Saturday at the Hut - 5/4/13

We had a great turnout today at The Tobacco Hut! I was still recovering from last night's inaugural Pipe Night (see the post below for a full report with pictures) that ran a little late, so didn't make it in this morning until close to eleven o'clock. Of course, nobody could really determine what time I got there 'cause the damned clock is gone.

Let's start with the lengthy roll call. When I arrived there was Rob, Joe K, Vic, Mike, Don, Aaron, and Pete. Rob was gracious enough to give up the big leather recliner-that-doesn't-recline to me. Of course, he was leaving anyway, and as I was shaking Vic's hand, he held on with an iron grip and gestured to Joe to grab the chair and abandoned his folding chair. I blocked Joe but the old man threatened to kick me with his steel tips in an area that would preclude me from having further children. Vic was kind enough to release the handshake and I quickly slipped into the enveloping comfort of the recliner.

L-R, Mike and Don. (Click to enlarge).

L-R, Aaron, Joe, Vic, Pete. (Click to enlarge)

I fired up my Ascorti with some Baker Street - a little mellower than the Searchlight I enjoyed the night before - and got up to speed on the comings and goings of the day. Vic was seated in a position where he really didn't have easy access to an ashtray, and we pointed out that it was too bad that the Cuesta Ray canister ashtray was missing.

You know, what's with all the looting of the store that took place when Lou was closing it? Clocks, ashtrays, signs, tobacco jars, etc., etc. It's absolutely shameful.

At one point, we were talking about Eric Rudolph, the guy who bombed the abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics, and disappeared into the mountains of North Carolina. (Funny, we were talking about him last night at Pipe Night, but couldn't remember his name). We were specifically discussing how even with his survival training he had difficulties making it in the rough terrain. He was finally caught Dumpster diving, according to Mike. I started to make the point that someone like me out in the woods, with no training, wouldn't last -- and the room erupted in laughter. I guess the notion of me, me in particular, out in the woods, trying to survive struck the collective funny bone.

My survivalist mettle was tested later tonight however, when I had to wrestle a lizard from the washing machine. See my Facebook posting - and Mike G's comment - in the screenshot below:

A short time later who should walk in but Jim S. Haven't seen Jim in quite awhile. I was ready to kick Don out of one of the club chairs but Jim couldn't stay. Too bad - maybe he'll come back for the Grand Re-Opening on May 18th or the next Pipe Night on June 7th. Jim works in the defense intelligence industry and always has interesting stories to tell. He usually stops short of telling us enough that he has to kill us though and, for that, we thank him.

Mike and I were talking about pocketknives when all of a sudden who should appear in the doorway but the Knife Guy himself, Scott R. That was a little spooky. Just talk about the guy and he appears. Anyway, Mike had been telling me about a knife designer (is that the right term?) called Todd Begg who apparently has some sort of knife show on the Discovery Channel. You can check out his website here. Pretty interesting.

Anyway, Scott showed us his latest acquisition, a Case pocketknife. I don't remember the particulars of it, but it was a very sharp knife (pun intended!). If you haven't looked at it recently, Scott is still going strong on his pocketknife blog. For my handful of readers here who criticize me for missing a week or two, you'd love Scott's blog. He writes regularly on his subject, and writes well. Maybe if I had had one of the pocketknives Scott has so generously given me, my encounter with the lizard from above would have gone a bit better.

A little while later, Scott's brother-in-law, Jeff arrived. I think they both settled down with a Kane Blue, or some such thing. I don't know, I'm a pipe smoker, I can't keep all these cigars straight. They both liked it though.

Scott - "The Knife Guy" (Click to enlarge).

L-R, Jeff and Pete. (Click to enlarge).

Jeff was telling us about his latest purchase, a Google Chromebook. He's very impressed with it so far. At only $250, it looks like a sweet little computer, aimed at the computer user who primarily uses it for surfing the web, Facebook, and email.

I think Jeff's assessment of Windows 8 is about the same as Joe's. Both are concerned that long-time Windows users, especially older folks, are a little bewildered by the changes in the operating system. I would recommend a Mac at that point, but that's just me.

Everyone but Scott and Jeff had left at that point, and the talk turned to football. I raised what I thought was a good question...how many first round quarterback draft picks have gone on to greatness? I think the expectations and pressure is so high that it's almost impossible for most of them to excel.

Scott and Jeff had left and I was packing up my pipe kit (or "mass kit" as Mike used to refer to it as) when who should I see walking across the parking lot? Barry C! Haven't seen the man in months. I stuck around for a while and got caught up with him. Congratulations are in order as he is a grandfather, or Pop Pop as he prefers to be called.

Barry was hoping that Scott was here because he had a knife he wanted to see if Scott could look at. Too bad you couldn't have made it just twenty minutes sooner. Scott was wrapping up his knife show, or should I say "Heavy Things With Sharp Edges Show". Scott not only showed us his new Case pocket knife, but brought in a hunting knife that he re-handled, and then a frickin' hatchet that he restored. I was a little afraid when he left for the final time he was actually going to bring in an axe and go all Jack Nicholson in The Shining on us.

Anyway, great to see all the familiar faces today. Start planning now to attend the Grand Re-Opening in two weeks! Saturday, May 18th, all day. Pete has lined up some door prizes, raffle items, etc. It promises to be a great time. More details to come! BTW, not sure if they were serious, but Vic promised some home made New York liverwurst for the party...

Cheers!

Saturday at the Hut - 11/19/11

Today at The Tobacco Hut was a wild one, especially toward the end of the day. More on that later. First, let's do a roll call. Present and accounted for were Scott R, his brother-in-law Jeff D, and his son-in-law Corey. Paul O and Joe K were also in attendance as were Jim S (the "new guy" who will always be referred to as the "new guy" until he brings pizza and subs for everyone - sorry Jim, we all had to go through it) and Barry. And rolling up right at closing time was Adrian.

When I arrived all the seats were taken by Scott, Jeff, and Corey, so I had to make do with a folding chair. Grrr...I think as Keeper of the Blog I should get a permanent "nice" chair. No matter, I settled in with a Neerup pipe full of Greg Pease's most-excellent Westminster tobacco, a fine English blend.

Knowing that I was in the presence of eBay greatness (Scott), I told the story of how - in literally the last second - I lost an auction for a beautiful David Jones pipe. Jones is a pipe carver out of Texas and I own a couple of his creations already, so when I saw that he was now selling his pipes on eBay, I jumped at the chance. But, alas, I was outbid. Scott gave me some good pointers and strategies for winning the next one though, as did Joe later in the day.

The discussion between the five of us ranged from the Joe Paterno/Penn State scandal to politics to the new iPhone, which should be in my hot little hands this coming Friday. Scott showed off a new pocket knife acquisition of his and I tried to sell Corey some promotional advertising items for his cleaning business, but Scott (the promotional ad guru himself and my mentor in the business) was polishing up that new knife of his with a little too much zeal and giving me a weird look, so I eased up on the sales pitch.

Joe arrived and everyone but Paul left - you just have that effect on people, Joe! We talked about Joe's favorite topic for awhile - computers. Paul needed some advice on what to buy and we both jumped in and hopefully muddied Paul's mind just enough.

Jim (the new guy) arrived a little later and has apparently taken to the pipe quite nicely. He tried another of Lou's tobaccos, Mello Mix, a very nice light aromatic. Jim, this is definitely a fun stage of pipe smoking, one that never really goes away, that of trying new tobaccos. Enjoy!

Barry arrived and the fun got ratcheted up a couple notches, especially when someone that Paul knew in a previous life showed up to buy some cigars. As the guy was getting out of his car, Paul commented on how much he hated this particular slimy, thieving nemesis of his. Paul was mumbling and muttering the whole time the guy was in the store but when the guy stopped at his chair they chatted like old school chums. Barry was convinced that Paul was going to kick the guy's ass but when the time came, they were best of friends. Barry couldn't let it go and Paul soon found himself in the proverbial barrel.

A little while later some total stranger walking by the store ducked his head in and saw that we had the Ohio State/Penn State game on the TV. He then started to ramble, "Oh, you're watching the Buckeyes. Did you hear about the Penn State mess? You really have to root for Penn State. Why aren't you watching the Penn State game?" Um, we are. "Did you hear that the district attorney who was investigating the allegations against Jerry Sandusky disappeared, like five years ago?" he continued. Barry deadpanned it perfectly when he replied, "Really?" even though we had been talking about the very subject not five minutes ago.

And just to complete the picture, he seemed to, well, how to put this delicately, "play for the other team." Not that there's anything wrong with that (in the words of Seinfeld). But he never wavered from his spot just outside the door, head inside and he seemed to be doing something to the door frame that is probably illegal in most states. He was also looking at me a lot even though Barry was doing most of the talking.

After he left, we began talking about how Barry relishes his role of engaging the more, shall we say, colorful characters that walk past the shop. See last week's blog about him talking to Special Forces man. And who walked by again late in the day but Special Forces man. Barry gave him a quick shout out but he must not have had time to chat as he kept walking.

About ten minutes 'til closing, Adrian rolled up. He's back to his old ways, just breezing in and out. I asked him if, since there wasn't enough time to play a game of chess, why don't we just pretend to play and call me the winner, since it's a foregone conclusion anyway. Naturally, Adrian didn't take too kindly to that and pledged to return next week in time for a real game.

Adrian did lodge a complaint against me about the blog post a few weeks ago, recounting his tales of "conquest" that weekend. But, he did kind of bring it on himself. We did get Adrian to sit for a few minutes and hopefully he'll make it back soon.

Oh yes, in case anyone cared...the answer to the brain teaser from last week about the landscaper that planted five rows of four trees but only used ten trees total is...he planted them in a star pattern. Each corner and intersection of a standard five-point star is where he planted the tree, ten in total.

Before I forget, I did pledge to look something up: Barry wanted to know exactly what a "buckeye" is. It's a nut, of course, but he maintains that it is a chestnut, specifically a horse chestnut. I wasn't sure what it was, but I think it is a separate thing altogether and is simply called a buckeye. So, I now turn to Google. Give me a minute here and I'll come back with the answer.

Okay, here's what I found. The buckeye tree, which the buckeye nut comes from, is known as Aesculus glabra, and is a tree species native primarily in the Midwest and Lower Great Plains region of the United States and parts of Ontario, Canada. The Wikipedia entry for the buckeye tree makes no mention of the horse chestnut, so I initially thought I was correct that the buckeye was a completely separate tree from that of the horse chestnut. But I like to do a thorough job in my research, even if that means I am found to be incorrect about something. (Lou, of course, likes to think that I believe I'm always right and will never admit to being wrong, but - and I'm right about this - that is completely false. I freely admit my mistakes and have often written about my errors in this very space).

Anyway, I discovered that the horse chestnut tree is known scientifically as Aesculus hippocastanum, and is found in the Balkans, Albania, parts of Greece, and Serbia. So, the genus is the same for both trees, Aesculus, but the specific species is different: glabra for the buckeye and hippocastanum for the horse chestnut. Some, like Barry, use the names buckeye and horse chestnut interchangeably but, to be accurate, the buckeye should only be used to describe the so-called New World members of the Aesculus genus, i.e. the tree found in North America. There are slight differences in leaf structure between the two species, but they are from the same genus. Incidentally, the horse chestnut tree is not related to the chestnut tree, which is from the genus Castanea.

So, who's right? Well, in common usage, Barry was right but, technically, they are two separate species of trees. I guess in the end, we're both right. It's a win-win and everyone's happy.

A shout out to my son Ryan, who turned 21 today. Happy birthday, son! I love ya!

Until next week...
Bob

P.S. BTW, Jim, I was just kidding about having to supply pizzas. I mean, if you want to, we won't turn them down, but you don't have to.

Saturday at the Hut - 11/12/11

Today we had a small, but fun group at The Tobacco Hut. In attendance were Ed B and Barry C as well as a new, and hopefully regular, guy - Jim S. Good to see Barry two weeks in a row after a long absence, and Ed, of course, roaring up in his topless Jeep.

We were expecting to see Coast Guard Don but he was AWOL. Not only was Ed prepared to buy him a premium cigar, but we had brought lots of food in preparation to throw kind of a mini-party. Well, when I say lots of food, I mean Joe K replenished our supply of peanut butter pretzels and Barry surprised us with a big tub of Cheese Doodles. But the thought was there.

Joe K was absent as he was taking his dog Sammie to some sort of dog reunion to the south somewhere. Apparently he stopped by on Friday with the express purpose of bringing the peanut butter pretzels (thanks man!). Scott R also stopped in sometime on Friday, according to Lou. I don't know if Adrian made an appearance during the week as he sometimes does, but let's not forget that Saturday is the day. At least that's the day that I'm at the Hut, and the world revolves around me, after all.

I pulled the trigger and ordered
myself a new iPhone 4S!

I was hoping Joe was there as I wanted to announce that this very morning, before I came to the Hut, I ordered an iPhone 4S! I'm finally ditching this ancient cell phone I've been carrying around for two years and getting a smart phone. Of course, nobody has them in stock, so I had to order it from the Apple store online and it should arrive sometime during the last week of November. It's going to be a tough few weeks waiting for my new toy!

So yes, we have not only a new guy, Jim, but he's a pipe smoker! Actually, he just became a pipe smoker today! Welcome to the Brotherhood of the Briar, Jim. A longtime cigar smoker, he's been thinking of taking up the pipe and he certainly came to the right place. He ended up buying a nice Ben Wade smooth finish bent and loaded it up with some of Lou's Goldenrod tobacco. We must not have scared him off, because he pulled up a chair, settled right in and began puffing.

A lot of the conversation today centered around Joe Paterno's woes at Penn State, and we watched the Penn State/Nebraska game. Other entertainment included making fun of the Special Forces guy (our nickname for him - I seriously doubt he served in the Special Forces, at least of our military) who stumbled past the door a couple times with his two dozen eggs. He's famous for "taking out a guy with one judo chop" some time ago at Wal-Mart for calling his wife a name. Apparently, Wal-Mart rewarded him with two dozen eggs at the time and today he appeared again with two dozen eggs. I presume they are not the same two dozen eggs, but who knows?

Today found me smoking a bowl of McClelland's Wilderness tobacco (third Saturday in a row for Wilderness) in my Cassano tan-colored sandblast. This tobacco has just the right amount of Latakia for a nice, pungent, woodsy flavor. The Cassano handled it nicely, smoking cool and dry all the way down to fine, gray ash. I brought a La Gloria Cubana cigar with me that I had bought a couple weeks ago, but decided to save it for another day.

Kudos to Scott, our resident knife guy. His blog was featured on the Knife Depot blog and our man was interviewed! Knife Depot is a large online knife retailer and a link can be found to Scott's interview here. Congrats man! BTW, Scott has also recently prepared a calendar for sale just in time for next year featuring his knife photography. It can be found here.

We're all wondering how Mike G is doing in Bradenton taking care of Vic's nuts. Vic is on a chartered tour to Israel and, as Ed suggested, perhaps he's exploring franchise opportunities for his nuts in Tel Aviv. As long as they're Kosher nuts, I think you might be sitting on a goldmine there, Vic!

Completely off topic, but how about a little brain teaser as a diversion? Maybe I'll make this a regular - or at least semi-regular - feature of the blog. Here we go...

A landscaper returns from work and is sitting at the kitchen table with his kids. The kids ask, "Did you work hard today, Daddy?"

Dad says, "I did. I planted five rows of four trees each." His little third grader, wanting to show off her new found skills with the multiplication table, says, "You planted 20 trees, Daddy!"

He says, "No, I'm sorry, that's wrong. I planted 10 trees." She responds, "That's impossible!"

The dad responds, "No, it isn't, and here's a hint: If you look at one of the math or history test papers that your teacher has returned to you recently, you're going to find the answer."

The little girl sits there and thinks for a minute, and then she says, "I've got it!"

What did she find on her paper that gave her the answer? 

Leave a comment below or send me an e-mail with the answer. I'll provide the solution next week.

Cheers!