Tattoo (Session 1)

Session #1
Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
12 Noon

Yesterday we finally got started. The first couple of hours were spent drawing. The head of the dragon was done as a hand-drawn stencil, everything else was drawn on my shoulder with Sharpie markers. After more than an hour of drawing, the real work begins. This session was all outlining and covered my right chest (pec), shoulder and part of my upper arm. The lower arm will be done next time.

The shop was pretty busy and a number of prospective clients looked in to see Joel working. The first question is always “Does it hurt?” Of course it hurts; some guy is jamming a needle into your flesh 40-50 times a second for hours. Duhhh.

Outlining is pretty brutal, it a single needle and very sharp, thin lines. The total time for this session was just over three hours. The first hour was fine, the pain a distant irritant. By the second hour I was starting to really feel the burn with each new line. My leg was starting to twitch uncontrollably after the longer lines. By the third hour I was holding my breath during each line. I was really glad when he finished.

Aftercare is Aquaphore lotion for the first 4-5 days followed by simple lotion.

P.S. There was a small amount of peeling on days 2 and 3 but no other problems.

Tattoo (Session 0)

Session #0
Saturday August 18th 2007
Consultation with Joel Long, Bolder Ink

We arrive at the Bolder Ink shop a few minutes early and begin thumbing through Joel’s portfolio. I am shocked at the difference between what he has on his web site and the work in his albums. The work in the book is exactly what I am looking for, sharp, vibrant, lots of detail, subtle shadows.

I later asked Joel about the difference, he explained that anything he puts on his web site is immediately copied by other artists (I don't think he used the word "artist") so he keeps his best stuff in the books and only publishes older work to the web.

When he arrived we discussed what I wanted and he made some suggestions based on traditional Japanese technique. everything sounded pretty good so I made an appointment for my first session.

Tattoo

After more than a year of planning, thinking, dreaming, I recently started the wheels on motion to actually get a new tattoo. I have a climbing rope and Figure-8 around my right ankle that is now 10 years old. I have loved it every minute since I got it.

Recently I have been attracted to traditional Japanese style tattoos, especially the snake-like Dragons and brilliant orange Koi fish. Japanese style is unlike the “single-point” style of most tattoos. The pieces are much larger, covering the entire arm or leg. In the Japanese style, there is a central tattoo that is framed by a more subtle background. The background can be wind bars, clouds, waves or other design. The background on this type of tatoo is typically done in gray. I am most attracted to Dragons and Koi, both very traditional designs.

After an aborted start in January, I have chosen another artist and set an appointment for the first session.

I originally wanted Chris Garver to do the work. He is one of a very few artists who specialize in traditional Japanese style. Unfortunately he is now a star on the TV show Miami Ink, which means the only way to get an appointment, is to send in a video tape and “audition” for the TV show. I have zero interest in getting a tattoo on TV so Chris was out.

My wife knows a guy working on a full body-suit, she asked him and he recommended Chris Trevino in Austin and Dave Tedder in Atlanta. I spoke with Chris, described the piece I wanted and learned that due to the size and complexity, it would take at least 3 or 4 sessions to complete. I like both Austin and Atlanta but traveling there multiple times seemed like way too much work.

Months pass…

I am again looking at Chris Trevenio’s web site and find a link to an artist in Boulder who has worked with Chris. His name is Joel Long.

I found his web site and looked at his portfolio. Some of the pieces looked pretty good but I wasn’t sure he could do the level of work I was looking for. A few more months pass and I decide to meet him to discuss my plans while Kathy and I were in Boulder for dinner at Frasca.

Cave Diving in Cozumel

During our trip to Cozumel we spent a day diving Cenotes Dos Ojos.










Kathy and I in the bat cave.










Cave diving budies...











This is the half-way marker for the upstream loop. Cave Diving humor.

Cozumel

It's been a while -- sometimes work calls.

Anyway, We are off to Cozumel for a bit of sun and SCUBA. Our 10 year anniversary and K's birthday are both the first week of October. We went to Cozumel for our honeymoon so it seems appropriate to go back now.

Frontier has a direct from Denver on Saturdays so we are in for 7 days. After much research we chose to stay at the Palace Hotel (which used to be the Plaza Las Glorias, where we stayed on our last visit.).

We are diving with Aqua Safari, all fast-boat with three night-dives. I'm really looking forward to diving the "Devils Throat" at Punta Sur. I missed it last time and really want to do it.

DVD to iPhone conversion

I have moved copies of a number of my DVD-based movies on my iPhone and today a friend asked how to do it so here is my method:

I use Handbrake to convert the DVD to an MPEG-4 file with AAC audio. I typically keep these files on my MacBook Pro and watch them while traveling so I preserve the native resolution, encode at a relitively high bit-rate (3 Mb/s) and use dual-pass encoding. I also de-interlace in Handbrake.

My Handbrake configuration is something like this..

Now I use another utility, FFmpeg to convert the full-res Mpeg4 file from Handbrake to an iPhone compatable format. Drag and drop the handbrake output file to the "Source Format" block of the FFmpeg window.
I use the "iPodTV" profile as the output format and change the resolution to the 480x320 required by the iPhone. Now encode.

When complete I drag the resulting file into iTunes and sync with my iPhone.

Installation tips: You will need to install FFmpeg first as Handbrake uses it as an encoder.

There are already utilities that can do both steps in a single pass. One can be seen here www.dvdtoiphone.net

I use this process since I want a high-quality intermediate format on my MBP (and to copy to my PocketDISH player, and already have both Handbrake and FFmpeg.

iPhone - Day 2

A full 24 hours later -- I am still enthralled. The display is simply stunning. It displays the smallest fonts on web pages better than anything I have ever seen.

I loaded it up with Movies, TV shows, Music, and Photos. I synced with Address Book after cleaning up my contact list -- importing about 200 contacts. Everything works as advertised.

Another trip to the Apple store yielded an inCase cover and a screen shield. $50 seems reasonable to protect a $650 phone...

Ok, I caved

I sprung for an iPhone.

I've been a Blackberry user for 4 years and consider them generally adequate for their task. I currently use a Moto Razr as my personal phone. It's a useful size and shape but the user interface is pathetic.

I watched to 30 min intro vodeo on the Apple site as was pretty much sold. I couldn't see waiting in line with the other overenthusiastic Apple fans on Thursday or Friday.
Instead I walked into the Apple store today at lunch and picked up an 8 Gig version. Activation took about as much time than updating iTunes to support the phone.

My initial opinion is that it may not be perfect but it is amazing.

Scanner Geek

I bought a race scanner/headset package a couple of years ago at the 24hours of Daytona. It was really great. I plan to use it as the USGP this weekend. The details for the radio frequencies used by the teams are a little sketchy, so I need to have multiple frequencies for each car, team, PA system, broadcaster, Etc.

The total is close to 140 freqs. Inputting these (and the description) into the scanner would take hours. My scanner (a Uniden SC200) has a serial port and with the right software all this can be done on a PC. Key detail there -- the PC, I don't use a PC and my Mac doesn't even have a serial port.

So after reviving an old Dell laptop and purchasing ARC200 Scanner Programming Software, I was able to upload everything I wanted in about an hour. ARC200 is pretty good -- a little loose with Windows programming conventions, but it offers a number of cool scanner conveniences.

I also want to get a new battery -- it looks like there is a 2500 mAh upgrade from the 800 mAh original that claims to last 36 hours. We will see.

Paralels Workstation for MAC

Wow -- I just purchased Parallels 3.0 to replace my Bootcamp 1.2 install. Much more convienient. I use Visio, AutoCad, and Project for work. AutoCad took a little time -- as it does on the PC. Everything else was perfect.

I actually had a little trouble getting it installed, it turned out to be my WinXP install disk (in fact I have 4 Full Retail versions of XP, all with bad disks). After solving that issue everything went perfectly.

I ran into an incompatibility with my Polar heart-rate monitor. It uses a USB 1.1 to IR converter to download ride data from my HRM. It appears to be incompatible with Parallels. There is a new converter (USB 2.0) that appears to work. Yet another Polar accessory required.

Bootcamp is good, Parallels is better.