I'll chime in and say to wait till you know what you want.
The one year and picture hang things are great advice.
I've got two. A massive dragon with a rediculous amount of detail on my left upper arm. The downside to the amount of detail is that from a distance it just looks like a mess on my arm... but I really don't care. I got it for me, and when I look down at it, I see all the detail, each scale, and the shading and fine lines. Shain at ASI did the dragon. I did a ton of research, and most of the advice I got was that if you want a dragon, you go see Shain... if you want anything else, you go to another shop.
My second peice is a cartoon on the left side of my chest. It is a precious moments cartoon, slightly modified. It is two boys on a teeter totter. The one on the down side has blondish hair, and the one on the upside dosn't have hair colored yet. Neither of their shirts are colored, and they are wearing blue jeans and doc martins. There is a banner above and below the cartoon with my two son's names and birthdates on the banners. I'll probably get the donside shirt colored this year, and then wait till my second boy is old enough to have a favorite color for the upside... I'll also get the upside hair shaded soon, since the second boy's hair is probably done changing colors.
I'm kind of fond of the chest peice, for obvious reasons.... Knox at Attatude (sp?) did that one. He has a great touch, and is super super fast... which reminds me... if you choose a painful place for ink, find an artist who is fast as well as good. The closer to my armpit the needle got, the more my arm would spaz... there was nothing I could do about it.. completely invoulentary. For most of the procedure I was really relaxed, and actually fell asleep during shading on my dragon.
Oh... and don't go too long on your first sitting... my first sit on the dragon was almost 4 hours... total of 10 hours into the peice start to finish.
Edit: I remembered... my next peice will probably be by Steve at Anchor Ink. I've seen some of his work, and I'm blown away by the detail.