Personal, Vices, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Twelve Quick Updates from a Whirlwind of a Month

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What an interesting — and busy! — few weeks it’s been.

  1. Las Vegas trip. I got back this past Monday from a two-night trek to Sin City to meet up with friends surrounding the Vegas Internet Mafia Family Picnic event. VIMFP is an annual confab featuring Vegas-focused podcasters and bloggers. Lots of attendees. Lots of fun. You can listen to me and Tony discuss my trip report on episode 290 of The Vice Lounge Online.
  2. Nicole’s wedding. My cousin Nicole married Corey on the 14th. Lovely wedding and reception. I wish them the very best for many years of wedded bliss!
  3. Horseshoe Hammond excursion. Tony and I trekked to Hammond, Indiana for a day trip to this lovely Caesars Entertainment casino on the outskirts of Chicago. Everything I touched seemed to turn to gold! You can hear the highlights in VLO’s episode 289.
  4. Essay contracted.  I’m pleased to announce that I’ve recently signed a publication agreement for a short essay, “A Moment of Clarity,” intended for publication in a volume titled Staying Catholic When You’ve Been Hurt in the Church. The book — edited by Eve Tushnet and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers — is currently in early production status.
  5. Brewed Awakenings 2 released. I’m delighted to share that Brewed Awakenings 2, the annual house anthology of Caffeinated Press, is now on the market. Buy your copy today to support local literary excellence! This collection features 15 stories by 14 different authors, ranging from just a few hundred words to more than 20k words; the stories cross genres and styles.
  6. Grayson Rising released. And speaking of releases, Grayson Rising also hit the market this month. This delightful YA novel, partially set in Grand Rapids, is the first major fiction release by local author AJ Powell. In fact, AJ hosted a small launch event at his place of employment that was well-attended and greatly enjoyed by those who dropped by.
  7. The 3288 Review, Vol. 2, Issue 1, released. And now the trifecta: We recently printed the fifth iteration of our quarterly journal of arts and letters. It’s a flourishing property that is already drawing attention across the state. Quite proud of it!
  8. NaNoWriMo is coming. November looms, and with it, National Novel Writing Month. I will participate again. I will also continue to host my Saturday-morning write-ins. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to write, a point I’ll expound upon in greater detail over the next few days. Let it suffice that I’ve developed a good skeleton for a literary novel augmented by some detective-genre conventions. The working title is The Catfish in the Shallows. Do not expect to see/hear much of me between 10/31 and 12/1!
  9. Site5 shenanigans. Although it didn’t affect this site, I had a world of trouble — as in, five days of unexpected downtime — with my longtime Web host, Site5. Outmigration is on the near-term horizon, unfortunately.
  10. Health quality glossary. Spent a fair amount of time recently as a subject-matter expert for NAHQ as we fine-tuned a comprehensive glossary of terms specific to quality improvement in healthcare. Much of this work entailed the alignment of definitions across existing products. Good intellectual exercise.
  11. SIP lines for Caffeinated Press. For years, the CafPress toll-free phone number (888-809-1686) went straight to a voice-mail box. I’ve now set us up with a SIP provider (i.e., a voice-over-Internet phone service) so our toll-free number actually rings in the office. I even have a desk phone, now, with my own extension and local number. Not that I actually use the phone much. But still. Progress.
  12. Outdoor kitties. A pair of felines have been lurking around my house. One of them has a home, and I’ve ensured that she’s been returned to it. The other — a fluffy black tabby, neutered, and sweet as molasses — keeps visiting. He likes it when I give him some Meow Mix. So I do. So far, he looks like he’s in good shape: his coat is fine, he looks well cared-for, his weight seems constant. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for signs of neglect as the cold-weather season sets in. I get the feeling he’s someone’s cat and that he might be an indoor/outdoor dude.

All for now.

Vices

VLO Podcast (E-270) — FDA regs, Tincup whiskey, daily fantasy sports

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Podcast 270, 5/8/16 … For a second week, we’ve had scheduling difficulties, so it’s Jason’s turn to get back into the saddle again with a solo podcast. Jason shares the high-level damage of the FDA’s newly announced cigar regulations, but Duane from Oklahoma swoops in with a call to review the Oliva Serie O. After the review, Jason gives the Tincup Colorado whiskey a spin to lubricate the discussion about the ongoing legal woes for the daily fantasy sports industry.

Don’t forget — you have until May 15 to leave a positive (text) review on iTunes to be included in our Maker’s Mark and Woodford Reserve give-away!

Click HERE to download the MP3, or use the audio control below to listen in your Web browser:

Cross-posted from Vice Lounge Online.

Personal, Vices

Trip Report – Louisville for #VLO5

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Somewhat arbitrarily, Tony and I decided that the five-year anniversary of our podcast, The Vice Lounge Online, fell in April 2016. We started regularly podcasting (i.e., a weekly 30-minute show) in April 2011, but we had been recording intermittently since August 2010. For a while, in those earliest days, we released a show every three weeks or so, but after 4/2011, we went weekly and never looked back.

In January, Tony had the bright idea of doing some sort of group event. Other podcasts do it — there’s the Vegas Internet Mafia Family Picnic every autumn in Las Vegas, and 360Vegas does a springtime 360Vegas Vacation. Those events are, as they say, hella fun. So we scheduled a weekend in Louisville, KY to get the best of all worlds — a bit of casino gaming, a bit of premium cigars and a bit of fine adult beverages.

I don’t know if Tony and I will do something like this regularly, or if maybe we’ll do something in partnership with other groups (lookin’ at you, Denton Dallas and Beyond). But what I do know is that we had a ton of fun this year in Louisville and we’re extremely grateful to all the folks who turned out:

  • Roux, Edwin, Sparkles and Ryan from Texas
  • Alastair from the U.K.
  • Ryan and Becky from California
  • Andrew from Indiana
  • Bogan from South Carolina
  • Mark from Tennessee
  • Jason, Tony, Jen and Jeff from Michigan

My trip diary follows.

Thursday, March 31

I didn’t leave Grand Rapids until 4 p.m. — I left the office later than I hoped and I also desperately needed to stop for an oil change. For the most part, the drive was fine. OnStar routed me somewhat oddly, sending me all the way to Lansing on I-96E to catch I-69S to Indianapolis then I-65E to Louisville. By the time I hit Indy, torrential rains with lightning had swept into the area. At times, traffic slowed to less than 50 mph and I had to use the fast setting on my wipers. I half-expected to be pelted with frogs and locusts at some point.

By 11 p.m., I arrived in Elizabeth, IN at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana casino. I’ve been at HSI before; this “”riverboat”” on the Ohio River was my first major destination casino trip with Tony. My first time out, I hit a royal flush at video poker. This time, I managed to lose only $60. Not bad, all things considered. I think we were engaging in not-quite-subdued revelry until around 2 a.m., mostly just ambling around the casino. At one point, we (me, Tony, Alastair, Jeff, Mark and Andrew) settled around a $5 blackjack table for a while. I bought in for just $40 but managed to last long enough that the pit boss wrote each of us a comp for the casino cafe — my first ever table-game comp slip!

Friday, April 1

We left HSI and decamped directly for the Maker’s Mark Distillery in Loretto, KY. The incursion into central Kentucky lasted a full 90 minutes — lots of driving on this trip. We took the hour-long tour, seeing such things as the vats of fermenting mash, one of the barrel houses and the tasting room. We got to sample some stuff, and I ended up buying a bottle of Maker’s 46 Cask Strength, which you can only buy at the distillery at present. (It’s not on the open market.)

On the way from Loretto to Louisville, we stopped twice in Bardstown — once at the Willett Distillery (I bought the Willett Pot Still Reserve, a well-regarded bourbon), and again at Mammy’s Kitchen for a tasty Hot Brown. Bardstown looks like a lovely little town that would be worth spending the night at, just to take in the local sights.

When we sauntered into Louisville proper, I bee-lined it for Galt House. I checked in, then most of the party assembled at Jocky Silk’s Bourbon Bar (or, as Tony memorably put it, “”Silky Jocks””).

After a cocktail or two there — I sampled the Noah’s Mill, a small batch bourbon made at Willett — we ambled over to Doc Crow’s for dinner. The food was mostly good (I had a beef chili that was awesome, but my brisket sandwich was not well-prepared, according to Lord Roux of House Brisket) yet the service was horrible. Everything was slow and no one’s bill was 100-percent correct. Frustrating. In fact, the commentary throughout the trip was the slow and uneven quality of service at bars and restaurants in the downtown Louisville area.

Dinner having been consumed, we went to Down One Bourbon Bar, where service was also hideously slow. After a single cocktail, the group split up. I went with the Texas Delegation (sans Sparkles, who retired for the evening) to Bourbon Raw, a bourbon-bar-slash-restaurant on Fourth Street Live. (FSL is kind of like a mini version of the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas — a blocked-off stretch of road with music and a canopy.) Whilst at Bourbon Raw, we enjoyed lovely cigars; I’m grateful to the Texans for providing me with a Diesel Uncut. We had drinks and smoked under the canopy until 1 a.m.

Saturday, April 2

Wake up. Get showered. Run like a demon to get checked out an on the road, because we had an 11 a.m. tour at Woodford Reserve scheduled and the location was an hour away from Louisville. I wolfed down a McGriddle on the road.

The tour of Woodford Reserve, however, was quite nice. We had headphones and a shuttle bus. The highlights of the tour were similar to Maker’s Mark, although at WR, we got to see the copper stills (they’re the only U.S. bourbon producer doing triple-distilled whiskey in copper pot stills) and also the barrel run. The facility is old; parts of it date from the early 19th century. This tour was a bit more “”corporate”” than Maker’s Mark, but it was no less enjoyable for it. And the last five miles of the journey to the distillery snaked us through working stud farms. Foaling season!

After the tour we returned to Louisville. The group enjoyed a late brunch at Bourbon Raw — and despite the friendly-but-slow service, the “”chicken”” part of my “”chicken and waffles”” was the best-prepared poultry I think I’ve ever enjoyed. Paired it with a Manhattan as well as a dram of Hirsch bourbon.

I chatted with the Texans again, outside. They enjoyed cigars while I nursed my Hirsch. The breeze had picked up, though, and temps began to fall. After a while, I said goodbyes and at 4 p.m. on the nose, I drove away from Louisville, with just a single stop around Muncie for fuel.

Two things of note on the return drive: First, the wind was horrid and on I-69, just south of Ft. Wayne, a truck had blown over and blocked both southbound lanes, causing the northbound lanes to back up from all the rubbernecking. Then, we had pockets of snow. Wasn’t bad until I hit Coldwater, MI and experienced white-out conditions with visibility less than 200 feet in places. OnStar had routed me from I-69 to I-94 to US-131. The stretch of I-94 between I-69 and the eastern approaches of Kalamazoo were treacherous, with probably a dozen spin-outs and accidents in a 25-mile span of highway. I arrived home around 10:15 p.m. The cats were delighted.

Reflection

This was a fun trip. It’s really quite humbling to have made so many friends through podcasting that you can get 14 people from all across the northern hemisphere into a little town in the central U.S. for a vacation weekend. When I think about it, the fact that we have so many listeners (our show earns several thousand downloads per week from our server alone) and a vibrant social-media community on Twitter and Facebook is something remarkable.

And to get people to congregate in Louisville just for the heck of it? Wow.

We started VLO a half-decade ago on something of a whim. Tony had started listening to podcasts and became enamored with Five Hundy by Midnight. We figured we could try a podcast, too. And although it took a while for things to take off, we’re now reaping the rewards: Deeper knowledge of cigars, a more refined palate for premium spirits, comfort at knowing the right things to do at the casino. Our show isn’t going to resonate for everyone, but the fact that we have made so many friends through this podcast — well, again. Humbling.

Thanks to everyone who turned out in Louisville, and to the many others on social media who joined us in spirit. Your support and friendship mean the world to us.

Computers & Technology, Personal, Philosophy, Politics & Culture, Social Media, Marketing & Privacy, Vices, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Assorted Ruminations

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Well. What an interesting couple of weeks it’s been. Summary commentary follows, on subjects as diverse as writing, politics, socializing and privacy. Read on, dear friends, and be enlightened.

“Society” Isn’t Responsible For Your Bad Choices

Big Al and I have engaged in several recent conversations about Occupy Wall Street, and in particular, about the nature of the main claims emanating like a vile penumbra from the protestors’ wish lists. The crux of the debate: To what extent is society responsible for the condition of people saddled with huge student loan debt and no strong employment opportunity?

Although Alaric refuses to state categorically that he thinks the protestors are totally free of moral culpability for the current condition, he does seem to argue that they aren’t solely culpable and therefore deserve a personal bailout. He asserts that the overwhelming social message that “college is the key to success” means that people really had no other choice if they wanted to be successful, and that colleges have misled many students about the value of their chosen courses of study. As best as I can tell, his position is that the social pressure to attend college mixed with bad or misleading counsel about the options available for majors means that many unemployed students were effectively sold a bill of goods. Therefore, in the interests of the macro economy, it makes sense to lighten their load and to implement reforms to prevent such from happening again.

Our debates have been lively. Although I appreciate his perspective — and do, in fact, concede that social pressure is a not-insignificant contributor to the higher ed bubble — I cannot agree that debt-laden students get a pass. For one thing, imprudence isn’t a virtue. Yes, I’m sure some people really did think that a degree in puppetry would be fulfilling — but did they bother to check the expected labor market for such a focus? Research is abundant and free, beginning with the Department of Labor public databases. As an ethics major, I realize that the only job I’m qualified for is one that requires “a degree, any degree” — no one is actively looking for someone with a B.A. in moral philosophy. I knew that going into it. I made my choices, and I have to accept my consequences. Choosing to go in willfully blind doesn’t provide a layer of insulation for when times get tough.

I get that for many people, life is challenging. I don’t think it’s society’s problem.

Evening of Cocktails and Fine Dining

Last Saturday I welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with Jon and Emilie, Tony and Jen, and Joe. We started with cocktails at Tony’s office in Lansing, then went to Copper for dinner. The meal was delightful and the company was heavenly. We had a great time and settled on the dates for the “All Things Tony” trek to The Happiest Place on Earth in early June.

Scotch Is Good for the Soul

Good Scotch whisky is proof of the existence of a benevolent God. In recent weeks, I’ve enjoyed Ardbeg 10-year (a staple of Jim Murray’s list of top whiskys) and now I’ve laid hands upon another rare bottle of Ballentine’s 17-year. Add to that a good deal on Lagavulin 16-year, and life is good.

But added to the mix: Gentleman Jack. I saw a fascinating Discovery Channel documentary on how Jack Daniel’s is made, and it impelled me to pick up a bottle. Glad I did. GJ may become my default sipping whiskey.

NaNoWriMo Is Harder Than It Looks

So I’m writing a novel. It’s harder than it looks. The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to produce a minimum of 50,000 words in the month of November. Some people have already met their goal, and bully for them. I remain stuck in the low four figures, mostly because I started late and have been planning as I go. The prose I’ve generated so far, I’m mostly happy with. And I purchased Scrivener for Windows — an all-in-one writing application for professional writers — and sync its data files with SkyDrive so I can pick up on any of my computers. So far, so good.

The “discipline thing” presents something of a self-improvement opportunity. My goal is to generate 80,000 words and shop it for sale. As a published writer of non-fiction work, I hope I have at least a tiny bit of credibility to get an agent to look twice at my submission. But if not — it doesn’t matter much. I’m enjoying the craft of writing for writing’s sake.

The fun thing about NaNoWriMo? The social aspect. There are active forums and chatrooms for local areas. The “Ottawa County – Grand Rapids” group has been a blast. I’ve done two write-ins with fellow novelists already, and will do more in the coming weeks. It’s been motivating, and fun to connect with fellow local writers. Even if Elizabeth insists on circulating a paper chat room while I try to write and even if Jennifer won’t bring me Scotch. At least Adrianne gave me chocolate because she’s a nice person.

I’m Not a Commodity: Or, Facebook+Spotify Sucks Huge Donkey Dick

Having read of the hype around Spotify, the streaming music service recently made available in the U.S., I was eager to install the app on my phone and enjoy a wide library of musical bliss. The downside? The only way you can actually register for Spotify is to log in with your Facebook account and agree to share an astonishing amount of personal information (including your name, age, location, friends, and profile details) with Spotify. There is no other way to gain access to the music service. Spotify, seemingly caught off-guard, insists that people can create dummy, empty Facebook accounts if they wish — which seems to defeat the purpose.

Long story short: I refuse. I uninstalled Spotify. And for good measure, I logged into Facebook and stripped all of my data from the service. I deleted all my photos (except a really crappy one for the profile), untagged myself from everyone else’s photos, removed all my personal profile details, and set all privacy settings to the most restrictive level. I even “unliked” almost everything I’ve liked in the history of Facebook — only a few dozen things, but still. My profile is now mostly an empty shell devoid of useful marketing data. Fuck you, Mark Zuckerberg.

Note to Big New Media: I’m a human being, not a data profile. I own my information. You don’t. I grow weary of being offered “free” apps or services only to discover later that the fine print says that you get to commodify me into a package of information that you can sell to others and that I have no say in the matter (not even to opt out or to at least curate what gets shared). I’m also out of the game of “logging in with Facebook” (or Google, or Twitter, or …) — give me the chance to log in using de-identified information, or forego me as a customer. Next up for scubbing: Google. I’m watching you, Mountain View.

State of the GOP Presidential Race

Here’s what I know. Most significantly, Rick Perry managed to disappoint me; I can forgive a bad debate performance, but not a 100 percent failure rate in debate performances. Mitt Romney really does look like the default nominee, and despite Erick Erickson’s bloviations, I think he’d be a strong contender and a solid POTUS. Notwithstanding my lack of enthusiasm for his early debate performances (where he came off arrogant and picking fights on social issues he didn’t need to wage) I think Jon Huntsman might be the best man for the job — he’s sufficiently conservative, smart, polished and experienced. Paul, Gingrich, Bachmann and Johnson should probably exit, stage right. And Herman Cain? He just needs to implode and retire from the race before too much damage is done to the GOP brand. Between the sex scandals and the implausibility of 9-9-9, the risk to Republican seriousness is high.

What a Difference A Gigabyte Makes …

Last week, I acquired for the low, low price of $44 a 2 GB memory chip for my netbook (the package also included an 8 GB micro-SD card). I installed it, booted up the machine — and it purrs like a kitten. Still not quite as fast as my full-sized laptop at home (what, with its dual-core Athlon processor and 4 GB of RAM) but the netbook is keeping up admirably with a dual-boot Win7+Fedora16 setup.

Truth be told, I think I’ve finally settled on an all-Microsoft approach to data management. My laptop, netbook and smart phone all run Microsoft OSes, and I use Windows Live SkyDrive for all my personal cloud storage. I’m increasingly centralizing information with OneNote, conveniently synchronized across all my screens. Although it’s not a perfect setup, I’m satisfied with it and am more productive than I was in the days of miscellaneous FTP syncing and random OS mixes.

… Also, a Single Settings Tweak

The only non-MS device left in my portfolio is my HP TouchPad. Granted that I acquired it at firesale prices, I find WebOS to be snappy and elegant. I was tempted to install the CyanogenMod tweak to push it to Android, but why screw around when WebOS works? The only problem I had — and it frustrated me to no end — was TouchFeeds, an RSS reader that’s simple and robust. However, it would hang the tablet on occasion and sometimes be mind-numbingly slow. Slow, to the point I wanted to chuck it at the window and grind my boots on the shards just to show it who’s boss. Funny thing, though: Simply changing the TouchFeeds setting to stop auto-mark-read-as-you-scroll completely fixed the problem. Now, I just push the “mark all read” button and it flies like a dream. Sometimes, just screwing around with settings solves problems.

Pictures on the Wall

Last weekend, I finally got around to printing 21 4-by-6 photos for the huge wall-mounted photo display I got for a steal a while back. Picking which 21 I wanted to print prompted a delightful trek down memory lane. It also reminded me of how bad of a job I do at taking pictures, despite having a 5 MP camera in my HD7. Now the display is prominenly affixed to the wall of my living room.

Personal, Philosophy, Vices

Annual Birthday Reflection, version 35.0

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On account of my Vegas vacation, I was unable to perform my annual birthday blog post, a tradition extending back to 2006. But let not your hearts be troubled: Here’s the post, albeit delayed a bit. Forgive me; I’m old.

  1. Never assume you’re sitting pretty, particularly in politically charged environments. At the hospital, for example, my comfortable pseudo-leadership of my team underwent a full-frontal assault for no other reason than the org chart changed. Play the long game and avoid making strategic errors over tactical challenges. At the same time, although capitalizing on uncertainty has its benefits, it comes with a downside: As soon as someone doesn’t like the fact you’re filling a role unofficially, it becomes a crisis of epic proportions. Once the foot is in the door, cultivate certainty and reduce ambiguity in your work and in your relationships with others.
  2. This marks the fifth consecutive year I’ve celebrated a birthday at a different domicile. This year, the apartment/house downtown. Last year, the house on the upper west side. The year before, the apartment in Standale. The year before that, the condo in Walker. And before then? The apartment in Kentwood. I’ve been more transient than I’ve realized.
  3. Goal setting is great. Revising your goals is great. Revising your goals to kick the deadlines back six months, year after year … not so great. Do, or don’t do.
  4. Apparently my cousin did a full-on Ironman triathlon last week. Wow. She impresses me. I am going to try to psych myself into performing at her level. I’ve had good luck, pre-Vegas, at slimming down. A winter of training and dieting will put me in fighting form for the spring. Fifth Third Riverbank Run, anyone? I’ll be damned if I’ve peaked physically in my early 30s. I want to be that old guy in the gym who still runs 50 miles a week well into his 80s.
  5. I’m growing in the opinion that the ping of self-worth you get in the moment when you take care of someone else isn’t worth the long-term price. Know when to cut losses and attack a problem from a different angle.
  6. Solving problems when they arise usually works better than sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away.
  7. My disposition continues to move away from acquiring material things and toward acquiring a rich diversity of experiences.
  8. It seems of late that people are flaking out more often — family, friends, co-workers. The real question is how to deal with it. Do you accept the inconsistency to maintain the relationship and pretend it’s not an issue, or do you sever the relationship and focus on building social roots elsewhere? Not an easy question.
  9. I’ve started smoking three to five cigars per week, as well as enjoying adult cocktails (not to the point of intoxication!) more frequently. Usually while reading the news and commentary of the day. The practice marks a successful way of unwinding — of creating a wall of separation between “work time” and “personal time.” A salutary habit, even if I get grief for the alcohol and tobacco by various do-gooders in my life.

My 34th year, all told, wasn’t bad. Things went reasonably well at the hospital, I had my best year yet as a freelancer, I moved into a comfortable downtown apartment, I’ve slimmed down and am more fit than a year ago, and my finances have stabilized in the green. I went to Vegas twice and Miami Beach once. These are all good things — perhaps a platform to grow upon in the year to come.

Personal, Vices

Jason’s Vegas Vacation: A Recap

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What better way to celebrate being closer to age 70 than to one’s birth, than to celebrate in style in The Happiest Place on Earth? Last week, to honor All Things Gillikin ™, Tony and I — with his wife’s forbearance — went to Las Vegas on a terrific offer from the Wynn. Herewith a recapitulation of the festivities.

Monday

I arrived in Lansing at 4 p.m. Tony drove us to Detroit Metro; we hopped a non-stop flight on Spirit Airlines from DTW to LAS at 9 p.m. Before departure, I received gifts including a grab-bag of travel goodies from Tony’s parents. When we hit Detroit, Tony bought us each a scratch-off lottery ticket. My ticket won: A sign of things to come. After grabbing some delicious food at Earl of Sandwich, we hopped aboard and enjoyed several mini-bottles of Johnnie Walker Black on the flight.

Once in Vegas, we caught a shuttle to the Flamingo, where Tony got us one comped night. After a free and unrequested upgrade to a Go! Room, we hoofed it to Bally’s for a bit of video poker, then to Cosmopolitan for a slice of “hidden pizza” — “hidden,” because the tiny little pizza joint isn’t on any resort map and resides at the end of an out-of-the-way, nondescript corridor. The pizza was pretty good, but the customers behind us appeared to be intoxicated Jersey Shore cast party rejects, so we bailed after plowing through our slices. We returned to the Flamingo and went to sleep.

Tuesday

After making Tony über-crabby (I dared to turn on a light in the room before noon), we checked out of the Flamingo, stored our bags with the bell desk then walked back to Cosmopolitan for brunch at Wicked Spoon buffet. From there, we ambled to Mandalay Bay for cigars at the Davidoff store, then we took the Las Vegas Monorail back to Bally’s. Our destination was Book & Stage, a sports bar in the Cosmo.

Book & Stage was a treat: The drinks were all comped as long as we played video poker. And it wasn’t well-drink crap, either — we pushed their mixology to a significant degree, including Scotch cocktails, top-shelf rum and vodka. Hats off to Cori and Danny, our bartenders, who made the gaming experience there as pleasant as it was “lubricating.” As I recall, I broke even during game play, but if we had ordered drinks like what we had enjoyed for free, our tab would have been north of $150.

After retrieving our bags from Flamingo, we caught a cab to Wynn. We had a kick-ass offer from Wynn: Three free nights, $200/night in food and beverage credit and $1,000 in free slot play. Yes. You read that correctly. Plus, we had a parlor suite in the Wynn Tower Suites (almost 1,300 square feet, with an average daily room rate of $1,216) — a hotel inside a hotel, with its own private café, elevator banks, pool, exterior entrance, concierge and reception desk. Oh, and its own private entrance to high-stakes Baccarat. We were in the part of Vegas normally reserved to the ultra-high-roller set, and it showed. I couldn’t complain about the service of Wynn employees if you paid me to nit-pick details.

Dinner that night came courtesy of Sinatra at Encore — a high-end steakhouse with a Frank Sinatra (duh) theme. With gratuity, the meal was roughly $250 for the two of us. My fillet was seared to perfection; our server, Robert, delivered impeccable service; and our table near the windows overlooking the outdoor gardens would have been the height of romance had my dining companion not been Tony.

Our gullets having been satiated, we meandered over to the Wynn casino floor. Lori at the Red Card kiosk very pleasantly and transparently authorized $1,000 in slot credit on my player’s card — no hassle, no “really? what’s your confirmation number and give me a notarized copy of your birth certificate” nonsense. I played through the $1,000 on 50-cent triple play bonus poker (i.e., $7.50 per hand). Came out in good shape; after I played through the slot credit, I cashed out for $1,220, which I split with Tony as per our agreement. Hitting a straight flush on all three lines helped, as well as hitting a pair of quads. And the kicker? As we were gambling, a Wynn casino attendant stopped by and gave me an extra $10 in free slot play “just to say thanks for visiting us today.” We continued to gamble … I think we ran through roughly $6,000 after the free play and I ended up being “up” even factoring out the free play. Not bad for a night’s work.

Wednesday

Wednesday was Downtown Day. After chasing the comp at Wynn (and note to self: never remind Tony that I charged him $25 to play $1 triple-play video poker to get him the points to get free buffet — chasing the comp cost us about $10 more than cost of the meal tickets) we enjoyed Wynn buffet. From there, we went to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace and bought cigars at the Casa Fuente store — mine was a buttery, rich Fuente Fuente Opus X.

Much of Wednesday was spent at Caesar’s. We gambled on Tony’s players’ card to get him back to Platinum with the Total Rewards program. I lost $110; he lost $400 — but for him, it was the principle of the thing.

We stopped at a bar on the way back and had a couple of flavored martinis. Dinner was at Switch — a steakhouse at Encore that had great food, excellent wine and every so often, the decor changes. The ceiling and several wall panels rotate and fold so that the appearance of the restaurant changes. The lights switch color and intensity and the music modulates to match. Quite pretty. Costed about $250.

From Switch, we caught a cab to Golden Nugget. I had never been downtown before, so we walked through the Fremont Street Experience and all the casinos contained therein. Downtown is “old school” Las Vegas — some slot machines still have slots for nickels and pay out in nickels (grab a bucket!). The Fremont Street Experience itself is a covered walkway with LED lights on the roof that display light shows. The theme this year is the 1980s, so we got to see shows blaring to anthems from Queen, KISS, etc. I enjoyed my Fuente Fuente Opus X as we rotated around casinos, playing slots here and there and otherwise just watching. We spent an hour or so playing craps and table games at (I think) Four Queens and ended up the evening playing slots at El Cortez before catching a taxi back to Wynn, although we did put in a brief appearance at Insert Coins, a bar/club with vintage video games everywhere. Before we left downtown, we tried the zip line: You get harnessed up at five stories above the merriment on Fremont Street, then shoot down a quarter-mile-long cable to the other end of the district. Quite fun.

Thursday

Happy Birthday to Me. We enjoyed breakfast at Bellagio’s buffet, then walked through several different casinos playing penny slots until we ended up at Bally’s to play one verrrrrry slow five-game round of keno (I actually broke even, go figure) and then video poker. Our favorite cocktail waitress, Diane, was working and ensured that our Bacardi-and-diets flowed swiftly and stiffly. Visits to Diane have become something of a habit; she is a cocktail waitress at Bally’s who impressed us by remembering us from between visits a few years ago. She’s turned into our “Vegas friend” and we congratulate her on her recent marriage.

After gambling a good long while, we returned to Wynn, napped a bit, then hoofed to SW Steakhouse for a $350 dinner. We began with cocktails: Tony bought us each a snifter of Johnnie Walker Blue (best $100 he spent the whole trip) then we sat down for dinner. We both had fillets, with shared gourmet mac-and-cheese and scalloped potatoes. Plus a tasty dessert and a half-bottle of really nice pinot.

Our plan for the night was to visit Imperial Palace for karaoke, a Jason and Tony tradition. However, we first walked down to Riviera (we think it’s on the short list for the next casino closure) and over to “Slots o’ Fun” and Circus Circus before walking back. After a detour into Walgreen’s for water, we hoofed it into the scary no-man’s land of failed casinos down Convention Center Drive, including the former Greek Isles Casino (which was the former Debbie Reynolds Casino, of all things). There were maybe two dozen slot machines in there, plus cockroaches all along the sidewalk out front. If ever a casino had a buffet that served “some of the yeller” — this is it.

But instead of heading to the I.P., we called it a night early.

Friday

After a luxurious morning — including a relaxing soak in the whirlpool bath — we walked to The Mirage for breakfast buffet, then to Paris Las Vegas for souvenirs for our peeps in da Michigan hood. We returned to the Wynn, checked out, and waited for our shuttle bus. Wynn offered to send a car for us, but I figured we had already paid for the shuttle. This calculation proved regrettable: The shuttle was almost 45 minutes late, and would have dropped us off at McCarran with far less lead time than we would have preferred. So, we got off the shuttle at Palazzo and caught a cab to the airport (courtesy of a driver whose conversation was as fast and as disjointed as a chipmunk on amphetamines). We got on, caught our flight out, and life was good. We connected through O’Hare, but we ended up saying on the same plane, with the same punchy flight attendants, for the Detroit leg.

Our ride from DTW back to Lansing was uneventful; I played some of the Rush 24×7 podcast for us. My drive back to Grand Rapids was quiet and peaceful. I got home and crashed around 4 a.m.

… and thus, All Things Gillikin came to an end. And all told, after all the cigars and gambling and drinking and fine dining, I came home only $200 lighter than when I left. Not bad. Not bad, at all — and perhaps a harbinger of good things to come for the second half of my useful life.

Personal, Vices

Jason's Vegas Vacation: A Recap

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What better way to celebrate being closer to age 70 than to one’s birth, than to celebrate in style in The Happiest Place on Earth? Last week, to honor All Things Gillikin ™, Tony and I — with his wife’s forbearance — went to Las Vegas on a terrific offer from the Wynn. Herewith a recapitulation of the festivities.
Monday
I arrived in Lansing at 4 p.m. Tony drove us to Detroit Metro; we hopped a non-stop flight on Spirit Airlines from DTW to LAS at 9 p.m. Before departure, I received gifts including a grab-bag of travel goodies from Tony’s parents. When we hit Detroit, Tony bought us each a scratch-off lottery ticket. My ticket won: A sign of things to come. After grabbing some delicious food at Earl of Sandwich, we hopped aboard and enjoyed several mini-bottles of Johnnie Walker Black on the flight.
Once in Vegas, we caught a shuttle to the Flamingo, where Tony got us one comped night. After a free and unrequested upgrade to a Go! Room, we hoofed it to Bally’s for a bit of video poker, then to Cosmopolitan for a slice of “hidden pizza” — “hidden,” because the tiny little pizza joint isn’t on any resort map and resides at the end of an out-of-the-way, nondescript corridor. The pizza was pretty good, but the customers behind us appeared to be intoxicated Jersey Shore cast party rejects, so we bailed after plowing through our slices. We returned to the Flamingo and went to sleep.
Tuesday
After making Tony über-crabby (I dared to turn on a light in the room before noon), we checked out of the Flamingo, stored our bags with the bell desk then walked back to Cosmopolitan for brunch at Wicked Spoon buffet. From there, we ambled to Mandalay Bay for cigars at the Davidoff store, then we took the Las Vegas Monorail back to Bally’s. Our destination was Book & Stage, a sports bar in the Cosmo.
Book & Stage was a treat: The drinks were all comped as long as we played video poker. And it wasn’t well-drink crap, either — we pushed their mixology to a significant degree, including Scotch cocktails, top-shelf rum and vodka. Hats off to Cori and Danny, our bartenders, who made the gaming experience there as pleasant as it was “lubricating.” As I recall, I broke even during game play, but if we had ordered drinks like what we had enjoyed for free, our tab would have been north of $150.
After retrieving our bags from Flamingo, we caught a cab to Wynn. We had a kick-ass offer from Wynn: Three free nights, $200/night in food and beverage credit and $1,000 in free slot play. Yes. You read that correctly. Plus, we had a parlor suite in the Wynn Tower Suites (almost 1,300 square feet, with an average daily room rate of $1,216) — a hotel inside a hotel, with its own private café, elevator banks, pool, exterior entrance, concierge and reception desk. Oh, and its own private entrance to high-stakes Baccarat. We were in the part of Vegas normally reserved to the ultra-high-roller set, and it showed. I couldn’t complain about the service of Wynn employees if you paid me to nit-pick details.
Dinner that night came courtesy of Sinatra at Encore — a high-end steakhouse with a Frank Sinatra (duh) theme. With gratuity, the meal was roughly $250 for the two of us. My fillet was seared to perfection; our server, Robert, delivered impeccable service; and our table near the windows overlooking the outdoor gardens would have been the height of romance had my dining companion not been Tony.
Our gullets having been satiated, we meandered over to the Wynn casino floor. Lori at the Red Card kiosk very pleasantly and transparently authorized $1,000 in slot credit on my player’s card — no hassle, no “really? what’s your confirmation number and give me a notarized copy of your birth certificate” nonsense. I played through the $1,000 on 50-cent triple play bonus poker (i.e., $7.50 per hand). Came out in good shape; after I played through the slot credit, I cashed out for $1,220, which I split with Tony as per our agreement. Hitting a straight flush on all three lines helped, as well as hitting a pair of quads. And the kicker? As we were gambling, a Wynn casino attendant stopped by and gave me an extra $10 in free slot play “just to say thanks for visiting us today.” We continued to gamble … I think we ran through roughly $6,000 after the free play and I ended up being “up” even factoring out the free play. Not bad for a night’s work.
Wednesday
Wednesday was Downtown Day. After chasing the comp at Wynn (and note to self: never remind Tony that I charged him $25 to play $1 triple-play video poker to get him the points to get free buffet — chasing the comp cost us about $10 more than cost of the meal tickets) we enjoyed Wynn buffet. From there, we went to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace and bought cigars at the Casa Fuente store — mine was a buttery, rich Fuente Fuente Opus X.
Much of Wednesday was spent at Caesar’s. We gambled on Tony’s players’ card to get him back to Platinum with the Total Rewards program. I lost $110; he lost $400 — but for him, it was the principle of the thing.
We stopped at a bar on the way back and had a couple of flavored martinis. Dinner was at Switch — a steakhouse at Encore that had great food, excellent wine and every so often, the decor changes. The ceiling and several wall panels rotate and fold so that the appearance of the restaurant changes. The lights switch color and intensity and the music modulates to match. Quite pretty. Costed about $250.
From Switch, we caught a cab to Golden Nugget. I had never been downtown before, so we walked through the Fremont Street Experience and all the casinos contained therein. Downtown is “old school” Las Vegas — some slot machines still have slots for nickels and pay out in nickels (grab a bucket!). The Fremont Street Experience itself is a covered walkway with LED lights on the roof that display light shows. The theme this year is the 1980s, so we got to see shows blaring to anthems from Queen, KISS, etc. I enjoyed my Fuente Fuente Opus X as we rotated around casinos, playing slots here and there and otherwise just watching. We spent an hour or so playing craps and table games at (I think) Four Queens and ended up the evening playing slots at El Cortez before catching a taxi back to Wynn, although we did put in a brief appearance at Insert Coins, a bar/club with vintage video games everywhere. Before we left downtown, we tried the zip line: You get harnessed up at five stories above the merriment on Fremont Street, then shoot down a quarter-mile-long cable to the other end of the district. Quite fun.
Thursday
Happy Birthday to Me. We enjoyed breakfast at Bellagio’s buffet, then walked through several different casinos playing penny slots until we ended up at Bally’s to play one verrrrrry slow five-game round of keno (I actually broke even, go figure) and then video poker. Our favorite cocktail waitress, Diane, was working and ensured that our Bacardi-and-diets flowed swiftly and stiffly. Visits to Diane have become something of a habit; she is a cocktail waitress at Bally’s who impressed us by remembering us from between visits a few years ago. She’s turned into our “Vegas friend” and we congratulate her on her recent marriage.
After gambling a good long while, we returned to Wynn, napped a bit, then hoofed to SW Steakhouse for a $350 dinner. We began with cocktails: Tony bought us each a snifter of Johnnie Walker Blue (best $100 he spent the whole trip) then we sat down for dinner. We both had fillets, with shared gourmet mac-and-cheese and scalloped potatoes. Plus a tasty dessert and a half-bottle of really nice pinot.
Our plan for the night was to visit Imperial Palace for karaoke, a Jason and Tony tradition. However, we first walked down to Riviera (we think it’s on the short list for the next casino closure) and over to “Slots o’ Fun” and Circus Circus before walking back. After a detour into Walgreen’s for water, we hoofed it into the scary no-man’s land of failed casinos down Convention Center Drive, including the former Greek Isles Casino (which was the former Debbie Reynolds Casino, of all things). There were maybe two dozen slot machines in there, plus cockroaches all along the sidewalk out front. If ever a casino had a buffet that served “some of the yeller” — this is it.
But instead of heading to the I.P., we called it a night early.
Friday
After a luxurious morning — including a relaxing soak in the whirlpool bath — we walked to The Mirage for breakfast buffet, then to Paris Las Vegas for souvenirs for our peeps in da Michigan hood. We returned to the Wynn, checked out, and waited for our shuttle bus. Wynn offered to send a car for us, but I figured we had already paid for the shuttle. This calculation proved regrettable: The shuttle was almost 45 minutes late, and would have dropped us off at McCarran with far less lead time than we would have preferred. So, we got off the shuttle at Palazzo and caught a cab to the airport (courtesy of a driver whose conversation was as fast and as disjointed as a chipmunk on amphetamines). We got on, caught our flight out, and life was good. We connected through O’Hare, but we ended up saying on the same plane, with the same punchy flight attendants, for the Detroit leg.
Our ride from DTW back to Lansing was uneventful; I played some of the Rush 24×7 podcast for us. My drive back to Grand Rapids was quiet and peaceful. I got home and crashed around 4 a.m.
… and thus, All Things Gillikin came to an end. And all told, after all the cigars and gambling and drinking and fine dining, I came home only $200 lighter than when I left. Not bad. Not bad, at all — and perhaps a harbinger of good things to come for the second half of my useful life.

Personal, Philosophy, Religion, Vices

Sabbath

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After returning home this evening from a laborious day at the office, I retired to the verandah to enjoy a cigar (A. Fuente Rosado Gran Reserva R54), a cocktail (a Sazerac — a rye-based drink with bitters, simple syrup and a hint of absinthe) and the current issue of Cigar Aficianado magazine.  While reading the feature interview with Matthew McConaughey, and especially the parts about the launch of his career, a thought occurred to me: The reason I so enjoyed the billowing smoke and sweet beverage and the early-spring sun was because the whole experience was, in a way, sabbath.

Yes, yes. I know; Sabbath — I can hear you say the word with a capital S — is a religious thing. It’s the stuff of Judeo-Christian tradition, whereby people don’t do manual labor on Sunday and … um … like go to church or something. It’s hard to argue with 3,000 years of recorded history.

Yet small-S sabbath is vital for one’s mental health. We all need downtime. We need to take time to escape from the worries and cares of the day to unwind and enjoy the moment. Too many take too few such opportunities, even if briefly.

I burned the candle from both ends in the wild and crazy days of my youth. I’d get up by 7 a.m., go to work, then drive 60 miles south for school, then return. One semester, I made the Grand Rapids-to-Kalamazoo trek twice daily. And through it all, rare was the day I’d be home before midnight. In those days such schedules were routine; I never had any extended and uncommitted time, and even my weekends were filled with work and church volunteering and sundry social events.

Six years ago I kicked that habit and downsized most of my day’s schedule. It took a full three months before I could come home at night and have no commitments and not feel stressed out that I should be doing something. Now I find that if I go too long without a break, I get surly and tired.

We need sabbath. We need periods of rest to recharge our emotional and spiritual batteries. We need to take time to enjoy the small things without the guilt pangs that come from thinking we should be occupied with that huge to-do list. Without real rest, we get stressed to the point when enjoyment of any kind becomes a fleeting thing.

I’ve been tinkering with the idea of taking an entire day each week, perhaps Sunday, to do nothing but vegetate. Read, go for a walk, go out for breakfast, watch the latest delight from Netflix, whatever. Just not anything I must do. That’s why this evening’s 90 minutes of relaxation proved so refreshing, because I had spent most of last weekend writing papers and running errands and otherwise being busy. As a wise philosopher once said, “No downtime and no beer make Homer go … something-something.”

It’s cliche to suggest we all should stop every now and then to smell the roses. Yet without sabbath, we never manage plant the rose bushes in our souls that allow us to enjoy the sweet fragrance in the first place. No one is so busy that he cannot profit from real and regular sabbath and learn to enjoy the moment before the moments worth enjoying become the unplumbed regrets of old age.

Vices

Cigar Review: Davidoff Special < < R > > (Guest Post)

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My dear friend Tony submits the following review of the Davidoff Special < < R > >:

Jason,

I just finished a Davidoff Special < < R > > (that’s the correct title, not an email translation glitch) and wanted to share how disappointed I was with this smoke.

I was very excited to smoke this usually fine, high-quality brand cigar. I removed it from my humidor which is perfectly set at 69 percent humidity thanks to the Bovida packet.

I removed the stick from its protective plastic wrap and observed the wrapper leaf had noticeable veins. I didn’t think much of it, and am still not concerned that it played much part in my disappointment.

I clip the head of the cigar and noticed that the tobacco seemed dry and it was quite noticeable that small pieces were falling out but I figured that it was the result of a less-than-sharp blade on my cutter. [Note to self, look into purchasing a new cutter, the one I own now is probably 7+ years old by now.]

I lit the stick and that’s where my *real* problems began! I could not get an even light all the way around the foot of the cigar! I got 96 percent of it lit, but that left a section of cigar un-lit and not burning. So, I twice worked the portion not yet lit. Success! Now I’m ready to enjoy my quality cigar, I thought. I chalked the poor lighting up to operator error.

But wait, what’s this? My cigar is so strong I get a noticeably light-head. No problem, I think, I’ll merely slow down my puff frequency to allow the nicotine to adjust within my lungs and blood stream. Oh, wait, the cigar went out. Grrrr…

I re-light and proceed to smoke it just enough to keep it lit and not vomit! If I were a smoker, this would be a lot easier. By this point, I allow myself to believe it’ll just be a stronger smoke than I usually like and was prepared to give this cigar a “B” rating, as I suspected that within a year or so, my tolerance would be built up that I would eventually enjoy and appreciate a bolder cigar.

As I get thru the first one-third of this cigar, I realize two things: One, taking a puff on this cigar was like puffing on the end of a paper towel roll! Obviously it does not have a ring size anywhere near that size, but it aptly describes what it was like to smoke it. It was like sucking straight, albeit smoky, air through a hollow tube, unfettered! The second thing I noticed was that it finally mellowed out and was the mild sort of smoke I’ve grown accustomed to with Davidoff! Maybe this smoke could bypass a “B+” and achieve an “A-” after all!

No such luck. The moment I flick the ash from the stick, the light goes out…AGAIN! So I re-light! And for the next 1/3 of the cigar, it was pure bliss! Still felt like I was sucking air thru a paper towel roll, but at least it was mild. So fine, I leave the ash on the cigar but flakes of ash continuously drop off it and all over me and my surroundings.
Now I’m down to the final one-third of the cigar and it gets HOT as it gets twice as strong as the first 1/3! Now here’s the deal: I expect the final 1/3-1/4 of a smoke to get hot. AND, I expect it to get stronger, perhaps even with a touch of acidity. I get it, there’s fire and there little tobacco left between said fire and my mouth. But this got hot to the touch that I had a rough time holding the cigar when I’d take puffs off it. Finally, I acknowledged the fact that I was done with this cigar.

My final grade for this smoke: C- and believe me, it hurts me as much to report this as it is for you to read it, no doubt. The only reason it didn’t get a “D” or worse is because (for a very brief amount of time) I did very much enjoy the middle one-third of the stick. But from the cutting to the cut-off, there were persistent problems with it that I just couldn’t overlook. Bad cut on my part? Perhaps. Poor light on my part, probably. Strong start? Fine, I’m open to trying something bolder. But then it going out, not holding a lite when removing ash, to starting my fingers on fire and smoking thru a paper towel roll…well, I’m hoping it was just a poorly constructed cigar and not anything indicative of what Davidoff is becoming. I look forward to smoking a $15+ cigar with nothing but calm and my thoughts from the week. This forced me to focus all my attention on it, instead of my ups & downs of the days previous. I’ve neither the time nor the patience for this level of maintenance for a temperamental cigar.

Vices

Cigar Review: Davidoff Special < < R > > (Guest Post)

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My dear friend Tony submits the following review of the Davidoff Special < < R > >:

Jason,
I just finished a Davidoff Special < < R > > (that’s the correct title, not an email translation glitch) and wanted to share how disappointed I was with this smoke.
I was very excited to smoke this usually fine, high-quality brand cigar. I removed it from my humidor which is perfectly set at 69 percent humidity thanks to the Bovida packet.
I removed the stick from its protective plastic wrap and observed the wrapper leaf had noticeable veins. I didn’t think much of it, and am still not concerned that it played much part in my disappointment.
I clip the head of the cigar and noticed that the tobacco seemed dry and it was quite noticeable that small pieces were falling out but I figured that it was the result of a less-than-sharp blade on my cutter. [Note to self, look into purchasing a new cutter, the one I own now is probably 7+ years old by now.]
I lit the stick and that’s where my *real* problems began! I could not get an even light all the way around the foot of the cigar! I got 96 percent of it lit, but that left a section of cigar un-lit and not burning. So, I twice worked the portion not yet lit. Success! Now I’m ready to enjoy my quality cigar, I thought. I chalked the poor lighting up to operator error.
But wait, what’s this? My cigar is so strong I get a noticeably light-head. No problem, I think, I’ll merely slow down my puff frequency to allow the nicotine to adjust within my lungs and blood stream. Oh, wait, the cigar went out. Grrrr…
I re-light and proceed to smoke it just enough to keep it lit and not vomit! If I were a smoker, this would be a lot easier. By this point, I allow myself to believe it’ll just be a stronger smoke than I usually like and was prepared to give this cigar a “B” rating, as I suspected that within a year or so, my tolerance would be built up that I would eventually enjoy and appreciate a bolder cigar.
As I get thru the first one-third of this cigar, I realize two things: One, taking a puff on this cigar was like puffing on the end of a paper towel roll! Obviously it does not have a ring size anywhere near that size, but it aptly describes what it was like to smoke it. It was like sucking straight, albeit smoky, air through a hollow tube, unfettered! The second thing I noticed was that it finally mellowed out and was the mild sort of smoke I’ve grown accustomed to with Davidoff! Maybe this smoke could bypass a “B+” and achieve an “A-” after all!
No such luck. The moment I flick the ash from the stick, the light goes out…AGAIN! So I re-light! And for the next 1/3 of the cigar, it was pure bliss! Still felt like I was sucking air thru a paper towel roll, but at least it was mild. So fine, I leave the ash on the cigar but flakes of ash continuously drop off it and all over me and my surroundings.
Now I’m down to the final one-third of the cigar and it gets HOT as it gets twice as strong as the first 1/3! Now here’s the deal: I expect the final 1/3-1/4 of a smoke to get hot. AND, I expect it to get stronger, perhaps even with a touch of acidity. I get it, there’s fire and there little tobacco left between said fire and my mouth. But this got hot to the touch that I had a rough time holding the cigar when I’d take puffs off it. Finally, I acknowledged the fact that I was done with this cigar.
My final grade for this smoke: C- and believe me, it hurts me as much to report this as it is for you to read it, no doubt. The only reason it didn’t get a “D” or worse is because (for a very brief amount of time) I did very much enjoy the middle one-third of the stick. But from the cutting to the cut-off, there were persistent problems with it that I just couldn’t overlook. Bad cut on my part? Perhaps. Poor light on my part, probably. Strong start? Fine, I’m open to trying something bolder. But then it going out, not holding a lite when removing ash, to starting my fingers on fire and smoking thru a paper towel roll…well, I’m hoping it was just a poorly constructed cigar and not anything indicative of what Davidoff is becoming. I look forward to smoking a $15+ cigar with nothing but calm and my thoughts from the week. This forced me to focus all my attention on it, instead of my ups & downs of the days previous. I’ve neither the time nor the patience for this level of maintenance for a temperamental cigar.