Because of this, it’s incredibly painful to fold my hands to reach into my pockets and use fine manipulation. Pulling a lighter out of my pocket is literally impossible. Being unable to do simple tasks is frustrating.

Now, I figured out how to move everything to holsters, but when I fall down (which is getting more frequent), I end up either crushing what’s in the holsters, or really hurting myself where I landed on them.

Being annoyingly improvisational, I came up with this goofy pipe holster.

I loaded up a pouch with my pipe stuff. The snap hook you see on the back allows the pouch to move away from my body when I fall.

So here are the contents of my pipe holster. From left to right, top to bottom: pipe cleaners, backup disposable lighter, pipe (of course), pipe tool, fluid reservoir, lighter attached to belt snap, and the pouch itself.

Windcap clipped to chain. I just unclip it when I want to use it. To make the loop through the top of the windcap, I just bent a paperclip into a loop.

A pipe cleaner holder from Iwan Ries.

Zippo fuel canister. The skull attached to the clip makes it easier for me to pull it out of the holster.

Yep. Skull.

Zippo model 275. It comes with an elastic lanyard attached. Makes it easily retrievable if I drop it (boing!), and if the lanyard ever breaks, it’s easy to replace with a chain or something.

Pipe tool attached to key chain with a ball at the top. I can tuck the tool into the top of the holster, and the ball makes it easier to pull out.

I've got my eye on you... Why yes, that is an eyeball. Torn from a screaming… uh… insert your own enemy here. Eyeball keychain from Tech Optics.

Again, eyeball keychain from Tech Optics. For cheap entertainment, put it in someone’s soup.

You get two 1.5 oz. jars, one of the wax, and the other of the cleaner.

The only complaint I have is that other than the brief instructions on the label, you have to go to the website to get more detailed instructions.

Now, this was a totally unfair test. This pipe isn’t the victim of oxidation. It’s actually a new pipe stem that I dropped into a cup of coffee. That’s me, grace in motion.

Following the online instructions, I rubbed the stem with the cleaner until the stem felt smooth. Prior to this, the stem felt like, uh, something like sandpaper.

I decided to try the heavy duty clean as instructed on the website. Here I have the cleaner smeared on and left to dry for 30 minutes.

This is what the stem looked like after I wiped the now dried cleaner off.

I applied a new coat, and following the instructions, rubbed it in with a clean cloth until the cleaner was completely off.

This is the initial application of the carnuba wax. A little bit of hand buffing and this is what it came out like.

Honestly, I did a half-assed job, just because I wanted a single attempt at this thing. With more work, I’m certain I can get it to it’s original black.

I’m very pleased with the product.

By David Harris | Flint Journal

April 29, 2010, 9:00AM

Under the new law, only cigar bars, tobacco specialty stores and casinos will be allowed exemptions to the smoking ban.

Jeffrey LaMonde | The Flint Journal - Andrew W. Meadows, 45, of Flint, lights up a cigarette at Paul's Pipe Shop, 647 S. Saginaw in downtown Flint, Wednesday afternoon. After the smoking ban that goes into effect May 1st, places like Paul's Pipe Shop will be one of the few places patrons will still be allowed to smoke in. Under the new law, only cigar bars, tobacco specialty stores and casinos will be allowed exemptions to the smoking ban.

GENESEE COUNTY — Don’t call the cops if you see someone breaking the law by lighting up at a bar or restaurant this weekend — call the health department.

The Genesee County Health Department will be responsible for enforcing the new smoking rules when a statewide ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces goes into effect at 6 a.m. Saturday.

With just 13 workers available to regulate the ban at the county’s estimated 1,000 bars and restaurants, the health department has lined up nearly 30 volunteers to go undercover looking for smokers.

Nonsmoker Rick Snyder of Linden has doubts about how the law will be enforced.

“To me, it’s just setting up for society to be a bunch of lawbreakers,” said Snyder, 49.

Ann Goldon, health education coordinator for the GCHD, said the health department won’t start making unannounced visits to look for smokers until it receives complaints from patrons about a business.

If complaints continue after the health department talks with the establishment’s manager or owner, Goldon said someone will be sent to look for smokers.

Violators — individuals and businesses — can be fined up to $100 for a first offense and $500 for each additional offense. Repeated violations could cost a business its food service license or draw the attention of the state Liquor Control Commission.

County health officials say they will try to avoid fines and will try to work with the business.

“I anticipate there will be good compliance,” said Mark Valacak, county health officer. “The majority (of business owners) are in favor of the regulations.”

Don Vohwinkle, owner of Gina’s Pizza in Flushing, isn’t among the fans of the law and said he doesn’t like government telling him how to run his business.

“We’ve had quite a few customers that said they’ll be staying home (after the ban),” he said, adding he will comply with the law and expects most people will get used to it.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm in December signed the smoking ban into law to make most workplaces, restaurants and bars smoke-free.

Paul's Pipe Shop

Casinos and pipe shops, such as Paul’s Pipe Shop in Flint, are exempt.

But bowling alleys are not. Galaxy Lanes, 2226 E. Hill Road in Grand Blanc, will look a lot different, said owner Ken Hochstein.

He said he may lose some customers but also may gain more back who enjoy the smoke-free atmosphere.

“I think more people will come back,” he said. “People just can’t sit around and do nothing.”

Jack Kern, owner of Jack’s Place in Flushing, said the effect on his business will be minimal.

“I just don’t see it being a handicap,” he said. “It might take a month or two to adapt.”

Michigan will be the 38th state to add the law, and Goldon said enforcement was not much of a problem in those states.

The health benefits to the general public make the effort well worth it, said Goldon. Secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable deaths, according to the state Department of Community Health.

About 300 establishments in Genesee County have already gone smoke-free, Goldon said.

The law can’t come soon enough for Monte Frick, 45, of Goodrich.

Smoking ban

Beginning Saturday, Michigan will become the 38th state to implement a smoking ban. The law prohibits smoking in public places such as restaurants, bars and hotels. Below are answers to some commonly asked questions about the ban.

Q: Where can’t people smoke?
A: Public places, such as an auditorium, arena, theater and concert hall, food-service establishments and place of employment, unless exempted.

Q: Will smoking be allowed in private clubs such as Veterans of Foreign Wars halls?
A: No. If the place has employees and serves food or drink, it is considered a public place.

Q: Can employees or patrons smoke outside a business?
A: Yes, but there is no distance specified in the law for how far someone has to be from a no-smoking area to legally light up, although that distance can be governed by local ordinance in some communities. Genesee County area health officials recommend a smoker be a “reasonable distance” so that second-hand smoke doesn’t drift into the business. The person also must be in an outdoor area where food, drinks or both are not intended to be served or consumed.

Q: Can I smoke on the patio or deck of a bar?
A: No. The deck and other outdoor spaces are considered part of the establishment.

Q: What should businesses and employees do if someone is smoking?
A: Ask them to stop. If they continue to smoke, refuse service and ask them to leave. The state recommends “you communicate this incident with your staff and log it into any tracking mechanism your establishment may have to document your actions.”

Q: Can an individual or business be fined for failure to comply with the law?
A: Violators — individuals and businesses — can be fined up to $100 for a first offense and $500 for each additional offense. An establishment that doesn’t comply could lose its food-service license.

Q: What businesses are exempt?
A: Cigar bars, tobacco specialty retail stores and the gaming floors of some casinos. To allow smoking as a cigar bar, the establishment must make at least 10 percent of its profit from the sale of cigars and from humidors. Even then, customers can only smoke cigars. The law prohibits more cigar bars from opening in the state.

Q: What about a hookah lounge. Can I smoke there?
A: Hookah lounges may allow smoking under the provision of specialty tobacco shops. However, they are not allowed to sell food or drink as a specialty tobacco shop, although snacks from a vending machine are permitted under the law.

Q: Is smoking banned in hotel/motel rooms?
A: Yes.

Q: If a business only has a liquor license, does the new law apply?
A: Yes. The business is considered a food-service establishment based on an amendment to the Food Law Act.

Simon Reynolds
Last Updated: April 27. 2010 6:44PM UAE / April 27. 2010 2:44PM GMT

Saw a chap smoking a pipe the other day. He was sitting in a café in a mall, reading a newspaper and drawing contentedly on a pipe. And it occurred to me that I don’t remember when last I saw such a thing.

Now, you understand that I am not talking about a shisha, but the sort of thing smoked by Maigret, Harold Wilson, General MacArthur – and you’ll notice how far back in time I have had to go for examples.

It appears to be a practice that has gone underground in the past decade or so, a casualty no doubt of the anti-smoking climate. I know that the British Pipesmokers’ Council discontinued its Pipesmoker of the Year award in 2004, worried that the event might fall foul of new laws against the promotion of tobacco.

So it was refreshing in a way to see this fellow puffing away as he read his newspaper. It also stirred an atavistic yearning, mixing memory and desire (it is, after all, cruel April), taking me back more than 30 years to my own days as a pipe-smoker. Aesthetically, there are not many men who can get away with a pipe. Medically, I imagine the proportion is even smaller. But the unwitting agent of my rekindled hunger in the café could. He had the strong face and candid expression necessary to carry it off. I do not.

Nor did Bing Crosby. Watching him with that idiotic briar in Holiday Inn, for example, I just want to strangle the props supervisor. I similarly cringe when I come across old photographs of myself posing pompously with my pipe.

But the look of the thing aside, I did enjoy it. I lived in Harare then and used to smoke my first pipe of the day sitting outside on a chair tipped against a whitewashed wall, the warmth of the early sun tempering the lingering chill of the night air.

Eventually, of course, the chair broke, but that’s not why I gave up. That was the result of a doctor’s advice after I contracted a particularly obstinate chest infection.

I had a girlfriend who worked in a tobacconist’s shop – the one, you will not be surprised to learn, where I took my tobacco business – and she told me a story that in recollection has something of the quality of an urban myth.

It seems that a man who had bought a pipe in the shop returned after a month or two, complaining that the bowl had burnt through. And sure enough, there was a charred-looking hole in the back, just above the stem. Great consternation and embarrassment, of course; the pipe was replaced and the customer compensated with a couple of free packets of tobacco.

A similar interval later he was back. It had happened again: there was a hole you could put your little finger through. This time consternation gave way to incredulity and they asked him how and where he smoked. “I’m a taxi driver, and I like to smoke on the road,” he replied. Didn’t his passengers object? “Yes, so I drive with my window open.”

Never mind the bowl of the pipe in the resulting inferno, I thought. The fellow must have had a tongue like asbestos.

Ahem, anyway, in lieu of anything else: pretty girl, pipe, and a hat. Not sure about the hat, but there you go anyway…

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: February 15, 2010

Pipe and cigar smokers may say they don’t inhale, but a new study suggests otherwise.

The study, based on breathing tests in people ages 48 to 90, found that the pipe and cigar smokers had more than double the risk for abnormal lung function that contributes to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a leading cause of death — even if they abstained from cigarettes. Those who also smoked cigarettes were at more than triple the risk.

Of the 3,528 subjects, all of them participants in heart disease research, 56 had smoked only pipes or cigars; 428 smoked pipes or cigars along with cigarettes; and 1,424 smoked only cigarettes.

Pipe and cigar smokers also had higher levels of the nicotine byproduct cotinine than nonsmokers, though less than what is typically found in cigarette smokers, according to the study, published in the Feb. 15 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The senior author, Dr. R. Graham Barr, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center, said other studies had linked cigar and pipe smoking with heart disease, lung cancer and oral cancers. “I think it’s mainly a myth that they don’t inhale,” he said.

colors of night by ~kurobane260 on deviantART

Pipe ID by ~Quiet-Sam on deviantART

Hillbilly Bass by ~oddlead on deviantART

January 23rd, 2010

H.R. 4439, the Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010 was introduced on January 13, 2010 and would raise the tax on pipe tobacco 775% from $2.8311 to $24.78 per pound.

As a service to the pipe smoking community and the industry of pipe makers and pipe tobacco producers we have set up a free service that will automatically send emails to your Senators and Congressmen.

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A tax increase of 775% on anything is ludicrous. This will kill many small businesses and an historical tradition.

Download the bill here