I was wondering about that when you said you were in the East Bay now! I was going to ask, but by the time I get home from work, this thread has grown so many pages, that it's all I can do to just read to catch up! Welcome to the area!
You also said that there were a ton of vape shops around. Where have you been? I've heard of several around here, but I haven't actually been in to any. I guess I don't get out much.
I'll either use Google or Yelp to find stuff in a new area with something like "vape shop near me" or "walnut creek vape shop" etc.
There's some in Pleasant Hill and Concord but the one I've been to locally is Vapor 1 Lounge on North Broadway in Walnut Creek. They have some higher end equipment as well as starter stuff. They even talked me out of purchasing any drippers there because they didn't have anything to meet my criteria. They carried Provari's, I think they had a real Chi You, a Hades mod, they build coils there and will let you try any juice they sell (out of their clearo or your dripper). They even gave me the names of some other shops in the area where they hang out, SF Vapors and Dream Cloud Vapor both in the Mission and across the street from each other. One even has an attached Filipino restaurant. And even Platinum Vape in Hayward and Ecig City 8 in San Jose.
So far I've only been to Vapor 1 in Walnut Creek and Platinum Vapes in Hayward. Platinum Vapes was quite cool, they were friendly and spent a fair amount of time helping me out. They carried Provari's, copper Ember mods, copper Da Iron Mods, Origen mods, Poldiac's, some nice drippers, a variety of juices, etc. One of the staff at Platinum Vapes was even familiar with Ahlusion (I always try to spread the Ahlusion good news) and said he wanted to try the Boba Tea. I went in looking for some unicorns (Cartel Stillare/Tobh/Omega dripper, a copper Stingray mod or something copper from Bay City Vapor, etc.) but of course those sell out quickly. Dennis and Josh at the shop were great and it appears that they have a small crowd at night that comes in just to hang out.
I mentioned I had just moved out from the east coast and the Platinum Vapes staff said they were surprised at my knowledge of equipment and such as I guess we get a bad rap out here. I said it was thanks to the people at ECF and reading. They even helped set up my new equipment that I eventually bought
My new west coast style setup: Poldiac v2 Uma 18650, Omega dripper and Innovapes(?) Pyrex and brass drip tip. They built me a dual coil in the dripper that's coming in at 0.39ohms (yes I'm using 30A batteries for safety) which was a bit higher than he was shooting for but dang it puts out some clouds. Now to just break in that dripper to get rid of the metallic taste. I got some nice juices as well.
Now if I can just get my Ahlusion feedback/coupon so I can snag some Coco Berry Cream... But wait! Maybe LisaR has some I can steal
