Am on my way back to WI from the snow buried East Coast. I hauled a snow blower truck out there so they can get themselves out from under all that snow.

Am doing ok, all things considered. I will be working over the holidays. As I haven't been home in a year now I see no reason to go there at this point. In fact I have decided to put the place up for sale as the burden of paying for a place I never visit seems a bit too much.

Life is what it is and I am just going with the flow for the most part. I've been enjoying my pipes quite a lot and have cut way down on the cigarettes. I expect I'll quit the cigarettes completely before long. At this point if I run out of them I just shrug my shoulders and pack another pipe. As one doesn't inhale pipe smoke it's a far better choice right off the bat, and then there is the wide variety of pipe tobaccos from which to choose, all with their own wonderful flavors.

I have mostly been smoking English blends that have a lot of Latakia in them but have also been enjoying some other blends as well. I was at Uhle's Pipe Shop in Milwaukee on Saturday and picked up a couple of new pipes. The young lady working there, Tamara, gifted me with a pouch of their Christmas 2009 blend. It's a very sweet blend and very fruity. Not normally my cup of tea but it's ok as a dessert smoke after a good meal.

I've become quite fond of Peterson pipes. They are made in Dublin, Ireland and are fantastic smokers. I now have two of them and am looking forward to picking up a few more. They've been making pipes since the 1800's and know what they are doing. Here are the two I now own:

They  both snoke very well and the black one, an XL90, is a very large pipe and a smoke lasts a good long while in that one.

I want to pick up a spigot pipe at some point. They are beautiful pipes and the silver work is always wonderful. I looked at one at Uhle's and loved it, but the price tag read $375 which was waaaaay out of my price range.

Here's what a spigot looks like:

The one I looked at was a bit different bowl style, but the silver spigot work was very similar to this. It also had a silver bowl rim cover which made it all the more attractive. But the price! Oooh! Maybe Santa will bring me one some day.