Company.

Handsome Adam gave us a week head-start,

and then arrived in Grants Pass ready for serious hangout time.

He knew no one was going to try and visit us our first week here,

and so showing up on day 8 was a safe bet for First Place.

Adam is a damn good house guest.

He's up for whatever,

down for anything,

and does dishes till you tattoo his hands.

He helped us explore and get acquainted with our new surroundings since pretty much everything was new to us.

He's like the Lewis and Clark of houseguests,

scoping it out and paving the trail for future visitors.

If you come and stay with us here

(and don't run out of gas in an unpaved national park),

you'll owe Handsome Adam a thank you.

Here he is in a treehouse we found by accident.

We did some drives and hikes through Grants Pass and the rest of Southern Oregon,

the redwoods, and all the way to the California coast.

If Minnesota is the land of lakes,

Oregon has to be the state of rivers.

So many.

Nothing ever gets a chance to dry out,

so moss just grows on everything.

Telephone poles, highways, roofs,

everything just gets sexier with a little moss.

Sometimes it's the only color around.

On the day we drove to Crescent City, CA,

we bumped into Battery Point Lighthouse at the perfect time.

Apparently there's a second lighthouse in that town,

(two in one town?! c'mon...)

so I'll be headed back there next week when the new guests arrive.

It was a bummer seeing him off this morning,

but he threatens to come back again before we leave in April.

Awesome.

Quality and quantity.

Handsome Adam knows what's up.

Last day of Fall (and Maple Grove).

Oh man.

I'm done with Identity Tattoo for a little while.

Don't expect to see me back there till April.

It's been an awesome 4.5 years,

and I look forward to more fun when I get back.

But for the next few months,

I'm very excited to be working out at Jeff Gogue's shop in Oregon.

My last day there was spent working on Manda's strange animal sleeve.

We colored in a lot of poppies around an antlered squirrel,

did some background,

and tried to tie everything together.

Up top is the (antlered) blue footed booby,

and the sheepgoat under that,

and then some squirrels playing in a poppy field.

(i didn't do the blue armband thing)

It was also Handsome Adam's last day,

and he's leaving for the west coast, too.

So after packing and cleaning up,

we smashed our coffee mugs and released a couple floating lanterns.

Adam's such a good dude,

and it's been a pleasure working with him for the past year.

So it's just Todd and Ben at the shop for a few months.

Do me a favor, and check up on them every once in a while.

Stop in and be loud for a minute,

just so they don't forget about me.

I'm afraid they might get soft while I'm away.

(i can almost hear Maple Grove collectively breathing a sigh of relief)

Herbs and Tea.

I had a four hour cancelation for today,

so Handsome Adam called in Chef Ryan.

And he showed up, of course.

We have a chef sleeve to finish up, after all.

(including this, this, and this)

We got some rosemary, basil and sage done,

along with some smokey background action.

This is the sage part:

Also, a while back I did a shirt design for a store called Juniper,

but haven't posted any photos yet.

Here they are;

a close up of the printed shirt,

and also Rahma modeling one for me.

I personally don't have any for sale,

but if you want to get one for yourself

(or some special lady on your holiday gift list),

just head to Maple Grove.

If you're out of state,

you might be able to order it over the phone.

(just ask for Liz and tell her I sent you)

If you're usually a 'bad at gift-giving dude',

I just handed this one to you.

Louder than ten (number 11!)

aaaaaaaand.....DONE!

11 tattoos,

11 days straight.

Ending today, 11/11/11.

Each with a different animal (well, one ghost),

and a different light source.

Today I finished the project with Matt,

and he got this escaping goat with a flashlight.

He's such a trooper.

He sat for 7.5 hours,

though I think he had to put up with a little more f'n around than the other 10.

I even took a break to race Handsome Adam.

(i lost)

A big thanks to him for grabbing the final day,

and for putting up with me at my not-quite-best.

The project was a lot of fun,

and a lot of work,

but I think it was super successful.

and here's a little collage of them all together.

Thanks to everyone who got one of the 11s,

I'm honored to have so many willing participants

whenever I come up with these odd tattoo plans.

And I'm also happy everyone finished their piece in one session,

nobody tapped out early,

nobody called in sick.

Everyone turned it up to 11,

and I really appreciate it.

Here's the original post about the project.

"This is the light that shines..

...and I can see the pines are dancing."

Handsome Adam got his full birthday present now,
since I spent part of my day off tattooing his second hand.
He got the moth almost a week ago,
and we finished it all up today with the mason jar lantern on his left hand.
(the left side of the jar isn't warped in real life, just in the photo)






















The strangest part of it all
(other than knowingly f'n up your friend's future)
was trying to work with what he already had.
Mr Todd Lambright had done both of Adam's existing sleeves,
and uses really saturated, vibrant colors
(and I usually do the complete opposite).
But we had to blend it all together,
so this lantern tattoo has a red background,
and the moth has a blue one to match what was already there.
Here's his naked hands to show where we started from.


















A few people turned me on to A.A. Bondy this week,
so here I am passing on the favor.
He'll be in town November 5th at the 7th St Entry.
I'll be doing one of my "elevens" tattoos that day,
but be sure I'll be attending this that evening.

A How To:*

How to Piss Off or Win Over your tattoo artist.



There's few things more infuriating than 'no call, no shows' at work,

especially when it's a full day appointment,

and I've done all the drawing for it ahead of time,

AND they confirm the day before the appointment that they are,

in fact, coming in.

It makes me go bananas.



But before I gave in to my homicidal urges,

Handsome Adam used his good hand to call Ms Broccoli Stegosaurus,

and see if she wanted to come in a few days early.

And did she?

yup.

Crisis(es) adverted.



I couldn't be any more excited about this moth-eaten hand-fan chest piece.

And now she's been added to my "favorite clients" list

for her willingness to not only get a tattoo I've been dying to do for a while,

but also to get into the tattoo chair at a moments notice.



She isn't exactly fond of her tattoo shop nickname,

(and that's usually set in stone)

but if anyone has earned the right to get a new one, it's her.

So, maybe by the time we show off the finished product,

we'll be referring to her by something else.

Something she believes suits her a little better.

We'll see.

* This post has been slightly reworded due to the misuse of specific terminology

that was misleading, wrong, and offensive.

For a more accurate definitions about list removal,

please go here.

Backhanded Birthdays

Now-Slightly-Less Handsome Adam got his right hand tattooed today.

Nothing like pain and swelling to celebrate getting older.

Though, if you've ever seen Adam getting tattooed or lazered,

you'd know he takes it like the toughest of badasses.

He doesn't seem to care at all.

We had a HoneyHoney sing along during the session,

and listened to both their albums.

Twice.























































































Today was only half of a birthday gift.

Next week we'll do the other hand,

and it'll look something like this stencil/marker mess we made today.

One at a time, though.

Party Hopping

Meryl and I flew to Colorado for her sister Nicole's wedding,

but it was a super quick less-than-3-day visit.



Fly in, drive, rehearsal dinner, drive, bed.

wake up, drive, wedding, drive, bed.

wake up, drive, hike, fly home,

(and then do a birthday dinner for handsome adam!)



Here's us post-vows with our nephew Sia:































We went hiking at Brainard Lake near Boulder.

Meryl took this photo,

and others just as sexy here.

It's pretty unreal out there.













































Once we landed in MPLS,

we still had a birthday dinner to attend.

Identity's Handsome Adam had his golden birthday,

27 on the 27th!

We ate too much blops at T's Place,

since that's tradition now.

We had lots of mango juice, too, of course.

And then,

since shots on your birthday is part of T's tradition,

we had some birthday mango shots.

Just look at me.

That's a dude who doesn't know what state he's in.

Or maybe just poorly adjusting to normal altitude.

































Ruining Adam's bday photos wasn't my only birthday gift to him.

Tomorrow I'm going to ruin his future, too!

How?

Hand tattoos.

Well, just one tomorrow.

(only a-holes get both their hands done in one day)



And then with that comes some big nickname changes.

"Handsome Adam" will also be known as:

"Don't Date My Daughter Adam",

"We're Following You Around the Store Because You Look Sketchy Adam",

and my favorite,

"What Does Your Mother Think About That Adam".

Yup.

27 and all grown up.



Happy Weddings and Happy Birthdays.

You throw the party,

and we'll be there.