The nights comes quick these days

What could I give when you've got all you need
And she looks at me like all I want's a little free
Every time I look at you it makes me see
That it's alright, yeah it's alright
We'll get away be in love we can make it better
All I need's a little time for us to get together
Happiness is just a step away
When it's alright, yeah it's alright

short and sweet...

well maybe short and tired. im exhausted.



tomorrow "should be" our first official day open after our health inspector visit in the morning. im super ready for it. ive been painting and hanging things or orginizing this stuff until im seeing all blur lately haha.

but its been good.
after my last day at the old shop i met up with my freinds matt and raina and road tripped to see my brother jon in colorado and then onto boulder for another super great hason show.

along the way we checked out a few bike shops because matts all about pedaling everywere. they were preety cool, alot of the buildings were realy old so the existing structures repurposed was preety rad to look at while he chatted to bike people.

ill post more pix when im less beat, but for now figured this would work.

oh and i test drove a new vw 2011 gti. it was awesome. but im currently poor from the shop move :P no gti for me. i will however start piano lessons soon and dust off my harmonica as well :)

now pix

old and i found a cool nash for sale.



first sittin on daves rad neck tatto based on some cool flash @ the shop



my new room at the studio pre epic over haul



seeing the bff's on my way to colorado, we were hunting for a venue for bea and i's split art show. more on that when im less tired.



yup, we are in fact preety amazing, its ok to be jealous



the gti in question, droooool



feeding carp somewere in nebraska..



and like 3 koi



totaly out of order but here are some of the bikes in matts shared workspace. preety rad :)



no post production matt is actualy being beamed up into space right here.



the nash, smaller drool



most bizare hardware store ever.



yeah thats old cameras the shelf up from bear and fox traps above a shelf of old school photos?



and a few records in the plumbing section..



me looking impressive in front of a rad old old bar back... also at the hardware store haha



first bike shop. work space porn. droool some more. im gonna need a mop haha.



second bike shop, to much hipster for one room. but it was a neat room.



idk what theses guys were upto but they had matching jumpsuits and one of them was covered in some slime?



an awesome reason for a 12 hour one way road trip. hanson! it was great great great.

they covered marvin gays 'lets get it on' and the doobie brothers 'with out love'

fuck yea hason :)

ok im tire and have to clean up all the drool.

Cause I know that you’ve been thinkin’ bout it

well shit, I went to the Hanson show with my girlfriend and was pretty quickly found out. I've pretty much always liked Hanson. My massive knowledge of random information even includes random Hanson knowledge only a few select straight men would admit to knowing.

but you know what, i don't care. this new album is great and makes me want to dance around like a total loser. which i did along with a billion girls on Sunday lol.

you can only go to a concert and pretend you don't know all the words for so long.

anyhow, one of the songs on the new album has a video out right now that mirrors a pretty rad scene from a blues brothers movie so you should look at the link below and enjoy :) also, if you've never seen the blues brothers movies i have one question for you. how can you read this blog from under that massive rock?



and yeah, weird al playing a tambourine? pretty great.



we showed up before the doors opened and there were tonnnns of people waiting!



Sarah was pretty excited as well, only a few days after her surgery she was absolutely not missing Hanson. there were even people on crutches waiting in the endless line. it was so hot i felt like i was showering under my shirt lol.



they saying smiling is contagious, in that case i think terminal depression could be cured by a Hanson concert. i don't think I've ever been around so many epically happy people ever. and not in some obnoxious way either. it was just so much positiveness. i feel like a total loser for saying it, but its helping make life a bit easier with all that's been going on.

alright enough of that, haha.

.. ok one more, you should go vote for the video on vh1's webpage. And for people wondering why you don't hear them on the radio much, they refuse to license their music to any station that clearchannel owns for some ethical reasons? so there's that. don't for real this time. promise.



the day after the show i worked on finishing up mikes super rad owl tattoo. my phone was dead so i couldn't get a decent picture so you'll have to just trust me that this phone pic my friend took is a really crummy representation. we have one more sitting so ill post a better/finished pic then :)



the next day i relaxed a bit and started getting ready to fly to Seattle on Thursday morning. I also attempted to get some work done on some paintings.



this is the second layer on the layering experiment i started a few weeks ago. im just kinda picking at it now and then. im not very practiced in painting with watered down pigment on watercolor paper, so i tend to over saturate the paper and just make a mess being so used to painting with thick layers of acrylic on masonite panels.



i took a break to visit Charles at work to see how he was doing. with all the surgeries ~ Sarah and my dad in the span of 3 days~ and traveling i havnt been able to hang out with him for a while.



i also took a minute to tell him about these awesome "Q fries". think nachos and bbq had a beautiful baby. haha.

layer one: home made steak cut fries
layer two: freshly smoked brisket meat
layer three: melted cheddar all over that :)
layer four: a tasty mix of honey and spicy bbq sauce.

soooooooo goood :)

lol i promise to post something that isn't meat heavy...someday :)



We decided to hang out after he was off work for the day, so with an hour or so to kill i started a drawing for a tattoo idea ive been bouncing around in my head. I've a client that's given me nearly a full lower arm with only the instructions of it being nordic, viking, norse. and "heavy" feeling. sometimes things look better in your mind so i started mapping some things out.



Charles made it over and we watched Garden State for like the trillionth time.



and i kept working on the bearded viking skull, nordic compass, roses, dot work idea.

it turned into a giant blob of paint but it looked good right here, ha. either way i wasn't really into the way that it was all starting to lay out for his arm. He's having Gunnar <- yeah that epically talented Gunnar tattoo his other lower arm so im really trying to make this tattoo over the top. waaaaaaay over the top. i want people to see both forearms and ask about my tattoo. haha, its a challenge for certain.

so with that i think we're caught up! im flying out tomorrow to Seattle Washington, via denver and spokane because i bought my super expensive tickets a little last minute :S, for the seattle tattoo expo. its always a great time and a great town.

i will try to post every night with my day, but after upgrading my os to the 4.0 my phones been a little finicky so hopefully all goes well and you can see what im up to :)

Do what you love, fuck the rest...

I've been trying to keep that in mind while dealing with my current situation of moving/ job hunting. trying to see what my prioritys realy are for all of this.



Am i moving to advance my carrer? to be closer to freinds? to be happy? there are a few ideal outcomes were i get to choose all of those, but there are an aweful lot of others were im going to have to choose.



ive also come to realize that all of my moving has to do with hating my current studio. it makes me hate coming to work, tattooing, anything even related to the field. seriously. and becuase of the fostering of the idea of not talking to other shops in town, other artists and etc. because of my boss's super great bridge burning abilities. i wonder if i wouldnt mind staying in sioux city as long as i was in a shop that was full of people that actualy wanted to be there.

for now im just going to let somethings un fold a little further before thinking about it to much more.

On the note of things i love, my brother and his wife came up for the weekend yesterday with there new daughter.





one more dad and thats 4 generations, my grandpa, my dad, and my niece.



on the note of parents, sarahs parents came up to bring her to me so i could watch after her while she recoveres from surgery. While they were at the shop we decided to re-do this tattoo her dad has had for almost as long as ive been alive.



its so fadded that when i whiped a slight gray wash of water over it with a towel cleaning up after id done some lines you couldnt see any of it threw the dirty water!



and a truck stop, cell phone, day after photo! it looks alot better in person. youll just have to trust me.



for example, looking at the before photo you see two DARK green leafs to the upper right. then look in the same area on the after photo, the slight haze you see around the two new leafs is that "dark" set of leafs!

in other unrelated news, im seeing a ton of bikes on there way to sturgis this week. including this giant 5th wheel rv trailer with a fold down ramp door on the back to the built in garage. being pulled by an actual semi truck. he said that at the distance they were driving that his big rig would cost half the fuel! compared to using his pickup truck. crazy, haha but smart.



on the other end of the spectrum sunday im going to go see hanson play in omaha. yeah yeah yeah i know. but after they lost the chickmunk voices they are actualy preety talented... and my girlfreind will love me forever for going. all in all not bad reasons to go. im looking forward to it :)

~as seen in this months rolling stone



and as long as we're being unrelated here is an awesome apartment that my freind bea posted on her tumbler. its a reworked 500 sq ft studio appartment in nyc. you can see a cuboard filled work space/ tv/gathering space. As well as a sorta lofted bed area over the kitchen. preety stinkin rad :)



I fly to seattle for some fun times on thursday morning so hopefully im constructive with my tuesday/ wednesday off this week as i dont need to spend it in waiting rooms this week. In which case ill have process/ progress for you then!