Been gone for a while. Fell off the wagon a couple times, but always found a new juice or build, or a new rattle in my breathing that brought me back to
vaping. Been back, in earnest, for about a month now. Each time I've fallen off the wagon, and found my way back, I've been blown away by the advances that were made while I was gone. It'd be a shame to see this industry lose its momentum.
I've actually seen a couple good-news stories in these first days after the deeming. I work in the firearms industry, and we have a fair number of stalwart, old-school,
vaping is for queer-folk and hipsters type-smokers, where I work.
They'd gotten over ribbing me about my on/off
vaping for the last few years, and let me be. And, then, something changed.
On Friday morning, there were three old-grumpy conservatives holding e-cigs, two pens and one box-mod, out at the smoking shelter. Two of them were the ones who used to give me the most grief about vaping.
I asked what was up, and they had all seen the news, read just a little deeper than the general public is getting from the drive-by media, and realized, right away, what was going on.
It offended them.
Having worked in the firearms industry for decades each, they knew what was happening, and it ...... them off.
One commented that he'd figured he'd need to turn on to vaping eventually, and had been fighting it. He said he'd seen the evolution that vapers had to go through, individually, to get to something that worked, and, now, realized he needed to get it sorted out before the taxes and bans started.
So, naturally, the discussion went to the ways we can work around what's coming. I calmed them down, a little, by showing them how all the equipment I was using could break down into non-ecig elements: a variable wattage flashlight, an aroma diffuser, leather etching wire, and surgical cotton.
The only thing I was extremely worried about was the liquid nicotine, so I had ordered 2l of 100mg, and enough 50ml bottles to freeze it all on Thursday night. All three of them asked me to forward them my receipts so they could order the same stuff.
There is an element of kindred-spirit between the cigar smokers, vapers, moonshine enthusiasts, and "bitter gun-clingers", and times like these turn acquaintances into brothers.