Steampugs
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- Nov 14, 2016
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Squid Industries Double Barrel V3
Now this may come as some surprise to you, but throughout my entire life I have held the strong belief that my country, a place that I love very much indeed, would be in a much better position....generally....if it were looked after by somebody who didn't possess the quite frankly unnatural ability of being a dick, endangering the lives of all those within his immediate vicinity...
I wish I could say that I even toyed with the idea of joining the handful of my friends who enlisted to fight for Queen and Country at a mere 16 years of age...at least that would have shown a slight glimmer of morality, but no....given the choice of...
A. Enlisting in the Army, getting sent somewhere to be pushed to your physical limits whilst being shouted at the entire time by a big nasty man in the hope that I could be deployed to another country where I could spend the majority of my time being shot at by people with a strong disliking of my being alive...
Or
B. Getting a boring job that pays just enough money for me to be able to go down to my local park with my friends on a Saturday night, drink a bottle of cider and spend a couple of hours fighting with my closest friends, whilst trying to talk a girl into touching my willy....
Well the latter...despite it's many...many failed attempts just seemed more....'appealing' to a teenager with a permanent erection, a borderline drinking problem, and an insatiable thirst for punching his friends in the face at any given opportunity...
No....the Army would fare far better with me as far away from it as humanly possible, safer for all involved I think, however....for those people that were way....way braver than I ever was, and....less of a dick, fighting anything that threatened the security of their country and the people within, was something they just simply had to do....and to those people, I have the upmost respect and gratitude. It’s also one of those people who stars very heavily alongside today's offering, and when I say 'very heavily'......I mean it in every sense of the word...
Shall we....
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Welcome back unto the breach once more my sickly sweet soirée of strawberry steam sucking sexy Sub-Ohm soldiers (breathe), back again with more of the same, and today.... doubly so....no....I'm not reviewing two items, but all will soon become clear my curious little miscreants. A first in fact, for me, as throughout my illustrious and award winning reviewing career (ahem) I have never once reviewed anything from this particular manufacturer, something I am very happy to remedy today, and why you may well ask? ..Well...anyone who is involved in this dog-eat-dog industry at any level will be fully aware of just how ruthless, underhanded, and generally full of idea stealing, dodgy business practice and Jedi level Cockwomblery (it's a word...) ...it can indeed be. SO.....to come across the kind of story attached to the background of this particular manufacturer is....to put it bluntly....as rare as rocking horse shit.
Now...if you just want to know about the device I'm reviewing today then skip down to the 'Lowdown' section and read on from there, but I urge you not to, because this guys story deserves to be told, and read, by as many people as possible, especially if you have ever found yourself in a place that looks and feels completely hopeless, because by knowing this guys story, and what he represents, then some might just well learn a thing or two about being a pretty decent human being....(am I fangirling??.....I feel like I'm totally fangirling right now.....??)
Enter one Mr Eric Buss, a man who followed in the footsteps of other men in his family and chose the path of the American Navy, a move that saw him deployed in the Persian Gulf in 2002 for Operation Iraqi Freedom, yet....a move that also saw him spiral downwards into an all too familiar dark direction which is not quite so rare in the Military. Drinking, substance abuse and...ironically....the insatiable thirst for punching people in the face, soon found Eric on the wrong side of being discharged from the Navy, which in turn found him fighting a different battle, only this battle was with himself. Serious depression, a few spells in jail and a continued thirst for self-medication soon found him in the place commonly known....as rock bottom. I mean, I've been low, I thought I’d hit rock bottom once, but next to this guy?....My rock bottom was on a luxury yacht, sipping margaritas off the coast of Spain....
Turns out that 'actual' rock bottom....is several miles below my personal downfall, and Eric had become a permanent resident....this was quite literally the back end of a Buss.
Homeless, jobless, broke, addicted, and by this time, the not so proud owner of a whole host of burned bridges, Eric's thoughts turned to the only way out he felt was available to him, the ultimate sacrifice. To Eric...the world would be a better place without him, and he felt that the country he had once fought for, like so many veterans before him, had turned its back on him.
Thankfully however, there was one particular bridge yet to turn to ashes, and that bridge was the bond between him and his baby girl. Even though the relationship between him and his daughter’s mother had long since been destroyed by Eric's personal path of destruction, the thought of being a none existent father was one which dragged Eric out of the dark shadows, and onto a new path of self-preservation and redemption. But it wasn't going to happen without help, and this help came from a like-minded group of people who knew exactly where Eric was in his life, an organisation that shouldn't need to exist, but in a massively failed system where a country you lay your life down for doesn't particularly give a shit about you afterwards, a system that has seen so many war veterans fall into the same downward spiral as Eric...these people are quite literally a life line. They are the Veterans Administration, and it's here that Eric not only got the help he so desperately needed....but also found his calling.
Now...I'm trying to condense this story due to the fact that I'm very well aware that I still have a review to fit in here somewhere, but I find it so truly inspirational that at this point in Eric's life, he not only accepted the help that was offered to him, but he also paid it forward. Such was the success of Eric's personal programme, and the way Eric turned his life around because of it, the VA offered him a job. So there he was, once a down and out, a man on the brink of suicide, now helping other veterans whose lives had followed a similar path of self-destruction....I can't not have the upmost respect for that. Some would quite easily take what was offered to them and run, but it takes a pretty decent human being to stick around and WANT to pay it back, and that's exactly what he did. He even obtained a BA in Psychology and fronted a non-profit organisation whilst he was doing it....not one to sit still then.....
It was during this time that Eric also found the love of his life, and when his new wife became pregnant it was quite clear to him that being a case worker for a vastly underfunded organisation wasn't going to cut it when it came to providing for his new family. Thankfully, Eric's wife was quite successful in her own career so they decided that Eric would become a stay at home father whilst she earned the money, and this....is where today's story starts to seep into this wonderful industry of ours. Now.....being the father of two girls myself, and being in a relationship where we both work and co-parent, meaning....whilst one's at home the other is working, there are times such as when the kids are asleep and you’re home alone, that you need something to occupy yourself with. For me, it's writing, for Eric....it was playing around and learning how to build mods. Eric was, after all, an avid vaper. We all know how easy it is to fall down that particular rabbit hole, and it was this particular passion which started to get Eric noticed. He gathered a small following for his mods, which slowly began to grow, and from this....Squid Industries was born.
Why Squid?.....Well, if you're in the Navy you're affectionately known as a 'Squid', and even though Eric's personal career in the Navy didn't exactly go according to plan, the inspiration he found in helping other veterans overcome their own demons has carved a path in Eric's life which has given him meaning, when it quite easily could have gone the other way. So, having 'Squid' in his new venture’s logo is testament to the ongoing support that Eric still gives to those in need, so much so in fact, that a portion of the proceeds from the device I am reviewing today goes directly to helping veterans who need it...and as if that wasn't enough, his cocktail inspired juice line 'Shots' sends 100% of its proceeds to the same causes. Like I said...some people take, and some people give...
So...if you thought 'Squid Industries' was named after some short, fat, wet, middle-aged, slimy little businessman with very long appendages who is more tentacles than testicles, well.....if that's what you think...
You can tell him....(he clearly models his physique after my own...ahem)
I could have written a lot more about Eric's story, but this is, after all, a vape hardware review, and it's the very device that I am reviewing today which has put Squid Industries very firmly on the map as a serious contender in Vapingdom. A device that is now in it's third iteration - as if I needed any more reasons to respect this mans ethics...he also listens to fans of his devices and evolves accordingly. So let's get down to business, as we stare down the barrel of Squid Industries flagship device...courtesy of my new friends at Newvaping.com..the simplistic and rugged.....Double Barrel V3..
This kind of device, given the way that I vape, promised to be right up my street. It's simple, incredibly durable, powerful enough yet ir remains ultra compact and practically idiot proof....which for me...is a blessing in itself.
My daily rotation of devices can range from simple to the ridiculously over-engineered depending on what I am testing on any given week....but it's these kind of simple devices that I organically gravitate towards when I'm sat relaxing. Now, when I received it and did my research on Eric's story....I wanted to like it regardless. I felt like I owed it to him to at least give his mod a chance, purely because of the efforts that were made in getting both Eric and his company into being. But that wasn't the job at hand, what I needed to do was forget everything I knew about Squid Industries and look at this thing without bias. Would I like this device if it were made by say....Smok?....Wow...I mean, that's really stretching, but you get my drift...so that's what I did.
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