Unfortunately for me, even though I did everything necessary to distinguish myself and provide viable evidence that I am more then qualified to be an excellent piercer, I was not hired for the professional position due to their desire for an individual with studio experience. One of the many declines for jobs in the recent months due to this excellent economy we have been living in.

What is it that distinguishes you as a professional you ask? Well first and most important one should develop a profile. This can be designed however you feel necessary, whether you print all your pictures (assuming you took some) and place them in an album, preferably with dates and labels if you can remember. I would also suggest leaving out the inappropriate pictures which I know I did when creating such a profile. The other less important necessities include a specified resume pointing out amount of time performing and experiences with tools, sterility, and different types of people you interacted with(especially how you handled those squeamish to needles). The second portion of the resume should discuss the knowledge you have  about piercing, especially the different ways to stay clean and safe.

Well the reason why I have not been posting at all is because I am rather dry on ideas and have not actually done anything extra ordinary lately besides ordering a bunch of new equipment and finding an extreme lack of clientèle. As well as no new tattoos for me or any exciting jail house tattoos. I will talk to my friend the tattoo artist and see if she has anything exciting she would like to share as well as if any of you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

I am really going to start getting on this whole blogging thing. Lately unfortunately I have been unemployed and moving around a lot and trying to start a book (and for me that is much much harder then it seems). But I have had sometime to upgrade my kit and get my Blood Borne Pathogens certificate.

Excellent I have received all new clamps, from Septum forceps, to micro dermal insertion clamps. Tools I have not valued as much in my whole piercing career till now.

I used to be what some may call a free hand piercer, which I would argue is an excellent way to start and learn. As well as safer I would argue because there is no need to sterilize tools or but expensive plastic disposable ones. However, I became curious to the world of tools due mostly to my increased understand of how professional parlors choose to handle piercings.

Well I did my research and found an array of random tools each with specific tasks, however I could hardly see a difference in of them (must be that free hand piercing attitude). So lets actually show you a few of the different types of clamps and explain which is my favorite and why (keeping in mind I have only used them a few times).

Sponge Tweezers

These are great due to the easy lock mechanism for better control and slotted circular nose for easy needle insertion. These are by far my favorite tool because after several reviews the tweezer distributes the pressure across the entire clamped area making it much less painful to pierce.

Pennington Forceps (nose tip is similar to the tweezers but triangular)

-These are nice for several reasons, its locking mechanism, triangular nose (for more accurate piercings), and for the slotted exit (making them easy to remove while the needle or jewelry are still in them.

Septum Forceps (same forceps base as Pennington with locking mechanism)

These are designed specifically to clamp the septum (the middle area of the nose)

Benefits: very accurate piercing range, easy clamp on, and small clamp area making it less painful and quicker

Downfalls: once needle is inside it is seemingly more challenging to remove the clamps in order to get the jewelry in. Also does not allow for curved needles.

Finally,

Micro dermal insertion tool (aids in putting dermal plates as discussed in the previous blog)

All though I am still figuring out the basics on how to to micro dermal (both with a needle and punch) I am excited to utilize this tool soon when experimenting how to on myself.

Other great uses including holding other jewelry or small ball when trying to fit them onto a piercing (especially in CBRs, Captive Bead Rings, for holding the ball to snap into the ring)

Thats all for now, I am now going to attempt to finish my portfolio, and perhaps once completed (although it is going to be just pictures of people I have pierced) I will post it somewhere with a link from here to go take a look.

Chao… for now.

Man it must have been about a year since I have last checked up on this blog. I suppose I could say I am spontaneous and flaky at times. Anywho, Im back and with some interesting thoughts and stories.

I pierced my lip just a couple weeks ago, and since then quite a few people have wanted new piercings. . . lips, belly buttons, tongues, nipples, the whole lot you name it!

I was speaking to a friend the other day and she brought up an amazing new idea that I hope she gets done soon! If you have heard of anchors, they basically plant a gem in your skin. to best describe it here is a picture, basically the part on the left goes inside your body and as your skin heals it rebuilds in those little wholes, therefore anchoring the metal literally into you body/scar tissue.

You can get anchors literally anywhere (even though I can think of a few places not to). A very popular place these days is either on your wrist or on your temple.

Now back to what my friend would like to get, she wants to get around 6 or 8 anchors next to her temple (kind of like permanent glitter). Personally talk about a very sexy idea, seeing someone turn their head and right next to their eye lays a flow of stars shining in the light. Hopefully she will get it done and I will post a picture.

That is all for now! More later

DJ SnowFire

Like Ferris Bueler Said, “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop to look around once in awhile you might miss it”

So plans for the future, In my own life I plan on having several (I guess several is kind of an understatement) more smaller tattoos. Definately sometime in the future I plan on getting a sun somewhere next to my moon, and get carpe diem tattooed next to it. therefore I will have sieze the night and sieze the day on my body. Also, for the longest time I have wanted to get Live your Life on the other side of my rib cage with an arrow pointing to my heart. This is because I truly believe in living life the way you want to live it, while keeping positive influences on others.

My best friend has her first tattoo idea in mind and I am very excited for her to get addicted to tattoos too. For her first tattoo she wants La vita e bella on the outside of her right foot just below the ankle. La vita e bella means life is beautiful in Italian. The italian language is because she is a quarter Italian and the words link to her last name. Schentag historically means a beautiful day in German. Pretty cool right?

I love hearing people’s stories about their tattoos and the meaning behind them. I have met some people however who have rather silly and pointless tattoos. However that still does not mean they are interesting or have crazy stories behind them. And lets look on the bright side there is always ways to cover up tattoos and lets face it with the way technology is growing these days, give it 10 years and someone will invent some sort of painless tattoo removal device. For me however, I will cherish each and every one of my tattoos because when I get older they will remind me of the fabulous times of my youth.

Also, I would like many different tattoos and feel as if I have limited room on my body in which I choose to place them. Keeping this in mind brings me to my first rule. Well while I truly believe rules are meant to be broken I will just have to call this a friendly guideline… or maybe reminder. This “guideline” is simply I should design all my tattoos myself or sketch them out first and have a professional edit to look better then a 3rd grader’s art drawing.

Moving on, I also believe to relieve regret I always should have some type of interesting or wacky story to go with each tattoo. While this has been true thus far, I would sincerely like to keep it that way.

This brings me to rule… well idea numba 2! Always get each tattoo in a different city. So, to recap, First tattoo of freedom was in Parker, CO, numero dos was in Ft. Collins, CO. It gets tricky here because number 3 I did myself in El Cajon, CA (but it doesn’t really count because it is so tiny, I did it myself and it will be edited later in a different city… preferably somewhere in Cali). And numba 4 El Cajon, CA as well. Like I said… rules are meant to be broken, so I will stick with these as being polite suggestions. Last point, I am impartial to where I get my tattoos edited if need be, because I would like the moon to be shaded a vibrant blue and get Carpe Nocturn (sieze the Carp!… Actually sieze the night!) next to it but haven’t decided if I need to go back to El Cajon for that.

Side Note: Colorado weather is pretty much the most ridiculous and unpredictable weather… EVER! I swear this weakend it snowed . . . A LOTTT! then monday. . . HOTT! Wed, Cold as ICE, and now it is decievingly sunny but cold. I mean like seriously Northern Colorado would you make up your frickin mind.

Alright back to what is important… Piercings. Well let us just delve right into it. Ruben’s fabulously pierced elbows. I am not going to lie it has be one of if not the most interesting trade off I have ever done with someone. Now, Ruben, this guy it tatted up (lingo for has many tattoos) which you will see in such photographs when I get a chance to post them later. When Ruben said he wanted these piercings because he had no where left to pierce. This is because of the simple fact that he was in the Navy and not allowed any piercings (as long as he does not get caught). Well strangly enough he has two huge lip rings that he takes out everytime he goes on ship. I started thinking to myself that those things are gonna fall out or get caught very very quickly. But then I came to my senses and realized he did not want them directly on the elbow and actually it made sense to put them slightly above the moving joint.

So as I get ready to pierce I noticed that this is actually going to be really radical. He has these tattoos that line up with the elbows pretty well and the piercing seem to connect his tattoos to the rest of his body (almost like some kind of mythical joint or bridge).

Enought of me talking here is a crazy video of the piercing taking place and a few photos of the event:

However not before my man Ruben gave me a tattoo. It was one sunny afternoon in El Cajon, the day before I left Newport, I had just met this new lady friend, Dawn, a week prior and we hit it off right away. She had several piercings and quite an elaborate tattoo of butterflies flying up her back and side. Can you say attractive? Oh yeah! She also had a tattoo of a dragonfly on her foot. In my history with tattooing, some artists will not tattoo feet or hands because of the incredibly copious amount of tendions and nerve ending exist in those areas.

Anywho back to that sunny afternoon. I had been pondering a design of a tribal moon for quite some time and drew several sketches prior to showing Ruben what I wanted. After several corrections (and some editing from Ruben) my final piece was constructed! The masterpiece was drawn on the most expensive piece of parchment you can think of, a used envelope! So Ruben set up as my other newly aquired friends watched. As we smoked the hookah, we decided the best lighting would be from the sun coming in from the front door of the apartment building. If you were wondering how much he ended up charging me, lets just say I pierced his elbows and gave him a ride to his Navy ship at 5 AM after a long evening of partying. Well enough said here is a couple pictures one of the process and one of the finished product.

So anyway moving on. . . So during the time I was supposed to be an orientation leader I decided to try my luck in San Diego, CA. So I stayed with my best friend in a garage that had been fixed up to be two bedrooms. My friend at the time was staying in half the garage with another roommate! That means that her and another lady were living in an area the size of one car! Well then I came in and started trying to live there as well. I left a few days after and went to her friend, Justin’s, place. This guy was 27 years old and just got out of the Navy and was unemployed with me! Him and I had some good times livin’ off of Little Ceasers Pizza and hookah. We played an awful lot of Guitar Hero and watched quite the selection of movies.

Alright enough about me and my time down there lets get to the part you want to hear about. . . Tattooing! Well during my time down their I had met Justin’s roommate, Ruben (still currently in the Navy). Ruben is my man, he is a tattoo artist and we will just say an artist in general. One evening a bunch of us were sittin’ around looking at his tattoo gun and ink. Me and another guy, Billy, decided to get a little crazy and attempt to tattoo ourselves. So I am sitting there messin around with this gun, tattooing my upper leg. Let me tell ya it is a whole lot tougher then it looks. You have to go a certain depth into your skin in order for the ink to stay and show. However, unfortunately the harder you press, obviously the harder it hurts! well enough of me talking let me show you a video and some pictures of this event:

watch?v=lXmhpFQ35ao

Another close friend of mine I met this summer had huge blue hot rod flames up one of his forearms. The reason for this was because he loves classy cars and decided before he was shipped off into the Navy he needed the experience of a tattoo. One of my floormates has a very very intriquite back piece with tree branches stemming out of parchment. The parchment is a qoute in which he chooses to live his life by. More on that and a picture later. Another one of my close friends has all color tattoos all over his body. He is very proud of all the art work that is done to his body and his most recent, also a tree, branching all across the back of his body. This tree will be a constant work in process and I have not seen him for awhile. However I will also be getting a picture of his whole back and possibly his front to show ya’ll how intriquite the design is.

Oh the stories go on and on, many of the tattoos I know of are chinese symbols or other symbols meaning qoutes that influence or have influenced their lives in some way. One really cool example is I have a friend who has a brail tattoo on his forearm so you can not really tell it is there unless you look pretty hard. The brail states “STRENGTH” influencing him to be a better person not just a stronger one.

Well in the last blog I discussed briefly how I got into tattooing and my first tattoo, but what about the others? Well my first tattoo was from a legitament shop and afterwards, I decided that I would take a break for at least a year so I don’t go overboard. Well… that didn’t work out (which I knew it would not have). The second tattoo all started when I moved up to Colorado State University and met this lady on my floor. Her boyfriend, a 23 year old who did not attend CSU said he did tattoos as a side job. . . you know, just for fun.

Lets pause, here is a picture of my first tattoo done

One night, we were all hanging out in the residence hall, Parmelee, and he had brought his equipment over. I had this brilliantly spontaneous idea that I was getting a tattoo with one of my friends. I could not tell you why but in my crazy brain it seemed like a good idea at the time. So I started frantically drawing designs of the word FIJI (which is the nickname of my fraternity). Little tangent about the meaning behind this tattoo, during my second semester of my freshman year, a fraternity came to campus to expaned and start a new chapter at Colorado State University. Me and seven other guys decided to join and collectively decided we wanted to create a fraternity of brothers that would change the negative image of a typical “frat” portrayed in the media.

After drawing some designs I gave it to an art major to edit and touch up while I went to walmart. Upon my return the art major had finished editing the tattoo and I was ready to get tatted. Upon entering my room, Sean, the 23 year old tattooer started plugging his equipment into my wall. There were people coming in and out watching this painful process as he drilled and dug ink deep into my skin. After I was finished, he tattooed my friend while I simultaneously pierced my other friends ear. Here is some pictures of that process. . . enjoy!