#fourmoreyears (Programming Notes)

One thousand, four-hundred and sixty-one days, except for that one day (or two) in 2013 when the site was down all day.

It’s been four full years of halfwheel and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

I’m grateful for Brooks Whittington, my partner in crime and oftentimes a reasonable voice that prevents me from getting in trouble. I still remember the day we sat at the Grand Lux Cafe and talked about our idealist dreams for the website that would become halfwheel. Individually, we’ve come a long way since then; collectively, we gone further than I ever could have imagined. I am most certainly not the easiest one to work with. My personality and style have their benefits, but I’m not without my flaws—and Brooks puts up with all of them—and then some.

And for that, I’m thankful.

The two of us wouldn’t be here without a lot of help from other people, no one more so than our partner, Patrick Lagreid.

I remember where I was for the phone call with Patrick to talk to him about joining halfwheel, which at that point hadn’t launched. He took a chance and since then, he’s worked tirelessly for us at all hours of the day and around the world. Some of this site’s best work has been Patrick’s, some of the most noted news stories with my name on it have been Patrick’s scoops. But his greatest contribution to the site in my opinion has been forcing us to be better. He constantly pushes our ideas to be sound and without this desire for our work to be the best it can be, the site wouldn’t be where it is.

And then there’s Brian Burt. Sure, he abandoned the state of Texas, but I promise I’ll stop judging him for it, sort of. I’ve watched countless manufacturers and retailers ask Brian why he was hanging out with people from halfwheel and he’s handled it with the grace that I surely wouldn’t. He’s a part of our team and I’m grateful for that.

Our team is small and has been essentially unchanged since month three of now 49 and for good reason: we understand each other and what this blog is supposed to be.

It’s the cigar site we want to read.

I’m amazed that thousands of you decide to read it daily. I’m humbled when you come up and talk about how much you enjoy it. I’m often accused of not smiling enough, but I assure you, those words make what we do far more enjoyable. We didn’t create this site for fame, riches or accolades—but I appreciate the latter each and every time it comes. I am grateful not only that you enjoy we what create, but that I have the privilege of doing this as a job.

There’s an endless amount of planning that goes into producing halfwheel and much of it centers around doing things as consistently as possible. Nowhere is that more evident than our beginning of the year festivities.

It started with yesterday’s 10 Questions for 2016—or really Wednesday’s Graded column—and will continue for the next dozen days or so.

For those wondering, the following is the schedule for halfwheel’s awards:

• Jan. 4 — Packaging Awards
• Jan. 5 — New Company of the Year
• Jan. 6 — Factory of the Year
• Jan. 7 — Company of the Year
• Jan. 8 — halfwheel Top 25
• Jan. 11 — The Consensus

We’ve been planning our 2015 since before the 2014 awards were even published. There are a couple of brief changes we’ve made in order to better accurately determine these awards, but for the most part, it’s the same as the last few years.

The new year also signals another halfwheel tradition, Holy Grail Week.

One of the two sites that merged into halfwheel was Smoking Stogie. That site started in order to review and document rare cigars. As time went on and the industry changed, so did its focus, but we never wanted to totally shed our roots or Brooks’ philosophy that no cigar was too rare to be smoked.

When we launched the site, we kicked it off with reviews of seven ridiculously rare cigars.

Over time we’ve reviewed a lot of “holy grail” cigars, but each year we try to find seven more rare, or at the very least interesting, cigars to review. The first of these review will be published shortly and we’ll continue with the reviews of rarer items for the next six days.

For those wondering if we have anything new planned for 2016, the answer is not really. We’ll continue to try to make this site the best we can, but in terms of any new features, there’s only one major one in the works and it won’t be until the end of 2016 before we are ready to unveil it.

Until then, we’ll just—as Patrick would say—keep plowing.

As you celebrate the new year, I invite you to do as we are, go into your humidor, pull out that rare cigar—and light it up. No day is as good as the present. And if you need something to read while smoking it, I’ll invite you to do what I do each time this year, revisit halfwheel’s first article.