My daughter Sarah Michael was interested in doing this new hobby with me, and we talked about designs we could make together.

But I didn’t end up with that much free time needing to be filled, I seemed to be pretty busy. We also had a nightmare home remodel that started in the winter of 2008 and so it took a while for the t-shirt shop idea to actually become a reality.

Finally this summer I started to put the T-shirt shop together and make sure we had all the stuff we needed. But what I really needed was something to motivate me to actually produce a design and make a shirt, and that something was a trip to San Francisco for a three-day outdoor music festival called Outside Lands. I thought it would be fun to screen print my own Outside Lands shirt design to wear to the shows, and it ended up being quite fun indeed!

I stayed up very late a few of nights before I left for my trip watching DVDs on the shirt-making process, then printing my design, exposing and washing out the the screen then finally printing onto some shirts.  There was a lot to learn and do, but it was a lot of fun.

And I even had people comment to me on my shirts!  Two different people came up to me and said “I didn’t see that shirt at the merchandise table.”  I felt proud!  I told them I designed and printed the shirt myself, but I didn’t bore them with the long drawn-out history.

Now I just need to keep making shirts, and start charging money for them too, cause if I don’t these Outside Lands shirts will be the most expensive pieces of clothing I have ever worn.