So I never uploaded the photos of my fist tattoo ever that I have had for a couple years which is my side binary tattoo. I’ll let you guys decode it.

Well I decided to start something I have been wanting for years! I have been wanting a colorful tattoo that covers a large area so I decided to get a flower leg tattoo in memory of my sisters and mother who I never see as often anymore. A couple days ago I started my leg tattoo out at Cardinal Tattoo - Fort Wayne, Indiana by Nick Fabini.  Nick Fabini is awesome! I took a few photos of flowers I like and gave him my idea and how I would like things laid out and he did a perfect job getting it all setup! It could be because I like his style when it come to flowers and other things though; but I just think it is because he’s got some real talent and loves his work. Well enough talk from me this is session number one and it is just an outline with some details.

When I was a kid I used to have a hammock that my dad’s family in Laos gave me. I had that hammock hooked up to my bunk bed for nights and used the hammock as a bed. Nearly 10 years later I have another hammock but this guy is a lot bigger. After I setup the hammock it takes up nearly all of my bedroom. What I did with the old bed was set it up in my closet. I figure if I have some friends over to chill then they have some place to sleep if it is late. I have been laying in the hammock, burning incense, and listening to music. I feel so peaceful and relaxed. I feel like people would pay me to hang out in my room because of how zen it is. Now that I have a relaxed feeling room setup I think that I will get a lot more done. Now I have a quiet comfortable place to relax and chill. I don’t know why I didn’t move up here a long time ago. Even when I moved up here in my room without this hammock it is just so peaceful and relaxed I can’t explain it. I guess you will have to visit.

Friday after the Fort Wayne Critical Mass bicycle ride I stopped by the Cardinal tattoo shop. At the tattoo shop I know some of the guys there who also ride weird bicycles. That night they hired on their apprentice and he was giving free lip tattoos. His only thing for getting a free one was that you had to draw it on your own. By the time it was my turn he ran out of sanitation stuff; so he told me to come in later this week. So today I got my free lip tattoo from Kenny. I drew up swirls it means absolutely nothing. Tomorrow I am going to buy the guys there a big tasty pizza from Downtown pizza for the tattoo and for the help Matt gave me with the 1st tall bike chain. The people who keep asking -> pain is not really there lip went numb and felt like it was flopping around but it was just the needle stabbing it. Right now after the tattoo there is no pain just numbness like a canker sore but without the burn.

I realize I have not been blogging much but that is because not much has been happening in my life and every time I do write something I like to just sit down and write as much as I can.

I have come to notice that all my friends (I mean that literally) lives have been changing or will change. So I’m writing about them since they are totally worth while to write about.

I spent the first part of the week hanging out with Dave and Jon. They are both moving home: Dave back to New York and Jon back to central but might as well be southern Indiana. Although they are both moving I guess it could be good for them to be able to sit around and think of what they want to do while they are working and whatever. They both seem to want to grow up a bit more and that will give them a better chance of doing that. It’ll suck though not seeing them all summer or maybe even for a whole year. Since these guys are the main reason I travel long distances to hang out in Warsaw. Haha it’s got to be weird for Dave and Jon too… they are always attached to the hip in everything they do.

I know that Dave wants to move to Florida and I have been wanting too as well. I always have fun just sitting around with these guys. We talk about just the dumbest stuff spouting off every word we can think of into a complete mess of a sentence that usually ends up with us all cracking up. I’ve known Dave since back in the day when we went to summer camp and did the exact same things as today. It’s so weird that we wont hang out this summer and I’m not going to be happy seeing you leave. At least we’ll still have Weblog v0.4 and I’ll probly come up and visit or see you in Florida the end of the year.

Tim another guy I hang out with in Warsaw will be moving to Florida in a couple months. I’ve only known him for a year but he has been one of the coolest guys to just sit around and hang out with. It’s kinda weird too because he’s seemed like a closer friend than friends I have had for years and just because he just likes to sit around and chill out and talk. The stuff we talk about is usually deep and thoughtful which are things that more people should talk about.

This year all my other friends are getting hooked up or married. One will probably not be distant though and that is my buddy Chris. I’m glad that he’s with this cool girl who lets him do stuff and she likes to hang out and doesn’t care that he’s the weird guy he is. I know we’ll still hang out, have fun, and make stuff. I’ll miss who these guys have been but as long as these guys are happy then I wish them best of luck on starting their relationships and families.

I dunno this is just going to be a weird year the more I think about all the changes my friends are going through. And reflecting on my own life I don’t really see any kind of change going on. I have only one goal I want to accomplish and that is pay off my loans. Once my loans are paid off then I guess I’ll see what I’d like to do next. A career really isn’t important to me because life isn’t money. I just want to do something I enjoy or something that will let me take long vacations every year. I dunno I’m still young and have plenty of time to do whatever and figure stuff out.

I need to get off here now and clean up. Today is my first day washing dishes at a country club in town called Sycamore Hills. A new friend I met Justin talked to his dad who is the Chef there and hooked me up with the job. Haha a college graduate washing dishes. I honestly think this will be a fun job though and the Chef said he cooks the guys there a meal when they are there.

Side Note: I really hate how the words hope and change are now associated with Obama.

Well my buddy Christopher Huesman and I finished a design for a touring tallbike that I found at Tall Bike Tour Britain. Our design is not exactly like theirs since we made a custom front end and left the full rear frame; which makes our bike a little more heavy. This is pretty much just a prototype to get a feel for a lighter and simpler design to come. On our bike Chris fabricated some parts at the machine shop he works at for the bike so it is not 100% recycled bicycle parts. The perfect tall bike we want to make will include nearly no remnants of an old bicycle frame; the frame will be handmade by us.  Anyway I took it out for a 6 hour ride yesterday and it was great no problems at all! This bike has everything you need to have a nice bike, it changes gears, has a break, can change almost every part, and has a proper riding position!

Well a couple weekends ago My dad and I drove my sister to California. The entire trip time was 41:59 hours with a 40:14 driving time over 2000 miles.

And this is how it went.

My sister had got married a week before we drove her to California and she came back to Indiana to arrange some things. She needed to figure out how there things were going to get shipped out there and how she was going to get a car. When she needed a car this is where my dad and I came in. My dad did not trust her driving out there on her own since she has not been driving a long time, she is little, and there are a lot of creeps on the road; I agreed that 2000 miles is way too many for my little sister.

When we left the house my dad started the trip and I was glad since I was still tired since I stayed up till 04:00AM and only slept for a few hours. I convinced my dad to take I-80 and that we would probly only have to pay toll one time… and I was right. So we headed for Chicago which we would later land in by airplane on the way home. It was the same old drive to Chicago… a couple hours too long and boring. We stopped there for lunch we all looked like we had been driving for too long and still had 40:00 hours to go.

I was suprised that my dad wanted to stop at Taco Bell since he always talks about how much he hates Mexican food. I wonder when he decided to just try it instead of knocking it all of the time. We would eat Mexican food a few time on the trip by his request; this was probly one of the biggest shocks in my life.

We continued our trip trough Iowa. When we were driving through I wanted to stop by my friend Nate’s place pretty bad we I could not remember exactly how to get there. I did recognize a Walmart and shopping center that was close to his house though. I went and visited him with his dad last spring. I am hoping he comes to Indiana sometime so we can watch some YTMND and maybe play some video games like the college days. While we were driving through we saw the Mississippi and some windmills. Other than that Iowa is flatter and has less life than Indiana. Then we drove through Nebraska which was just as boring.

The rest of the trip is really just a blur since we never stopped driving unless we were hungry or the car was hungry for gasoline. I remember after Iowa though I woke up and saw some mountains. Once I saw them I could not even fall asleep. The only mountains I ever saw were in Laos; America redeemed itself by showing some new landscape to me. I always though of America as this great flatland; I always knew it had mountains and cool stuff but I never witnessed it first hand. Even though it was about late at night/early morning I was enchanted by the huge mountains. I stopped the car a few times to take photos of the giant hills. This was the best time to take photos since during the day the highway was crowded. at night the only vehicle you really see are semi trucks avoiding the traffic of the day. I was disappointed at myself for not bringing my tripod; I could have taken so many cool photos while I was out there. I’m sure I’ll have more time to take photos out there when I get to travel after my loans are paid off.

I drove through the first group of mountains till we hit flat ground again. My dad took control but I woke up again to see more mountains. These were not green like the first set though these were brownish red with snow on them. We were deeper in Wyoming. The mountains i saw there wrapped itself around a small town that was lit up before the sunrise.

Although Wyoming had stuff to look at since it was not flat it was a pretty boring ride. Everything was just brown. When we hit the boarder of Wyoming and Utah it was like magic. When we wrapped around our last brown mountain in Wyoming we saw the green mountains of Utah. The road curved along the side of the mountains going up and down. The inclines were so steep that the semi trucks had a hard time climbing up the hills… my sisters little car didn’t like them much either. When my dad was tired of driving we stopped on the side of the road and he wouldn’t stop bugging me to take his photo in front of some of the mountains. I think that he was just as excited as I was to be somewhere new and to look at new things. I know that the trip brought me out of a little slump I have been in for a while by knowing there is a lot more than what is at home.

A lot of Utah was so foggy because of how it was just surrounded by mountains. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to see Salt Lake City. Once we were about to exit the Salt Flats we hit a snow storm that lasted for about half an hour. I did the driving though because I don’t trust my dad and my sister doesn’t drive well in the snow either. A few minutes into the snow storm it started to get pretty deep. It was nothing compared to what we have here in the Midwest.

Once we got out of the snow storm and at the end of the Salt Flats we had dinner at some Mexican restaurant. The place had a lot of photos of people who try and break land speed records on bikes, cars, and minivans. The restroom ranked number one in gross truck stops. It did have the typical gross showers, novelties, and scary stories on CD about masked murdering truckers who abduct females while on the road.

When we got to the boarder of Utah and Nevada The scenary changed again. It seems to me that states are separated by the way they look, out in the West. Nevada was covered in beatiful towering mointains covered in snow with clouds falling off thier peeks. I wanted to climb every single one of them. Nevada tries to seduce people in with these beatiful mountains then it kills you with its harsh wasteland.

Once we got to the end of Nevada I went into a total different mode. I knew I was about to drive for 1000 miles straight. I knew that if I kept driving we would make it there with no problems. I stopped for gas in Reno; my sister called her husband with excitment. I was happy because I was delivering a happy bride/sister to a egerly waiting husband. Someone made a giant “g” in the mountain in Reno.

The next part of the trip was the most exciting. I had to drive through 100 miles of 3 lane mountain range but the lanes were not painted on. Some people were driving in excess of 70mph I kept the car 65mph and stuck behind a car that seemed to know what was going on. It was a fun ride and I’m glad my mom wasn’t on that road with us because she would probly never stop yelling.

Once we got out of the mountain we could see the bright lights of all the little towns. That is one of the things I loved about the mountains. Everytime you aproach a different town you can see the whole town from way up there. The rest of the trip was pretty boring just a lot of exits and turns to get where she lives.

Once we got to her place we picked up her husband and took them home. We stayed at a hotel. I’m glad too because my sisters shower didn’t have hot water and all I wanted to do was take a shower.

The next day my sister took us around  town and we went to an aquarium in Monterey Bay while her husband was doing his Marines stuff. It was a cute little town with a lot of hills, people who bicycle and run, and ocean. When we drove there someone had drew a face in the sand dune with grass and it said, “I love ____”. When we left someone was picking it apart; I wonder if it was the girl. Also when we left there was a homeless guy playing the guitar pretty well but he sang like a drunken pirate. I wanted to listen to him more but I also wanted to spend time with my family more than the drunken guitar playing pirate.

Later that night after we ate and drank some beer (probly the only time I took a decent photo the whole trip) my sister and her husband took us to where they got married. It was also a cute little spot. I got to take some night shots of their town. I was kinda upset since this was one of the funnest days I had with my sister and that I knew I would not see her in a long time.

When we left it was 04:30AM this was the 3rd time I ever saw my dad cry my whole life; the 1st time was when I made his really mad when I was a kid and the 2nd time was the morning my sister picked us up from the hotel to spend our last day together. For some reason I never cried that she left. I do miss her but I know that she is having a great time being married and living in a really nice town; I also know that I will see her many more times and she’ll have stories to tell. The trip also makes me want to move out to the coast in a warmer state. I’m glad she didn’t fly out there and I’m glad that my dad and I got to spend some good time with her because spending time with family is something that my family does not to well and we did it for an entire day. And that is probly what makes me feel the most upset about her being gone. At least I know although we don’t spend much time together we are always willing to do anything for family.

So this past weekend I spent it in Warsaw with some friends I have not hung out with in a long time! I went over on a Thursday night and left on Monday. It was the most fun I have had in a long time.

The first night I arrived Joel and I watched a movie and fell asleep… pretty boring night but we both had long days already. I was juts glad to know that I was going to get to enjoy the weekend with some friends!

Oh yeah wait a minute! I laid around for a few minutes then went to the bar! I met up with Tim, Jon, and Josiah! Josiah and I talked about biking across the country. Josiah gave it an attempt from Seattle but he left too late in the season and hit snow. He had to hitchhike the rest of it. When I got there Tim had a Heineken waiting for me. Before we went home we stopped at another bar. The bar was playing “28 Weeks Later” Tim was telling me about the beauty of the scene that was going on when we got there. It was a scene where a guy met up with his wife in some lab… he was doing everything to save her… he ended up getting infected and brutally murdered her. This scene seemed like something I would write. I always like the chats Tim and I have. He tells me about how much he hates it here… I tell him how I love the people… I tell him how I want to move far away… we both head home and go to bed.

Friday was one of the funnest days. We spent the majority of the day playing Left 4 Dead, eating cheese burgers and downing some brew. I spent a lot of the day working on computers too. Tim has a computer I screwed up royally… buuut he was also running Vista so what I did was a good thing? I love playing video games with my friends! We can yell and scream at each other verbally demoralize each other and be great friends. Later that night we hit up Josh’s place for some hookah. We watched “Righteous Kill” it was a pretty good movie but the story was pretty weak. Later that night I stayed up till 04:00AM… I don’t thing I ever went to bed before that time during my stay. Oh yeah I also applied for a job while I was out there. I hope I get a job soon. I really don’t like Warsaw and I don’t want to move out there. Seeing how there are jobs out there I think I have no choice.

Saturday I fixed up a computer for Joel’s brother Eric. I also watched a movie with a funny name “Bangkok Dangerous”. I don’t think I watched much of the movie I just made fun of it using John LaFontaine’s voice, “In a world where one man bangs harder than anyone alive. This man is Dangerous Cock Banger!” Tim and I did some errands later on and goofed around in his brothers ghetto car. Later on Saturday Joel’s new band had their first show. I got drunk, held by a big guy, and saw Joe (a guy I run into randomly). Tim knows Joe too! The world becomes smaller. After the show Tim, Josiah, and I hit up another bar. We go to my Honduran friend Dagoberto’s favorite bar. The place has arcade games, I couldn’t stop laughing. Shortly after we sit down a guy sits by us. It was his 21st birthday. We let him join. He was drinking an “Irish Car Bomb”… he was sipping it though -> it had curdled. We told him that he should have chugged that and handed him a beer. We played a few games of pool and headed to another bar. The other bar had a cover charge so we went to the fallback… Downtown. Downtown is full of smoke. The place is too clean… to sterile for a bar… the people are too clean. The dude having the birthday hanging out by himself on his 21st buys us a round of beers. Tim like always when he is drunk brings up politics. The guy gets a call. He says that his girlfriend is 8months preggers. He leaves us with beers and his “Wet Martini”. Tim immediately grabs the dudes drink when he goes out the door. Haha, never leave your drink unattended -> someone will spike it or down it! Once we have spent enough time at the Downtown we head back home. We break out the camera and take drunken photos of some weird stuff. I was wrapped up on a sleeping bag on the couch. Josiah was drinking peanuts out of the jar. Tim was obsessed with having gloves on his feet. We laid down and watch “The Brothers Solomon”. When I went back to Fort Wayne I had to watch it again since I passed out.

On Sunday I get a text from Dave. I had not seen him all weekend. Friday night he was passed out. I tried to wake him up by jumping on him while he was in bed he just continued to sleep. When I got there he was cooking ground deer and using it for his gross Hamburger Helper. We decided to get burgers. John was wasted and bumping into everything. It was like summer time. For those wondering I DO NOT DRIVE INTOXICATED. This weekend I even drove those that were intoxicated around. While Dave, John, and I were hanging out we were goofing around in IRC pretending to be hooking up and just goofing around saying dumb stuff and just laughing.

This weekend was one of the most fun weekends I have had in a long time! I dunno what it’ll be like if I move to Warsaw but I hope that things will still be fun! All I can say is I love all those Warsaw people and I can’t wait to hangout again!