JUNE 2008

Photobucket, a site I use to upload many of my pictures for viewing, had me worried there for just a bit. All the links to my online pictures were broken. Turns out somebody hacked into the site and made a mess of things. Not to worry. It was only a temporary problem. Everything is back to normal now. Thank goodness, those huge sites back up their work.

Just to prove that everything’s OK now, I’m posting some of my pictures from the past few weeks. As everybody knows, it was graduation time in May and June. Dickie and I attended graduation ceremonies of three of our grandsons.

The first was back in May when Mary and Christopher’s son, Aron, graduated from UC Berkeley. It was a rainy day, but it couldn’t quench the enthusiasm of the mechanical engineers or their families:


Left to right, that’s Dickie, Gretchen, Aron, Christopher, Nik, and I, with Mary standing in front.



Here in June, Nik graduated from El Molino High School in Forestville. It was a pleasant evening. No rain and, again, spirits were high. Here’s a family shot of those present:


Left to right in the back row, that’s Peter Zweig, Aron, Christopher, and I. In the front row are Heidi, Mary, Nik, Daniel, Jonathan, and Dickie.



The next afternoon Heidi and Peter’s son, Matthew, graduated from UC Davis with an engineering degree in computer science. I didn’t manage to get a shot of everyone together, but here’s the graduate with his mother:






Chalk Artists

Another recent event yours truly enjoyed was a visit to San Rafael where chalk artists were decorating the street with their work. It’s an annual event in that city. Some of the art is spectacular. I’ve called attention to it in past years. I can’t give you much more than a sampling here. Here are a couple of good examples. This first one shows an artist still at work:





Here’s a finished product. You may recognize this fellow. It’s Luther Burbank who spent much of his life here in California. Part of his name is visible at the top of the photo:





My chaperones for this occasion were my daughter, Gretchen, and her man, Jonathan Seutter. Here they are posing for me there in San Rafael:






Animals, Birds and Bees

Of course, I still managed numerous morning trips to photograph animals, birds and bees. Here’s a bumblebee that got in my way:





This butterfly obviously wanted his picture taken, so I obliged him:





Numerous goldfinches asked to have their pictures taken. I couldn’t refuse:





Not to be outdone, the house finches also made themselves available. It was great fun!




That’s it for this time. See you later!