Something About a Well-Packed Bowl

I don't know if you remember 'head' shops, those funky little places where you could buy bongs, and glass or metal pipes, roach clips, UV reactive posters, all sorts of stuff like that that was designed to enhance your 'high.'

Then, after a couple of years, and lots of busts, they pretty much disappeared from view. Not necessarily all gone, just not anywhere as plentiful as there had been. That is, until now. They're all over the intertubes. It's like the internet has become a giant head shop.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, allow me to 'splain.' Many years ago, I used to smoke a pipe. Tobacco pipes, to be exact. I had a nice collection of pipes, and all the tools and other accouterments that went along with tobacco pipe smoking. Then, I gave it up. Sold my collection and all the other stuff.

Till now. I've had a hankering to take up pipe smoking once again. I guess you could say, that monkey never left my shoulder. That may be. But, I do miss playing with pipes, and of course, I miss the taste and the smell of a fine blend of pipe tobacco.

So, I began looking on the intertubes and using Google. That's where the headshop analogy came in. Everybody is selling bongs, glass pipes, metal pipes, rolling papers, rolling machines, etc., etc., etc. You actually have to look somewhat carefully to find websites dealing exclusively with tobacco and pipes.

Back in the day, my favorite tobacconist was Tinderbox, and my favorite blend as North Seas. Well, lo and behold, they're still in business (https://www.tinderbox.com/) and, they still sell North Seas. What a find! But, there's also some other fine pipe shops online. For example, Smoking Pipes.com (https://www.smokingpipes.com/). Their motto: 'Fresh Pipes Served Daily.'

Smoking Pipes carries an amazing line of pipes and tobaccos. Their pipes are gorgeous, but range a bit too upscale for my smoke. Their tobaccos, many of which are available in traditional tins, is really a world-class selection.

So, I needed to find a more economical sourse. What better place online for used stuff than eBay? There's nothing wrong with used tobacco pipes. In the pipe world, they're referred to as 'estate' pipes. You can score significant savings on eBay by participating in auctions. It's easy and fun. Sometimes too easy and too fun.

The only downside, once you've scored an estate pipe, is the rehabilitation of the pipe you just won. But, that's part of the fun of pipes. Sooner or later, you have to overhaul or rehab pipes that you might have purchased new, so it's chance to practice new skills, and the plus side, is that you end up with a pipe, that is as good as new, but cost you significantly less.

Here's the pipes I got on eBay:

A little cleaning and some polishing and this one should be one cool smoke. I'm looking forward to this one for some reason. I just like its lines.

Butz Choquin Dauphine Rhodesian

This one, I'm really taken with the shape. It's light, a few slight dings around the bowl, and the stem needs some TLC, but when it's done, should also be a fine smoke.

Bruce Peters Bent Billiard

I had an Oom Paul (Dutch for Uncle Paul) meerschaum years ago. I loved it. This will be a close second once it's cleaned and shined up.

Wally Frank Red Root Oom Paul

I'm still waiting for this one to arrive via USPS and Belize Post. It was really cheap and even better, it's unsmoked. Right out of the box, fire that puppy up.

Bando Full Bent Apple Briar

Then, this bomber. My bid of $7.00 US was the winning bid. Wow. It looks massive but is quite light, and like the Bando above, has never been smoked. Even cooler, it came all the way from Poland!

Oom Paul Freehand Briar
By Nowakowski, Poland

Now, I'm just waiting on tools, pipe cleaners, a reamer, some stem wax, and a pot of carnauba wax. That'll get me started for sure.

As for a fire starter, there's a ton of butane or Zippo-type lighters out there, but I'm a purist, as far as pipe smoking goes. I like matches. I've got two full packs of 10 boxes of matches, ready to go. I'd like to eventually get some sulfur-free matches. They improve the taste a bit, and you don't have to wait for the sulfur to burn off.

Oh, yes. The other important part that I'm waiting for is tobacco. That's kind of necessary with this hobby. I've ordered six tins of tobacco from Smoking Pipes.

First Three Tins

Second Three Tins

All six come highly recommended. I'm looking forward to giving each of them a try or two.

A quick note about importing tobacco into Belize. It ain't easy - or cheap. The duty is 100% for starters, then there's GST (Goods and Services Tax) and probably an environmental fee. Thankfully, each is only about 1.5 ounces so the overall cost will be bearable, or smokable, as the case may be. The tobacco won't show up till next month (October) sometime.

Power Supply Stops Supplying Power

It just wouldn't seem natural down here if something didn't break.

Case in point. My desktop PC has been acting squirrelly (that's a technical term, by the way) for months. About two weeks ago, it hit the breaking point.

When I would turn on the PC, the fan would start, and promptly stop. The cursor arrow would show up, and that was about all. A dark screen. Then, if I left it alone for a few minutes, the screen saver would start and work normally too. Joggle the mouse and the screensaver would vanish just like it was supposed to. But you would still have a dark featureless screen. After a week of that, I couldn't even get it to pretend to start. No fan, no curser. In short no nothing.

In case you might have been wondering why I slacked off on the posts, again... here's the reason why. Oh, sure. I could have made little posts with my iPad, but with my past experience with that, it's less than satisfactory. It's easier to wait till things get fixed and I can do postings using the desktop PC.

I futzed around using my iPad, trying to find a cause for the woes with the PC. I finally landed on HP's tech support site and went through a troubleshooting questionnaire they had. This indicated that the trouble was the power supply. Ok. I knew what the power supply was and where in my PC it was located.

What I didn't have was the HP part number. That took some more surfing to ferret that out. Once I found what the part number was, it was obvious. Right on the label of the power supply was the number, front and center. But, if you didn't know what that number was, there was nothing on the power supply to give you a hint.

With the number in hand, I jumped on the intertubes with my iPad and looked diligently at eBay and Amazon.com. The only real true match was on Amazon where I found a used one for $40.00 US. Well, hell. I already had a used one. That didn't strike me as a particularly good deal.

There were several power supplies in same 'family', that is, with similar part numbers and a similar look but very different power ratings, etc. The prices for those were not similar. They were going for $110.00 US and up. Not such a good deal either.

I then had the bright idea to take the power supply to our local computer professionals. I decided to take it out of the PC with the hope that it could either be repaired or replaced. I took the following photos just as a reminder to me of where everything went when I reassembled it.

This Little Plug Goes Here

Just for your edification and enlightenment, the '20/24 ATX plug' powers the motherboard. Then there's the 'ATX P4 plug' which also plugs into the motherboard. Its sole purpose is to provide power for the processor, which is attached to the motherboard.

This Littler Plug Goes Here

There's a little plug called a 'MOLEX plug' that connects the hard disk and other drives. More than likely, there's at least one 'SATA plug.'

This One Goes Beside the Blue Pin

This powers SATA standard hard drives. Finally, if the PC is for gaming, it probably has a 'PCI Express plug' that provides power only for graphics cards.

Now you've been exposed to enough terminology to get yourself deeper in kimchi than you probably should.


I started with Fred Orio at Corozal Virtual Office. I should have left it with him. Instead, I simply asked if he had any used PCs for sale that I could dump my hard drive into and carry on. He didn't.

So, I stopped over at Blue PC. He said he could probably fix the power supply. If not, he could a power supply to fit. So, I left PC and power supply with him.

Unfortunately, three days later, there had been no progress. I took my toys and went home. As a last resort before seriously trying to find an exact match in power supplies in the states, I called Fred that evening and asked him once again about the power supply.

He said to go ahead and bring it in, which I did. We talked a little and he said he'd play around with it and see what he could find out.

That brings us to this morning. I drove down to CVO and Fred greeted me with "It's an interesting morning." That was strange. I thought at first he was indicating no joy on the repair. But he excitedly showed me my PC with the original power supply installed and powering his monitor as well as the PC, which was working. Wow.

Turns out he'd gone to a repair blog where someone who had had a similar problem recommended swapping out a couple of pins, so that was what he did, and it worked.

I told him that he was a miracle worker. I got off cheap on the repair too. $35.00BZD for a successful resurrection from the dead. I'm writing this on my newly restored PC and it feels great!