Introduction and a picture

[CliftonGK1]

New to the forums, thought I'd introduce myself and post a pic.

I had things at one point up to 0.5" and then gauged down when interviewing for a fairly conservative company. When I left that company I didn't gauge back up because the biotech industry in the midwest still isn't too hip on that sort of thing.

Moving out to the PNW, that changed, as did my industry. Now I work in the exercise and fitness industry and hardly anyone bats an eye at full sleeve tattoos or a pair of gauges.

I was back up to 0.5" pretty quick, and then I've slowly been rewarding myself for an ongoing personal goal (my sobriety) every milestone month with another millimeter or two. Just passing my 9 month mark, and working my way up another few millimeters towards 7/8".

Here's a pic from a party at my apartment complex, with me sporting my 3/4 stainless shinies. (Yes, those are really 3/4". I'm 6'6" tall and a shade under 210 pounds, so 3/4" doesn't really look that huge on me!)



(edit) had to crop the picture down because the message board chopped the original in half and only showed my buddy's head!

[CliftonGK1]

My current collection of 3/4"

Moonstone teardrops


Jade teardrops


Black/pink silicone (matches my cyclocross team colours)


Orangey-red acrylic


Horn & Bone (this one is just under 3/4")


Hollow steelies


My "business ears". Fleshtone silicone solid plugs

[Mountains]

Welcome to the PNW!
It's awesome to see another mountain biker. Although I'm a gravity rider myself. Anyways.... Nice lobes

[corazon_de_oro]

Welcome to the forum! You have a nice collection of plugs and your lobes look really thick and healthy. Congrats on the sobriety, it's awesome that you're relating that to stretching!

[KAISERROLLS]

Welcome to the forums, I used to live in Oregon then came to Michigan, and your right, total culture shock when it comes to this stuff.

[CliftonGK1]

New double flared Pyrex glass 7/8". Got a pair in clear and in red. Kinda bummed they didn't have more colours.

7/8" is my 1 year sober celebration. 8 more days to one year of clean living. I went up from a 19mm (3/4") to a 20mm without issue, then started taping my way up gradually with the heavy 20mm stainless until I was nearly at the edge of their flare. Going up to my 7/8" (22.2mm on my calipers) stainless tunnel was a still a bit on the large side and I started noticing the telltale flap of a blowout on my left ear, so I dropped back down to 21mm and went for a second go at it. With things healed and strengthened up, the second shot was successful and I can even get a double flare in without problems.

I even managed to find 7/8" black silicone with pink stars to match my bike racing team kit when I'm out on the course.

[CliftonGK1]

Grrrr.

Is there a way to resize pix with BBCode, or to have it frame up with scrolling? Or am I doomed to a life of my pix getting autocropped?

[ViolentJayne]

re size the photo to about 400 before you upload it , it should help

[CliftonGK1]

Recently stepped things up to a 24mm.
This is the difficult part about being a Sasquatch; even being 1mm shy of 1-inch, I just don't think this *looks* all that big by comparison to my overall stature. Maybe it's just my perception since I've seen the slow progression over time.

[corazon_de_oro]

Looks good! You're not stretching with silicone though, are you? Also you might wanna try taping at sizes that big, since most of the "official" sizes are 2-3mm apart, and you shouldn't really be stretching more than 1mm at a time. I've never liked taping but past a certain size it's a lot safer than potentially skipping sizes by accident.
I think that size looks good. It might not look as big as an inch does on some people but it still looks pretty big. I've had the same problem though... I'm a small person (I'm only 5'1) but I have fat lobes so sizes always look smaller on me. I put in 12mm tunnels yesterday and to me it looks like 0G does on other people. I'm thinking about going to 5/8" for that reason and because I'm starting to really like stone plugs which look so much better at big sizes. But at the same time a lot of the styles I like stop at 1/2"...