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Vaping With Julia – In From The Cold
I returned this week from New England. My stock photography business landed a new client so I had to head back up to my studio in Boston and make some images. It was a lot of fun to get away for a while. I was expecting it to last a month but instead it looks like I will have to head back up at the end of March. Seems Spinfuel went into a state of disarray within a few days of my leaving.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not really. I just think we took on too many projects at once, what with the Forum Competition, the Vape The Planet Photo Contest, and preliminary work on our “historic” giveaway, The Weekender.
In addition to those 3 projects we began early work on something called “The Spinfuel Toolbox”, which I’ll talk about in a minute, and additional work on Spinfuel’s Guide To Vaping, a project headed up by Tom. When you add all that up and the regular eJuice reviews, opinion pieces, hardware reviews, and social media responsibilities it was just too much work all at once.
Vape The Planet
Boy, did we think we came up with one helluva contest with Vape The Planet. We even purchased the domain name for it and planned to archive all the wonderful photos that would absolutely come in as entries. When entries failed to appear during the first few days it was a stunning realization that not everyone is crazy about photography. (Hard to believe, I know.)
Thankfully more than a few people have informed me that they in fact do plan on sending in entries, but later rather than sooner. Hearing that from 8 or 9 people made me feel somewhat better but it’s clear that photo contests, real photo contests, are not very popular in the vape community.
Live and learn I suppose. I’ll cross my fingers that by the end of March hundreds of people will have entered, as unlikely as that appears.
Forum Competition
Starting a forum, a successful one, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We’re still not close to being where I’d like it to be, but as of this morning, 208 people have become members of the forum with more than 5550 posts. More than 50 members have signed up in the past 2 weeks.
The Forum Competition is doing a lot for the forum, more so than I thought it would. I want the forum to take off and become a successfully running forum without having to be propped up all the time, but only time will tell. If you are looking for a great place to talk vaping our forum is it.
No egos, no bullying, and there is no such thing as a dumb question. For newbies and veterans alike, the forum could become a second home where sharing the fun of vaping is always met with friendly acceptance. Give it a try if you haven’t yet. But, be warned, the forum is built with heavy-lifting JavaScript, you will need a modern web browser, especially if you use Internet Explorer by Microsoft.
And make sure that you have enabled “JavaScript” in your browser you’ll find it difficult to navigate and post messages. Internet Explorer 9 or later is perfect, as is Firefox and Safari. Even Google Chrome works well.
The Spinfuel Toolbox
Like the Spinfuel Vaping Glossary and the Spinfuel Newsletter, the Spinfuel Toolbox will be a special section in the eMagazine. What we’re doing, I believe, will help a lot of new Vapers build a proper collection of tools and emergency supplies for the unexpected surprises that can turn up at a moment’s notice.
MyVaporStore is sponsoring it. These guys at MVS are so awesome! Hello Jon! (a shout out to the owner Jon, one of the best, most generous and understanding guys out there)
The Toolbox sprang up from an observation John made a couple weeks ago. Whenever any one of us had to clean a battery, or look for a charger, grab an empty cartomizer, fill a syringe, and a hundred other things we would go around the office looking in drawers, shelves, closets, and even out in our cars looking for the right item.
He wondered aloud why we didn’t have a central location for everything so that when we needed something we knew exactly where to look. John didn’t have anything like that himself, so we talked about it.
What kind of toolbox? What size? What would we have in it? What was ‘must-have’s and what was ‘really wants’ or ‘should have’s’? If you’re going to build a toolbox of vaping supplies and accessories you want to make sure that just about any situation will have a solution in the magic box.
We talked, wrote notes, sent emails, and talked some more, and we finally came up with a list of stuff that should be in great Vaper’s Toolbox. A huge list of things!
The Spinfuel Toolbox is going to be set up with more items than most people will use or want. The reason for this is because as we build it we will write about it. We’ll explain why its going into the toolbox, what problems and situations the item will solve or prevent, and who would need it, versus who might want it. It will be a toolbox that satisfies every Vaper.
A ‘Master Toolbox’ if you will, and for those readers that build their toolbox based on our suggestions will be able to pick and choose what will go into their toolbox based on reading why we’re including it in ours and what it will do as a member of the toolbox. If a reader decides that the situation or problem is something they themselves experience or will experience, they can add it to their toolbox.
We also want the Spinfuel Toolbox to be interactive. We’ll ask readers for suggestions as to what they would put in the master toolbox, we’ll present scenarios and ask what the best solution is, and together we will build our toolboxes to cover all our needs. I think it’s going to be a lot fun for us and for you.
Vaping with Julia!
Well, enough of that. I’m moving on to more personal things now. After all, this is called ‘Vaping with Julia’ not ‘What’s going on at Spinfuel?’ ☺
This week we are vaping Totally Wicked eLiquid’s new line called Red Label. The review should publish on Monday. We have about a half a dozen flavors to write about, so this week I’ve been vaping the Red Label line.
So far my favorite juice is called “Sex on the beach”, and I’ve spent more time vaping this flavor than any of the others, but certainly enough to talk and write about them all. The Red Label line is a special line of eLiquid and I think you will enjoy the review.
I did spend some time vaping Mountain Oak Vapors “White Leaf”, a standard for me. This flavor is my current “go-to” flavor. In addition to White Leaf I’ve spent some time alone time with Ginger’s eJuice “Cinnamon Candy” and “Blueberry Streusel”.
Vaping with Julia Goes Foraging
A day or so after I got back from New England I went into the storeroom and started foraging around. I found a footlocker that hasn’t been opened since last September. Inside were several dozen cig-a-like batteries, chargers, USB and Wall, a bunch of cartomizers and even some eJuice that was dated last June.
A couple of them were from VapeDudes, like American Standard and Pineapple Upside Down Vape. I distinctly remember John and Tom bemoaning the fact that they couldn’t find the lost bottle of Pineapple Upside Down Vape way back in November; so finding it in the footlocker was amusing.
I hauled the footlocker out of the storeroom and studied all the newfound vaping supplies that we thought was gone. Lots of stuff we completely forgot about, or thought we lost during the move to this new location. Since there was plenty of batteries and blank cartos in the footlocker I decided to try out all the old eJuice to see if any of them had gone bad.
None of them was close to a year old so I thought all of them would be ‘fully flavored up’ (a new Spinfuel phrase!) and awesome. Ah, that would be ‘no’. Some of them had gone bad, really bad.
I’m not going to mention which ones went bad and which ones did not, but I will say that the sweeter the juice the less shelf life it “seems” to have. This is just an observation, not science, I’m not being definitive but it certainly seemed to fit.
After a couple of hours of sitting on the floor spending a few minutes with each lost bottle of juice Keira and I went about reintegrating the good stuff back into circulation. We also thought it was fun to vape some cig-a-likes for a while, something we sometimes miss.
Vaping with Julia – Off Topic Stuff
Many Gamers will tell you that March is a hot month for videogames. Just this month alone we’ll see Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, Bioshock Infinite, and the last DLC for Mass Effect 3 called “Citadel”. It’s a great month to be unemployed I bet. Anyway, last night Keira and I, along with Tom and Angel (yep, they coupled up), got together for some Tomb Raider gaming.
Tom hauled out his flat-screen from the bedroom, and his Xbox 360, and set it up next to the living room TV and Xbox and we all played some awesome, awesome, awesome multiplayer action! Unlike most multiplayer games, which I truly hate by the way, Tomb Raider multiplayer is a lot like playing the campaign version. You don’t get killed all the time. Very cool!
Although we broke open a few bottles of wine there was no drunk and disorderly going on, just a lot of intimate togetherness and lots of laughs. Which when you think about it is kind of weird seeing as how we all live together in an 1800 sq st manufactured home, which also doubles as the main work space.
(John’s home is the second official “work space”) I’m glad we didn’t get drunk; otherwise I would have never been able to finish this column.
Well, we are all sitting here at Perkins restaurant, everyone but John and his wife who are probably still sleeping, and my pancakes are on the way. This is a good a place as any to end the column. Have a great weekend!
Julia
More Vaping with Julia Here:
Vaping with Julia – 5 E-Liquid Flavors Reviewed in 2019
Mango Milk eJuice – Vaping with Julia
Vaping with Julia – G2 Vapor and the Drunk Monkey
Vaping With Julia – New Stuff Column!
Dragon ProVari – Vaping with Julia
and more…
