Pipe Night part dos
Tonight is the long overdue 2nd installment of Pipe Night here on Half Ashed.  We ended up doing a pretty free-form, rambling, 2-hour show as we’re prone to do.  We covered a number of basic topics related to pipe smoking, some of which are listed below.  As with all things worth doing, pipe smoking has a bit of a learning curve.  We don’t intend to tell you exactly how to do it; it’s up to you to find your own happy medium for enjoying the hobby to its fullest.  My only hope is to help you avoid some of the pitfalls that tend to discourage newcomers and drive them to abandon it before they even acclimate and get acquainted with the process.  I (Kip) have been a regular pipe smoker for a couple decades now, and fully confess there’s a lot I don’t know.  None the less, I enjoy it immensely – even if I have grown out of practice in recent years while focused more on cigars.  Earlier this year, I began to get back to my pipes much more frequently and realized just how much I truly enjoy them.  The pipes and their craftsmanship, the tobaccos and their many flavors, the tools and their utilitarian (and, at times, decorative) nature.  The whole nine yards.  I dig it, and I hope you will too.  There will be follow up shows in the same vein over the coming months, where we will detail various topics like types of tobaccos and components, different blending styles, differing cuts of tobacco, pipe shapes, various artists, etc.  But for starters, below are a few of the high points we hit on this episode.  I hope you will join us and dive in yourself….

Loading up the pipe
Initial lighting procedure
Keeping your pipe lit
Tamping
Pipe cleaners
Other misc. tools
Cleaning and maintenance
Tongue bite