Day 30 - One Month in, and converting friends by accident

Its been a an entire month since I've had a cigarette. I've gone through 50+ flavors, bought a ton of hardware and have converted 5 friends by accident. I feel pretty good even though my initial plan to save money hasn't happened yet.

Converted by accident you ask? Seems everyone is interested in vaping. Whenever I go out I always have to field questions about what vaping is, how it works, is it safe, where to buy them, what they should get, etc. Its quite tiring to tell the truth. The first friend to jump on the wagon was Steve, he went full bore just like I did and got his first vape mail today. Tons of eJuice from Mt Baker Vapor and a good amount of hardware from Vape Dojo. It took an entire day of questions from him, and once he got home, went crazy. Hes in the same boat as I am, save money.

The second friend just wants to stop smoking. Not so much stopping the nicotine, but to stop the smoking part. He even talked me into loaning him a battery and CE5+ until his shows up. Several others have followed suit as well. For some reason I expect the majority of my friends vaping by the end of next month. Quite a happy accident!

I've finally figured out what flavors I enjoy (Spoiler Alert, its the Sweet ones). I just tossed in an order to Mt Baker Vapor for some more of my favorites. I also got my favorite flavor in various PG/VG mixtures trying to figure out how exactly they work.

So what does the future hold? Obviously more delicious flavors. I want to delve into RBAs (Rebuildable atomizers) and manual batteries. Not just for the cost but for the vapor production. One thing I really miss about smoking analogue cigarettes was feeling my lungs fill up with smoke. Some videos I've seen with RBAs show huge plums of vapor.

Its been a great first month. Heres to a month more.

PS. I'm still $200 in the hole. I seem to hover around this number. Hopefully once I find my perfect setup it will finally go down.

Day 16 - I Thought this was going to be cheaper?!?

Everything has been great so far. I found some great flavors I enjoy vaping all day (Monster, Guava and Butterscotch, mmmm) I haven't had any issues with hardware, or atomizers going bad yet. Everything is great. I couldn't be happier, or could I...

I just placed another order for hardware. This time two eGo batteries, a car charger and some Vivi nova tanks from VapeDojo. I also picked up two Katana Kits (12.99 each) to give too two smokers in my life, my step father (who sounds like a water bong in the morning, its getting bad) and my best friend whom isn't a PAD (pack a day) smoker but has tried to stop numerous times. I tallied up the total order minus the Katana kits, added it to my spreadsheet and... crap.

I have spent a total of $323.97 on vaping, saved $93.57 on smokes, for a total savings of... -$230.40. To top this all off, I still need to pick up more juice! I thought this was supposed to SAVE me money not cost me money. Yeah, minor problem I suppose.

So you may be wondering why I picked up more eGo twist batteries? While switching between both my Lavatube and the eGo I've found that I rather enjoy the eGo more than my Lavatube. It just hits better, and stronger and doesn't burn the juice as easily at high wattage. Also my Lavatube has a tendency of dropping the voltage for some reason making some hits weak. To top it off, travelling with the eGo is much easier as its smaller and more compact. I think I'll stick with the eGo twists for a while until I 'save' up for a more powerful mod. I say 'save' since it isn't a matter of cost, its a matter of saving money! Right? Right?

16 days down without a smoke. Heres to 16 more.

Day 12 - More Vapemail

My order from High Desert Vapes finally showed up! Picked up the monster flavor and I've been vaping it for the last 3 hours straight. I think I found my perfect all day vape! They even threw in a tiny 3ml freebie called "Organic Raspberry Cream" at 50/50 12mg.

Blurry picture of High Desert Vapemail

This weekend was a pretty good test case for being away from the house while vaping. It was the Magic the Gathering: Gatecrash prerelease weekend. Typically prerelease weekends I would go through an entire carton of cigarettes during the weekend. Theres a lot of waiting, a LOT of talking and a lot of being social between rounds for 15-20 hours each day.

The first problem I ran into was, I forgot to charge my batteries. I barely made it home when the last one went out. Not a huge issue but easily fixable, I just put a charger in my car.

The second problem was much worse. I ran out of eLiquid on Sunday. I thought I filled up 6 cartomizers Saturday night, but only filled two, the other 4 were empty. Combine that with opening one of the full CE5's when switching flavors (DOH!) I nearly ran completely out. Luckily a few other MTG players Vape and I got to pick up some extra eLiquid. If I had been anywhere else I would of been screwed, but luckily I live 5 mins from the venue, so if I had run out it wouldn't of been the end of the world.

I also ran into a leakage problem. With constantly moving my case around and bumping around, some of my Clearomizers leaked out and emptied on their own.

So my lessons this weekend are this:

• Bring a charger, always.
• Bring an eLiquid Bottle, just don't bring clearomizers prefilled.
• If I'm in a highly social situation where I want to change flavors a lot, don't fill them up all the way, they'll leak out.

I also had to field quite a few questions about vaping all weekend. Every type of person from the Super anti-smoking/nicotine jackasses to the interested smokers. Everyone was at least a little interested in what I was doing. Seems vaping is catching and becoming more common knowledge since I first started casually vaping oh so many years ago.

Day 9 - Vapemail!

Normally when my roommate walks into my room while I'm asleep, its time for a fight. However today was a delightful change, she brought in my Vapemail! She was actually nice about it too... she must be up to something.

Vapemail from Mt Baker Vapor (Juice & Adapter) and batteries from Amazon

I have to say, Mt Baker Vapor (reddit's juice vendor of choice) lives up to their reputation. Ordered Tuesday night and it arrived today. Their prices are absurdly low at $4.99/15ml. (thats $0.33/ML) AND they gave me a free 15ml bottle of a random flavor! First thing I did was pop in a random flavor, Vanilla Butternut and fired it up.

Oops. Yeah that flavor is a miss. It tastes exactly like it sounds. Vanilla Butternut, heavy on the butter. Ok so it seems not everything is a hit. I'll let it 'steep' for a few weeks before trying it again, maybe it needs time to settle, we'll see. So I moved on to my freebie flavor, Berry Creamy. It was quite pleasant. I may be ordering more of it. Overall I am very happy

Tonight is going to be a test. I will be out of the house for 15+ hours tonight in a position where I would normally chain smoke. Its the Magic: The Gathering Gatecrash set prerelease night. I will spend the next 15 or so hours playing Magic, talking with friends and playing other games. These weekends are normally incredible and I run through about 5 packs of smokes. This trip will differ from my Cache Creek trip in that, I'm going to need to vape. A lot. Luckily the extra batteries showed up today, that should help a lot. Hopefully I don't run out of battery/juice while I'm out, we shall see.

Again, thank you to Mt Baker Vapor for being so awesome. I WILL use you guys in the future. Hopefully I have for foresight to get some decent flavors =)

Day 7 - One week 'Anniversary' and the my first empty bottle

It's been one week. I'm quite happy. I seem to be breathing easier, my sense of smell is coming back slightly and I've had to field numerous questions about Vaping when I go out. Everything is going great! Here's to another week and many more after that!

On a sad note, I finished off my first 10ml bottle today. It was my first eLiquid purchase back in December when I got the freebie from Vapornine. Now I need to order some more because I love this flavor, its a sweet tobacco that hits strong. May this be the first of many.

First empty 10ml bottle of Carolina Tobacco (24mg)

On a sad note, I looked at my cost spreadsheet and after an ordering spree last night it seems I'm in the hole a total of $169.66! ($210 total, I've saved $40 on cigarette costs thus far). I picked up a bunch of flavors from Mt Baker Vapor at a really good price as well as an 510 to eGo Adapter, a sampler from Alice in Vapeland, and extra batteries from Amazon. I really need to not spend so much money on this, but I REALLY want to try every flavor out there!

Hopefully when I pick up the extra eGo batteries and a few cartomizers this weekend I can put a stop to my wallet bleed. Heres what I've spent so far:

Cost of Vaping after 1 week

Well, heres to another week of vaping!

Day 5 & 6 - Road Trip

Got a call yesterday from my best friend. He was going to pick me up and we were going somewhere for an indeterminate amount of time. Woot! Road trip! Packed up what supplies I had and a few extra juices just in case. We headed out and ended up at Cache Creek (Indian Casino in California).

Chain vaped the entire way up there, and luckily remembered to charge up my battery to full before we parked. My backup stick battery worked perfectly for its intended purpose. One thing this trip taught me was, I'm going to need more batteries. A LOT of batteries for the amount I vape. 

While waiting for a spot to open on the 4-2 no limit tables (which btw I walked away with an extra $100 off.  Not bad for only being able to play 3 hands in 7 hours) I struck up a conversation with the seat caller and asked if I could vape while playing. He said it was up to the players as there was no rules strictly against it and that one table had a couple of vapers the other day. Found out he also vaped and started about 6 months ago and ended up quitting simply because he stopped feeling the need to smoke. Was a pretty good 3 hour long conversation about vaping in general. Yeah, the wait was that long. 

I spent 7 hours at the table and never once felt the need to get up to vape. I think this is the longest time I've ever gone without nicotine in my entire life. It was a strange feeling not having to get up every 30-45 mins to smoke. Of course I did chain vape the entire 3 hour trip up there, so I may of had enough in my system to last that long. Never even needed to ask my opponents if I could vape at the table. 

All in all it was a great trip, and I learned a lot about what I need to take with me for extended trips away from home while vaping full time and what supplies I need to pick up to make my life easier while vaping.

Day 4: Information Information Information

I started the day off in a panic. I forgot to charge my battery. Luckily I remembered a disposable I picked up a long time back had a 510 thread. It had enough charge to last until I got the 18350 charged up. Looked odd, but worked just fine.

Clearomizer on top of a Nebula Express battery.

Last night was an interesting night. I ran across the Youtube channel of cozzan while browsing around reddit. I heard about the pending FDA regulations and/or out right ban of the sale of eCigs and wanted to make my own juice and came across this great podcast show.

VapeLink Mission Statement

The main intent of VapeLink is to provide electronic cigarette users, enthusiasts, and the “vaping curious” relevant and credible information related to the use of electronic cigarettes.

All I have to say is wow. I watched episodes 3 through 8 last night straight (they're about an hour and a half each) and they're packed full of information, vape humor and collective reviews of mods, flavors, and news related to vaping. They air every Monday at 9:30 EST. I've already set my alarm for tomorrow to watch the live show.

While watching I was Googling up the concepts and things they talked about and looked around for more, heres a small selection of sources for new vapers I picked up.

• YouTube - Beginners Guide to E-Cigs and E-Cig Tech - Great resource for people new to Vapes.
• YouTube - GrimmGreen Industries - Reviews with a great presentation
• Distributor - Wizard Labs - Provides PG/Nicotine solutions, high quality. Going to pick up some supplies from here as soon as I get some more money.
• Web Forums - E-Cigarette Forum - And I thought Reddit was full of information. This is the XDA of the eCig world. Massive, tons of reviews, sales from vendors and information. 

I can't seem to get enough information about eCigs.