You ain't my moms I got here...Oh wait you are my moms

Now that the cat is out of the bag, with my mom know, I have decided to chronicle my tattoo experience.

A few weeks ago I wandered into the Black Lotus tattoo shop to find an artist. The initial meeting between you and your tattoo artist will always be a little awkward. I think solely because they expect you to blurt out something to the effect of "yea I wanted to get Jerry Garcia's face tattooed on my ass" or "I wanna get a butterfly on my lower back". Random tattoos of ridiculous things are inevitable, but there is the occasional customer that is in for the long haul. I would like to think I'm in this group. First of all finding an artist you like is fairly easy. You just travel around ask to see their work and then have a short chat with them. I was lucky in that I found a great artist who was excited about working long term with me on several projects.



This is Autumn. She helped me with the exact designs and placement. It is important that you allow your artist to make suggestions to you about different things concerning your tattoo. They will know how tattoos sit on the skin how color works in different areas and how to add depth and life to your tattoos. Autumn is very detail oriented and has made this a pleasant experience overall. She has what they call in the business a "light hand" We have yet to come up with a cool nickname including Autumn and light. She likes to give me a hard time when I'm under the needle, I am starting to think I'm a masochist for going back to her, but I give her an equally hard time. That brings me to developing repor with your artist. It will behoove you to make friends with them since:

1. You hopefully like them anyway.
2. They are putting something permanent on you.
3. You want to develop a long term relationship.

Picking a shop can be a daunting thought. There are many shops with many different people. I recommend asking around with people that have tattoos first. Black Lotus has been a really cool shop all around. Felix the Tat is a cool guy that has been with the shop a long time. He is a wealth of knowledge and great to have as a second opinion on art. He is a great artist as well. Brian is another guy that does some work there. I haven't gotten to speak to him alot but he has as well had some great input on the work being done. You will know it's a good shop if the artist will take a minute to sit and discuss how best to approach what the customer is wanting them to accomplish.

Next up on my hit list is Monica. Shes a little firecracker of an apprentice. Her reputation for outstanding pencil drawings and her dedication to keeping a clean shop show an artist in the making. She also likes to team up with Autumn and verbally accost me. But I guess I deserve it even though I did bring her a push pop.



This is my first day under the needle. This is a religous symbol called "Agnus Dei" meaning Lamb of God. I came up with the symbol after seeing it on the wall in a church. The line work is very important to getting the tattoo to look right in its finished form. This usually doesn't hurt very much and heals very quickly with a short turn around to get more work done.



This is the next week The first picture is just the line work for the Chi Rho. This has it's roots in Greek and as you can see inside is flanked by the Alpha and Omega.
The second picture is the finished work of that day. It is possible to do a whole piece in one day but this is gonna be on you forever so I recommend to take your time. This hurt a fair amount and took a little longer to heal up.





This is my third week of tattooing. I switched back and forth between shoulders to be able to go every week and allow two weeks to heal in between. This was a VERY long process and was quite painful at certain parts. That said it was nice to sit through a long session, 6 hours, because you kinda hit a wall with the pain and then you kinda forget.



This is the Final touches on the Chi Rho. It's kinda hard to see in this picture but I had a matching grey with white accents put into the outside.



My next post will be sometime next month as I am working on a piece toget the two pieces linked. Untill next time remember to Tip your artists!

Awsome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOXT_oMHKE

Poochie McPoocherson

A four month old Beagle/Dachshund mix (very much like this one) is waiting for me to pick her up at the pound. I have to wait till they spay her. So I should be picking her up on wed. I'm excited!

Money Money Money....MONEEEEE

I just found out that I am to receive over 15k for this school year in combined benefits. Life is looking good.

Back to school!

The decision has finally been made. I will be returning to Lane Community College in the fall to attempt to finish my 2 year transfer degree. I know what you may be thinking. "But Ian, how will you accomplish such an Everest of tasks". Fear not my friends. I am well prepared to attend these elementary courses with much gusto and perseverance. I will be calm and assertive and dominate the classes.

I Blame Willy Wonka!

For all the sugary delights that make children so dang energetic and crazy. After 6 days of trying to run a project and take care of 4 teenage boys I'm tired! With two of our three projects complete and the third one almost done it's hard to argue that God has worked powerfully in the Eugene/Springfield area this last week. The Mississippians (holy cow thats a word!) were really great to get to know. It's so nice to know that our denomination is actually a very strong one, and we get the privilege to be on the front lines,so to speak, of the work in the Northwest. One of the assistant pastors from First Pres and I hit it off really well. If the good Lord wills it I will go down to Mississippi and hang out with some of the crowd sometime this summer. I hope and pray that the work we did last week and the continuing work being done for Looking Glass will be greatly blessed by God.

Green with Env

As you may or may not know I tend to bit a bit hard on my cell phones. And by a bit hard I mean using them as hammers and skateboards. So after breaking the screen on my sixth Env phone I went out and got the new version with a nice case to prevent me from grinding this phone up as well. So everyone pray that I will not destroy this one as well.

Burn Notice in Effect!

After melting my eyeballs watching Burn Notice episodes deep into the darkness on night I realized how much money changes hands in this show. Now i know what your thinking "it's just a tv show". Yes it is a show, but all stories are based in truth. I started to think. "Hey why can't I do something like this?" So I posted on Eug CL for a "problem solver" I think there is a ton of money to be made in this if it is marketed correctly. I'll keep you updated on the progress of this new venture, but I hope to be jumping out of windows whilst firing two guns in no time. So this should be pretty exciting. Lookout Walker Texas ranger here i come!

Chickens, Tents, and Opossums, OH MY!

Last Saturday on the 13th our small groups got together to have a BBQ instead of meeting that week. So I decided to try the beer can chicken recipe that I saw in the Red guard the other week. What they didn't tell me is that if your grill isn't the perfect temp you will either have bloody raw chicken or charred remains that are reminiscent of a nuclear holocaust. Luckily I had some back up chicken and Anne, as usual, made some amazing mixtures of food items of pleasure unknown to us mere humans. I think of Anne as the Enterprise of cooking to go boldly where no man, or woman in this case, has gone before. The turnout was great and included my neighbors, Ron and Sally Hunt, My parents Boarder Micheal, and the two small groups. Jeremy kicked all our butts with his mad poker skills late into the evening right outside Bryce's door where he most likely dreamed of lollipops and pink kittens jumping over blue clouds.

The cooking area and fire barrel


The Bar


The Chickens!


This last week on Thursday I decided to head out to the coast to try to clear my head and have some special Ian time. So I swaggered into the Drift Inn to catch a meal and a pitcher of Guinness. The waitress must have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic because she got reamed for serving me a pitcher. Which apparently is too much for one person. The ratatouille I think came from a Chef Boyardee can marked "Nasty Meat". And the chowder tasted like someone used the salmon as toilet paper before cooking it. I rolled out of the place and got back into my BMW to drive to my campsite. Arriving there I set up camp. What better way to have some special Ian time than to pack light so there will be no distractions. So all I had brought was a couple of books my sleeping bag and my bivy sack (waterproof sleeping bag). I settled down for the night into my bag like a baby kangaroo snuggling into his mommies silky soft pouch. After a half hour or so of being engrossed in a book I heard some rustling in the bushes behind me. So being aware of the Warning Bears!!! signs all over the place and the imminent danger of having my entrails strewn all over the other happy campers of the Cape Perpetua camp ground I shined my light over the the bushes and leveled the lawbringer ,my glock 19, just in time to see an opossum flying out of the underbrush at my face with deadly claws outstretched pointing at my eyeballs. Not having time to aim properly I pistol whipped the beast so hard that it changed course mid air and landed somewhere on the other side of me. At that point I decided that if even the small beasts of the forest were plotting to use my eye balls as appetizers that I should sleep in the car, and let them dine on other unsuspecting campers. Unfortunately the Germans didn't design the BMW to be a sleeper car so I spent most of the night attempting to create new contortionist positions in the back seat. After prying my kidney from under the passenger seat in the morning I went to a tall cliff over hanging the sea and spent a few hours thinking there. I decided that one night in the 5th ring of hell was enough so I headed home.

Arriving home midday Friday I decided to head out to central Oregon with my dad to go camping with the scout troop he works with. This seemed to be a much more relaxing choice than being accosted by small forest animals. We headed out to Fort Rock campground and had a great time running around with the scouts, and no one lost any vital body parts due to fire accidents. My dad had also just purchased a tent that rivaled the Taj Mahal. It had an interesting set of poles that made a rigid door that you could open and close easily and locked with velcro. This tent is most assuredly the Cadillac of tents with all the bells and whistle. Having survived the onslaught of pointless discussion about how the end times are upon us with the rents of these kids I am now back at home about to nestle into my pillow top bed to finish The Dresden Flies season1 and start Burn Notice season2.

GOODNIGHT!

Wine Country

Brielle and I went to a couple of the wineries around mcCrappville last Thursday. I enjoyed going into the tasting rooms the first one was nice considering the woman there didn't slap us and yell REDNECKS OUTA HERE! while sicking viscous wine attack cats on us. But we Jackie did have our back. Although we did lock her in the truck.

The most exciting thing of the day though was the tornado warnings, 60 mph winds, and rain the size of goat droppings. The rain promptly washed all the grass seed in a mile radius to my eye lids pushed it inside and then it flipped me the bird while riding off on a Harley with my ex-girlfriend. So we ran to a pharmacy were i begged the sweet lord for forgiveness for all my horrible, horrible sins. Luckily the Pharmacists had seen this before and knew that begging for the forgiveness meant, eyes drops and in a hurry.

The exciting weather also closed down Hwy 99 and canceling the festivities planned at Dobbs winery for the locals, which the Deppes had been invited to. Oh well I ended up back in Eugene to be greeted by all the projects that I am supposed to get done this week. Maybe those bastards that owe me money will pony up this week!

What more could you ask for?

Kids rockin out to Scottish Rock!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBcbDS5AGnk

Birthday hike

Umm yea I'm going on a hike for jessica bandstra's birthday. I better start early or get left in the dust!

MMMMMM food

We had a lovley thanksgiving here at the Houston homestead. Tom and Dinah came along with Lane and Bryce. It was a great night full of good food and good company. Plus we sat and listened to my parents tell stories. I am looking forward to spending Christmas in San Diego.

It's an early Christmas

This weekend we celebrated Christmas as a family because we will all be going our own seperate ways for actual Christmas. It was really fun sharing lazy days stuffing our faces with fresh organic lamb and rice last night and other great foods and desserts. I got a sweet new radio for my car. It's actually Matt's old radio but its pretty nice. I gave steve a gift card to applebees, but I had him go on a quest to find some nunchucks and then smash an evil robot (Zultan) to get to it. Everyone loved it. We also went out to a tree farm for a tree. There we got to pet goats and feed pigs pumpkins. I am also happy to report I haven't played even one minute of video games since i quit wow as well. Ill talk more again soon.

The end of an era

Today I gave my World of Warcraft account away to one of my good friends online. It was a tough choice, but being with Alicia this past month made me realize what I have been missing out on. I am excited to get back into the dating world. I do miss Alicia we are meeting on saturday to talk about whatever it is that happened. Oh well I guess I will learn as much as I can and move on. I'm done being angry and sad.

This Christmas when I go down to San Diego I will try to hook up with one of my WoW buddies and get a drink. It's always cool to finally meet people in real life. It's time also to use complete words in my typing.

I'm looking forward to the festivities tonight oh crap i gotta e-mail people directions... cya

The bigger they are the harder they fall.

Last night I may have had one too many pitchers of gin and tonic. Why, you may ask yourself, did i have one too many or even why was I drinking gin and tonics from a pitcher? It was my whirlwind romance, a hot item one minute and nothing the next, my all consuming desire, to being kicked to the curb.

I am really mad at myself as well. Looking back the choices I made could have been better, but my lack of experience didn't really help me avoid some pitfalls. Honestly I am not even sure what the reasons were we did break up. I can only guess it was the things that we had previously disagreed on. I just really wish we could have worked together to solve our problems rather than run from them. I am mad at her too though.Breaking up with someone over text messages is not only cowardly, but also just plain disrespectful. At least have the pelotas to say it to my face. I will freely admit things I fuck up and then move on the least I could get is at least one last face to face.

I'm not really done expressing myself or editing this but i thought i'd throw this up there as a notice at least.

The Lord's day

Another nice day. We got to talk today about religion and what are beliefs are, and how we will deal with that kind of stuff. I am really glad we hashed out some serious stuff today and still like each other a lot. Also Simon came to church today so that was awesome. I'm looking forward to coming up for your party as well B face, but I think we will come up friday night and leave saturday.

You get to see my ugly mug this time!

A day on the town.

So today we went out to breakfast at the ye olde pancake house. After that we headed down to the sat market. We went and saw Ashley and Lane at their different booths and walked around downtown a bit. Then we went back to my house and watched a movie and discovered each others favorite youtube videos. Gotta get up early to make sunday school in the morning.

Holy crap don't get her mad!

The truly righteous man attains life, but he who pursues evil goes to his death.

Pursuing righteous ways is difficult. I had a great talk with Parker and K2 today. We talked about what a man's job is in a relationship and other things of that nature. I feel really good about everything that is happening right now. It's like new life has sprung up inside me. I hope that we make the right choices over the next few weeks as we have been talking a lot about what we wanna accomplish in our relationship and where we wanna go with it. I have also found a re-invigorated relationship with God as well.
Tonight we went to skinner butte park and walked around the top looking at the city. Then we went to Steelheads and had a few drinks.

Oh How Magnificent the Lord's plan is

So we hit it off pretty well. It feels good to be wanted, finally. How does one express a feeling that one has never had before. I thought I had it all figured out. That my life would be a simple one left to my own devices I would still be sitting at home alone five years from now. I thought God had forgotten me, but this gift just goes to show how feeble and weak I am in my faith. Now comes the task of trying to wade through a different temptation. The desire to speed things up. The desire to FUBAR our chances with the trivial. I think now more than ever I see what we really should desire. To have real human connection that mirrors God's connection to us. He prepares us for perfection just like he prepared her and I over the course of our lives to now be here where we are.
I am just glad she is so forward with her thoughts on things and our desire to remain honorable in our relationship. She is really cool. I'm sorry Brielle but your coolness is starting to be eclipsed. It's hard to explain how she is but I think I will still be discovering her for many more months.

More to come after tomorrow.