SmokyFontaine

Well, they put the "ass" in assouline apparently.

Yah, it's definitely got to be one of the reality shows. Kardashians is up there, but I'll go with one of those Real Housewives shows. Cause that kills all the spinoffs too.

Yah, my (relatively uneducated) thought as well. Your book analogy is better than anything I could come up with, but if eggs will "acclimate" to the refrigerator, thereby negating the impact of freezing, why wouldn't they acclimate to 70F after being kept at that for months/years on end? And that's just 10 or so degrees from too high, and alleged hatch-range. Take it 65 degrees lower for a day or two and that's going to allow the eggs to outsmart temperature and brace themselves for freezing? I dunno. It's entirely possible that's all true, but at least at a surface level, it makes no logical sense at all.

I have fond memories of a handful of Siglo II's, so I guess a box of II's or III's. Now that I understand some of the differences among Cubans, it would be nice to see if those still hold up.

My wife is an under, I'm a firm over. If I hadn't started making a bit of dough over the past few years, it would be worthy of divorce, but now it's just too expensive. So instead I constantly change the orientation of the roll and make sure I raise our children properly.

I only run it during about 3 months of summer, and have never plugged. I use them more for storage than I do temperature regulation (but like the 3 months of temp regulation over a cooler). I would MUCH rather have have a hard time keeping humidity high, than to have a puddle of water at the bottom of my wineador. And even at that, my rH is +/- 2% year round.

Trying to think of the best way to phrase it, but I was giving a Punch Punch a try tonight and for maybe the first 30 minutes wondered to myself "why the hell am I still smoking this?" Just a really boring start. Partly because my wife was watching some blend of 24hr news networks and real estate shows where the couple is moving to Hawaii and can't understand why they can't find an 11 bedroom home, suspended over the ocean by 400 weather balloons for under $150k, I decided to battle through it. Boy am I glad. Halfway point hit, and the cigar just took off. Pleasure City. How often have you found yourself with a slow starter, only to see your patience rewarded? Any brands you've seen where that's it's M.O.? This damn hobby. I keep wanting to find universal truths, but more often than not, it seems the only one I can settle on is "in cigars, there are no universal truths."

I want to believe that aging is fake science like climate change, the dinosaurs, the moon landing, and the planet not being 7,000 years old, but more often than not a ROTT or a few weeks removed from delivery Cuban just hasn't sat right. Harshness, ammonia, burn issues. It's forced me to be more patient and really just smoke one new out of a box and start trying them months apart until I hit a sweet spot. I really wish I got into Cubans back when thinner ring gauges were the thing because I could see those being ready quicker, and with far less harshness. Anyway, I'm off to the boat for a bit...unless I fall off the edge of the flat Earth. Pssh. Science. Yah right.

A Padron 1926 in the backyard by our fire pit after my alma mater won a National Championship. I'm still waiting to find a Cuban cigar that rivals my love for Padrons, and I suspect it will happen at some point, but for me the consistency, quality, and flavor of damn near anything with the name Padron on it is second to none. They're just flawless.

Waaaay back to a simpler time. A time when you didn't need to lock your door. When everyone knew their neighbor. Back when kids played in the street, and only came home when the streetlights turned on. ...April of 2017 Monte No. 4's. I probably have salad dressings in my refrigerator that are older. I've just started on the Cuban journey.

Maybe a bit of a newb question...hell, most of mine are, but when a box code and date tends to come across as very good, do you usually see a couple months before and a couple months after as different levels of good? I guess I'm asking, in your opinion are the changes incremental, or is an April date absolutely nothing like a May one?

Also assuming they are just in cardboard, I would take them out. The one time I stored cardboard packaged cigars, I caught a bit of mold due to several circumstances, but still, worthwhile to remove and store naked, or if you have any old 10-ct boxes maybe pop them in there for a little extra protection.

For me personally, yah, I feel proud of myself for having the willpower, determination and faith to make it through the month, knowing that it means hardships were overcome. As I guess you could say a "first generation" Muslim, to see my kids grow up with a different experience than my own childhood makes me feel great and brings us all closer together. "Lighter" is a great way to summarize it. Literally, a lot of us lose weight and figuratively, you feel like a more motivated, better person at the end of the month. The trick is trying to keep that feeling and motivation for the next 320 days or so! My sincere hope is that all of us can find motivation to strive to be better people, whether that motivation is faith-based or from anything else!

Yesss!!!! Eid Mubarak, and Tuesday/Wednesday Mubarak to all the non-muslims out there. Haa haa. I swear I love this community more each time I visit. My schedule was eating at about 3:45am, breaking fast around 8:45pm. Got one cigar in when a co-worker wanted to talk afterhours work, but made him wait until 9pm Nearest mosque is a bit of a drive from my place, not to mention taraweh starts around 11pm out here so I did my own thing at home most nights. Couldn't agree more that lack of food and drink is the easy part. The interrupted sleep schedule while trying to maintain a normal work and family schedule is the toughest for me. But I really love how it brings my whole family together, the kids like to get in on it, and it makes for a rather chaotic, but oddly peaceful month of reflection. Peace to all!

Tons of great advice, tips and tricks in here from people who are far more qualified than myself. Having said that... For me, when I have my best workouts, I'm focused on working out. I leave the phone behind (or just play music), I follow a routine with different workouts on different days, and outside of a particular injury, I stick with it until I start to feel the dreaded plateau, then I look to mix in other movements that work the muscle group but differently. So instead of a flat bench for example, maybe I mix in incline bench or something similar. Then lastly, in weights and in cardio, I limit my rest between sets or activities. This speaks to removing distractions again. The number of times I've hit a good set of some exercise, then my brain reminds me that...not to name the source of distractions...a 24:24 is about to go live, I mentally wander off and I just burnt 10 minutes in between sets and lost some of my momentum. Not good. I'm also a big fan of supplementing any lifting and cardio routine with an athletic endeavor. I enjoy training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing. As long as I'm not getting injured, the two can really complement each other, as strength and endurance are useful traits for both of those activities.