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ebriel

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Nov 8, 2013
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Hi everybody at ECF!

I've just started posting, but have had an account for about a year or so.

About me: I stopped using analogues on Halloween 2013 (although I had been trying different juices and batteries before then for about a month or two - I initially tried a Volcano Inferno, then switched to a Lavatube 2.5). I liked the Inferno (but not great), and was too new to figure out the Lavatube 2.5 (kept burning my juice since I didn't realize what was too much voltage or wattage - plus I was using a ProTank 2 with the default silica).

From there I got a Mini ProTank 2 and a Vision Spinner from vaping.me (the spinner helped me quit for good). I also found a juice that I liked, oddly enough it was the Volcano Tobacco Pure that I'd gotten for free with my initial Inferno order - but the last one that I tried!

After that, I figured that the silica (when turned up to too high of a voltage/wattage) was why I was getting the bad plastic taste, so I switched to cotton. I simply put the cotton through the Protank's default coil. Eventually, I wanted to start making my own coils, but I failed miserably at doing it on the Protanks, so I just stuck with the default coils.

Then I started making my own juices thanks to the Tobacco Cream recipe on this forum.

Eventually, I switched to an MVP v2 and Kayfun Lite + clone from EHPro (which I could build the coils on because there's so much more space than in a ProTank replicable coils). Then I revisited the Lavatube 2.5 and ended up loving it since I figured out the basics of voltage/wattage (plus cotton doesn't burn and leave a yucky taste from what I've found). Then I got a Provari P3 and an authentic Kayfun Lite + (due to recommendations on this forum). The P3 is awesome and have stellar customer service (as everybody says)!

The authentic Kayfun sucks even after trying to rebuild it 6 times! (every other hit is a burned hit which makes me have to prime it, one of the deck screws acts more like a push pin - you unscrew it, then it magically goes back into the hole (and, yes, it is authentic), it also floods a lot because I have to prime it every other hit. I've been using the Kayfun clone for 3 or 4 months, so I know how to set it up. So, snobbery aside, I'll stick with the EHPro clone (although inTaste has been super awesome about the whole thing - so I'm going to give a big thumbs up to them)!

The reason that I stopped smoking was not health reasons. My girlfriend (a nurse) kept bugging me about it and telling me about her friends who had quit through vaping. I actually stopped for a completely different reason: which somebody will have to ask me about in this thread if they're interested (and to see if anybody is reading), haha

I know Wall of Text!
 

ebriel

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Nov 8, 2013
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Welcome to posting in ECF. ;)
Glad you decided to play with us.

Why'd you quit then?

Continued success on your vaping journey!
:)

Thank you for reading and replying emily! :)

Well, I'd been smoking since 1989 (when I was 15 years old), so that's 24 years!

Part of it was cost. I'd switched to roll your own back when the big cans of Tops were $13... then Big Tobacco lobbied (bribed their puppets) to tax roll your own too. It went from $13 to $33 instantly.

We ALL used to smoke while driving, right?

The REAL reason that I quit was because I live near a school where cops troll the roads all morning and afternoon. I also work from home, so I rarely drive anywhere. One morning I had to bring my car in for repairs at 7am. I'm a very safe driver, so I go the speed limit, stop at lights/slow down to stop when a light goes yellow, etc.. Well, an unmarked cop in an SUV was behind me and tailgating me (I was in the right-hand lane for god's sake, he could have gone to the left lane and passed me). The light went yellow and I was REALLY far back from the intersection, so I slowed down and stopped. The cop was really angry because he obviously wanted to run the light (who can give a cop a ticket for that?).

So now he really starts tailgating me, pacing me, driving in my blind spot, etc. I wasn't speeding or breaking any other rules of the road. While he was in my blind spot, he noticed that I was smoking... so he stayed there pacing me, waiting for me to throw it out the window or put it in the ashtray (which almost no cars have anymore - at lest no mine, which is a 2005).

I knew that he was there, but not that he was a cop (since he was in a simple white SUV. Plus, there are a ton of snowbirds where I live who Sunday Drive (like maniacs) every day of the week during the Autumn, Winter, and most of the Spring - so I figured that's who it was.

Cigarette finished. No ashtray. I tried to be discreet and throw the cig out the window (as I always did). The cop instantly drops speed, switches lanes, and turns his lights on.

I pull over (I know that I littered), but the guy is a total jerk. He asks me if I have an ashtray. He can see that I don't. He writes me a "ticket" (which it wasn't). Then I ask him what the fine will be and he says, "Oh, because this was a cigarette instead of a candy wrapper or something, this is a Criminal Misdemeanor, so I'm not giving you a ticket, I'm giving you a court date.

Go home and look it up, and it turns out that the possible outcomes are a huge fine, jail time, a criminal record (which you can't avoid without a lawyer), or all of the above. Plus court costs, time spent in court, and the option of saying "guilty" and getting the punishments, or saying "Not Guilty" and getting another court date where they will definitely rule that you are guilty, give you a criminal record, etc. (not to mention the time wasted going to court 2-3 times)

So I got a lawyer (if even just to avoid the criminal record). The cheapest one that I could afford was $1,500 (more than I paid to smoke in a year). After he did his schtick, I got away without the criminal record, and no real punishment - as long as I paid $150 to go to an 8 hour "Life Decisions" class on a Saturday morning.

Sadly, after talking to about 10 cops (including a motorcycle cop) they all said that they'd never pulled anybody over for tossing a cigarette unless they thought that the person might be drunk (but still didn't charge them with the Criminal Misdemeanor for chucking the cig whether they were drunk or not). They all said that the cop that pulled me over was either having a bad day, a complete jerk, or both.

Started vaping 2 weeks later (and used a Poweraid bottle in my car as an ashtray in the meantime).

Jeez, another wall of text :unsure:
 

ebriel

Full Member
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Nov 8, 2013
43
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Peoria, AZ
Welcome aboard
Ok, you got a fish nibblin' on the line. Finish your war story.:)

OBTW you know you can get the KFL a whole new base from FT, right?
And I'll give a recommendation to their KF3.1 clone. I'm up to 8 of 'em

Thanks EBates!

I just finished the war story... but it's an even BIGGER wall of text than the first post!
 

Rsunderl

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Hi ebriel and welcome to ECF!

I'm curious too.

Happy Vaping!
 

Hitmetwice

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Jan 18, 2012
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Welcome and BTW enjoyed scaling both walls.
Some people can be real jerks.
When it's a cop though it can be deadly.
People still give 'em a hard time though.

I think that the more vapers we have, the more that folks like your wife will promote the idea to their loved ones. Can only be a good thing, and has/will have a snowball effect. Beautiful.
 

ebriel

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Nov 8, 2013
43
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Peoria, AZ
Welcome and BTW enjoyed scaling both walls.
Some people can be real jerks.
When it's a cop though it can be deadly.
People still give 'em a hard time though.

I think that the more vapers we have, the more that folks like your wife will promote the idea to their loved ones. Can only be a good thing, and has/will have a snowball effect. Beautiful.

Sadly, I'm anti-government. After all, "Who will babysit the babysitters?" With more and more people switching to vaping, their greediness (taxes) slowly keeps getting proposed for vaping/juice/tanks, etc. I'm sure that Big Tobacco has something to do with that (not to mention that the slanted testing by the CDC and FDA - both of whom work for the Feds, which means that they are also told how to swing their "testing").

I'm also a bit angry about politicians trying to get the same laws passed for where you can vape as where you can smoke (which, as far as I can tell, have nothing in common as far as second-hand effects).

Although I agree about it being a good thing about more and more people making the switch to vaping! I've even seen the snowball effect firsthand: Withing a few months of starting vaping (and getting off of analogues), I got 4 friends to switch by giving them the exact beginner's kit to pick up (Vision Spinner, ProTank 2 at the time, and whatever juice that they can find that they like). Every one of them loved it and stopped smoking immediately.

Definitely a beautiful thing!

:toast:
 

ebriel

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Nov 8, 2013
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Peoria, AZ
At least there's paragraphs! Plus they're interesting reads!

That cops a jerk....BUT, he contributed to bringing where you are today. Maybe he gets some brownie points for that?

Thanks! I used to work at a newspaper, and now work on building websites, etc. So I know that it's important to break things into sections. A complete story in a single paragraph is impossible to read without wanting to stop.

I've also thought about the cop being a jerk leading me to a healthier lifestyle, and have considered that he did me a favor (if you just minus the $1,500 for a lawyer + time spent getting to his office which was an hour away - then he was late and I had to wait another hour in the lobby + $100 for a class that I shouldn't have been forced to take [I was surrounded by people who had 5-6 DUIs or worse for 8 hours].

Oh well, I'm much happier now since I can vape inside, don't smell like cigarettes (a mix of smoke and ammonia), and save a TON of money per year between the RBA ($6/year for coils), making my own juice ($130 max if I buy a lot of nicotine and the 120ml bottles of TFA flavors) - which only equals about $136/year (which is less than I spent in 1 1/2 months on cigs). Heck, even if I buy a ton of mods (hell, the P3 cost $250!), 18650 AW IMR batteries, and atomizers - I'm STILL way ahead of the game!

So, yeah, maybe I should thank him! lol
 

ebriel

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Nov 8, 2013
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Peoria, AZ
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to ecf ebriel. So nice to meet you and glad that you are here. Really enjoyed the introduction. But you left out the "moral of the story". . .

And the moral of the story is. . . listen to your girlfriend
.
girl_haha.gif


Look forward to reading more. . . [/QUOTEI

Haha, I would listen to her, but she's wrong about a lot of things (like almost everything/has to ask me about how everything works or what something means - even in Nursing - and I'm not a Nurse, I just know a lot about the medical field).

She just happened to be right about this one :lol:
 

Rat2chat2

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Apr 16, 2013
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to ecf ebriel. So nice to meet you and glad that you are here. Really enjoyed the introduction. But you left out the "moral of the story". . .

And the moral of the story is. . . listen to your girlfriend
.
girl_haha.gif


Look forward to reading more. . . [/QUOTEI

Haha, I would listen to her, but she's wrong about a lot of things (like almost everything/has to ask me about how everything works or what something means - even in Nursing - and I'm not a Nurse, I just know a lot about the medical field).

She just happened to be right about this one :lol:

Yeah, that's what they all say. . . good boy.
girl_haha.gif
 

ebriel

Full Member
Verified Member
Nov 8, 2013
43
35
Peoria, AZ
Yeah, that's what they all say. . . good boy.
girl_haha.gif

Haha, well you know how it is! You can't admit that you should have taken somebody's advice directly!

Although, seriously, no matter how much you suggest something to somebody - they won't quit until they're ready to quit. Even my parents had been mentioning switching to vaping on a regular basis for years, and I just wouldn't do it.

I was ready to switch/quit really quickly after I got that ticket and realized how much time/money I was going to spend! I honestly think that I've spent less on vaping in over a year then I spent on that ticket and the related fees (and that includes getting a P3 and all sorts of other mods, atomizers, flavors, DIY stuff).
 
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