High tech Medicine

So when you get a tattoo, the question of how to treat it afterwards is the big one.

Do you keep it wet with lotion or salves or sprays?

Do you let it dry?

Ryan uses a new trick: Tegaderm by 3M

This stuff is amazing.  Since a tattoo is like a cross between a burn and an abrasion, it works great to cover the tattoo.

So since Saturday, my upper arm has been covered in this thin plastic sheet.  We wrapped the bottom of the plastic in gauze for a day because it was oozing out of a pucker, but it was dry and sealed by Monday morning.

And now the tattoo is blurry because of the ooze inside the dressing, but once the 7 days are up on the Tegaderm, it will be significantly healed.  Plus I haven't stained any sheets or shirts.

Half-Sleeve Phase 2

So I read that as a protest against Trump, you should support a local theater or artist.

It just happened that last week, I got in contact with my tattoo artist on Alameda, and made an appointment for Saturday 1/21.

So, Saturday I visited Tiger's Blood Social Club again.

And I sat for a personal record of five and a half hours under the gun.  I was there for six and half, but the gun wasn't running that whole time.

The shop has updated their webpage since Ryan started (it's been over a year since I started the work on my arm), and he is now represented.

Ryan has a great demeanor and is just a great guy.

The whole crowd there is completely different from my previous experiences.  It's a bunch of guys who are around my age doing work they love with people they love.

But here is what I came away with on Saturday.

As it stands now, I have two tattoos, after my next session, it will be only one as we connect the arm sleeve and backpiece together.

Long Weekend

So, I took a long weekend on Friday (in no way connected with not getting Columbus Day off on Monday) and had a special fun weekend.  I'll take it backwards.

Sunday, Jennifer was look for something to watch on Amazon, and she happened to come across "Back to the Future".  Now this movie is 30 years old, and I would have bet large sums of money that we had watched it together, but apparently not.  So we watched it and she really enjoyed it.  I asked if she wanted to watch Part II, and she said sure.  We almost didn't watch Part III, but she was hooked.  It was a great movie marathon.

Saturday was our monthly GURPS game.  We had a good length session and had lots of fun and laughs.  I was sore and a little distracted, but that was to be expected.

Friday, I started a new tattoo piece on my arm at a tattoo shop called Tigers Blood Social Club that Jennifer and I found on Alameda a few months ago.  And Friday, it was my turn back under the gun.

I've been pondering the concept of this portion for a bit, and have been looking at this artwork for inspiration.  The symbol in the artwork is a stylized S from the font that DC uses for the Kryptonian language in the comics and was also used on "Smallville".  I asked Ryan, the artist, to combine the artwork with a design from this t-shirt.

It was a long session, but we talked about movies and music and comics.

Ryan is traveling next month, so I'll be going back in December, and we'll see if we can finish this one.  I will say that the arm (at least where I got mine done) was a lot easier than on the back.  He was rarely tattooing and making my skeleton vibrate.