Holiday Cigars on tap

In a gigantic break from protocol, I went away for a 5 day vacation in North Carolina without a single cigar.  It says something about where I have come from and less about where I am going.  I started smoking cigars in 1988 with some old El Productos while I drove a moving van from somewhere to somewhere.  It didn't take me long before I realized that I needed to move up a few notches, less than the time it took to smoke half a cigar I think.  I smoked a lot of Dominican H. Upmanns and some Arturo Fuente cigars of various sizes and quality.  It was not uncommon for me to smoke 5-8 cigars a day on the weekends, it became a part of enjoying the night air after work.  But as I have progressed on to havana cigars, I have taken Zino Davidoff's advice to smoke fewer cigars, and of greater quality.  I knew that my trip was likely to be spent in large part indoors avoiding rain, mist, cold or other inclement Christmas weather.  I was right.  But there was also a time when my brother in law would come out onto the porch and smoke with me, something he no longer chooses to do.  So there was no reason to bring along smokes, or so it seemed upon departing. 

So now I look forward to a year which will begin with a bang, as I fully expect LSU to dominate Alabama in the college football National Championship game that almost no one wants to see.  They secretly DO want to see it, but they are upset by the team chosen to play LSU and they are making themselves heard.  Exactly ONE fan base wants to watch Bama play the Tigers.  But, they are a large fan base.  And whiny.


I also have a job, which in and of itself is a real plus in a tough economy, but now I am actually making the kind of money that makes the job worth doing, and that is worth celebrating.  I am looking at a menu of cigars for New Year's Eve.  I know that I will smoke a Partagas Serie du Connaisseur No.1.   I have a box of these and a few people want to sample them, so there is no reason to try to hold them intact. 

I will also smoke it's doppelganger in a different band, the Montecristo Especiales No.1.  It will be interesting to see how these smokes do.  I LOVE them short and thin and long and thin.  Not so much in between, nor so much larger in ring gauge. 


I will also burn up a metric ton of fireworks, mostly mortars and large scale candles with  big pops of burning magnesium in the sky.  It should be a great new year.  Hope things are better for all in 2012.