IanMcLean68

After experimentation, I have found a good way to hydrate the Heartfelt beads when needed. If you draw some distilled water into a clean syringe - I use a 10ml one, with a blunt tip needle, and then push the plunger all the way down on the syringe to expel all the water, and then if you draw the plunger back out on the syringe again, there is just enough water left in the syringe for 1/2 pound of beads. Quickly pushing the plunger back down on the syringe releases that tiny amount of left over water as a fine mist, and that is enough for at least 6 months for 1/2 pound of beads.

Great cigar holder!

I totally get your point, and I am also aware that my brand of patience and abstinence is not for everyone. Lucky for me, I much prefer CC's with minimum 3 years on them, across the board. However, I also see this as something that should diminish over time, as long as you buy more cigars than you smoke in the short term. I smoked very little for the first few years I joined, but now five years on, I have a range of boxes with at least 3 years on them, which I am smoking through, whilst I wait for my newer boxes to age. I keep my smoking/ageing ratio at about 1:2.

I also voted 5% but the plugged rate for me is much much lower. I used to get plugs more often from poor storage conditions from a local B&M, but since joining FOH about 5 years ago, I have purchased 99% of my stock from Rob, and I have had exactly one plugged cigar in 5 years - a Partagas Short of all things. I doubt that average will be any worse in the 26 or so boxes I currently have. In my honest opinion it comes down to two things. 1. Good stock, carefully selected and stored properly by Rob. 2. Being patient, and resting cigars in proper conditions for at least 90 days. I don't touch boxes now until they are at least 3 years old. I know that this flies in the face of what many consider the "try regularly until they hit the sweet spot" mentality, but I know my preferences, and this approach seems to entirely eliminate these problems.

I have used Heartfelt for about 5 years now. Soaking them is a big no-no, as you will just end up having to dry them out with a blow dryer. They need very, very little added water! The powder is partly from the beads cracking, but it is also the beads shedding the compounds they contain for both sucking up and releasing humidity. If this comes off the beads, Rh balance is affected, and they wont work as specified. Mine keep perfectly now at 65% Rh, and I keep them almost dry - I only add a few drops worth of water, sprayed on, every 6 months or so.

🤪🐔

I used to have a mate that was, for a while at least, not-so-jokingly referred to as "the sponge". Past tense intended. Nice enough guy for the most part, but his favourite trick was to be lacking the money when something was on, borrow for it, then pay back later in loose change. Of course, he was always short of the full amount, and always had an excuse that you owed him for some piddling little thing in between. I used to tolerate that sort of behaviour, in my younger years, but not so much these days. Generosity has far greater rewards than material ones, friendship and trust and all that comes with that.

The cigar equivalent of GAS - which I have also been accused of. Certainly. Although, I'm not sure sure its an acquisition syndrome, as much as treating cigar purchases as if I am always stocking up for an apocalypse - kind of like the cigar equivalent of a "prepper". (PS: NOT a prepper! No offence, but I don't want to be tarred with that brush.) I like to ensure I always have a 10 year smoking supply, enough to last the average ageing period of a box, even though there is nothing stopping me from buying more. However, this may indeed change one day here in the nanny state of Australia.

I have always had a preference for nice thin oily rosado wrappers on both R&J and Partagas.

I don't watch much animated stuff these days, but I will watch Archer occasionally! It's worth giving that one a thumbs up. I do like Futurama, Family Guy, Simpsons but rarely watch them these days.

"Under The Thumb" is another way of putting it 😉 Only kidding of course! Looking good there John 😉

Love my hot chillies. Getting back into growing them this year, I'm growing Carolina Reaper & Red Savina Habanero. I have heard that the new Pepper X may possibly cause anaphylaxis in some sensitive people.

Love it. The marine equivalent to being slapped across the face with a wet lettuce.

I can relate to many of these. Riding my bike around the streets all day, with no protection. Back street games of football and cricket. Swimming in the not-so-clean local rivers and dams, swinging from ropes and jumping large rock outcrops into water. Fireworks night, when it was still a thing here in Australia, was always a doozy. Building 15 foot pyres in a local field near home with the all the other kids from the neighbourhood over the week before, to set it off with a gallon of petrol - making the neighbourhood houses windows shake when it first went up in flames. The height of fireworks night stupidity was extracting the gunpowder from fireworks and building copper pipe bombs. There are many more. I started being a mad scientist as a teenager. Amazed I survived my teenage years really.

Nah, he only wants to see one of them 😉 ... and only if you brush the mould off first.