new guy looking for guidelines

Hey Dan!
Welcome aboard!
As you probably have guessed, there will be as many answers to your qestion as there are stars in the sky.
But, a few things you can do...
Check out http://www.Cigar.com and look into their Cigar Of The Month Club. The owner Alex is one of our members, and they have great pricing and fabulous service. Alex has mentioned in many of his posts that the monthly cigars that you receive will ALWAYS have a greater value than what you pay...that's good stuff IMHO.
You may also want to check out another little obsession of some of our members....http://www.cigarbid.com , and you guessed it, it's like e-bay for cigars! There are auctions for 5 packs and samplers, another great way to try out some new sticks.

What I would also heartily suggest to you is to jump into the Pay it Forward thread. We put our collective generosity out there, and keep a wide variety of sticks in motion all around North America. We all "mooch" from each other, and try a TON of new sticks in this fashion. Just keep posting with us so we get to know you, and you too can become a cigar junkie!!!! :wink:

Dive right in, the water is just fine!

Dan, one thing you could do to get started is check out my thread on the J.C. Newman renewal. You get four nice cigars, a beautiful, quality shirt, coupons for free cigars throughout the year, which will get you going to cigar shops more often, and a periodic newsletter which will whet your appetite even more. As for favorite brands, there are a number of threads here which might help, one of them is a recent thread right on this page.

For someone just starting out, I would stay with a more mild cigar such as the Cusano 18, and you guessed it, the Cigar.com Cameroon Label. You won't be dissapointed in either choice. There are always a ton of samplers between Cigar.com and CI, so take a look around!