Mike Panic

Having been hanging out, working in (as a counter person) and been involved with the tattoo and piercing industry for the last 17 years, and having too many friends than I care to admit who own shops, tattoo, build machines and pierce, I know why gloves are so important. Furthermore, cross contamination, when you understand it, will make you skeeve out next time you visit the dentist or go to the hospital. A box of gloves is $4, some common sense knowledge is priceless, add them together and you and I stay healthy and clean. Regarding the ice, same thing applies, make sure they bag the ice pack and dispose of it properly. For icing it, we've also found the gate theory to be very effective. Essentially, put ice next to the area getting treated and the cooling sensation will help what's being treated. Same concept as, having a cast on your ankle and scratching your knee to relieve an itch on your ankle. It works way better than you'd think. My experience over my last treatment session, where I was on the receiving end, was 3 tattoos at once. After the initial 2 minutes my body, while increasing in temperature got used to it, albeit via some shortened breathing too - which any technician should be watching for and taking a break as you need them. I've found, like getting tattooed, that after a few minutes your body just accepts the pain and deals with it and it's not nearly as bad as the first few pulses. Once a tattoo has fully healed, usually 8-12 weeks, we can start treatment. Age does factor in, but no more so than skin type, immune system, quality of tattoo, pigment used and age of person who has the tattoo. They are all variables, everyone is different, but the laser only targets pigments within the skin.

Personally, I avoid creams and injections, there's too many variables that can lead to too many problems. My biggest issue with topical creams is that the laser, a concentrated beam of light, now has to go through the cream you applied and there's a possibility of it being reflected or refracted. In either case, it's losing intensity and effectiveness. Having had treatments done, I will tell you they aren't fun, but they are usually so quick anyway, I'd rather just have it done then sit around and wait a half hour for them to take effect. Using an ice pack will deliver similar results, or find a place that uses a cryocooler. The price is about right, like anything in this world location, demand and competition will control it. The only red flags are the same with tattoos. Look for rubber gloves, cross contamination practices, etc. Something I hear a lot during consults is "sorry for all the questions" to which I reply - asking a lot of questions shows me you care and have interest in what's happening to you. I'd rather you ask a hundred questions, since the majority of the success will come from your ability to maintain proper aftercare, then if you came in, did a treatment and walked out.

Home engineering = cool, real world applications, RUN from this. First and foremost, no gloves? Next, 808nm is not the proper wavelength, every commercial machine runs at 1064, and 2 others for harder colors, but 95% of tattoos can be removed at that wavelength. There is no talk of pulse control either and his depth gauge is a guess, at best. Further signs that the guy, while apparently smart enough to rig this up, does not fully understand what he's doing - he states in the first video "dude, I can see the ink changing colors" - which is false. The white you see is actually water vapor, from the laser exploding it within your skin. Lasers do not remove tattoos, they facilitate the body to dispose of the pigments. You wouldn't go to a kitchen magician for a tattoo, why go to one to have it removed?

Couldn't agree with you more. That's why we aren't a "med-spa" or offer other services like hair removal. I also went out of my way to work with my connections in the tattoo community so I can work with tattoo artists - I get it.... I want THEM to be able to do the best artwork they can - if that means lightening an older tattoo so it can be covered, so be it. The majority of our clients are lightening, not removing. Most of the people removing aren't doing it out of shame either, it has to do with career changes or bad tattoo work honestly.

Honestly, can't say I'm familiar with Dexter Gordon... should I be?

Started reading Fly, Colton, Fly: The True Story of the Barefoot Bandit - kind of crazy...

2 nights ago a friend gave me his old Apple TV First Generation - within 10 minutes I had built a boot thumb drive and had XBMC up and running on t - spent the next 2 hours trying to mess around with SMBup to get it all ironed out because XBMC doesn't care so much for Mountain Lion, or the other way around - whatever, that all works now, so does the XBMC remote app for iPhone. Got a bunch of repo's installed, Icefilms and Navi-X seem to be the two most valuable right now to me - curious as to what else you could suggest or recommend. I also plan on spending some time this weekend reading up on how to actually use the internal 160gb hard drive to my advantage / i.e. put stuff there from my MBP, if you have a link for that I'll gladly take a read too. Otherwise, I'm fully endorcing XBMC, I'm totally amped on it. Wish I had an Apple TV 2, they consume a little less power and have a better wifi card in them, but for my price of entry I'm thrilled.

Some bruising, depending on location is normal @YOMONEY / @shinobi - I've seen plenty of people bruise on the inside of arms for sure. What YOMONEY said is absolutely true though, drink tons of water, the laser effectively dehydrates your skin, so follow the aftercare instructions you received and chug water.

Thanks @ShawnPorter - ended up getting a 1st gen from a friend last night, for free! Only downside is that it will draw more power to spin the internal hard drive, but it's already jailbroken and running XBMC / Eden, and Navi-X. I ran into a bunch of problems getting SMB setup on my MBP, running Mountain Lion, but got that worked out now too. I'll spend some more time tonight looking for repo's to add and need to find how to access the internal hard drive from my MBP so I can just put vids there that I want to keep - which admittedly are few and far between since I only watch movies once - but things like The Art of Flight I will be keeping for a while. Other small downside is that the wifi doesn't seem to be that great, even when it's 18" from my router, so I'm going to have to try running a Cat5 cable to it - which is on hold because there's a wall between those 18" and I'm not in the mood to fish lines right now haha. Any other suggestions/ must-haves?

Anyone have an Apple TV, second generation they aren't using they want to sell?

As of right now @SStu, no cover, going back to zero for this part of my body. I'll revist it after I get a few other areas tattooed that need attention.

Note to the moderators, this is my leg, tattoo removal being done on me, not a client / stranger / randoms. Back in 1997 I started what I hoped would be an epic leg sleeve - and ended up falling out of love with it about a year or two later. I also added to the back, by a different artist, a totally random piece to what you see here and what's on the side. By 1999 I had zero intention of actually finishing it and started focusing more on work, a career and things like that. Since then I've had several other tattoos that I actually like, but have always dealt with what's that? whenever I wear shorts. Thus, I started having them removed a while ago. Since this piece was mostly grey wash, and put in rather lightly, I've had some really great results after a single treatment. Thursday night I sat through a 2nd treatment on this piece and had 1st treatments on the right side of my leg and a piece on the back. Healing is going well already and hopefully by the second week of January I can get another treatment.

The Romney guy is getting his removed... I'm sure other people will be covering them up / getting them removed too.

The price will depend on your location and what your local facility charges @miguel, to fully remove a tattoo though we generally tell people 10-12 treatments. Given the variables, some people need 8 and others need 14+. If you're covering it up with another tattoo, getting 3-6 treatments before hand will help your artist out for sure, but that's a discussion you need to have with both the the tattoo removal company and your artist. It's important to keep the artist in the loop so they can see the progress.

I can only hope @hogg, being that these where all people who were paid to get tattoos, I can only imagine that they are the ones looking for sponsors to take them of for free.

So I understand, you were tattooed 2 weeks ago and you want it lasered already @awso? I'd wait at least 4-6 weeks if I'm understanding you properly. Also, lasers work by breaking the pigments up in the skin, very little if any comes up through the top, most all of it is carried away by your immune system. Because the laser will dehydrate the skin, it's best to ensure fresh areas are fully healed, from the outside in. While it may look fine on the surface, remember tattooing is an invasive procedure, so there's underlying tissue that also needs to heal.

Some of my clients report looking like a car accident victim the day after, but having no pain associated with the bruising. I've never bruised, however tonight I sat through 3 different tattoos that my business partner did on me, so I guess I'll find out tomorrow as this is the longest I've sat. Ice for up to 15 minutes with at least 60 minutes between, for as long as needed to help combat some of the swelling. I can't stress how important it is during the first few days to keep hydrated & follow your aftercare instructions. Drink more water than you think you should be. Avoid a loofa or wash cloth in the shower, but I'm happy to report I've never experienced the sting that's similar to sunburn or a fresh tattoo in the shower.

wow. I didn't think that kind of stuff was still going on!

It varies a lot based on the machine, person operating it and the person receiving treatment, it's too wide for me to just throw numbers out there. Each treatment will increase though, as pigment fades. 10-12 is what most will tell you is minimum to remove any tattoo, again there are just so many variables in the equation that I've seen some totally go away after 6 or 7, others take 16+. Since the immune system does a lot of the work, it's best to treat your body right, especially during healing. Stay hydrated, follow the aftercare protocol to the T and give it time. This article has been floating around a lot lately Smoking, Ink Color Affect Laser Tattoo Removal basically saying that smoking also slows down the rate at which the tattoo fades, something to consider if you're a smoker.

Thanks for the super detailed feedback. This is where I am. I want a CHEAP, solid way to stream local media files from my Macbook Pro and / or NAS drive to my TV. Anything more than that and I'd just buy a Mac Mini and attach it to the TV. While the idea of have an HTPC is attractive to me, and alternative o/s is nice, like XMBC, that's all I want it for. I don't want / need it for BitTorrent or web browsing or anything else. If I did, I'd be looking at a Jailbroken Apple TV 2, Roku, Boxee, etc. I want sub $75 way to stream 720-1080 from my computer / NAS drive to TV, that's simple, no? Is that asking too much of the Raspberry Pi running XMBC? Do you have any micro HTPC / XBMC forum suggestions? I have 10+ years of IT / net admin experience, I can build / maintain anything, I just want simple and easy. and cheap! haha

Stumbled upon this by accident (because I can't deal with the Lifehacker / Gawker blogs have been setup for the last 2 years they've lost me as a reader) Build a XBMC Media Center with a $35 Raspberry Pi and I've been watching countless YouTube vids / reading blog articles on it. Developer's site Raspberry Pi | An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25. Take a byte! While the LH article is kind of misleading, it's actually closer to about $50 when you factor in an SD card, micro USB charger and a case for it... and seems to fit exactly what I'd want it to do, stream media from a computer or NAS device to my TV. Sure, Apple TV will do this, but the file formats are much more limited and the Gen2 versions (which can be jailbroken) are only going UP in price... also, there's now a free XMBC remote app for the iPhone / iPad.. The only sucky thing is the 3-8 week lead time to get the board. So, who knows anything about these, who's running one?

@chrisnoluck The Skindustry Tattoo Expo is actually my hometown show, I'll be at that one - there's a small possibility Ill be at Electric City as well in Scranton but still not 100% sure.

Dalai Karma • Scarlett Johansson <-- more photos Those are some seriously jenky lines.

Lost power from 930 last night till 630 this morning - other than some recyclables in my front yard and a messed up down spout, doing OK. According to the power company there are 115k people still without power in my county alone. Kind of crazy https://www.pplelectric.com/my-account/outage-center/outage-map.aspx - keep in mind, the power company doesn't serve every county 100%, 2 other electric companies do as well.

@RoryQ - I actually started looking that stuff up last night, and found the STR site, guy makes quality work I just have a hard time throwing down $30 for a clip on a $35 knife. I found this site: Ti Pocket Clip Low Rider Split Tail Formed & Tumbled .040" Which now has me re-evaluating the Kershaw Skyline.