My First Tattoo

I grew up in a family full of bikers.  No, not granola-eating road cyclists.  Real bikers.  My aunt could kick your dad's ass.  I've seen her kick many.  Hell, my cousin (a girl) could kick your dad's ass.  My grandma could drink you under the table (at least she could until recent medical complications).  Everyone had a 'get drunk and fight' attitude.  Everyone had tattoos.

I was always morally opposed to tattoos.  Somewhere in my childhood I decided I wanted to be nothing like my family (when I gave up drinking and smoking and turned toward the books).  But something strange happened a year or two ago.  I came across a symbol that so thoroughly described me that I suddenly had the urge to get a tattoo of it.  This was that symbol:

This was a symbol that was trademarked for Michigan's hosting of the annual American Nuclear Society Student Conference.  Everything about it appeals to me: the block M, the nuclear aspect, and Michigan being the center of the universe.

When I returned to L.A., I was still infatuated with it.  On June 22nd, 2010, I applied to be on L.A. Ink.  I wanted to get it done on a reality show.  I thought that the story of a thoroughly educated nuclear engineer getting his first tattoo was unique enough that they might be interested.  How many people have master's degrees in engineering and tattoos?  I had stolen the symbol from the conference website, and I had updated it to make it even cooler (to me).

I never got casted.  I never got it done.  It got put on the back burner, but I never completely disregarded it.  Something lately got me really interested in it again.  I made a new friend at a Michigan bar a few weeks ago, and she even recommended one of the tattoo parlours in Ann Arbor for getting my tattoo.  I think that was the last thing that set me.  I was heading to Michigan for over a week.  I would get my damn tattoo.

And I did.  On October 1st, 2011 by Finn at Lucky Monkey Tattoo in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after we shut out Minnesota.

It wasn't too painful.  I guess I had planned for it to be bad.  I went in knowing that I'd sit through it regardless of how bad it was.  Don't get me wrong, there's a person carving into your leg.  However, your body gets used to it after a few minutes.  At no point was it completely painless (the bottom right corner of the tattoo was the worst part), but at no point was it painful enough that I was wincing or uncontrollably pulling away.  The sound of the needle got in my head more than the pain got to my nerves.  I found myself tilting my head to minimize the sound of the needle(s).

It was over really quickly, much faster than I expected.  And it looked awesome.  It cost me a little over $100, which is 1/3 of what I was expecting to pay (compared to L.A.).  I finally accomplished my first item on my 30 by 30 list.  I thought it would be bloody (I drank a fair bit that morning, and I have high blood pressure).  He kept dabbing it while he was drilling, and I assumed it was the blood, but that's apparently how they apply the ink.  Not bloody at all.  I feel like I want to watch how it is done now.  I took off the bandage after two hours, and it looked awesome for the first few days.

For the first couple of days, you're supposed to wash it with light soap and water 3 times a day.  That was easy.  It felt a little like road rash at the beginning, and it felt more like a bruise after a few days.  After that, you're supposed to put lotion on it 3 times a day.  By now the scab is forming, and the tattoo has a scaly texture.  I used some fancy fragrance free face lotion that Annie had, but ink started to come out of the tattoo after a few days.  It was turning everything down there blue, and I was worried that the maize lines around the M would never show up again.  I didn't know if this was strange or not.  I freaked out a little (or a lot), went and bought different hand lotion, and things seemed to have calmed down.

My family kept asking me why I wasn't using A&D ointment.  That's what they all used.  I told them that the artist/parlour said I didn't need to.  I was hell-bent on sticking to the directions given to me by one of the best tattoo parlours in Michigan, as opposed to advice from people who drunkenly got their tattoos in a kitchen from a high friend of theirs.

At one point a mosquito landed on my tattoo and started feasting.  I squashed it, and blood stained the upper left corner of the block M.  Much like the blue that's smeared everywhere, I expect it to disappear after a week or so, and I'll be left with a perfect design.  It's not really that itchy any more, so I'm guessing we're rounding the end of the whole healing stage.  Now, I just have to hope that the scabs don't fall off early and leave dull patches in the coloring.  By this weekend, I suspect it'll feel like the rest of my leg, and I'll be officially tattoo'd for the rest of my life.

Your turn to get some ink, Annie,
~RoB

Easter Games

It's an annual tradition (started long before I came around) that Annie's family celebrates Zombie Jesus Day by getting together and playing games.  There is usually a theme to the weekend (Deal or No Deal, Olympics, etc.). There's usually some tennis (sometimes a tourney).  The weekend usually ends with an easter egg hunt for the kids (and like Xmas, 'kid' is loosely defined as anyone without a child, so I'm still thrown in with middle-schoolers).

I've made references to the manliness of working with my hands over the past few weeks.  Well, these are the secret project I was working on:

Cornhole!  Complete with maize & blue cornbags.

Collapsed Beer Pong (L) & Flip Cup (R) Tabletops.

Unfolded Collapsible Beer Pong (T) & Flip Cup (B) Tabletops.

Ladder Golf!

Somehow, Annie and I got put in charge of the games this year.  So, she came up with a tailgate theme (bringing the best of the Midwest to her granola-y, hippie, Californian family).  I commenced to getting all of those games built and painted.  Don't get me wrong, Annie helped a little (she half spray painted the tops of the bases of the ladder golf... and some of the yellow on ladder golf... and the big M's on beer pong and cornhole [which I outlined for her]).  I also had some help from her uncle and his powertools.  In general, though, most of this was done by me with really simple tools and a fair amount of time!

We split the 20 people into 10 randomly-assigned teams and randomly assigned each team a color.  We asked teams to wear their colors and made everyone play each other until there was an overall winner.  Yes, some people ended up playing beer pong with their grandparents.  Yes, children were screaming at parents to flip cups faster.  (People were allowed to drink whatever they wanted, so the 12 year old wasn't throwin' back brewskies.)

Judging by the volume of the festivities (and my slight drunkenness after adding Jack to my Coke for the drinking games), much fun was had by all!

We needed to build these for our epic Michigan Football Tailgating plans this Fall anyway,
~RoB

Michael Scott & Granny

If the title of this post gave you a mental image of Michael Scott nailing Granny, like the boss and his coffee mug from Office Space, then you are fucked up, and you should leave now.

Gets your juices flowing, eh?

Instead, the title is a reference to the fact that I work with someone who is so much like Michael Scott, that it literally isn't even funny.  He's a middle-aged engineer with a productivity level of a special needs child.  He walks from office to office (there are 4 offices in my trailer, not including his) sparking up random convos and stories.  I heard him giving the full synopsis to The Social Network to the poor girl next to me who hadn't seen it, and I wanted to blow up the whole trailer, as a martyr.  Today he rolled into my office, because he heard me talking to one of the cooler cats about tequila.  He wanted to let me know that he knew a few things about tequila... like how to mispronounce Reposado and Anejo.  He also pointed out, since I talked about wine with other people, that the famed Franzia is boxed in the town where he lives.  Wow, if he were any cooler, they'd put an ad on our website of him riding his mountain bike around by himself.  Oh shit, they did!

Granny just got back out of the hospital today.  On Tuesday, Mom called me hysterical because they had to rush Granny back into the hospital.  That makes time #3 since Xmas Day, and she's spent less time at home than in the hospital since this all hit the fan.  Apparently, on Tuesday she fell and Mom couldn't help her back up.  She was having some of the same problems that she had around Xmas, and an ambulance was called.  While in the hospital this time, they found cancer in her other (right) lung, and gave her a full-body PET scan.  Nobody knows the results yet, but she still sounds like she has stroke-face.  She said she was so happy to take a nap today without anybody "poking her to wake her up and take a blood sample".  I'm not ready to deal with that, but everyone is pushing me to go back and visit her.  I know it would lighten her day, but it'd suck for me, and I'm selfish.

So, I guess I'm torn between hanging with Michael Scott or Granny,
~RoB

NASCAR is Trash

So, I'm driving to work, and I'm immediately inspired to write another 'Oakland has funny signs' post.  One of the 'upcoming exits' signs had been covered with a banner that said "Gang Injunctions = Racial Profiling".  First of all, that's just moronic.  Secondly.... wtf?  Is that a decorated Geo Metro?

I do not condone driving and taking pictures with your camera phone.  Yes, I'm a hypocrite.

Let's start with the fact that NASCAR is too white trash for even me, which is saying something.  I grew up in Southeast Michigan, in a town entirely employed by the Big 3 (American car companies need a new name like Screwed 3), where every child grows up with a greasy wrench in their hand, and my family was a racist pack of Miller Lite drinking rednecks.  Sounds like ideal NASCAR climate, right?  Sure was.  Maybe that's one of the big reasons I'm so against it.

I'm proud to say that I had to look up who drove the 48 car.

Anyway, this car is cruising down I-580, and I can't help but make fun of them.  NASCAR is so stupid.  Is it racist to say that I'm surprised it was driven by a hispanic woman?  (I had 'hispanic-looking' and decided this was not the place to try and be PC all of a sudden.)  Not the demographic (race or gender) I would expect to be enthused enough to do this to her car.  I pray that she lost a bet, or that this is her (white) boyfriend's car.

In the summer of 2008, when gas hit those ridiculous prices, I did some back of the envelope calculations determining how much gas each NASCAR race consumed, and how much was consumed during a whole racing season.  The number was astronomical.  I immediately formed the stance that if you watch NASCAR, you are absolutely not allowed to bitch about high gas prices.  It's called supply in demand.  It's all your fault.  Need I also mention the republican-led decisions to continue funding NASCAR while cutting funds for Planned Parenthood & NPR!?!

Totally the demographic I expected to have a car like this (except I'm too good for beer and wife-beaters),
~RoB

My Family

You ever see those crazy southerners on TV talking about aliens or floods or 'nados in their curlers and mumus?  Ever wonder what the rest of their family thinks of them?  Are they all that fucked up?  I always pictured they were a band of rednecks roaming the countryside like the Beverly Hillbillies.  Then it happened to me.

Apparently my cousin is suing a firefighter for allowing him to run into a pump truck.  It was interesting and twisted enough that it got picked up by the local news.  My lethal aunt enters stage right to tell the reporters to fuck off.  This is a great example of the dysfunction I told you all I grew up with:
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/man-sues-firefighter-who-helped-save-his-life%3B-could-it-end-up-costing-taxpayers%3F

Did I Ever Tell You...

The most significant July 4th memory I have was at the house featured in that news footage.  There was a big, all-day barbecue (most likely a hobo dinner, which I refuse to explain).  It turned into a drunken brawl.  The kids ran over (we had been hanging out across the street at my mom's boyfriend's).  In an attempt to break up the (at this point, bloody) fighting, my cousin (a girl) punched her dad in the face, my mom's boyfriend's daughter was swinging around a baseball bat, and I pushed down and sat on my mom (who was getting her ass kicked).  My mom leaned up and bit the back of my arm.  Hard.  I didn't hit her, but I remember wanting to.  I don't think I've ever been so mad in my life, before or since.  I got over it in the typical "don't take it personally, she's drunk" that those of us from dysfunctional families come to be skilled at.

In a discussion with my aunt in Chicago about rather I should take the current job offer or not, I mentioned that I felt bad about dragging Annie away from all her family here, in northern California.  She laughed it off, saying that she didn't really know what a strong family bond was like.  She knew I understood where she was coming from, because I feel the same way.

This footage is one of the reasons I don't want kids,
~RoB

Pee & Ugly People

I've apparently started a bad habit.  I promise to stop once I bring this last load up from L.A. Sunday night.  The worst part was Annie got off in about 15 minutes.  She apparently doesn't check her text messages while driving.  Geez, people.  We have this technology to use!  By the way, Bay Area traffic is almost as frustrating as L.A. traffic.  I also memorized that some kid was abducted in a Silver Toyota Corolla license plate 6BHW445; it was all over the freeway during my ridiculous amount of driving today.

Back to pee, whenever I do it in my car, I feel so redneck.  It reminds me when I drove to Chicago with a friend in high school, borrowing my grandpa's truck.  We found a jug of pee in the door.  Upon returning, he explained that when he's driving to work and throwing back a few brewskies (yes, simultaneously), he prefers to pee in a jug as opposed to stopping to pee somewhere.  Awesome.  No big surprise for a guy who has a big detergent tub in our garage for peeing into.  I'm so white trash!  Guess this gets put into the same category as peeing in the shower: weird urinating habits.  Maybe I do have some sort of problem...

On another note, I forgot how funny looking the people were in the bay area.  You get so spoiled in L.A.  Everyone is so hot!  I mean, at least people in the bay are skinny (skinny, not in good shape) unlike the herds of buffalo you find in the Midwest.  They're just funny looking.  I know that I'm plain ugly, and that I'm certainly not sporting a six-pack, but it is us ugly people that end up being the shallowest, since we learn quite young how much physical attractiveness factors into the ease of daily life.

Applied to 8 more jobs today, totaling 31 so far.  Heard back from 3 tutoring places, but I haven't made any commitments.  I'm driving to L.A. tomorrow, so I have some time off from the job search.  We have tickets to the U.S. soccer match, and I'm dying to go to Scarpetta before leaving L.A. permanently.  I'm considering flying back to MI to visit granny (and my cuz) who are both in the hospital now.  I think that's it for my life today.

Funny looking,
~RoB

Edwin & Eloise

Meet Edwin & Eloise.

It's a tradition in Annie's family that all the girls take off the day after Christmas and spend the day shopping.  They go around trying to take advantage of 50% off all the crap that's left after the holiday shopping season.  Two years ago, Annie's mom walked back in with Edwin & Eloise, the evil, possessed, stuffed deer that spend the nights walking around and whispering cruel things in my ear.

This year, Annie's house was so packed with people that we had to spend a few nights on her living room floor next to Edwin & Eloise.  I kept covering them with clothes so that they wouldn't be hovering over me while I slept.  Several times, the clothes were removed before the next morning.  This was the first solid proof that I had that these screwed up stuffed dolls were alive.  Nobody believed me.

Finally, a few days ago, I returned by myself to find them doing the nasty.  So, I snapped a few pics on my iPhone in hopes of once, and for all, proving to the world that these demon deer should be destroyed!

Other than that, my life remains a whirlwind, though Tahoe was a nice break.  I've applied to 17 jobs so far, and I have at least 6 more to apply to today.  I've spoken on the phone to a lab that plans on giving me an offer before the end of the week.  I am also meeting with a tutoring company tomorrow.  So, things are moving on that front.

Granny ended up back in the hospital, ICU specifically.  Today she was moved out of ICU, but things don't sound well.  I'm considering flying back home next week to spend some time.  Maybe seeing me will help her along, cuz I am her favorite person in the world.  My cousin (my age) just ended up in the same hospital for thyroid problems.  What's going on people???

I took a skating (type of skiing) lesson up at Tahoe, and it's something that I'd like to try a few more times.  I regularly stride when I'm cross-country skiing up there, but learning the faster and more modern style could be fun.  I'm considering doing the Great Ski Race in March, which is a 30k race.  We'll see if I'm in good enough shape by then.  I'm playing tennis with an old friend today, so that's a start.

That's enough for today.  It's hard to blog in Tahoe, but I should have a few consistent days of it this week before I return to L.A. to get the last of my stuff!

Still scared to fart,
~RoB