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LOL, thanks for the props. Hope my advice is helpful. (In a former life, I did consulting work building web applications on top of Oracle... $175 per hour, adds up pretty quick...)

Let me go old school here and mention something fairly obvious. The Oracle database isn't doing anything magic with the execution plan and analysis of the queries. It is possible to hand optimize the queries by providing hints to Oracle in the SQL. It's also possible to force specific...

Oh, and rereading your posts, I think there may be some other simple things to try. Are you using snapshots? If it were me, and I was running a query against the database that takes a while to complete, and meanwhile there is data coming in, I'd want to do a snapshot and reference it in the...

I used to work at Oracle writing code for database internals. I was an Oracle DBA for a number of years as well. In versions of Oracle I'm familiar with (up through Oracle 8) statistics generated by ANALYZE would be used by the database for some tuning purposes, but would NOT result in the...

If you are cleaning a briar pipe with alcohol, it would be best to let it dry for at least a couple of days, ideally more like four, before packing a bowl and lighting up... otherwise you stress the wood...

I smoked a small sample of Cairo recently thanks to CPT/VSG and I immediately ordered a tin. It's good. Some might find it a bit sweet, but very nice tobacco.

This thread is a really cool idea, and I've enjoyed participating in it and also enjoyed reading it a lot. That said, I know for me personally the high cost of postage makes it a bit suboptimal. It seems a bit inefficient to spend $4 to send someone a $6 tin of tobacco. I have done a LOT of...

I have plenty unless there's a sudden and weird spike in demand. Most of the reason I bring it up now is that I only ship every couple of weeks or so, trying to do them in batches, so if you fill out the web form and are unlucky, you might wait a couple of weeks before I get them in the mail...

Yep, in fact, I just topped that thread a few minutes ago, as I'm going to ship some bands tomorrow...

I'm a bit dubious, but I haven't played in 15+ years, so who knows. I like the idea of a simpler system, overall, as I did think AD&D tended to bog down in the details... but then again, once you got used to the details, it was a pretty rich environment.

I know for a fact that the blank cigar bands that I have been doing group buys for are made by a company that makes cigar bands for small runs for quite a few manufacturers. Long story short, whatever adhesive they are using is safe enough that other cigar companies use them for printed band...

I have not been to Montreal in many years but used to be a frequent visitor. I have no idea if it is still there but we had a very memorable bachelor party at a club called "Le Axe" which apparently is slang in French for female genitals (i.e. as in a place where an axe has made a cut). Our...

Good point, there are some options up there for Indian land. My understanding is Tulalip allows cigars and pipes anywhere they allow cigarettes, except for the poker room. I don't know about a "smoking room" though I have heard that they plan to have a cigar bar of some kind soon.

Unfortunately Whidbey is basically hell and gone from Seattle, and also of course there is no smoking anywhere in Washington state, at least not in any facility open to the public or any commercial business, which makes it really hard to organize a herf. Your best bet is finding someone who...

Just a random thought... I know that the folks at Kirsten Pipes at Fishermans' Terminal in Interbay would really appreciate any business from local folks. I've heard that things have been really slow over there and it would be unfortunate to see another local B&M fold. Just a thought for...

I'd like to meet up with you guys one of these days, but my schedule with three small kids is a nightmare, and that particular day I've got another commitment. If you put together another get together in the future feel free to PM me with particulars as I don't drop in here as often as I'd like...

Craig, that's a gorgeous pipe. Enjoy!

lilbrown.com had it in stock recently. In general, if they sell something, it's probably cheaper there than anywhere. I've only seen a few exceptions, I think JR may have Rattray's cheaper, as an example, but possibly only because lilbrown raised their prices recently and I think JR hasn't...

I have no interest in firing up the pissing match again, but I can state that I was in Rain City for the first time a couple of months ago, I was impressed by the selection and the staff seemed fine. Prices were good too. I did not buy anything, and I didn't take any pictures of hygrometers...

Interestingly, I smoked four or five bowls of this today. I don't usually do this with a tobacco I've never tried, but the first bowl I really didn't get much of an impression. The second was similar, but enjoyable. The next couple were more interesting to me. In general, I got a strong...