I've been lurking here for a while. I have to say I've never seen such a group of sarcastic arrogant bastards. I feel like I've found dozens of long-lost brothers. The fact that this forum suffers no fools but also has fun AND useful information is why I wanted to join and speak up.

I'm 44, run a small VoIP-based telephone company (http://www.televolve.com if anyone cares), and love enjoying life. To that end I enjoy boating, and my usual place to have a cigar is at the marina or sitting on the back of the boat with my feet in the water. Add scotch and great friends, and I can't think of a better way to spend an hour.

I'd call myself a cigar noob even though I've smoked them casually for a very long time. I've had unsuccessful attempts at keeping a humidor several times, and reading through posts here has educated me on why they had problems (cheap crap, leaky, etc). For the last few months I've been using a Xikar travel humidor as my only one, and just buying enough for the weekend or two weekends. However I haven't yet discovered "my" cigar and am trying to experiment, so that space is limiting. The fully sealed box has led to not losing any sticks to dryness however, finally.

Now I'm going to gloat: This week I picked up a huge, beautiful, well made humidor for $50. It's actually a cigar box for the "Museum" cigar, but since the sticks are $30 each, the box is built to match. My local shop was selling it cheap. It has all the makings of a great humidor; whoosh sound when you close it, and zero slop or misfit anywhere. In this I put an electronic humidification unit which I think will be the perfect thing to preserve my sticks in our dry climate.

Currently my favorite cigars are the Macanudo 1968 and Tabak Especial Dulce. Yes, I know it's a flavored cigar and that makes me a raving homosexual. I'd love to hear your suggestions on other smokes to try based on those two likes. I don't yet have the knowledge to say what I like and don't like in a cigar in "afficionado" terms. I tend towards larger gauges because that seems to give me more flavor in every draw. I like shorter sticks because my adult-onset ADD keeps me from committing to a two hour smoke. I dislike cigars that have what I consider an ashy or cigarette taste. Not sure if there's a better way to describe that. I like a light, smoky draw. I use a punch cutter instead of a guillotine type, not sure why.

The things I hope to learn next are:

Safely keeping an infused cigar along with regular ones. Maybe I just need another humidor? I don't know if the light coffee flavor of the Tabak Especial will "leak" onto the others.

The best way to draw for flavor and not overheating the cigar. Seems like sometimes a stick starts to taste ashy or burnt and I don't know if it's the cigar or me overheating it.

How to describe the flavors I like and dislike so I can start intelligently experimenting and ranking my experiences.