Saturday at the Hut - 4/14/12

Okay, okay, I don't write a blog for a couple weeks and - in honor of Easter last weekend - I get crucified. Sorry, that was in bad taste. I'll try to resurrect my weekly blog postings. In my defense, I have been quite busy. We've had family visiting this week and have been getting the house ready for guests. In fact, last week I smoked the Cassini pipe I bought in Boston a couple years ago...in honor of Paula's brother and family visiting from Beantown.

Last week at The Tobacco Hut was too far back for me to remember everything, but Mike G made a surprise visit from Tennessee. We had a great visit with Mike, recalling a lot of good times at the Hut over the years. Oh yes, I found this photo of Mike on Facebook. Nothing more need be said.

Mike G bustin' out the moves
(Click to enlarge)

A couple pictures from last week...

Joe K and Mike G. Mike is most certainly spinning some tale.
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Tom L and Peter G. Tom appears to be looking
lustily at Peter.
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Me and my Fox Run Winery shirt from the Finger Lakes
area of New York. Joe thought I had converted to
Fox News. Sorry, buddy. It's all NPR for me.
(Click to enlarge)

Alright, today at the Hut found me walking in a little late after I had gotten in from Orlando this morning. We had gone over last night to hang out with my brother-in-law at Downtown Disney. I got to the shop around 12:30 and had to plant my sore butt on a broken folding chair. Paul O was in my usual seat, Don W was in one of the club chairs along with Jeff D. Well, let me explain that. Don and Jeff weren't sharing the chair, there are two of the white club chairs and they each were in one. Joe K brought his own folding chair and Scott R was in one of the store folding chairs. A little while later Paul V came in sat in one of the wooden stools. Later Scott switched places with me so I could have some place to put my pipe smoking accoutrements. Soon after Scott folded up the chair and came out with the cushioned stool from behind the counter. There. The seating arrangement has been fully explained and we can continue.

Probably the greatest entertainment of the day was watching Joe smoke cigar after cigar. Unlike the rest of us, Joe typically encounters difficulties whilst smoking his cigars. It doesn't matter which ones, they all seem to tunnel or canoe on him and it's been a pretty regular complaint that we hear from him week in, week out. Today was unprecedented however, as he went through not one, not two, but three cigars. And that third one started acting up as well, but I think Joe was at his credit card limit and couldn't buy a fourth. It was Joe's day in the barrel, so after he smoked most of his third cigar he packed up his folding chair and left.

Peter G came in and as soon as Don got up to check out, he sat down in Don's chair - the very one I had been wrangling for all afternoon. But, as Peter pointed out, they were his chairs to begin with so he gets first dibs on them. Fine.

Later, when Paul O got up to leave, he motioned to Scott to enjoy the chair by the window, which he promptly did. Thank you very much Paul and Scott. Only when Jeff finally left did I have a chance for a comfy chair.

Ed F stopped by for the first time in a long time. He's been busy hauling cars cross country. Scott perked up when he heard that most of Ed's trips take him to Buffalo and Rochester. Before I forget - Ed, this is for you - that forum I told you about where the truck drivin' pipe smoker posts is Smokers Forums. You might have to become a member to see the posts (it's free), but find the Off Topic Chat section and look for the thread titled "Where the Pipe Smolders II". It's written by Mason, the truck driver, and is pretty interesting.

Scott showed off his latest acquisition, a Case pocketknife. I really liked this one. It is a "canoe" shape because it, well, looks like a canoe. Maybe I'm drawn to pocketknives for the same reason I'm drawn to pipes - they each have names for the various shapes. Today I was smoking a freehand Crown Viking I bought from Lou several years ago and last week I was smoking a David Jones billiard. As I said, I really liked this particular knife and commented about it several times to Scott. Since he knew I liked it and he had stolen my chair when Paul got up to leave, I thought he might simply give me the knife, but he didn't.

Since Scott was there I had to bring up another puzzler for him. And, no, I didn't bring a deck of pre-arranged cards for him to shuffle and ruin the trick. This was a brain teaser and went like this...John and Marsha were teenagers in love and carved their initials five feet high on a tree twenty five years ago. They had gone there separate ways but reconnected today and thought it would be nice to find their initials. They located the tree and the question is, if the tree added 20% of its height every year for ten years, and 10% of its height every year for the next ten years and 5% of its height every year for the last five years, how high up the tree would their initials be?

Scott was wary of doing all the heavy lifting only to have someone else (Joe) shout out the answer at the end, so he pretty much kept quiet. Paul V, however, knew the correct answer - the initials would still be five feet up the tree. As a tree grows, its height is added to the top, not from the bottom. New growth always occurs from the top.

Happy Easter to Peter! He and Ed were talking about some sort of egg battle that their families engaged in every year. It sounded, well, odd. But I suppose my family's tradition of sacrificing a -- oh, never mind.