by Chris Lee

    Raise your hand if you’ve had the following experience: While visiting a tourist 
destination in a foreign country, you spot a souvenir of some kind at a street-side stand
 that piques your interest. Remembering the most important lesson you learned about 
shopping while traveling at locales such as this, you start haggling with the vendor. 
After some negotiation, you manage to talk the price down by 50%. “I am awesome!”, 
you think, admiring your new purchase…but only until you get back on the tour bus 
and a fellow traveler shows you the exact same item for which he paid half what you did. Read more

by Warren Wigutow

     Many years ago, before the turn of the last decade, in the year 2006, an event occurred that would shape the future of pipe history. A soon-to-be pipe legend named Bruce Weaver was eating a ballpark frank from his local deli, Castello’s. In his gustatory enthusiasm he squeezed a little too hard on the soft bun and precipitated the palette of his condiments on to his new starched white button-down shirt. This spray of primary and secondary colors fanned out across the cotton/poly blend like the mad genius brush strokes of a 50’s action painter. Weaver looked down at his newly decorated garment and exclaimed, “Here I am, 55 years old and here’s what I have to show for it!” Read more