So I'm outside tinkering around and decide to lay my watch on the Jeep to charge... I had read the warning about it getting hot when in bright sunlight, but was surprised just how hot it got.

Years ago, Timex was touting the Ironman as the watch that "Took a licking and kept on ticking" Well, I'm here to tell you that might not have been the case... over 2+ years I managed to kill 6-7 of em. Diving too deep, crappy dives off the 20 meter platform, impacts with snow balls (it did save me a nasty black eye), I just didn't have much luck. Timex was pretty good about warranties, but still... I wanted something I couldn't break.

Then I found out about the Casio G-shock watches, and I decided to try them. My first Gshock was a DW5600, which I still have. I liked the watch immensely, especially after surviving some dives and impacts that I know would have killed my Ironman. But the thing that killed it for me, even though it had been on the market for several years, was bad luck with batteries and battery replacements. Something about the screw-on back was alien to jewelers at the time, and my first three battery replacements resulted in a dead watch after going down to only 20 or 30 feet. I got a different G-shock eventually as one watch place stepped up after it died again, but I still like that first one

Fast forward some 15 years, and I've gone back to G-shocks. My girl got me a Luminox for Christmas one year, with its tritium tipped hands, deep deep water resistance, and Navy SEAL approval, it seemed a great match for me. However, after a while, not only had I scratched the heck out of the bezel, I found I was writing checks on the wrong day, missing payments and more due to incorrect date on the watch, so I wanted a digital again with its 100-year built in calender

Remembering the first Gshock (really the first watch I ever had that didn't die) I found one that runs on solar power (no changing batteries issues- the face is a solar cell), syncs with the atomic clock every night (never have to set it, and its always within fractions of a second of being right), and it is mud proof (great for a mud-bent wheeling guy.) Here's a watch very similar to what I have now.

I've been writing stories for a while and generally not being out in the sun, so I felt the watch needed a charge, and while I was messing with my YJ laid it out to catch some rays. Well, a half hour later when I picked it up, the back was pretty damn hot (from high amperage battery charging) and I decided to see just how hot it was.

Well, as you can see it got to 135 degrees, as evidenced by my infrared thermometer. I dunno if that's hot enough to burn, but it was sure hot enough to be uncomfortable. I put the watch in the dark for a while before putting it back on and all is well.

On edit> Dang, a simple "Wow the watch got hot" blog turned long real quick. Good thing there are no page limits here! lol.