There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
The problem (at least for me) is that reviews take freaking WORK. Every time I sit down to write a review, it's 4 to 6 hours just for the written portion, not to include field testing. I hope they are worthwhile. I'm painfully aware that no matter how thorough I try to be be, there's always more I could have done. God willing, they give people enough information that they can make a reasonable determination as to whether or not a particular stove would be suitable for their needs. The very last thing I want to do is give anyone a bum steer. If I recommend a stove and people are caught out in a storm with said stove and it turns out to be unreliable/unworkable, then that's a complete failure on my part. This is one reason I don't like to review wood stoves. There is so much dependent on the skill of the user, the conditions, and the qualities of the wood. I could really love a wood stove that works well for me with what skill I have in dry Southern California that might be a miserable failure in, say, the Pacific Northwest.
HJ