July 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Some words of wisdom from my momma
My mom can’t take credit for these gems, but they have followed me around for awhile.
“The shit you take is the shit you take.”
“You can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose your attitude.”
“Be assertive, even if it doesn’t come naturally. Just do it and don’t let people walk all over you.”
“If someone is talking...
1 tag
e-Cigarettes. Are they for real? Uh-huh.
My boss turned me onto the idea a couple of years ago. She observed that I was always "quitting smoking." My undiagnosed issues were looming in the background but whenever I quit smoking it was usually due to an overwhelming desire to get healthy and exercise more and more intensely. So she mentioned seeing an infomercial about e-cigarettes and suggested I investigate them.
I chewed this cud for awhile before taking action, and then started hearing radio spots all of the time...and before I knew it, I was at Smoker Friendly purchasing my first kit. This was an NJOY NPRO "Super-Mini" cigarette, based on the RN4081 atomizer. It did the trick immediately but I was unimpressed by the cartridge system and the battery life.
Soon I stumbled upon a "Colorado E-Smokes" booth at the Colorado Mills Mall and bought some liquids to drop directly onto my atomizer. Now we're talkin'!
But I wanted to explore more, and ended up buying the Blu Cigarette kid and way too many cartridges. I tried to convince myself that this was a wise purchase, but it was not. Shortly after I bought another NJOY kit for $70 because I wanted more batteries and an atomizer.
Long story short, you can waste a ton of money on e-cigarettes, especially if you have a proclivity towards geeking out and blowing your heard-earned cash. I'm here to tell you that you don't need to do this.
If you want to do your own homework, spend hours and hours here:
www.e-Cigarette-forum.com
Here are the vendors I recommend if you just want to get right to it:
www.MadVapes.com -- hardware. Get an eGo or Riva kit. Or if you want to jump into the big leagues, pick up a 3.7V box mod, a Lithium Battery charger, and some 14500 batteries. A "box mod" is simply a cheap device that replaces the super-expensive and proprietary e-cigarette batteries. The "mods" have heavier-duty switches and the batteries are $4 tops, vs. $10-20+ for proprietary batteries.
Rule of thumb: the more it looks like a cigarette, the more it's going to suck. You'll get over the awkwardness of using a "mod" in public really quickly.
You can jump right into 5.0V or variable voltage if you really want to, but it isn't necessary. Pick up some Boge 2.0 ohm cartomizers for your eGo / Riva / 3.7V box mod. These are cartridge/atomizer devices that are considered disposable. They should typically last 1-4 weeks. You can also pick up some low-resistance 306 (1.5-1.7 ohm) atomizers and a 306 drip-tip, but I wouldn't recommend going below 2.0 ohm with the eGo or Riva battery. The box mods and other replaceable-battery devices are much more suitable for low resistance.
www.HaloCigs.com -- this is a great vendor for e-liquid. All of their flavors are "tobacco flavors" but nothing is going to taste like a burning cigarette. You'll get over it. Buy the sampler. Go for at least 18mg/ml of nicotine, no matter how much you smoke. Trust me on this. If you over-do it with a high nicotine concentration, you'll self-regulate really fucking quickly. I've been there and it sucks, but it's better than continuing to smoke because you bought weak sauce.
www.AVEJuice.com -- these liquids are amazing. Boba's Bounty and Gorilla Juice are majestic creations. Most of these liquids are 100% vegetable glycerine based and they are pretty thick. I "drip" these directly onto my 306 atomizer.
If you're going to use an atomizer, get a corresponding drip tip and just drip 2-3 drops into that sucker at a time. You'll want to blow it out completely into a paper towel when you first open it, and then prime it with 5-7 drops right away. After that, 2-3 tops. With the cartomizers, you want to completely saturate them with 20 drops of e-liquid, perhaps more if they will take it. You can pop off the soft white cap and just drip-drip-drip, avoiding the hollow airflow tube in the center. Or you can learn about the "condom fill method." The "condom" is just the protective silicone/rubber stuff that the cartomizer ships with. The "condom" is great for keeping your cartomizer fresh if you like to rotate between many flavors.
Ask me anything.
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The Manic-Depressive Manifesto
There’s some contention in the psychiatric community about which term carries the most meaning and the least stigma: “Bi-Polar” or “Manic-Depressive.”
I’m slowly veering towards “Manic-Depressive,” though I appreciate the brevity of “Bi-Polar.” The thing is, “they” (damned weasel words) are starting to realize that depression...
A Writer Writes
I’ve always dreamed of being a writer, which is to say that I don’t actually write in sufficient volume or with sufficient focus on any particular topic. I express myself too much in corporate emails and facebook postings, but I don’t have any direction. There’s a reason for this but it’s no excuse. It’s time to change.
My dad always told me “a writer...