MAY 2009

BIRTHDAY MONTH

May is birthday month for the boys in our nuclear family. Our son, Carl, was born on May 8, our son, Peter, was born on May 21, and I was born on May 19. This year I finally reached the ripe old age of 80 and my wonderful wife arranged for a celebration of this birthday with all the family out in Riverfront Park west of town. My brothers and their wives came out from Chicago and our son, Carl, made the trip from New Jersey. It was a real blast! Riverfront Park has a lovely picnic grove studded with huge redwoods that keep the area cool and pleasant, so we spent the afternoon there on Sunday May 17. Here’s the group picture we made:


And here for the sake of identification and posterity is a key to the people in the photo above:


1. Joel Schmidt (My brother) 2. Nikolas Szecsey (Mary & Christopher’s son) 3. Jonathan Seutter (Gretchen’s fiancé) 4. Gretchen 5. Peter 6. Kate Loveall (Peter’s fiancée) 7. Kyle Crosson (Gretchen’s son) 8. Dickie 9. Carli Morgenstern (Kyle’s friend) 10. Our son, Carl 11. Christopher Szecsey 12. Ilse Schmidt (Ralph’s wife) 13. Mary 14. Evan Schmidt (Peter’s son) 15. Heidi 16. Daniel Zweig (Heidi & Peter’s son) 17. Mary Schmidt (Joel’s wife) 18. Jonathan Zweig (Heidi & Peter’s son) 19. Peter Zweig 20. Matthew Zweig (Heidi & Peter’s son) 21. Aron Szecsey (Mary & Christopher’s son) 22. Jesse Schmidt (Peter’s son) 23. Me 24. Ralph Schmidt (My brother) 25. Dustin Gerson (Becky’s fiancé) 26. Becky Crosson (Gretchen’s daughter)





THE CHARLES M. SCHULZ MUSEUM

One day while my brothers from Chicago were visiting, we went to see the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. Schulz’s comic strip still holds great interest for young and hold and the museum offers all kinds of special attractions. Any number of artists have contributed to the works seen there. One especially intriguing exhibit is the mural covering one whole wall in a large room of the building. The mural is made up of hundreds of Peanuts comic strips fitted together in such a way that when one looks at the mural from a distance what you see is the picture below:



Of course, up close this is what you find (the large mural is made up of hundreds of these individual comic strips):




One is only permitted to take photos in selected areas within the building, but there are also some works of art outside the building. One funny sight is a statue of Charlie Brown holding the string to a kite lodged in a real tree above. Look carefully here and you’ll see the kite in the upper middle portion of the photo:




There are a number of Peanuts character statues in and around the building. This one stands on the edge of the parking lot:





FLORA AND FAUNA

In case you’re wondering, I’m still taking my share of bird shots. Recently, I thought I saw a kestrel sitting on a power or cable line while Dickie and I were on our morning walk. I couldn’t be certain of its identity, since I’d never seen one in that area before and it was quite a distance away, but I took a quick shot with my 400mm lens and found this when I got home. I love the coloring of kestrels. This one was small compared to others that I’ve seen elsewhere, but it’s just as pretty:




I’ll shoot anything that moves. This lizard made a nice target recently. I think it’s not hard to see a resemblance here to an alligator or even a dinosaur:




The prettiest photos usually have flowers in them. We have some great-looking flowers at the moment. Our roses have been gorgeous:



And these cosmos aren’t bad either:



Thanks for looking. See you later!