Cigar meetups, photo shoots, new forum, and general musings.

Obviously, the planned photo shoot for January didn't happen. There were no donations whatsoever, so I will have to assume for now that there just isn't as much interest in new shoots as people keep telling me.
Then, there was not even one scheduled for March, cause I broke my back on March 7th and have been recuperating. The healing is coming along, and I have been able to get out a bit, as long as I am very careful, and have also been FINALLY able to start enjoying some good sticks more often as well!
So.. I'm probably going to make a tentative date for an April shoot. Again, dependent on donations.

I have discovered a couple of (kinda) local cigar meetups just recently, and am happy to be able to have a gathering place to smoke and chat and such with people of like mind again. Such has been very difficult to find around Seattle since I-901 passed several years ago. (Washington's "clean indoor air act"). Luckily, Tribal land is exempt from the law, so we still have at least SOME options!
I went to the first meetup at the Tulalip Casino on Monday, April 5th. It was great! Met several really cool people. It's a nice, laid back and friendly crowd. Amazingly, I WASN'T the only woman there!! And at least one of the other couple of women there was obviously a serious cigar smoker, like myself.. not just some groupie, so that was really cool.
Was introduced to a couple new (to me) cigars there from Alec Bradly. VERY impressed!! (Reviews forthcoming in later posts), in addition to coming away with a new Blue Rhino lighter and really nice cutter from Cuban Crafters. Cuban Crafters has a lifetime guarantee too, so if anything ever goes wrong with it, all I have to do is send it back to them and they'll replace it for free! ...Which is awesome. :D

The group meets at the Tulalip Casino on the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month, and I definitely plan on being there for as many of them as I can!

There is also a cigar night ever Tuesday night at the Snoqualmie Casino's Lit Cigar Lounge, which I have not yet been to, but am looking forward to checking out! It sounds very nice, from everything I have been told by people who have been there.

I might go tomorrow (well, technically, that would be today). We'll see.

I have created a new online forum for cigar enthusiasts in and around Seattle.

Here is the link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PNWcigars

Martinez 85

Smokey greetings,
Well, I finally got to smoke that Martinez 85 that Steph sent me. WOW! I wasn't sure if it would be any good, because I was afraid they may be marketing them more as a novelty item, but I was very pleasantly surprised! It was a nice, smooth smoke, not very complex, but nice tasting nontheless, with a slightly woody flavor and more spicy as I smoked it down more. I did have a little bit of an issue for part of it with getting an even burn, but not really a surprise with such a large ring gauge. It seemed to smoke a lot faster than I expected, but maybe that was my imagination, because there are a LOT more pictures than any other cigar. Maybe the time just went fast. And speaking of pictures, after I deleted the ones that I didn't think were good enough, (and I swear I didn't plan this at all!! LOL) I couted and there are exactly 85. I think that's a cool coincidence. About 1/2 of them will be in the adult section. the photos are definitely more graphic than any of the previous ones! Being photographed really does that to me! There are also 2 videos, one that is rated R, but will be in the regular section is a little over 4 minutes, and the other, over 5 minutes long, is for members only.