Newest INK

With Saturday, comes sweet sweet catharsis. Stopped by Sacred Ink which just opened last week over on Market st. Located just north of the bridge across from the horrendously expensive bridgeview condos. The place is headed by Tom DePriest, check out his site tomdepriest.com for some examples of his work. I walked in off the street and in under 5 minutes he had free-handed a bad-ass, new skool skull & cross-bones (like from a poison warning.) This thing was slick! Sadly he was booked for the rest of the evening but he passed me over to Josh. Let me say I was a little unsure, Tom has a rep., but I looked thru Josh's book and liked what I saw. I also was able to talk to him for a bit between sessions and learned he has an impressive art background. He took Tom's sketch, lined it out & made a few alterations at my request, and went to work. Any doubts I had went out the window after about 15 mins. Some of the prettiest line work I've ever seen, definitely the best on my person. He told be 45 mins to an hour at first, but it turned out to be closer to 1.5, due to the extensive shading work. I can't stop pulling up my sleeze today to look at it. I hate that I have to cover it at work. This is some great art work. As if that wasn't enough, combined with a very welcoming 'professional' service atmosphere Sacred Heart just won my business for the near future. Can't wait for this to heal up so I can go back for some larger pieces.


BTW: this place has NO flash on the walls, almost all their work is custom. They are still in the process of completeing work on the shop itself. But even after they are done, word is still no flash pages. I might have to donate some art of mine, see if they'll display it. Sort of hoping for some vicious sculptures and art. Something to inspire/scare some of the random johnnies that walk in off the street.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling now and just tell you to check it out.

Stop by,
say hi,

stay around,
sit down,

no pain,
no gain.

Lost in the numbers

Someone please explain this to me. When the school board voted to renew/extend Scales contract, I lost count of the number of times he or one of his cronies mentioned the increasing graduation rate under his watch.

'“Dr. Scales believes in providing a quality education for all children and works diligently toward that goal. Our student scores continue to improve, our dropout rate is going down and we are graduating more students,” Vice Chairman Wilson said in the memo. ' courtesy of chattanoogan.com, 'Wilson Asks New 4-Year Term For Dr. Scales posted June 4, 2008'

Now today on the chattanoogan.com, we here the judges giving a different view. Our (hamilton county) graduation rate is about 10% lower than the state average. So if our current situaiton is so dismal, what was it a year or 2 ago? Look at the chattanoogan.com opinion page for a new post from yours truly asking for an explanation.

Hump day smiles

after getting worked up way to early, I decided I needed something fun. Hope you enjoyed today's 'heroes'

The web of local politics

I have had my eyes opened recently by an individual (who appears to be trying to taunt or ridicule me but whatever) who thinks that Hamilton county & Chattanooga city are not influenced by one another. These 2 local government entities work hand in hand EVERY single day. To think that the actions of one aren't affected or influenced by the decisions of the other is naive to say the least. Now I'm not saying the county is just a front for the city's agenda (or vice versa) but when 2 groups work in the same area on the same issues and with the same citizens, overlap is inevitable. I truly hoped that there weren't people this ignorant still running their mouths but apparently they are still out there and still as ridiculous as ever.

2 quick points:

-No question, that is asked with honest intent to learn, is ever a waste of air. (i hope you don't take this tone with children who are trying to learn)

-What's more the job of mayor is constantly in flux. There is no day-to-day job plan. What plan could account for a recession, local crime and any natural disaster that might occur. These are all things that the mayor must be ready to deal with on the spot. What could we possibly learn about a person by asking his morning routine? But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, so let's examine a generic work day for a gov't bureaucrat or elected official. They arrive at work at 8 am, have a cup of coffee before the morning meeting, goes to lunch, answers citizens questions (we wish politicians did this), or whatever job function they get paid to do, until time to go play a round of golf, followed by happy hour at the 19th hole and then a council meeting to close the day.

So instead of asking a question that actually tells me about the person and their values, it is this person's opinion that I should ask fluff questions so that hard answers that lead to the possibility of accountability can be avoided. Both candidates are spouting education enhancements on their platforms, so their opinions on school board business is definitely not a waste of time or of the air we breathe.

btw: the reason I posted this here instead of chattarati is that this is a bit wordy for a comment box.

Maybe we should send him after pro athletes next?

Well suffice to say Obama has thoroughly angered a lot of executive types through out the nation. His proposed salary limit has so-called business analyst running scared. No sooner did he express his intent to follow up on his campaign promise to limit compensation ( to a paltry $500,000) for executives in companies that receive bail out funds, than the 'experts' start crying about losing top talent to other firms. If these executives were actually top talent then their companies wouldn't be receiving TARP funds in the first place. If the limit causes an exodus in old-hands then so be it. Get some young blood (fresh out of college, go getter who sees half a million as one heck of a pay check) in there to try and breath fresh life into the business. Hopefully by the time they become the old hands the company won't be pulling an Oliver Twist at the Federal government's doorstep.

$21 million shove

Wow, as a skinny, pale 'nerd' I should be living high on the hog for all the shoving i received as a child. Don't get me wrong, I agree with the greeter suing the shit out of Det. Freeman, but 21 million?

And am I the only one who thinks that it looks like the attorney has been building a case against the CPD for a while now, and has just been waiting on the proper plaintiff & circumstance's. Flores obviously been collecting a record of CPD's leniency and inconsistent behavior concerning officer incidents. I hope barring all the politics that are sure to come out during the trial, that the greeter is able to get restitution for this incident. Not 21 million but enough.