OT- but wood related - Odd Things To Do For Your Birthday

A while back, while talking with the girl at Jiffy Lube who was always getting a new piercing or tatoo, the other old guy in the waiting room got in to the conversation about "ink".

"You know, I was a marine - in two different "conflicts" - and somehow avoided getting a tatoo. Then my son became a tatoo artist and I got this." He pointed to a small chinese character on the inside of his forearm.

"What's it say?" we asked.

"Ouch!" was the reply.

That's when I started thinking about getting something like that done.

So the day before my 63rd birthday I started searching the web for the chinese character for OUCH, wanting to make sure that what I THOUGHT the character I was going to go with was in FACT the character with the meaning OUCH.

Never did find it, but did find the character for TREE, which can also mean WOOD.

For "only" $70, and about 20 minutes of having a black pigment poked into my skin - with a small, rapidly vibrating needle - ta da! - TREE - in chinese - in my forearm. By next year - with some luck - I'll have found the chinese character for TURNING.

I see this as a commitment to wood and woodworking. Other's may see it as justification for having me committed.

Fun way to mark, literally, a day in my life.

Reply to
charlieb
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Well done Charlie. Always good to think out of the box.

My last serious thoughts of a tattoo was about 33 years ago when sitting on the streets of Nuevo Laredo with a bottle of tequila in my hand. Those were strange days, and no telling what I would have received as a tatoo, but more importantly what I would have received WITH the tattoo.

I really wanted the screaming eagle with the lightening bolts in his talons. Thank Gawd I didn't get it... every member of the 101st would have wanted to kick my ass!

I got a chuckle too, out of the fact you looked up your characters before starting. I have seen some really neat skin art, but I always figured someone would tattoo something like "moron" on me and I would never know.

Living in a community that is 68% Latino, I saw a tee shirt at a tourist shop that said "Soy un pendejo".

Underneath it it said "I am your friend".

Not so. I have a great picture of some unsuspecting nitwit walking around with that shirt on, the laughing stock of every place he went.

"Soy un pendejo" means " I am a real idiot". (I know, I know, your local translation may vary - but it's close enough in any variant)

Funny since you can take the shirt off. Not so much so if it is emblazoned on your skin!

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

same, same Lam?

Reply to
LD

Alcohol and ink should never be mixed. Waking up the next morning (or afternoon) hung over and wondering "Who the hell is Ruby and why in the hell is her name tatooed on my chest?" is definitely NOT a good thing. Almost as bad is being awaken the morning after the last night of Carnival by congratulatory phone calls - about your engagement - and you don't remember much after leaving the Hilton Hotel bar with the intent of heading for the Continental Hotel bar down the street.

This particular choice for a tatool was reasonably thought out and researched a bit. And the research - looking at and studying chinese caligraphic characters -gave me some interesting ideas for patterns to put on otherwise bland turnings. Chinese characters are apparently made up of just six brush strokes. Combined they can make up an almost infinite number of patterns - or very stylized pictographs.

Because, I guess like hebrew, a single Chinese character is almost meaningless without a context - incorporating one or more in a turned piece can add some space for a viewer to interpret.

The written Farsi has some interesting lines that might be used on a turning.

Sources of inspiration are everywhere - if you take the time to look for them.

Reply to
charlieb

I have had intresting correspondence with japanese and chinese wood turners - I would suggest searching them out -

they can be found on the web, many speak enough english that you can converse well

Reply to
Bill Noble

I once saw a marine with a nice tattoo on his arm. It was an eagle or some such with a scroll across the top with the inscription "YOUR NAME HERE". He must have pointed to it in a book and the Japanese tattooer copied it exactly.

Reply to
Gerald Ross

Google :-)

Reply to
Doug Miller

Didn't see the original post, hence the double-quoting. According to

,

"wood turning" is "(gIè¹R", which looked a lot more Chinese before I pasted it in here. Anyway, it will produce something you can look at and presumably copy in some way.

Mike Beede

Reply to
Mike Beede

Gerald Ross wrote in news:YiWPl.42514$v8.23753 @bignews3.bellsouth.net:

Where did I hear that one before? Hank

Reply to
Hank

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