Stan’s Obligatory Blog

After my nice 50-mile bike ride this morning, I headed down to Long Beach to the Queen Mary for the Ink and Iron Festival there. This is the fourth year they’ve had this tattoo show, and it’s grown quite a bit in that time. It’s grown into a big tattoo and hot rod show with bands and gone from just the hall inside the ship to taking over most of the area outside the ship, too.

I got there about 2:30 or so and went in. It was already crowded. I have a whole circle of friends that I see only at these events, so I just wandered aimlessly, knowing it was only a matter of time before I saw someone I know. And it wasn’t long. In fact, I wasn’t even inside the ship before I found someone I know. And the rest of the day was like that. It was great fun.

Highlights included the girl with the full-head tattoo getting her head shaved at the barber shop. Also, watching my friend get a Samoan-style hand-tapped tattoo. I also found another old friend who I haven’t seen in several years. She had some personal turmoil and had dropped out of the scene for a while. It was good to see her back again.

There were a lot of nice tattoos there, but my personal favorite of the day was the one pictured here. The color and shading on it were really quite nice.

And all the pictures from the day are in my tattoo convention photo album.