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Vaping: Starting the Journey (Cig-a-likes)

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Health, Vaping

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health, money, vaping

So after years of smoking “analogs” (regular cigarettes), we decided to get on the vaping (PV – personal vaporizers) bandwagon after several folks we know were successful in quitting cigarettes using them.  Per my usual, I started analyzing and researching.  We started where most folks do with “cig-a-likes” – basically a battery and a cartridge filled with flavored liquid that looks and feels like a heavy cigarette.  They were cheap and let us try the whole e-cig thing out to see if we were going to like it at all.  We did.  Pretty darned quickly.  We’ve already moved past cig-a-likes, but the purpose of the blog articles is to walk through the progression so…

We ordered two different “starter kits”.  A starter cig-a-like kit generally includes everything you need to start vaping – batteries that look like cigarettes and cartridges that look like filters plus battery chargers.  You just charge the batteries, screw the cartomizer (the cartridge that contains and heats the liquid) on and you are off.  No muss, no fuss, very easy.  Downsides are battery life, cartridge life and flavor, though you can refill your cartomizer with yblack-starterkitour own choice of e-liquid or buy blank cartomizers to fill yourself.  Gotta admit that I found refilling them to be a bit of a pain and carrying multiple batteries around kind of sucked.  That said, we did this for about a week and at the end we felt that we were comfortable upgrading.

The starter kit we liked the most was the Halo G6 Starter Kit which comes with your choice of 2 batteries – either manual (you press a button while inhaling) or automatic.  You can choose one of each if you want to try both and Halo makes the batteries in a variety of colors.  Truthfully, while automatic is more “cigarette like”, manual is going to make your battery last longer and is the way higher end PVs work, so get at least one.  You also get a USB charger and a wall charger and a 5 pack of cartomizers (blank or filled with one of the Halo flavors) all in a case (too large to carry around, but fine for tossing in the car).

One of the nicest things about this kit is that, when you decide you want to try a “tank” to hold your liquid, Halo has “mini-tanks” that fit the G6 batteries as a second step that doesn’t add weight or change the way you smoke as dramatically as a more advanced type of unit.  It was an excellent first step and cost less than a carton of cigarettes here in the South (which is way less than the cost to the north).  As I said, we moved on to mini-tanks with the G6 and then to eGo style PVs pretty quickly, but we were completely satisfied with this as an entry point to e-cigarettes.

If you are thinking about trying vaping, consider joining the E-Cigarette Forum but be prepared to be overwhelmed with information – in a lot of ways it is a vaping hobbyist forum as much as anything.  Still, it’s an excellent resource – especially if you look for links to recommended vendors, articles and YouTube videos.  I’d also recommend you start thinking about what your goal is – do you want to quit smoking entirely (switching to PVs, lowering the nicotine and stopping) or are you embarking on a new hobby or something in the middle.  Right now we are focused on dropping analogs (which we did in less than 3 days) and not spending more than 25% of what we used to spend on them.  Which, given the cost of cigarettes, is actually pretty easy.  I set up a spreadsheet and, while there is an upfront investment, the cost can be pretty low.  You will break even and start saving money pretty quickly depending on how much you smoke now and how fast (or if) you jump into the vaping deep end.  Keep in mind that the initial goal is to replace all the different stuff in analogs (tar and additives) with only nicotine in measurable amounts.  Start simple, move slowly.

We are currently vaping on mini-tanks to try out new liquid flavors, ordering sample liquids to see what we like and dislike and using eGo batteries and tanks.  The cig-a-likes are in the “smoking bucket” on the front porch with all the lighters and ashtrays for any friends who want to try them out.  We hit our first goal (switching) almost immediately.  Pretty impressive, actually.  The next article will be on nicotine levels and sort of a starter guide to liquids.

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March Start – Meh.

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress

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certifications, goals, health, home, money, organize

Well, things haven’t gone as smoothly as hoped, but they rarely do and some key things got done along the way.  Guess we’ll push through to the end of March and move some first quarter goals into the second quarter.  Rats.

So, let’s take a look at January:

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month (yep, Christmas present)
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts
  • Decluttering – File for 2013 taxes, set up 2014 files
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

And February:

  • Fitness – Sign up for the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K in March
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 MALC (Expert) qualification
  • Habit – Take or draw a picture every day
  • Home – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Financial – 2013 Taxes completed and filed
  • Decluttering – Scan/Shred old records
  • Cost cutting/saving – Cut dining out to one dinner and one lunch per week

Finally, March:

  • Fitness – Complete the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K
  • Professional – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Habit – [decluttering habit, see below]
  • Home – Front porch and walks (getting ready for spring!)
  • Financial – update wills
  • Decluttering – Declutter one thing per day (sell, trade, donate, recycle, repair)
  • Cost cutting/saving – Utilities review (gas, power, phone, internet, cellular, TV, etc.)

February Update: Week One

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Health, Home

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certifications, goals, health, home, money

Dangit – a short month.  And I’m sucking at everything other than the fitness goals so far.  But, those are really the most important.  Doing great with the Fitbit targets and things are looking great for the 5K in March.  Almost done with the modules and exercises for the ITIL SOA certification, so with luck that will be done in the next two weeks and I’ll be on to the MALC.  All but one of my tax documents have arrived, so crossing fingers to be able to finish taxes next weekend.  We’ve also not eaten out much at all lately, so that’s having a huge positive impact on the finances. 🙂

So, let’s take a look at January:

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month (yep, Christmas present)
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts
  • Decluttering – File for 2013 taxes, set up 2014 files
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

And February:

  • Fitness – Sign up for the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K in March
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 MALC (Expert) qualification
  • Habit – Take or draw a picture every day
  • Home – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Financial – 2013 Taxes completed and filed
  • Decluttering – Scan/Shred old records
  • Cost cutting/saving – Cut dining out to one dinner and one lunch per week

January Recap & February Beginnings

01 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Health, Home

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certifications, goals, health, home, money

And the first month of 2014 comes to an end.  Touching base with the monthly goals.  I completed 4 of 7 in January with a couple more well on the way to completion, so a pretty successful month.  Very happy with the habit and fitness goals as well as my Fitbit for making it not only easy but fun.

February has some standard ones related to taxes, but the habit goal is going to be the most interesting.  I wanted to figure out something that would be creative and require me to pay attention to stuff I normally wouldn’t so I decided on either taking a picture every day (ah, the joys of camera phones) or drawing something every day.  The ITIL certification is creeping into probably March to finish Expert, but it has been moving along steadily, so the extra time isn’t a concern.

So, let’s take a look at January:

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month (yep, Christmas present)
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts
  • Decluttering – File for 2013 taxes, set up 2014 files
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

And February:

  • Fitness – Sign up for the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K in March
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 MALC (Expert) qualification
  • Habit – Take or draw a picture every day
  • Home – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Financial – 2013 Taxes completed and filed
  • Decluttering – Scan/Shred old records
  • Cost cutting/saving – Cut dining out to one dinner and one lunch per week

Week One Update

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Geeky, Health

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geeky, goals, health, money, organize, updates

Completed bold green with strikethrough, in progress in bold with italic, notes, summary and updates inline.  Not started in blue.

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month.  Starting out with the preset 10K steps per day.  Laid out a walking/running schedule to be ready to go for the March 5K.  Naturally this week brought some of the coldest (and wettest) weather so far – will be looking to make up some steps as the month progresses.  Still, definitely heightened awareness of ways to boost steps.  Cool dat. 😀
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification.  Ordered up the SOA course from The Art of Service, did all my downloads and set up a daily task reminder.  Completed through Module 2 of 12.On Track!
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling.  Set up my apps – Endomondo, FitBit and Livescape on the phone, FitBit on the PC.  Completed some journaling every day but not consistent or complete yet.
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts.  Registered and set up the 401K for new employer.  All that remains is to review and update (as needed) the other accounts.
  • Decluttering – Filed the rest of 2013 and set up 2013 tax notebook, set up 2014 files (go label maker).
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

One complete and four underway.  Seems about right at this point, especially since the four underway are the build a habit kind of goals.

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