E-cigs - Safe or Not!

Alright. I'm not trying to be an expert on this subject. I don't even own an e-cig. I do, however have brother that invests a bunch of money into his mod. Before he got into that, he would smoke a pack-a-day or something of the like. But since he switched he's been a huge advocate for the use of vaping as a cessation for smoking. When he smoked his normal cigarettes it sucked. His clothes stank, his breath stank, and he looked like he was five years older than he was. Still in his 20's, you could see the old baseball effect on his face. It was gross. Somewhere he heard of e-cigs and made the switch. It didn't take long for him to notice a difference in himself. He had more energy, his friends and family would hug him without wincing, but the biggest thing he noticed was that he could taste food! I don't smoke, but, damn.

Since then I've had a positive outlook on e-cigs and the like. Hell, I sort of thought it was cool. With the mod he had last year when I saw him last, he could do a "dragon effect" where when exhaling, a thick cloud of smoke would be blown out. Cool, huh? My brother even sent me articles to read online about the culture and use, as well as updates to government regulation.

From what I understand the "ejuice" used in these vapes is pretty simple. The formula being fairly simple: a vegetable glycerin/propylene glycol mixture (with the former being the base usually 80-90% of the mixture, with the latter being the thick smoke component, also used in fog machines [which we've all inhaled a little bit a da club. You know what's up], flavoring which is food grade (the same stuff you cook with), pharmaceutical grade nicotine, and sometimes water to dilute the stuff. Also with a shit load of flavors available from cooking supply stores, you might have a hard time deciding which flavor of ejuice to try.

So you stick this juice in your vape mod where the battery operated device heats up the juice with a cartomizer to vaper which is inhaled and exhaled, resulting in a bad-ass behavioral attitude.

The debate is over the safety of vaping. This type of inhalation of nicotine hasn't been around for very long resulting in very few studies. No chance of longitudinal studies for long term results. But the little research that is out there doesn't tell us much. The latest study the New England Journal of Medicine tells us that an unsafe amount of formaldehyde is present, as well as 10 known carcinogens.

I'm not writing this to tell everyone that these things are safe and without risk, but what I'm trying to do is put some information out there so people feel a little informed. The info that I've presented isn't documented very well, but I've read a bunch of articles, and if this information doesn't isn't read by anyone, fine, it's for me to get my thoughts out of my head.

To continue a little bit, cigarettes have 11,000 known toxins, and still a butt-load formaldehyde, and a bunch of other tar and things that get into your lungs. We've known that for a very long time. The few harmful things found in the inhaled vaper, aren't safe, and the trace amounts exposed to the human body have unknown effects. It's a risk. On the packages of cigarettes, they tell us that the cigarettes kill (at least that's what they say in Sweden).

E-cigs aren't currently regulated, but are being pushed to be regulated like tobacco even though there isn't a single ounce of tobacco in it. That's where it's a little bit stoopid. If the legislation comes down to where they are regulated like tobacco in the USA then a lot of rules change the whole market. I assume the cost of the ejuice will rise a ton because of taxes and other nonsense. I'm sure a bunch of providers of ejuice will not be able to continue for the increased overhead costs of abiding to such regulations.

Right now the movement brings about a lot of creativity with ejuice as well as the mods that people are vaping out of. I've known friends that have put down hundreds of dollars for their mods. Many of them end up looking like some kind of phalic light-saber these guys are continually sucking on. But as of now people have the ability do what they want in this non-regulated nicotine trip. That artistic creativity might also be lost to what "the man" might say.

Okay, almost done. Like I said, these things are not completely safe. Neither is fast food. Neither is alcohol, driving, walking down the street, or even risking not to slip while taking a shower. We have the right to choose how we want to live our life. Be informed and take risks to live an awesome life. So go out there and live.

Sara's Gone!

Hey all! Once again it has been awhile since I've updated. Deal with it! So here's my update:

Exciting news! Sara got into a program with the Swedish Military to become an aircraft technician. It all happened super fast. She found the offer and was scheduled for an interview the next week. This was the middle of December when this was happening. Anyway, we drove down to Gothenburg to go through the mental and physical examination to see if she would be fit for the position. She was also battling with a bunch of others for the same job. One thing that really sucked was that both of us were suffering from some pretty severe colds. So the morning of, Sara took a shit loads of meds and we left at 5 in the morning to head down to G-town. The interview stuff started around 8 or so, so we made sure that we were there on time. So basically no sleep (cause who really gets up at 4, and we're both unemployed which means that we're not used to going to bed till like midnight, and our minds were going crazy with excitement for the next day as well as fear for not waking up to our alarms) and pretty sick, we headed off to change our stars.

The weather was cold and rainy, so I spent my day in the mall. Oh, yeah. I gave a few updates then. So the follow up was that the day really sucked. I was stuck there till like 6 in the evening. And during rush hour traffic Sara slowed the car enough for me to jump in while on our way out of town. She told me that it was pretty intense and the lack of sleep and having a cold didn't affect her much. But they were pretty in depth. They told us that we would find out in a couple of weeks. Basically around St. Lucia Day which was the next weekend.

She did it!!! She was at work when she got the email. We were way excited! The next step would be starting from the ground up in the military. On Monday Sara reported for duty. Basic training would be three months in Uppsala, a bit north of Stockholm. After the initial three months she would continue being trained there for a bit longer, till August I think. Then we're not sure where next. Maybe Halmstad, South of Gothenburg. But anyway, she's gone. Doing all this training stuff. So I'm stuck here by myself, living a bachelor's life for now. She'll be able to visit every couple of weeks on the weekends. So I'll see her soon. No problem.

So that's it. We'll see where my next adventure takes me.