Saturdays bloooooooooooow

Ok well maybe just this one, and totaly literal. Driving to work this morning up the interstate the wind looked just shy of fast enough to rip the art off of the billboards as i drove past them while just barely drafting off a big ford truck.

it was all i could do to keep up speed, that wind was brutal, on the way home when i hit some banked turns i could feel it swipe under my car. it felt like it was going to roll me, tiny honda and all :S

but it didnt, and i made it home safe and sound.



in real life brutalness i blasted Stevens lower stomach this afternoon, and a bit on the ribs



crummy iphone photos as always,but its just in progress so oh well



couple more sittings and a quick bit of touch up and this ridiculous family crest tattoo will be done!



ate some pizza when i made it home and headed downstairs to start in on putting the dash for the tudor back together after finaly getting it back from paint.



fresh paint and chrome ready to go together!



there are less bolts holding the new chrome trim on then the stock ones, but they have these thread in bolts with nuts instead of little tiny screws so im figureing its prolly just as secure if not more.



a pretty quick install i cant believe how much heavier it is with all that chrome on it haha.



along with the ashtrays i have yet to put the hinges and latches on the glove box so i had to hold it up for a look~see




new paint, new chrome and that stainless i polished up a while back looking good!



all set to get the rest of the hardware painted and tweaked so i can bolt the rest together before finding a nice spot to sit it out of the way until its time to pop some new gauges in it, wire it and put it back in the car. hopefully ill have complete pix tomorrow :)

well humph

hopefully photobucket has quit being lame and my photos work. in which case above you will see an image of Benten aka Benzaiten aka sarasvati.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraswati

i saw this tattoo today @ http://bunkertattoo.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/a-k-a-benten/



I thought it was pretty snazy so i went looking for more info on her, typing in Sarasvati you get tons and tons of cool images like the one heading this post and if you click the link to wikipedia it fills you in a bit more as well as linking you to more information about her in japanese culture as well as indian.

After hunting around for all of that i took a break and headed over for lunch at the house of Q. www.yourhouseofQ.com im pretty sure is correct. you can also find them on facebook under your house of Q i think. they've put down some permanent roots and are serving out some awesome Q

today i saw this!



yeah. thats right.
a fork, spoon, nife despensor.
im preety sure i need one of these in my life. never again will i need to wash a fork. haha.

and it spins!

wanting to stay productive on my friday i worked on the line drawing for tomorrows tattoo, and did a bit of a color study for it. mums always make me go cross eyed so i figured it was a good idea.



here's your sneak peak of that, hopefully ill have lots to show you tomorrow!

Worst super hero names ever.

Man, time just flys lately. Sit down, look up and it's dark already!

Any how today went pretty well. Actually in retrospect it was a great day. Some times I forget how much better my days are then a lot of peoples.

This morning I loaded up a new end table for my room with a cool marble top and headed to the shop. Got there early enough to unload and set it up and start cleaning for the day when the rest of the shop rolled in. Our friends at the House of Q opened there first permanent location today so we all decided to close the doors for a quick BBQ break.

On our way out the door I noticed my best friend Audi and her partner Cameron walking down the sidewalk. They were in town to get tattooed, not to put off some good Q they joined the trip. Well, cam did, audi had some running around to do.

The BBQ was awesome and when we returned to the shop I had some people come in looking for me and set up a full day of getting tattooed later on. Really love getting the walk in clientele up.

Any how I worked on Cam's tattoo for a few hours and then Audi's piece in progress. Having a good time in general and enjoying seeing each other. Something we don't get to do all that often between distance and generally busy schedules.

And now I'm watching how I met your mother, sketching fashion line ideas and organizing some more items to bring into the shop tomorrow. 

Yeah. My jobs pretty right ;)

Working smarter not harder

Sharper knives require less force.

Tools that are in tune make work a lot less work and a lot more enjoyable.

I've been thinking that some guided study would benifit my being. Regaurdless of wether it's studying piano, oil painting, jujutsu, yoga or bushido.
I I think I'd feel sharper and more productive. Being out of school for the first extended period in my life i realize how much I enjoy learning.

Anyhow here's a bit on bushido. You can google it for more if it strikes your fancy :)

"If a man does not investigate into the matter of Bushido daily, it will be difficult for him to die a brave and manly death. Thus, it is essential to engrave this business of the warrior into one's mind well."

These roads, too hard to walk

With the things you've been saying, I don't even want to talk

hey guys, had a few appointments cancel and seeing as its expected to rain up to 4 inches today , whoa, i figured id have some free time for a post.

After time and time again of checking jinxi's blog and seeing what i read as posts saying 'quit your job and be happy' i quit my job a while back. monday is my last day at my current shop and im proud to say i will be now working with my friend Jason Solomon at a brand new shop he is opening in the morningside area of sioux city! 'addictive tattoo' kinda got a nice ring to it eh?

its a brand new shop and ill be working with people ive known, worked with, and gotten along with for quite a while. im really looking forward to it. Im sure ill be posting a ton of photos when im all in and set up, but right now walls and floors are all torn up and its a bit of a mess. but with an opening date of oct its being taken care up in a pretty swift manner!

along with the new shop im starting to compile work for my new printed/ bound / updated portfolio to print at the beggining of the comming year. i havnt updated anything not online in quite some time so its diffinantly over due.

so, with that said. hers some photos and rambling of whats been up :)



i've been trying to put almost double the amount of prep time i normaly would into my tattoos lately trying to push them a little further even if i dont like the idea, or its sorta simple. if i can behappy with a simple tattoo that i dont like then im sure to like my larger more involved work that comes from it. sadly enough it makes it preety heart breaking when you do all that work only to have them want you to trace there scribble and tattoo it on them verbatum. like the stenciled skull/waves/ pirate ship above that didnt happen at all.

but it made a cool photo,so oh well. its not my arm.



that being said some people are awesome, like my client Fish. here is a piece of hers in progress :)



epic sunsets make my happy for my drives home, and make me wonder with beauty like this how any one can question a divine being being involved. but i still love you even if you do question or disagree. :)



on the note of good looking things...haha. sarah has been putting up with me for an offical 1 year so i took her out for the evening. you cant see much in this blurry photo but we look preety snazzy. trust me, haha



we went to a preety fancy restraunt with an epic sounding menue, like the cheese and blue crab dip above. but over all it was preety bland. i was preety bummed out at the lack of really any flavor. id rather have bad tasteing food then non tasting food. but at least my view from my side of the table was good.



the next day my best friend Audi had her fashion runway show as part of Omaha Fashion Week. you should good it, or check out audis etsy pages on my side bar.
i figured a sundried tomato bagel with vegi cream cheese and capers couldnt be a bad way to start the day off.



i helped her get her garments from her giant studio to the venue/backstage. this is just a glimpse of some of it on the racks. so amazing! her work is always inspireing.



and picked up my ticket, how offical is that!



after getting everything to were it needed to be i met up with sarah and headed to California taco, as seen on tv's dinners, drive inns, and dives! for a little pre fashion madness dinner. their re-fried beans are soooooooo good!



sarah prefers the potato ole type dish.



getting ready to go!
honestly so inspired and rilled up by her show that ive dusted off my machines and sketch books and am diving back into designing garments. hopefully ill be productive and have my own show at O.F.W. 2011!



sarah and i, post show. you can see the dress shes wearing better over on her blog. located on my side bar under sarah baker doing crafty things. she designed and knit the entire thing!



Audi and I, homies for life!

all excited for sewing and creating i headed home.



along the way my brother sent me a picture of his growing baby girl, and his growing fall beard. both preety awesome.



when i got to work i turned around to see a whole string of stock model A's cruising down the street. i didnt get a good look but one of them had a flyer on it. im asuming its part of some sort of orginized drive. the model A's clubs will occasionaly have a drive across the state or even just the local area's. some have a scavenger hunt set up, some just cruising and others are poker runs. preety great either way to see them out putting around.



once inside i saw that our spread in savage magazine was framed up on the lobby wall.preety snazzy if i do say so myself.



mike stoped in and i got a healled shot of his owl, and did a few teeny touch ups on the roses.



i also threw on another diamond for him, gotta have the bling i suppose.



he ran home to grab something and got in a minor car incident but he and his g/f were fine and she sat threw her second sitting on her koi. its a little distorted in this photo because of the way shes standing. but for only having one teeny other tattoo shes seems to be sitting like a champ! really looking forward to seeing this one finished.



last sunday was down right brisk at around 40 degrees so before work i loaded a couple cords of wood onto the front porch and told my dad i expected a fire in the fireplace when i got off work. i was not disapointed!



this week i also started tearing down painting supplies in my studio and re-setting up for the next year or so of sewing madness! it took me nearly an hour to un pack stored fabric, and i even lost about half of it in a basement flood a few years ago :O here is my new shelf i built out of a giant oak door that is original to the house i live in, and my pre existing shelving units. it ended up creating a little cave hide out under neath also.



here is Buster testing the cave out. looks like it passes inspection.



it took a while but i unpacked my zippers, nearly 1000 if not more of them! im always welcome to yardage of fabric, piping, zippers, buttons, skulls and sea shells as tips. heck i keep them all on the same shelves as seen above!



moving all the stuff around i ended up taking over the ajecent hallway to store paintings so i would have room for dress forms etc in the future.



just stacken em up, haha. you can see i also will accept spools of thread as a tip.



figured after that we needed to relax a bit, so we started digging out old matchbox car tracks and launchers and putting them together.



and then about an entire delivery pizza later anda jug of coke we started connecting them together, awesomeness!

maybe happiness is worth the chance of a bitter end..

been working on some cool tattoos this week, in pair with the great aaaaaaalmost fall weather it's put me in a fairly decent mood :)

nothing to eventfull but i suppose id rather it be a good mood non-event then a bad one.

anyhow...

heres an example of why i love living were i do. the sunsets are completly different every night, but almost always spectacular. different shapes, colors, rays. but always i nice sight driving home



this particular night i came home to some rice and yuckani <- no idea if thats spelt correctly. its an eastern dish that is one of many passed down threw my moms side of the family. im thinking this is basicly tomato, beef, green beans and spice more or less. tastey either way :)



and turns out its preety hard to make on a grill so here it is being made in a epicly cheep electric skillet thing. until $500 apear its going to be a grilling, microwave...electric skillet kind of kitchen.

add some bread and..



* see how i used a knife and did not remove any fingers sarah? take note *

walla :) tasty




i didnt eat it but sean and kelsey got a new kitty, they named her frenchy.



now for some tattoo stuff, i like taking progress photos so theres a bunch of that going on below this.



this is the 'prep' for a tattoo i started last night on brandon our shops piercing apprentance. its not finished yet so this is all you get. all i can say is armpits are alot easyer to tattoo then id expected. thankfully.



im preety awefull and taking 'before' shots of cover ups so i went all out on this one yesterday.











turns out jason reeder isnt the only one who gets to do fun tattoos on occasion ;)

and this morning i kept the ball rolling and started this big rib koi





her only other tattoo is a teeny little foot tattoo, and she sat like a champ!



now just counting down to my 'weekend' and some painting progress, and hopefully colder weather :)