Pipeology - The Fine Art of Pipe Smoking and Thought

 We bought a waterbed about 35 years ago and kept it for many years until we woke up in the middle of the night one night from something wet.  It seems a cat we owned decided to sharpen its claws on the bed and put the tiniest of holes in the mattress filled with water.  We decided then we had to drain the bed and clean out all the water between mattress and liner and get a new mattress, which would have been a conventional mattress.  What a mess! But I read this morning that waterbeds have not really not gone away.  I can tell you they are very comfortable as they wrap your body in warmth, which on a cold winter's night was very comforting.  It is almost like sleeping on an air mattress.  There are billows in the mattress that prevent waves and from disturbing your partner as you toss and turn.  We bought waterbeds for our kids, and we had waterbeds in some form or another for about 20 years.   Having cats put a damper on our desire to ...

 Status is generally about position in society and wealth.  Pipe smoking has reflected that to some degree, although I will often read about a grandfather who smoked a pipe, or sometimes a father, who would buy a pipe from the local drugstore at a cost of about $12.50 with a pack of Half and Half or maybe a tin of Prince Albert for about 50 cents and smoke that pipe until it either broke or wore out and he'd just buy another one.   I told my wife yesterday that I think I paid $35 for my first pipe in 1973 or 1974 and I bought a tobacco humidor and a very nice ashtray all for around $100.  And that same hundred dollars is about $600 in today's money.  The pipe alone would have been a little over $200 in today's economy.  But there is no way that pipe is even close to $200 in today's pipe world.  It's just that one can't compare money and inflation to things purchased.  I saw a TV ad from 1954 advertising a brand new TV for $500.  That sam...

 If anything happened to my pipes or my new cabinet or anything else I might own, they are only things.  I can live without things.  I don't drink enough alcohol to be an alcoholic, for example, so no, I don't need alcohol.  I'm writing this today as a reminder as to why I smoke a pipe.  I smoke a pipe for meditative purposes and for relaxation.  There are  no other reasons why I smoke a pipe.  I am not addicted to my pipes or the tobacco I put in them.   It is a known fact  that cigarette smokers smoke cigarettes because they are addicted to them.  I watch a lot of YouTube videos and one video I watched was about tobacco commercials from the late fifties through the sixties.  Those commercials sold cigarettes as pleasure and enjoyment with no mention of nicotine in any of the two hour video of ads.  The emphasis was on what cigarettes could do for you.  A lot of research and planning went into the filters of cig...

  I left my other pipe cabinet behind in NY and my wife said the color of it and style just didn't fit here in our new place.  I have been shopping at the two local thrift stores for anything I could use as a cabinet.  After several visits to each of the thrift stores, I thought I would have to pay full price for something new.  I had several cabinets picked out on Amazon, but wasn't happy about the prices.  I almost hated the idea of leaving my other cabinet behind in NY, because I had gotten used to it and I liked it.   We were at Aldi's a few weeks ago and they had a display of the above cabinet at full price.  We talked about it then, but decided to wait. I'm glad we did because we went back last week and they had the same cabinet at 50% off.  I told my wife that even at a thrift store, we could expect to pay about that same price for something used.  So, we bought it.   I spent an hour or so yesterday assembomg the cabinet...

 Now, I know a lot of my readers aren't into wines, but while this isn't all about wine, it is about wine here is south Florida.  First of all, whenever we talk with family, we are constantly asked whether we are staying down here, or whether this is like a winter home of some kind.  Let me set the record straight.  We ARE staying down here.  This is not a temporary place, although how long we will be at this address isn't known.  But I would say we will remain residents of Cape Coral indefinitely.  Whether we live here in this house or find a place of our own.  The one thing I have noticed here in Florida is how abundant wines are in grocery stores compared to living in NY.   I have six bottles of wine in our storage unit with an average cost of about $17 per bottle.  Having said this, I read of a Sommelier who has tasted over 15,000 varieties of wine.  He says the sweet spot for wine is between $30 and $50.  He says all ...

 We were discussing among ourselves with our houseguest yesterday about the Burrowing Owl that claims this part of Florida as their home.  There is a Burrowing Owl Festival here in Cape Coral on Saturday February 25.  Our houseguest went for a walk in the area the other night and encountered a large black bird and wanted to know what it was.  Of  course we weren't sure, but we thought she had encountered a Burrowing Owl.   There are only 10,000 breeding pairs of Burrowing Owls with some as far away as Alaska, some in California, and some here in this area of Florida and other parts of the state.  They are nocturnal birds and are relatively small for being owls.  They average nine inches in height with an average wingspan of 21 inches.  They are sandy in color.  But what I find interesting is that here in Cape Coral, the city puts up perching crosses near the holes of Burrowing Owls.  Their range is anywhere in the Western Hemis...

 There are a lot of places on social media where pipe smokers can meet with the one notable being Facenook.  I signed up on TikTok, but don't ask me why.  If you look for me I go by the name of Howdy Doody.  He was a marionette puppet with a real person Cowboy Bob and Claribell the clown who was actually played by Bob Keeshan of Captain Kangaroo fame.  Well, I needed a name and even Howdy Doody is slightly before my time.  But it's the first thing that came to my mind for some silly reason. I won't be on TikTok much at all, if any.  I've found TikTok to be for Geneation Z and Facebook belongs to Boomers, pretty much.  There are exceptions to both, but as a general rule.  I really have no business being on TikTok, but there I am without a clue as to how it works.  But I'll figure it out.  Maybe. I am smoking my Tim West pipe this morning with a bowl of my Good Stuff mix with Lane BCA.  I like this blend so much that I might blen...