yo trail - a little more math for you: my 'puter tells me I have over 1200 blends on hand now along with over 400 tobacco burning implements. I average 3 bowls a day. How long do I have to live to get these all sorted? (assuming no more TAD or PAD, which is highly unlikely).
I do have some algorithms which set my puffing protocol: first of all, a carryover from my wine tasting days, I think in terms of sequencing a day's bowls. I start light, and end up heavy. If I have a particularly interesting Balkan in line, I might start the day with a light VA, since VAs make my Lats taste sooo much better.
Sometimes I line up a heavy blend to finish the day, so that means I have to decide how to calibrate and work up to it. Also, some of my pipes are dedicated to VA/VAPers or solely VAs, so not all the potential blend/pipe combinations are available.
The middle bowl of the day is often when I explore a blend that I'm not too familiar with, and if I get through it thinking my palate needs a reset, I'll straighten things out with a LatBomb like Old Ironsides or Pirate Kake.
A lot of my mentality is geared towards firming up my Top200 Cellar. Since I keep finding new candidates, I spend some time trying to find blends to demote off the list. When I am driving to or from ffishing trips, I'll often burn these bad boys up since I'm paying more attention to my ffishing planning and driving than to the puffing.
Then there is the problem of breaking in new pipes: I try to start off with known controls that are fairly neutral, and I try to qualify each new one as a potential dedicatee to VAs. So stuff like Prince Albert, MacBaren Virginia No.1 and such will occupy those first few bowls, which tends to interrupt my normal blend and pipe sequencing.
hp
les