The Nub

Hello all,

Welcome to my first every blog, which is about my new hobby smoking premium, handmade cigars. A little background about myslef:

I was born in 1984 (you can do the math on my age). I grew up in a poor, but loving family that sacrificed a lot for me. I am an only child (except a much older half-sister). After college I married my wonderful wife and college sweetheart, and we have settled into a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. I never smoked a day in my life until I was 21 years old. I began smoking the occasional Black&Mild, mostly when I drank. I could probably count on two hands the number of times I smoked these. I had my first Cigar when I was 22ish. I had been dying to try one and one of my buddies, $M$ (as I will call him), was coming over to my house with his girlfriend. He showed me how to cut and light a cigar, though I doubt he had much more than a cursory experience doing so. I don't remember exactly what brand we smoked, but we enjoyed it so much we forgot we even had drinks. Soon after that my father-in-law gave me a humidor and a briarwood pipe. I began using the pipe right away, because pipe tobacco was much lower maintainence. I would buy Cigars and smoke them right away, but I never prepared my humidor for use until this year.

Now for the purpose of this blog. The name of the blog "CigarNub" is a little play on words that describes my cigar point of view. I once read that some aficianados only smoke the first half of a cigar, because this is where the best flavor is. This may or may not be true, but I have found that I derive the most enjoyment from the last inch or so of the cigar. This may just be the effects of the nicotine, or the altered state of my mind after smoking the beginning of the cigar. Whatever it is, I find that a cigar nub in my hand correlates positvely with relaxation. The pun however is twofold. From my intro above you can see that I am new to both smoking premium, handmade cigars, and new to blogging. So I am a double n00b (newbie, for all you 'net illiterates out there) to writing a Cigar Blog. You can see the pun, I hope. With this in mind I hope all you Cigar or Blogging experts forgive me if I inaccurate in anyway. I hope that what you take from my experience is that of a young aficianado learning a new hobby. I will be disussing the cigars I smoke, the friends I smoke with, my stance on smoking related topics, the 'Good Life' and anything else I deem appropriate. I hope that you all enjoy.

As for my smoking habits here it goes: I have been maintaining a small supply of cigars(4-7 cigars at any given time) in my humidor and smoking them a couple times a week. The cigars I buy are typically between $4-$9, and they sit in my humidor for between 3 days and 2 weeks, on average. I smoke my pipe a couple times a week, usually when I am at my cousin, jman's (as I will call him), house gaming friday evenings. I don't smoke anything else, especially not cigarettes.