to be based in the greater Atlanta Metroplex.

I think it took Jeff less than a week to arrange a breakfest meeting with Derek, and most of the players were in the clubhouse, if not actually on the field. For the most part, I'll I did was put the principals in contact with one another for the most part.

HOWEVER, it should and MUST be pointed out that there are plenty of additional contributors to the site that deserve mention and acknowledgement...

David Alstott graciously lent me a pile of Heuer catalogs and manuals (Along with several other brands) that greatly added to the available knowledge existant among us, and hence the web.

Hans Schrag, longtime principal of Pro-Time Service who's watchmaking talent and historical knowledge on things Heuer seems to be without match, has been our historical compass and fact backchecker. (Man wouldn't it be great to get Hans, Jack Heuer and Marco Richon and John Diethelm of Omega together for dinner and conversation? It'd be like getting Bobby Unser, Roger Penske, Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt together to talk about Indy Cars!).

Bruce Mackie British Heuer Collector, compiled a wonderful spreadsheet of Heuer Models based on his knowledge gained over his years of collecting. I managed to figure out a reasonably easy way to transform the spreadsheet into HTML code and those in the know have been following our progress in updating and expanding the coverage of known models in the table. For example, the Autavia table started out with between 14 and 16 entries, the current table has 46 or so the last time I counted...

Ralf (sorry, don't know your last name yet!) has recently contributed bucketfuls of photos for use with the site, which free us up to continue our efforts to add more catalogs and expand the model tables, etc.

There are probably a number of people who I've also left out.

But of course the lions share of the praise, as Derek pointed out, is Jeff's. He could have quite easily made this a Dash Board timer only site, but I think wrist and "lanyard" watches and timers will be a nice mix for everyone.

The June issue of WatchTime is not on my local newsstand, so I haven't seen the mention yet.

I'll scan in the mention tomorrow and post it. Too late to mess with it tonight.

They *did* mention Jeff, too, didn't they? Or did they pull off some bone-head journalism and not check their facts before publication. Jeff himself is not mentioned on the "Thanks" page--because he is giving Chuck and I the thanks for helping him. OnTheDash is Jeff's site after all, as mentioned on the copyright on every page and in the FAQs section of OnTheDash.

No, actually I think I got the lowest word count, Jeff the most then Hans and you, Derek. I'm mearly listed as a contributor, which is probably most correct. But I wasn't credited for contributing the included screen snap of the site... Ah well... What can you do...

That's pretty much how we all got here, I think it's pretty much correct, feel free to correct me where necessary folks!

-- Chuck