A Better Pipe Smoking Community

That Kenya trip sounds like a blast!
It's cold and snowy here, not that I'm complaining. I'm in the midwest, not the east coast. They have a legitimate gripe comming.
It was McB Dark Twist in an Arabesque cherrywood for the drive/crawl in to work this morning. Lucky it's a holiday (President's Day) here or the traffic would be gridlocked in this snow.
Had a chance to revisit the Black XX Rope yesterday afternoon. Very pleasant. Me and the SO, pipe curling some awsome smoke, snow falling in clusters, eating horses dorves and watching Sons of Anarchy on the DVR. Great day.
Happy puffin, all.

never extends to me. I work anyway, I think it is a holiday reserved for government officials and bankers.

Working at the music store from 10-8 today thanks to a shortened work week at the office. Thankful for the job, not the stress.

Well, gotta get the kids up and running. My mom is coming by to give little one her piano lesson this morning. More of the white stuff is falling and the wind probably whipped some cinder blocks off the porch last night (they are holding down my impromptu wind barrier).

Good day!

...it's just that every retail store in the free world has a "Presidents Day Sale". Someone has to mind the till. :-)

Good morning all! I woke up at 3:30, made coffee, walked around the neighborhood a bit and that brings me to now.
PA in a Savinelli.

"Whose that guy walking around the neighborhood at 3 o'clock in the morning with dark glasses on? "Why it's that weird guy!" Jim if I were out in Oregon, I would certainly join you. That is about the only time there is tranquility in Mr. Roger's neighborhood. I'm another government employee as you probably know by now. Maybe we all become just a bit "off the beaten path" so to speak. I wonder if Bob B goes walking in his neighborhood at 3AM. We'll have to stay tuned.
Morning coffee just about ready. Engine 99 will come rolling out of the firehouse when my Zippo fire lights. Have a great morning all!

Sitting down with some of my own mix, 1Q mixed with latakia mixed in; love the smokiness of the latakia. Think it could us a little more latakia in it. Cup of Earl Gray on the side. Cold and sunny her in Central Illinois hope it will warm up soon. My girls are home from school sick with a sore throat, you would not know it with the way there running around. As for a holiday I never get them off unless I take a vacation day. Off today and not a lot planed at this time but that could change. Don’t get a lot of pipes in during the week going to try to make it up on my weekends, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, when I don’t have training.

Hope everyone haves a great day and some great smoke.

Getting ready to break in a new pipe today. All set with a french press of coffee, a new book, and two ounces of Land HS-3 sitting in front of me.

For those not in the know, HS-3 is rather similar to many of the classic codger burleys. Its a burley and virginia with honey and vanilla. To me it smells just like Prince Albert.

Getting ready for another TAD today. This time it will be a burley based order. I have been checking prices between various sites, and I think I will be ordering from wvsmokeshop.com but I have also been checking with marscigars.com

The order is this,

1 Tub Carter Hall
1 Tub Prince Albert
1 Tub Half and Half

Happy Smoking all

But, it is a birthday present from my wife. So, I'll have to wait to open it until the 25th. I am anxious!

Tobak Menu:
Two Friends Heritage
Captain Bob's Blend
Pot O' Gold

Enjoy your Monday smokes, everyone! It's snowing in Wisconsin and that makes me very happy. A big three day ski weekend is planned for Friday.

I woke up this morning to the smell of burning plastic. Turned out that the business across the street from my house was on fire. I decided to light up some Engine 99 while watching Engines 6, 10, 4, 2, 9, Ladder 4, Platform 3 and Squad 1 hard at work.

Both literally and figuratively. I just finished my on-the-way-to-work smoke of Engine99. That would be normal except that I did this on my sun porch instead of in my car (which is where I fired up, actually). I had left for work at 5 and got exactly 50 feet to the crest of the downhill run from our home. At the bottom of hill was a neighbor digging out her auto which had turned perpendicular to road and was stuck. How did she do that?, I wondered. With some help she was righted and out after 20 minutes - time I spent watching from 175 feet away, smoking my pipe and calling work to report I'd be late.
Upon my entering down slope I found out how neighbor became sideways as Jeep began to side down. Lightly touching brakes only locked all four and down I careened. Good thing I chose not to drive down to help; I would have smashed into her. Proceeding in 4WD I made it to street which I found untreated and barely passable and faced right into a city snowplow. Great, they'll at least plow early so I may get in later. Nope, he bypassed our alley (only access for us) and headed down the street following formerly stuck neighbor who was again sideways. I motioned to plow driver toward our alley. He blew me off.
Then I took a side street looking for another (and the only other) route OUT of my neighborhood for us. Cresting a hill on it I found way out totally blocked by a city firetruck guarding a water main break. No way out. Call work from car. I won't be in after all. 40 minutes and I only went 3 blocks round trip and one of those was in reverse gear. Fuming.
This is severely impacting my tobacco acquisition budget.

Going for reload - my pipe, that is.

Sounds like no body damage human or vehicular. Believe me you were set up for a lot more than a hit on your tobacco budget. I'm speaking from personal experience. On a beautiful June morning in 2003 I was cut off by a careless driver on the Long Island Expressway on my way to work in New York (Queens County) City from my home on Eastern Long Island. At that time I was driving a topheavy '95 Ford Bronco. I instictively hit my brakes and attempted to swerve to avoid the beech who cut me off and found myself in the surreal situation of being on 2 wheels on the drivers side, then scraping along the roadway on my chrome side step rails and then finally spinning to a stop fully overturned. Fortunately I was tightly seatbelted hanging upside down but unhurt; not so however for my beloved Bronco or my manly pride. I unlatched myself and crawled out of the blown out side window and crawled right onto the roadway. Within seconds I realized that I hit nobody except the Jersey wall roadway divider, nobody hit me and I was not hurt. So the other drivers on the road who parted way for me, the arriving highway patrol cops, the arriving firemen, ambulance drivers, and medivac helicopter cop all celebrated my good fortune while my truck was uprighted and hooked up to a tow vehicle for a "drag away". Everyone on Long Island that morning heard the news that the road was shut down during the morning rush hour due to a bad accident at the intersection of another main parkway interchange. So one of the police very calmly and with dry wit said " Just another day at my office" as he sat in his patrol vehicle writing up my accident report. Then he looked and me and smiled and said "I'll bet I know someone who'll be getting a new truck"! Insurance gave me a good payout on the Bronco but my 2003 F250 cost more than your tobacco today. Thankfully I was able to continue on to work in my wife's car arriving about an hour and a half late. Sometimes lucky stars line up. If you think about it your's lined up this evening. Hope your smokes this evening are as pleasureable as my Penzance is right now. I'm expecting my Star of the East flakes to arrive sometime tomorrow. I hope it's half as good as this Penzance that will soon be history. My supply is slowly running out. As promised I'll let you know how SOE smokes. Good night my friend and sleep tight tonight. We'll both be saddling up our stallions making our dust and riding out into the sunset tomorrow unless we really get dumped on by the man upstairs. "Just another day at the office"!

Heh, everybody but us I guess. It was pretty slow today. It's Monday AND the weather is bad. The phone certainly did ring a lot though. Ah well. I did see a fellow I hadn't seen in a long time and he'll probably buy his kid a really nice Ernie Ball bass guitar. Plus they're just really nice folks and a joy to talk to.

No smoke but some good coffee just got done brewing in the kitchen which I will probably spike. Good night all!

Today I'm starting--very late mind you--with Balkan Supreme. I'll go home (at school now) and have some Brazos King, then off to bed.