Been cleaning up some behind the scenes code and working on details for the site. Some things you may have notices: Improved menu function at the top including scroller targeted links, dead link indicator icon, improved sub menu functioning, and little detailed graphics for the bullets. I'm using style sheets (css) to maintain consistency of style, and moved a bunch of updates to the archives to improve loading time for the site. More to come, I'm gonna add more projects to the home menu soon.

I had a problem. My motivation for everything I did was for the approval of others, no decision I made was without the counsel or approval of others. It got to the point where I realized that when I made friends, I took on their characteristics to be more like them to get their approval. For a time, I honestly could say I didn't know who I was because I was just a conglomeration of what the people around me were. And it's been killing me; I've considered suicide because I take so much of my time doing things I don't really want to do but feel I should do. So I needed to make a permanant personal change, and that's always been a big problem for me. I needed to do something permanant and irreversible to accompany any change, to make it more real. That's when I got the idea of getting a tattoo. All my life, my parents told me if I ever got one they'd disown me, and Jenn I know wouldn't be pleased with the idea. But if I could get something there to symbolize a committment to myself to do things for me, to act in my own interest and not always worry about what other people want but what I want, I would appreciate it and live by it for the rest of my life. If it could be in a symbolic place that I could always see, but could be hidden if I wanted it to, that would be great. Like on my wrist, right in the place I've thought about slicing across several times due to the same issues I'm approaching to resolve. If I could get something to go right under my watch, it would be absolutely perfect. Finally, the message, if it could be something to represent the whole thing, yet something simple. Something that is for me to understand, yet not so simple that it's laid out to everyone. In high school, we all learned Aurebesh to communicate covertly, which is a written language from Star Wars. Something written in that, not because it's Star Wars, but because few people can read it. It was decided then and there it's what I wanted, but to be sure, I committed myself to wear it drawn in sharpie for a few weeks (6) and each time I saw it, I realized it was the right thing to do. I wanted to keep it a secret from Jenn and my family, just because they would try to influence me. When I thought about why not to get a tattoo, I thought my parents would kill me, Jenn would be disappointed, Meg might think it's stupid, and Jenn's parents would be disappointed. I never even thought about what I thought. And honestly, as long as it's something meaningful and not decoratice or over the top, I have no problem with it. Jenn found out about it at about week 5 when I slipped, and I didn't intend that to happen, and she tried to talk me out of it, but I had already decided it by that point. And finally, I did it. At first I was terrified about it, I was so worried I had done something stupid, what would everyone think. But Keith was there with me the whole time, and he reminded me why I did it, and it was all ok. And it still is. I made this decision for me, and I'm absolutely proud of it. And slowly, the people whose approval I would usually require are warming up to it. They respect my decision, and for once I know I made a huge unpopular decision and people are respecting me for me. I am so proud of it, other people may not like it but I did it for me and only me, and it represents me perfectly. I feel like I have this huge boost in confidence in the decisions I make, I feel like I can be myself, and if people don't like something about me they don't have to like me. I'm not living for them, I am living for me. I have no desire to get another tattoo, although people tell me getting them is addictive. And for this one, it's a response to a problem I've had for 20 years and no matter what happens in the future, if I can look down at this and know I can change and be those things I want to be, or look and know it commemorated a problem I overcame, I'll never regret it. So if you know what it means, awesome, cool, it's a simple credo, a message for me, a command, a reminder, all sorts of things, but don't make the exact message a big deal, I like that it has some unique mystery to it.

This is my wrist before I got the tattoo. Say goodbye forever to my unblemished skin!

Here is the mystery design, it's not that tricky to figure out what it means. 3 inches by 1/2 inch.

To make sure this was what I wanted, I drew it on my wrist in sharpie every day for 6 weeks before I did it. This is what it looked like.




Here's the after pictures. Day 1.







Some crazy "Look I'm a metal head" pics for the family.

Day 5 of the healing process.




Almost Healed.

Well, I do love projects. First, my N64 is working on batteries and almost done. Second, I'm buying a dead truck to learn to work on cars. Third, I made a Tattoo Gun using prison techniques. It's cool, check it out. Fourth, my amp is now complete since I added an input signal to the middle of a subwoofer/receiver combo system to use the receiver as just a powered sub. More pics on all this soon, have a good one!

On November 22, 2005, I got a tattoo. It was part of the healing process of all of my issues, and you can read something I wrote explaining about it, and see pictures of it, here. Stress is high right now, but the lexapro is helping. I just hope I get time to take care of the personal stuff I have on my agenda before it slips away forever. I plan to update with more pics soon, but time is hard to find. Mail me, check out the new internet radio up top!

  Since I got my tattoo, I've been fascinated with the art. It's amazing that some of the stuff is done the way it is, but most impressive to me is prison tattoos. How can someone make something that is so complex out of such limited supplies? Well, me being me, I had to try. With some basic guides online, I set out to build it. Sound tough? In addidion, I decided to do it only using tools available in prison to prisoners!
  First, to just lay it out, I don't condone the use of these things, nor will I use this on myself, and I don't think you should build one yourself to do your own tattoos. Go to a parlor and get something you'll be proud to wear for the rest of your life. Also, if you do make one, you need to not use it on yourself. First, this isn't clean or sterile, so you'll get AIDS. Second, if you make your own ink, you'll get some other disease and your body may attack it making you sick. All in all, if you make one and want to use it, get some meat or something and work on that, or some foam. Anything that will accept ink. There's my speech.
  So, I got the materials: A motor from a tape player, a paperclip, sand paper (could use a cinder block if it can't be acquired) a pen, hot glue sticks, a lighter, a plastic cup (or any semi-rigid plastic), some tape, and a battery (and if lucky a battery holder, depending on the type of battery).
  The principle is this: use the battery to raise and lower the needle attached at an off center point and guided to a pen. I took the motor and wrapped some plastic around it and melted the hot glue with a lighter to hold it in place. I want to be able to remove the motor and battery and needle for cleaning, so after I lock the motor in I snuck it out. I then attached the pen perpendicular to the motor. I took the motor out, broke off a sprocket from the gear on the motor, and then wrapped it in tape, then dabbed some hot glue on to hold it in place. This is usually accomplished with a pencil eraser, but those eventually crumble and I think this'll hold up better. I made the battery holder and used a lot of glue to stabilize it so it didn't rock, which is nice. Finally, I had to make the needle. I straightened out the paper clip and bent the top off at 90 degrees to fit into the sprocket. After sticking it in, I measured how low the paper clip stuck out when the motor was spun to the bottom and broke it off at a good distance out from the bottom. Then I removed the paper clip and started sharpening it to a needle. After getting it to a satisfactory point, I stuck it in. I descended the needle and then used the lighter to lightly heat the tip of the pen and squeezed it with my fingers to make it tighter around the needle so it doesn't vibrate so much. Finally, it's all together and works! I used it to etch into some plastics, and poked myself a few times (without ink) to see how it compared to getting a real tattoo. It's much more crude and goes deeper so it hurts more, plus it's a fat little needle. All in all, though, it's pretty amazing that I was able to make it in about an hour with no tools whatsoever. A prisoner would make ink from pen ink or some other stuff around, I haven't researched that much, I just know they only use black ink. To sterilize the needle, they burn it with the lighter. Here's some pics, feel free to mail me with questions and stuff!

This is the whole gun/pen thing. Looks pretty sinister, huh?


This is the back of the motor, the back of the motor mount, and the battery holder, plus the wiring. Simple, notice the crappy Hot Melt. That's what you get with a lighter!


Here's the battery connector, the motor mount, the top of the pen, and most importantly the crank of the motor. It's the sprocket on the motor with a tooth knocked off, a little hot melt, wrapped in some masking and electrical tape. Rudimentary, but it works well.


The paper clip needle connects with a 90 degree bend at the top into the hole into the sprocket of the motor. This is what it looks like in the down position.


This is the paper clip needle in the up position. It's about a 1/4 inch difference from top to bottom when the needle is moving, and depending on how far the needle sticks out from the pen it sticks differently into the skin. A more advanced gun may move the pen shaft or connect to the motor with an adjustable height, but for prison this would work fine. I mean hell I filed it against stone, this isn't exact science anyway.


You can see the needle descend down the pen shaft, even though it moves back and forth the angle from top to bottom is so slight it's negligable, the big movement is up and down.


The tip of the pen with the needle up. It looks mangled for a reason, the pen is natively much wider than the needle, so I let the needle down and used a lighter to heat the pen. I then squeezed it to make it tight around the needle, not too tight though. Without this, the needle slides back and forth violently, making straight lines impossible.


Finally, the needle down.