Bittersweet Vacation

As many of you may already know, My wife and I are directors of a camp for families affected by AIDS/HIV. For the first time in over 10 years, we are taking our vacation and not doing "camp". We work tirelessly all year to fund raise and program and brainstorm to pull it off. This year, with the shitty economy, and all things seeming to conspire against us, we've had to accept that a one year hiatus was necessary. Stubborn, stupid, whatever, we waited as long as we could before we were honest with ourselves and we called off about 3 weeks ago. As burned out and in need of a real vacation as we both are, I am sad. We have become so accustomed to kicking ass and taking names and doing this camp that we do, that neither of us even knows what to do with ourselves. There is a hole in our life this year that is usually filled with the experiences both good and bad from camp.
Tomorrow we meet for a BBQ with our families and staff, I look forward to seeing a camper who hasn't been to camp in 5 years. Last time he was at camp he was 12... Now he returns at 17, I'm scared to see that he grew a foot, or he has a huge muscles and a mustache.
This special camper has called me, my wife and my brother, about 5000 times in those five years. Most likely on someone else's cell phone or long distance, Sometimes collect from jail, usually at a bad time like in the middle of a wedding, but he hasn't let us forget why we do it. We do it because we can't imagine not doing it.

Thanks Buddy.

Miami Ink

Just watched last nights Miami Ink on the tivo... One of the tattoo artists did a rainbow trout and I gotta say... I was completely unimpressed! Maybe in the future he could leave the trout tattoos to someone who has actually seen a trout. At least the guy who got it was pleased.

The Olympics

For the record... I am now officially qualified to score every event and provide knowledgable commentary to every olympic sport.
I am by no means a flag waver... I outgrew blind patriotism at about 15.
I find myself conflicted... I will always root for the underdog, but USA is a giant, rich, fucking monster. The furthest thing from an underdog, yet I root for our athletes. I miss the days of the USSR, the evil red army of super-natural athletes that USA has now become. With the USSR in the olympics it made it seem less like we were going to win every event. It had a good vs. evil feel in every event, now it's just which American is the favorite. Most events we overmatch smaller countries so heavily that its become less fun. All that being said, I'll still watch team handball or whatever silly event that the programmers put on, because for some reason I can't get enough olympic coverage.

2nd Post...

I promised myself, I wouldn't let any time go by between posts... Needless to say its been a couple of days since my last entry. Not a lot has gone on. Wet a line monday morning at like 5:30am, I should have stayed in bed. Caught one 14" rainbow, but I spent more time tying and re-tying then I did fishing. Today was a good day, got to do a fishing related tattoo, that always makes for a good day. Actually, its been a good couple days... Yesterday I tattooed Tanya Amabile, her first tattoo! and... Brad B. from Salt, Brad's been letting me tattoo him since the apprenticeship. Thanks! Brad's one of those people that had more confidence in me than I did in my self at times. I've got drawings to catch up on so, I'll keep this one short and sweet.

beginnings...

First Post. I'm curious to see where this blog will go. The idea started as I found myself looking for ways to market my tattooing but it has the potential to do much more. It's an opportunity to get my name out there to the masses, while clearing my head of the things that I need to talk about. Hopefully, I say this optimistically, but if enough people check it out, maybe it will expose me to other points of view and be a place for people who like my work to check things I've done or find interesting. One thing is for sure... It will be humbling, There are so many haters out there! As an artist, I've learned to be completely comfortable with criticism, as long as it's some what constructive. But I'll put my chin out there and we'll see how it goes.