So Friday was a big day. I just quit where I was working (at Permanently Scarred in Toledo).

I was HOPING that it would go well but it did not.
Permanently Scarred is a good shop, one of the few better ones in Toledo, I had a good boss (nevermind, he stole money from me by neglecting to give me my last paycheck, "saying" he mailed it in... twice... but it "conveniently" got lost in the mail... and hassled my clients about returning their deposits to them for work they ONLY wanted done by me when they were perfectly within the shops guidelines for deposit refunding which was that deposits could be refunded if they gave more than a 24-48 hour notice of canceling their appointment), but there were two of my coworkers that did not like me for whatever reason. It was a 4 year on again off again battle series of biting my tongue, trying to keep peace, just steering clear of drama and chaos. I left for a short time and returned 2 and a half years ago, and at that time I had super high hopes that if I worked hard and tried to progress my own skills and career that I would gain their respect. But my success only seemed to make things worse. When things were good they were certainly moderately good, good enough.

Anyway, along the line I have personally witnessed several of my clients being mistreated in one way or another, and if I had not witnessed it myself then MANY of you had confronted me about it either in person, or through messages or email. THIS is a topic of which I had already had a blog message typed out about for the attention of these clients but I think that message is important to be included with this one so I will sum it up here really quick... A LOT of you knew about the drama that's been going on. It's been painfully OBVIOUS to a lot of you, and a subtle thing to others. Some of you were lied to. Some of you had called the shop NUMEROUS times for me and the messages were never delivered, or were delivered without a phone #, or were delivered late which was devastating to your appointments. I had witnessed the attempt to have you stolen from me and given to another artist and was TOLD about it by some of you too.
Oh there's SO much more but I feel that if I tell you more it would appear that I was slandering the shop, which I have no intention of doing. These problems were created from the root of one or both people and NONE of that is going to happen anymore.
YOU, the clientele, are the MOST important thing. Aside from maintaining excellent drama-free service to you and providing killer artwork, without YOU GUYS there would BE no service. So it is my priority to make sure that my clients are treated LIGHT YEARS better than I myself am being treated.

About a month ago I registered for a personal business phone number. This number is an all-encompassing number where I have it directed to be answered on the shops phone while I am AT the shop, but then forwarded to my personal cell when I am away. Also all calls are logged no matter where they go so that when the call/messages are not delivered to me I still got the call. PLEASE still use that number, as I have disengaged the forwarding to the old shop, and now you can reach me either on my personal cell or at the new shop.

So it is finally time for me to pack my bags and move on to bigger and better things. I have only been in the tattoo world for a short time but I have worked my way up slowly through the pack. Toledo is a small small town and with that are very few tattoo shops when compared to other cities that are absolutely FLOODED with tattoo and piercing shops. Here in Toledo there are a lot of bad ones, and even fewer GOOD ones. For the past 2.5 years I've been working at a good one... but gone are the days where when I tell someone I just met where I work they have never heard of it. I am AMAZED at how many Toledo people have never heard of that place.

There is one shop in particular that stands above the rest. They house a GOOD gathering of some of the BEST artists with such a broad range of specialties within a 50 mile radius until you reach outwards toward the Detroit area where you will find Eternal Tattoos or to Columbus where the list runs long. This is a shop that EVERYBODY has heard of. That is for a large number of reasons, the caliber alone of these artists speaks for itself, and they dedicate a healthy amount of attention to advertising. Do they need it? No. They have a combined clientele that puts all the rest to shame, and that's the glory of this industry that our clientele are our walking billboards for life.

Yes folks, you will NOW be able to find me working amongst Toledo's BEST at Infinite Art Tattoo right around the corner from my old home, almost literally right across the street. If there were any shop I would go to that would be considered a step UP in my career whilst staying within the Toledo city limits, this would be the ONLY one, by a long shot.

I have gained a large number of clients at my former shop who originally had gone to Infinite Art and left due to inability to be seen by an artist or whatever other reason and then found themselves in my chair. I guarantee you, all of my current clients as well as all of my future clients that you can still expect the same KILLER service and quality of work that you have come to know and love about me. And if you still maintain your patronage at the other shop I am sure you will still continue to receive that same level of service by those that remain in employment there.

Thank you all for your endless support!

So some of you knew this already but some didn't. For the past 7 years I have slowly been losing the ability to breathe through my nose. And lately I have been feeling like i am suffocating from nearly zero air flow through my nose.

So I finally went in for surgery today to get it "roto-rootered". The surgery went really really well. WAY better than I could have hoped. The only minor problem is that the doctor prescribed me a medicine I suspected I was allergic to and it turns out I AM allergic to it. So a good friend of mine offered a little bit of medicine that will work for tonight and delivered it on a fancy blue balloon string. Such a sweetie!

Thanks to all who helped and sent me get well wishes, mail, comments, texts, voicemails, and flowers. I love all my friends! You are all amazing!