As your first Puffing Practice days go by, at some point you'll notice that the cartomizer with your so-far favorite flavor is having some issues. You're no longer receiving the same benefit from every puff, even allowing for the new-born-calf-shakylegs quality, wide variance and general inconsistency of your part of the puff process.
Sometimes you'll puff and nothing happens. Snap, Crackle, and Pop fail to greet the puff, and the vapor and its flavor follow their example.
You frown, you look at your e-cigarette reproachfully, you puff again, and maybe Snap, Crackle, and Pop scamper out waving the goods like they're supposed to, maybe they don't.
If you have a pushybutton, you can hold it up to your ear, push the button and listen any sign of Snap, Crackle,or Pop, and then puff when you hear something.
It's probably not a good idea to keep the button pushed down for a long time, I do it for about the same amount of time I'd do for a puff, then I let it up and push again.
When you're having to do that more often than not, it's a sign that the cartomizer is ready to go into the "NEEDS juice" baggie you're saving for Intermediate Class.
Another way cartomizers tell us it's time for a change is taste, but because so much of our taste services have been discontinued due to tobacco cigarette use, we can't always count on that, and if we're subject to taste and smell issues anyway, from medication, hormones, or whatever, that's going to be even less reliable.
My strategy is to keep a wireless e-cigarette loaded with a fresh cartomizer in my favorite flavor, and another one loaded with fresh cartomizer in a different flavor, and use those as a control when the one I'm using tastes different.
If my control cartomizers also taste different, and I know they're not used up yet because I've only used it for a couple of test puffs since I put it in, then the chances are good that the cartomizer in the electric hookah-doodle is also good, and if I'll just change to a flavor that will taste good right this minute, I'll still be building those pleasant associations and neural pathways.
One of the VERY few occasions we're actually better off NOT listening to those people who have all that knowledge and experience is when they tell us, oh you'll know, because it will be the worst thing you've ever tasted in your life, etc.
No, WE won't know. And it probably won't be. We've lived a very long time, during which we've tasted some pretty awful stuff.
Also, unlike the people with all that experience, for whom those taste sense services have been restored, ours are just not as reliable, nor as keen, and as mentioned, are subject to change without notice for reasons unrelated to any kind of cigarette, e or otherwise.
The main thing we want to avoid is spending too much time trying to elicit one more flavor pop from that cartomizer, which can actually hurt it so bad that it has to skip Intermediate Class and go directly into the Recycling bin out by the curb.
That's because in Intermediate Class, we're going to learn how to put more juice into those tired cartomizers and give them a whole new life! But if their parts get burned, it's straight to Recycle Nirvana for them, their incarnation as a cartomizer is complete.
To get ready, we need to learn the Warning Signs that your cartomizer is about to run out of juice:
1) Decreased Flavor
2) Decreased Visible Vapor
3) Decreased Snap, Crackle & Pop
4) Vain, empty puffs, punctuated by occasional fruitful ones
This is important, because while the machinery inside the cartomizer is scientific, it is not smart. Even when we've used up all the juice, it will keep right on heating up when we puff, and start to burn and melt the stuffing.
Inhaling burned plastic fumes is dangerous, and most of us are here because we want to reduce our daily intake of Inhaled Dangerous Things, not crank it up to the next level.
The second you smell or taste burned plastic, BLOW THAT PUFF OUT! Unscrew the cartomizer and throw it away. It does not qualify for the Intermediate Class!
If we learn the Warning Signs, we can prevent that from ever happening in the first place.
Err on the side of caution - if you're not sure, replace the cartomizer with a fresh one and put the one you're not sure about in the "MAYBE" baggie anyway. We'll go back and re-check those later.
Stock Up On Juice
Juice will be a major player in our transition to e-cigarettes, beginning with the Intermediate Class, so if you haven't already, obtain some.
Many companies offer juice samplers, so we can taste different flavors. This is not only ecomonical, but just common sense. The more flavors we taste, the more we're likely to find one we really like!
When you choose the flavors for your juice sampler, include vanilla, caramel, or both. If you're partial to tobacco with chocolate and/or cherry, get those, too.
You want to learn which company makes the vanilla and caramel, chocolate and cherry you like best, because you'll be using those flavors a lot, to turn tobacco-flavored juice you don't like into juice you do. You can even do this with tobacco-flavored cartomizers you don't like.
No one can tell us for sure that we will like Acme Brand SuperCinnaBaconDoozyKreme, but reading what others say can at least give us an idea of which companies and juices are popular.
Juice is such a huge topic that it has its own section on ECF. It's science and it's art, and like everything else we smell or taste, what's delicious to me may remind you of those horrid chewable vitamins that are inflicted on innocent children.
Sometimes you'll puff and nothing happens. Snap, Crackle, and Pop fail to greet the puff, and the vapor and its flavor follow their example.
You frown, you look at your e-cigarette reproachfully, you puff again, and maybe Snap, Crackle, and Pop scamper out waving the goods like they're supposed to, maybe they don't.
If you have a pushybutton, you can hold it up to your ear, push the button and listen any sign of Snap, Crackle,or Pop, and then puff when you hear something.
It's probably not a good idea to keep the button pushed down for a long time, I do it for about the same amount of time I'd do for a puff, then I let it up and push again.
When you're having to do that more often than not, it's a sign that the cartomizer is ready to go into the "NEEDS juice" baggie you're saving for Intermediate Class.
Another way cartomizers tell us it's time for a change is taste, but because so much of our taste services have been discontinued due to tobacco cigarette use, we can't always count on that, and if we're subject to taste and smell issues anyway, from medication, hormones, or whatever, that's going to be even less reliable.
My strategy is to keep a wireless e-cigarette loaded with a fresh cartomizer in my favorite flavor, and another one loaded with fresh cartomizer in a different flavor, and use those as a control when the one I'm using tastes different.
If my control cartomizers also taste different, and I know they're not used up yet because I've only used it for a couple of test puffs since I put it in, then the chances are good that the cartomizer in the electric hookah-doodle is also good, and if I'll just change to a flavor that will taste good right this minute, I'll still be building those pleasant associations and neural pathways.
One of the VERY few occasions we're actually better off NOT listening to those people who have all that knowledge and experience is when they tell us, oh you'll know, because it will be the worst thing you've ever tasted in your life, etc.
No, WE won't know. And it probably won't be. We've lived a very long time, during which we've tasted some pretty awful stuff.
Also, unlike the people with all that experience, for whom those taste sense services have been restored, ours are just not as reliable, nor as keen, and as mentioned, are subject to change without notice for reasons unrelated to any kind of cigarette, e or otherwise.
The main thing we want to avoid is spending too much time trying to elicit one more flavor pop from that cartomizer, which can actually hurt it so bad that it has to skip Intermediate Class and go directly into the Recycling bin out by the curb.
That's because in Intermediate Class, we're going to learn how to put more juice into those tired cartomizers and give them a whole new life! But if their parts get burned, it's straight to Recycle Nirvana for them, their incarnation as a cartomizer is complete.
To get ready, we need to learn the Warning Signs that your cartomizer is about to run out of juice:
1) Decreased Flavor
2) Decreased Visible Vapor
3) Decreased Snap, Crackle & Pop
4) Vain, empty puffs, punctuated by occasional fruitful ones
This is important, because while the machinery inside the cartomizer is scientific, it is not smart. Even when we've used up all the juice, it will keep right on heating up when we puff, and start to burn and melt the stuffing.
Inhaling burned plastic fumes is dangerous, and most of us are here because we want to reduce our daily intake of Inhaled Dangerous Things, not crank it up to the next level.
The second you smell or taste burned plastic, BLOW THAT PUFF OUT! Unscrew the cartomizer and throw it away. It does not qualify for the Intermediate Class!
If we learn the Warning Signs, we can prevent that from ever happening in the first place.
Err on the side of caution - if you're not sure, replace the cartomizer with a fresh one and put the one you're not sure about in the "MAYBE" baggie anyway. We'll go back and re-check those later.
Stock Up On Juice
Juice will be a major player in our transition to e-cigarettes, beginning with the Intermediate Class, so if you haven't already, obtain some.
Many companies offer juice samplers, so we can taste different flavors. This is not only ecomonical, but just common sense. The more flavors we taste, the more we're likely to find one we really like!
When you choose the flavors for your juice sampler, include vanilla, caramel, or both. If you're partial to tobacco with chocolate and/or cherry, get those, too.
You want to learn which company makes the vanilla and caramel, chocolate and cherry you like best, because you'll be using those flavors a lot, to turn tobacco-flavored juice you don't like into juice you do. You can even do this with tobacco-flavored cartomizers you don't like.
No one can tell us for sure that we will like Acme Brand SuperCinnaBaconDoozyKreme, but reading what others say can at least give us an idea of which companies and juices are popular.
Juice is such a huge topic that it has its own section on ECF. It's science and it's art, and like everything else we smell or taste, what's delicious to me may remind you of those horrid chewable vitamins that are inflicted on innocent children.
