My nickname on the meatside is Tripp. It might as well be on my birth certificate because that's what everyone calls me. My legal name is the same as that of my father and his father. I'm the 3rd. Hence, Tripp. Tripp means three, or so my parents have told me.
I was born in North Carolina and lived there till I was 32. Then I moved to Texas because I met this amazing woman from there and couldn't talk her to moving to NC. So I went to her. She was a single mother of a biracial 4 year old boy when I met her. He's now 12 and I refer to him as DemonSpawn or just "my son." We've had two more children together in the 7 years we've been married. Texas women are amazingly fertile. A half dozen of my coworkers are pregnant. My wife conceived on two other occasions but both of those pregnancies ended in early-term miscarries. After the birth of our youngest almost two years ago, we decided that three children were enough to ensure we could send some daycare owner's children to college, so I got some of my plumbing snipped and she got some of her tied. Our doctors must think we're swingers. We're really not, but I've been given my wife's permission to be intimate with a select few female celebrities should the opportunity ever present itself.
I started smoking when I was 24. It was a crutch I used to help deal with the stress associated with my job at the time. It turned into an addiction and began to take it's toll as I grew older. Notice I didn't say "matured." That ain't gonna happen. Anyway, I switched from cigarettes to Black & Mild cigars a few years ago and never gave serious consideration to quitting. I thought I enjoyed it. On a whim, I bought a used Joye 510 starter kit and tried vaping. When it worked properly, I loved it and quickly grew to prefer a good vape over smoking. It didn't work properly all of the time though. The battery issue was a pain, but a charger and spare batteries were easy enough fixes. Getting juice to wick properly from those blasted carts was pure frustrations. I started researching and found ECF early on. I tried a couple of the cartridge mods I read about here, and had limited success. While hopping around the forums, I stumbled across Clyde's review thread on the Reo Grand. I hadn't learned about mods in general yet, but the concept of the Reo Grand and the bottom feeding juice delivery combined with the much longer lasting battery struck a chord with me. I bugged Clyde, Sterno, and Redeyedancer via P.M. to learn more about the Reo Grand. All three answered my questions. I learned how they were being sold in the ECF thread and decided I would try to get my e-mail sent in time. That was 12/29/10. When Rob sent me a PayPal payment request, I felt like I had won the lottery. My Reo Grand arrived almost a full week before the batteries and charger I had ordered. Those were dark times. I got my batteries and charger on a Friday evening. I put the batteries on the charger and went to work. I smoked a cigar at around 11:00 pm on my drive home. I went to bed. The next morning, I had two charged batteries and my Reo Grand to play with. I started vaping that sucker like a fiend.
When I woke up from my coma, I was an ex-smoker. I had one cigar left in the last pack I bought sitting on top of my dresser. It's still there and I look at it everyday. I've had no desire to light it up. As I type this, I haven't smoked for 1 month, 1 week, and 3 days. And I've had some bad vaping days. My taste buds hated me and refused to let me taste any of my juices on several occasions. Cinnabomb was the only flavor I could taste and I let myself run out. My replacement order got frozen during shipping and was ruined. I didn't know that at the time and held on to it to let it steep. In hindsight, that was a waste of time. I sent it back to be replaced and just got the replacement 4 days ago. Now it's too strong, due to my taste buds having mostly recovered. I have to dilute it with 100% VG just to make it tolerable and it's not as satisfying as it once was. It's a nice change-up flavor from time to time, though. I don't expect I'll ever use it all. While I was without any flavored juice that I genuinely enjoyed, I vaped on the stuff I had. Mouth developed multiple painful sores. My nostrils dried out and painfully bled a little bit. I had acne I hadn't seen since the 1980's. My lips got horribly chapped. I KNEW all these issues were side effects from vaping + quitting smoking. I still didn't want to go back to cigars, though. I kept reading, kept ordering juice samples and different attys, and started drinking water like it was going out of style. Eventually, it got better. I still have days where I'm not tasting well or my juice self feeds like it's possessed or some other irritating issue pops up, but I keep on vaping.
I love my Reo Grand, the community, and the fact I don't want to smoke anymore.
There's more to tell, but it's my bed time. G'nite!
I was born in North Carolina and lived there till I was 32. Then I moved to Texas because I met this amazing woman from there and couldn't talk her to moving to NC. So I went to her. She was a single mother of a biracial 4 year old boy when I met her. He's now 12 and I refer to him as DemonSpawn or just "my son." We've had two more children together in the 7 years we've been married. Texas women are amazingly fertile. A half dozen of my coworkers are pregnant. My wife conceived on two other occasions but both of those pregnancies ended in early-term miscarries. After the birth of our youngest almost two years ago, we decided that three children were enough to ensure we could send some daycare owner's children to college, so I got some of my plumbing snipped and she got some of her tied. Our doctors must think we're swingers. We're really not, but I've been given my wife's permission to be intimate with a select few female celebrities should the opportunity ever present itself.
I started smoking when I was 24. It was a crutch I used to help deal with the stress associated with my job at the time. It turned into an addiction and began to take it's toll as I grew older. Notice I didn't say "matured." That ain't gonna happen. Anyway, I switched from cigarettes to Black & Mild cigars a few years ago and never gave serious consideration to quitting. I thought I enjoyed it. On a whim, I bought a used Joye 510 starter kit and tried vaping. When it worked properly, I loved it and quickly grew to prefer a good vape over smoking. It didn't work properly all of the time though. The battery issue was a pain, but a charger and spare batteries were easy enough fixes. Getting juice to wick properly from those blasted carts was pure frustrations. I started researching and found ECF early on. I tried a couple of the cartridge mods I read about here, and had limited success. While hopping around the forums, I stumbled across Clyde's review thread on the Reo Grand. I hadn't learned about mods in general yet, but the concept of the Reo Grand and the bottom feeding juice delivery combined with the much longer lasting battery struck a chord with me. I bugged Clyde, Sterno, and Redeyedancer via P.M. to learn more about the Reo Grand. All three answered my questions. I learned how they were being sold in the ECF thread and decided I would try to get my e-mail sent in time. That was 12/29/10. When Rob sent me a PayPal payment request, I felt like I had won the lottery. My Reo Grand arrived almost a full week before the batteries and charger I had ordered. Those were dark times. I got my batteries and charger on a Friday evening. I put the batteries on the charger and went to work. I smoked a cigar at around 11:00 pm on my drive home. I went to bed. The next morning, I had two charged batteries and my Reo Grand to play with. I started vaping that sucker like a fiend.
When I woke up from my coma, I was an ex-smoker. I had one cigar left in the last pack I bought sitting on top of my dresser. It's still there and I look at it everyday. I've had no desire to light it up. As I type this, I haven't smoked for 1 month, 1 week, and 3 days. And I've had some bad vaping days. My taste buds hated me and refused to let me taste any of my juices on several occasions. Cinnabomb was the only flavor I could taste and I let myself run out. My replacement order got frozen during shipping and was ruined. I didn't know that at the time and held on to it to let it steep. In hindsight, that was a waste of time. I sent it back to be replaced and just got the replacement 4 days ago. Now it's too strong, due to my taste buds having mostly recovered. I have to dilute it with 100% VG just to make it tolerable and it's not as satisfying as it once was. It's a nice change-up flavor from time to time, though. I don't expect I'll ever use it all. While I was without any flavored juice that I genuinely enjoyed, I vaped on the stuff I had. Mouth developed multiple painful sores. My nostrils dried out and painfully bled a little bit. I had acne I hadn't seen since the 1980's. My lips got horribly chapped. I KNEW all these issues were side effects from vaping + quitting smoking. I still didn't want to go back to cigars, though. I kept reading, kept ordering juice samples and different attys, and started drinking water like it was going out of style. Eventually, it got better. I still have days where I'm not tasting well or my juice self feeds like it's possessed or some other irritating issue pops up, but I keep on vaping.
I love my Reo Grand, the community, and the fact I don't want to smoke anymore.
There's more to tell, but it's my bed time. G'nite!
