It's 11 a.m. and I'm 30 minutes late for an appointment as I pull into a turn lane on U.S. Highway 278 and prepare to hang a left toward my destination.

 In front of me sits a large man on a motorcycle, hands held high above his shoulders, wearing a black leather jacket that says "The James Gang" on the back.

 The man looks intimidating.

 Sporting dark sunglasses and a jet-black scarf over his face, he guns the gas and the exhaust pipes crackle to life as he pulls into the same parking lot.

After we both park, the mysterious rider walks up to the front door of a small office in an old strip mall, starts to take of his helmet and scarf and barely even acknowledges me.

"Are you Jay," I asked quickly as I walked up behind him.

"Yes I am," the man answers as he unlocks the door, throws it wide open and soldiers into the building.

After introducing myself, I tentatively enter the building, taking his toss of the door as an invite to follow him inside.

"I guess 10:30 wasn't good enough for you, eh?" he questions as he stops in front of a bench against a wall, takes off his jacket and sets down his gloves and helmet.

I quickly realize there's no point in fumbling with an excuse. No worries. This is exactly who I had hoped to meet.

 Jay Wyckoff is a tattoo artist and the owner of Elektryk Inkk Tattoo in Covington, an establishment he's operated since 2004.

 Wyckoff's journey started in San Diego and took a detour to Iraq where he served as a track vehicle mechanic in the U.S. Army in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

During his eight years in the military, Wyckoff began assembling his tattoo collection and by the time he came to the end of his final enlistment, his interest in body art grew to a point where he wanted to try his hand at tattooing.

"I could draw before," Wyckoff said. "I really got into getting tattoos and talked to artists and such. I just really became interested."

 He moved to DeKalb County in 1997 and began tattooing while working full time as a diesel mechanic.

 For three years, he co-owned Inkkman Tattoo with a guy he met from New York, but the partnership soured and he decided to quit his job, move and open his own shop in Covington.

  "At first, it was a pain in the butt," he said. "Everybody thinks it's great owning your own business and that you'll have lots of time of. It ain't like that."

 Wyckoff takes his business seriously and said when he first arrived in Newton County he had to work with other artists in order to establish a business code since the county had nothing that applied to tattoo parlors.

 "They didn't know what to do when I applied for a business license," he recalled. "It took about a year before they finally worked something up. But it's important to me. We have very high standards here."

 Trust is everything to Wyckoff. As a former soldier, he often looks back to the camaraderie he had with his fellow mates.

 At Elektryk Inkk, Greg Kronic serves as his assistant gunner, providing stability and giving him piece of mind.

 "It's really easy to steal money if you don't keep your eyes on everything," Wyckoff said. "But once you get someone around you can trust, it allows me to take days off and not have to worry about getting ripped off by my employees."

Listening to Wyckoff talk about tattooing, it's easy to see his passion. He said anyone can get into tattooing, but if you want to be successful, an apprenticeship is critical.

"I tell people, I have a football and a uniform," he said. "Does that make me a quarterback?"

Point well taken. In fact, Wyckoff said many people can draw, and that's an asset in tattooing, but learning about ink and skin is what separates an artist from a hack.

"To be a good tattoo artist, you have to understand skin and the way to apply ink," he said. "You're applying a piece of artwork to a moving canvas, to skin that's moving, squirming, bleeding, so there's a madness to it. On top of it all, you have to have some artistic ability and a lot of patience."

Apprenticeships are expensive and hard to come by. Wyckoff says he could charge a premium for passing along his expertise, but instead, he prefers a mutually beneficial alternative.

"Many shops charge between $5,000 and $10,000 for an apprenticeship," he said. "I try not to charge my people; I try and make them work for it. While you're in here doing your apprenticeship, you're in here answering phones, dealing with customers and learning to sterilize and clean stuff. When I get done, they'll come in here and clean the area, because if I have to do that I don't need them around."

Sounds like a hard bargain, but considering the benefits derived from a good apprenticeship, it actually becomes a great deal.

Even a seasoned artist with a comprehensive portfolio makes mistakes from time to time. Wyckoff says most of the time only the artist can tell when a tattoo isn't up to their standard.

As an artist, Wyckoff takes tremendous pride in his work and said he will even try and talk a client out of a tattoo if he feels it's something they may regret. After all, his customers represent his artwork. But sometimes he gives in even against his best judgment.

"The craziest tattoo I did was a heart on a girl's forehead," he said. "I tried to tell her it wasn't a good idea but she wanted it. I get a lot of young people who come in here and want a boyfriend or girlfriend's name and I always ask them if their sure. I tell them it's permanent - It doesn't wash off."

More times than not Wyckoff will do what it takes to satisfy his customers. Like anyone else, he prefers certain parts of his job, or in his case, certain types of tattoos.

 "I have been doing a lot of Asian art like koi fish and water," he said. "I like the gangster stuff with bags of cash, money and smoke."

 But above it all, he enjoys pleasing his clients and wouldn't want it any other way.

Business is good and he is in the process of training a third artist. He usually has three or four appointments on Saturdays and says he is considering opening a second shop within the next year.

Now that he has someone he trusts running the shop when he is away, Wyckoff finds time to enjoy his other passion - riding his tricked-out Yamaha, complete with a six-speaker sound system powered by three amps tucked neatly away in two saddle bags.

"Whenever I get out of here I'm on that bike," he said, pointing out the window at his motorcycle. "As long as it ain't raining or icing on the ground, I like to ride. I'll go anywhere."

When laying eyes on Jay Wyckoff, it's impossible not to notice his arms and neck, which are covered in tattoos. That he is self-made businessman and entrepreneur is of no consequence for some people.

 He is used to the stares and shrugs off the comments he overhears from people wondering if he's a skinhead, or the whispers of people urging each other to steer clear. But like many things in our world, there is more than meets the eye.

"I hear stuff all the time and I don't let it bother me," he said. "They don't know me. It wears on you after a while and I wish people wouldn't make judgments, but it is what it is."

Two days after our meeting, I drove down Interstate 20 towards Covington toward the office during lunch. Two exsits before mine, I looked up in my rear view mirror and saw a familiar face on a motorcycle riding up behind me.

I rolled my window down as the man on the steel horse pulled up along side. Virtually in stereo, we extended our arms and flash each other a low-hanging peace sign. He gaves me a quick glance as he motors by as if to say, 'hey man, keep it safe and be cool.'

 I rolled the window up with a smile and turned to my passenger who sat staring at me with a blank look.

 "Who was that?" he said.

 "That's Gangsta Jay," I said with a grin. "He's a cool dude."