This time of the year, things die down just a bit. But I'm happy to say they haven't died down much at all. There's always much to do and lately I've been working on a lot of larger pieces. Which is really teaching me both patience and persistence. Knowing the final product will eventually be done helps, but wanting to get there requires having the wherewithal to take time and do it right.

Now about that wherewithal. Ha.

Today I'm working on five tattoos. I've stretched myself out a bit, but it's just one day. The Chicago convention is this weekend, so I'm trying to finalize some work.

Okay, this has been hectic. And I suck for not having this as smooth and organized as I would like to have done. But it is what it is...

Just finished getting tattooed. And it hurt! Imagine.
Somehow the vibration from my ankle bone worked its way up to my teeth.

It was nice. And I can handle nice every now and then. But the tattoo?

The tattoo was (and is) lovely.

I'll throw up some iPhone pics later.

So I found myself in a hectic rush. Everything was easier this time around, but there's still the mental checklist while leaving that seems to hold things up a little. It's always nice to be able to pick up forgotten supplies from vendors, but if I already have it...

So far, every time has presented an initial mess of arriving and unloading. It's fun watching random people get pissed at the chaos. But this job is great, so letting it slide make sense, right?

I know this post is kind of random, but don't mind that. My mind and process is a bit scattered.

This time I brought the Macbook, the Wacom and my trackball. It might be overkill, but it's comfortable to at least have them around. So much so, it's my first item to setup. Then the power supply, then the dental bib, tubes, caps, and the routine. I love that the Hyatt has a business center right here in the convention room. Not having to pull a printer around is wonderful. And $0.75 for a print is worth it.

When I think about stuff like that I feel dependent. I pride myself (well, a little) in not being dependent on anything. But when I stop for a second and analyze my need for wifi... it's easy to see the level of denial.

I fell asleep to my iPhone plugged into the Hyatt alarm clock. I was in and out of sleep and then that Radiohead song from Amenesiac started in with the horns... life in a glass house? Really? Alright.

So I switched things up to Air and crashed. Four hours later I woke up to a the light of a bright city. Luis forgot to close the curtains and the city was alive and, um, reflective.

Breakfast was some food and ginger ale from the food court and it was on to the convention area to setup a little.

My ankle and leg is swollen as hell. It looks hilarious... I never thought my skinny little ankle would look so cool sporting a cankle. Yes. A cankle.

It's gross.

But it's so cool.

A bottle of 24 ibuprofen was $10 at the hotel store, but worth every penny.
Thirty minutes later things weren't as large and I was able to walk without looking stupid.

The last day of the convention was, surprisingly, the busiest for me. So much so I had to turn away people. Which sounds good, but kind of sucked.

Early in the day a couple approached me for some tattoos. One was paying cash and the other wanted to pay with a credit card.

The last thing on my mind was having a credit card processor.

But I really wanted to fix his tattoo. I've spent some quality time in San Diego and wanted to spruce up his letters... you know, do it justice.

Instantly I thought of the iPhone application, Credit Card Terminal. You have to have an account with Authorize.Net and it seems like a great idea. But I didn't have time to setup an account with them and the iPhone reception in the Hyatt was spotty.

The mental trail led me to where I did have an account: Paypal. I told the couple it would be about fifteen minutes and I hit up the business center computers with Paypal in mind.

Paypal has a simple setup to add payment options to a business account. It didn't matter how it looked, there wasn't really time for that. I just needed my customer to be able to pay. So I setup a new default blog in Movable Type (allentattoo.com/payment) and then pasted in the Paypal code. Ten minutes later, he was sitting there typing in his information. Twelve minutes later I had money in my account.

A little over an hour later, and the tattoo was complete.