Cold Weather and New Ink

Hey gangsters...

Well, we're safely back home after the Christmas Excursion up in Michigan, and are currently settling back into the normal grind that is life in the urban sprawl of Central Florida. I think it can go without saying that we were both pretty down about having to leave the snowy wastelands of the Glove State, but what we weren't expecting is to fly out of the cold, cold winds of Michigan, traverse the continental United States, and land in the cold, cold winds of Florida.

Seriously, people... its 30 degrees outside. What the hell is the problem here?!

So, as we continue to unpack and clean up around the house, we've got the heater on and are walking about in sweatshirts (in the tropics!). My monstrous cacti looked pissed off, but there's not much I can do for them by this point in time - they've already been exposed to the elements, so if they're destined to die, its going to happen anyway. I can't believe its this cold in Florida... is this El Niño (or La Niña, rather, if its a chick storm)? What about Global Warming or something?

I'm not a certified chief meteorologist like Channel 9's reliable, ol' Tom Terry (see jolly looking gentleman to the left), but I'm pretty sure 30 degree weather, for the tropics, is grounds for some serious eyebrow-raising.

Anyway.

I had some ink done with my brother Chris while I was home. This was something that was nigh on four years in the making, and we still didn't get everything we wanted done. Originally, Chris, Jeff and I were all going to get some sort of Hough brother tattoo done, but we haven't been able to successfully plan, design, and agree on any one design in the three years that have passed since we first hatched the idea.

Furthermore, lil' baby Jeffy's now joining the Air Force in March (I think its March), and apparently the U.S. Military has to clear all recruits' tattoos before folks are allowed to enlist... meaning that if he were to get new ink done with his two dumbass brothers, he'd have to postpone enlisting for another six months (which, for him, sounds about as awesome as hammering bamboo shoots underneath his fingernails).


So yeah... here's what I had done. The guy who did it, Jason Rhodes (owner of Intricate Decor in Mt. Pleasant, MI.), does great work and I'm so glad it turned out as I had initially hoped. I had the Hough family crest done, and it took probably four or five months of research and designing to get it to fit well on the inside of my left arm. The surname Hough traces its ancestry to 9th century Cheshire, England, where they were Saxon nobility. I found a couple different family mottos for the Hough surname, but 'Aut Pax Aut Bellum' (trans. from Latin, "Either Peace or War") seemed the most fitting for yours truly:


It was difficult working the design around my existing Gye Nyame symbol on my wrist, but Rhodes wrapped the scroll of the family motto around the side and I included one of my favorite passages in the KJV bible for perspective:


On the other arm, I decided to get the kid's nickname ('Cannonball') done in ancient Irish (seeing how both Kris and I have a lot of Irish in us). I went with a shamrock, too, as other traditional Irish symbols (pint of Guinness, a Shillelagh bashing in a Protestant's skull, etc.) might not be appropriate for a little girl...


Eventually, when the second kid is born, I'll get a design done for him and place it directly below Alayna's shamrock, and then eventually tie all three designs together in some sort of sleeve design. That'll take a couple years (and a couple hundred dollars, no doubt), but it'll look awesome in the long run.

Word. So there you have it. Yours truly had some ink done, its freezing in Florida, and nobody wants to go back to work.

Have a good New Year's, people...

- Brian