Tag: personal

The summer of 2002 was very special to me. It was the first summer that I spent mostly outside of California. I walked in my graduation from UCR, even though I still had one more class to take. I took a trip to the southwest first. Hiked down to Plateau Point in the Grand Canyon, went to Lake Powell, Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce and Zion. Then I went up to Hayward to join my new classmates. We then drove through Nevada and Utah to Dillon, Montana. Our base for the next 7 weeks. I mapped rocks most days until the weekend, when we took a side trip like to a hot springs or an old dusty town, and Sundays were usually laundry days and hanging out at the Metlen. I also went to the internet cafe (remember those?) to email family and friends. After I was done with the class, I got picked up by my parents in town and saw a remarkable reenactment of when Lewis and Clark met with the Shoshone to switch over to a land voyage and Sacagawea recognized her brother as the mediator from the Shoshone, exactly 197 years after it happened. We then went through Butte and Helena to Great Falls on the plains. On the way back we went through Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. When I got home again in late August, I won tickets to Doheny Days, which was all reggae back then. I got my Bachelor of Science in the mail. The summer ended with me meeting my future wife.

This is the background to how Flat Earth Society started. It’s exciting to me that the songs I wrote on that voyage will finally be released in the near future. Yes, there are some older songs and new one mixed in to this album, but the theme of that summer speaks throughout, and I think I may have finally topped Hourglass. Don’t think that there are no mistakes, though! It’s still a Jackass Penguins album. 😃