On February 28th 2011 I smoked the last of my MYO cigarettes; it was about 8pm and I was heading home from setting up a remote broadcast for our evening talk show. There was no tobacco at home (an order for a new tobacco blend I had placed from the UK was held up in customs and wouldn’t be coming for another week or so), so I pulled into a Walgreen’s to buy a pack of Marlboro Virginia Blend 100s. As fate would have it, they were sold out; also sold out of my next choice, Camel filters. But I spied a display of blu disposables behind the register and asked the check-out lady for one of the “classic tobacco” models and headed out to the car.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the thing but tore it out of the package, took off the little leaf sticker from the air inlet hole and had a puff. Surprise was the order of the evening; there was certainly more vapor produced than the smoke I was used to blowing out from a regular cigarette, and honestly, it didn’t taste half bad. And I didn’t smell anything, even though the windows were rolled up. Drove home and spent the next few hours just puffing away on the thing, surprised and pleased; no smell and no smoke meant not having to duck outside to have a puff. That was awesome in itself. The thing finally petered out around 1:30am or so after 5 and a half hours of total and complete chain vaping.
The next morning, I pulled back into the same Walgreen’s and bought 2 more blu disposables; figured since I liked the taste and the convenience, I’d just buy these until my tobacco shipment arrived. Little did I know that I would never smoke another cigarette again….
That was two years ago, fellow babies; now, I had tried to quit smoking before using gums and patches, but they didn’t work even though I really wanted them to. Funny that a chance set of occurrences would finally see me quitting when, at that particular point, I wasn’t 
even considering it. I began doing research on e-cigs as best I could…there wasn’t anywhere near as much information available then as there is now. Three days after that first blu I stopped at a small shop that had just begun carrying “electronic cigarettes” and paid $60 for a “cig-alike” kit; two 280mAh stick batteries, 2 atomizers, 5 prefilled cartridges and a charger — they even threw in 2 15 ml bottles of Dekang RY4 and American Tobacco! Man, I was in business! Now, even though I had been spending money on some pretty high-grade tobaccos and using an injector to make my own cigarettes, the cost was about half what it would have been if I’d been buying pre-mades. Still, the thought of saving a good chunk of even that expense danced in my head.
But cartridges sucked out loud, fellow babies, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Entire forums and videos devoted to 
modding them with all manner of stuff started sprouting up. I gave up on the little cig-alikes and carts when I stopped in the same store to buy some juice and noticed they had these new-fangled eGo tank setups. 650mAh batteries! Get outta here! So I bought another kit, shelling out close to $100 for two batteries, the charger, 5 atomizer cones and 5 tanks. This was just a month after I bought my first blu disposable, ya’ll; and any of you who started vaping about the same time as me knows what came next. Fiddling with the damn eGo tanks, putzing with wick placement in the atty spike, leaks, dry hits…it was getting to be way too much, and I kinda longed for the simplicity of the old blu disposable.
Long story short, I worked my way through various cartomizers, various atomizers, even began getting into modding a flashlight and
an Altoid tin into a e-cig courtesy of Steel Jan. Finally bought a Silver Bullet after watching Dr. Vapor (remember him?) review one, then later a ProVari. It was a long and painful journey at times, but man, what a lot of information I’ve sucked in! And what a lot of new stuff we have that two years ago wasn’t even a thought in anyone’s head yet…carto tanks! Rebuildable atomizers! Rebuildable atomizers tanks! Stainless steel mesh wicks! Variable voltage AND power in one device for less than a carton of cigarettes! It seems commonplace now, but two years ago? This was all science fiction stuff, fellow babies.
Then I found this place just last October and I joined in November. I’ve made a lot of “friends” here and really enjoy the community and camaraderie. This old dog still is learning new tricks because of this place and because of all you groovy guys and gals. Amazing.
In the past few months I’ve turned dozens of people on to vaping now that it’s become so easy compared to when I started. My health has improved dramatically and stuff I’d taken for granted…sinus problems, allergies to pollen and spores (a tough thing to have in Florida), shortness of breath, smoker’s cough, slightly high blood pressure, stinking like an old chimney — all gone. The people who started vaping at my urging are now experiencing the same benefits and are likewise turning on others…it’s a great time to be a vaper, my friends. It’s been hard at times, and challenging. A long two years as well, now that I think back on it with a beer and a vape — but two years I wouldn’t trade. And it all happened because of chance circumstances lining up to send me down this path. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next two years! Hell, yeah! Vape on, fellow babies!