One of my favorite hobbies is
riding a motorbike. This is a fascinating sport that took my friends and
me around Europe. Especially, we explored the Swiss, French and Italian
Alps, went to the Pyrenees which run along the French and Spanish border
and enjoyed the good weather - and the twisty roads - in the Italian Tuscany.
Today, we have to ignore the fact, that Michigan is a relatively flat state
and - in addition to that - the roads are absolutely straight.
The picture below - of course -
is not quite real. It has been designed by Rainer Leuschke, who sits in
front of me. By the way, he now has his own web page (in German), here
is the link (Rainer's page). In 1998,
we sent this special Christmas card to our friends here in the United States.
Our German friends got a different
Christmas card in 1998. We designed this card together with my brother
Rainer and his wife Tanja who sit between Rainer and me.
Of course, we continued our 'Christmas
card tradition' in 1999. By the way, we started creating our own greeting
cards in 1994 ,but at that time we used real photographs. If you like to
see the 1996 and 1997 versions they are shown on Rainer's web page. Just
click on this link (1996
and 1997 cards).
Here are the two cards that we
sent to our friends in 1999. As before, most of the creative work has been
done by Rainer Leuschke (second person from the right) who is a pretty
good downhill skier. I must admit that I only went skiing once until 1999.
That was in the Austrian Alps where I took a beginners' course. Therefore,
don't be impressed by my performance in the pictures. Besides Rainer and
me, you see my brother Rainer and Tanja in the German version of the card.
Try to find the ostrich !
First of all, I am not a 'Michigan
State' fan although you might think so when looking at our millennium Christmas
cards. I promise I would have picked the UM football team but I could not
find any good photo with four players on the web. We sent the two cards
to our American and German friends in 2000. If you examine the picture
carefully you see that Rainer, Tanja, Rainer and I (from left to right)
watch the game ourselves. And of course, somebody can't be missing. The
ostrich always plays in major role.
In 2001, the scheme for our Christmas
card was easy to find. This year, Tanja and Rainer visited us over the
summer. Great idea, since they only knew these gray November days when
they celebrated Thanksgiving with us in 1999 & 2000. We
took advantage of the good weather and went 'up north' as we use to say
here in Michigan. 'Up north' that meant the Leelanau Peninsula and the
Sleeping Bear Dune National Lakeshore. Of course, we climbed the Sleeping
Bear dune up and down or - in order to be more precise - down
and up. Impressed by 450 feet elevation difference ? Well, let me assure
you that this is slightly more exhausting than going for a walk, but lots
of fun anyway. Here you see the German version of the card. To be honest,
we haven't actually tried doing this on a bike.
I can't tell you why, but the 2001
English version turned out to be completely different from the German one.
We kind of went 'back to the roots', back to our old friend 'the motorbike'.
Rainer has meanwhile become a racer. In 2001, he often took his bike to
a racetrack in Michigan. And the more I think about it that might
have been the driving force for this Christmas card. By the way,
we carved the pumpkin ourselves and took the photo of the raven in September
2001 when we visited the Death Valley.
In 2002 we tried to skydive
for the first time. Do you recognize the city below us ? It's Chicago
that we visited some time ago. As you may have noticed we are now 5 people in
the picture. My brother Rainer and Tanja had a baby girl in October of 2002.
Her name is Valentina and she already has her own web page and e-mail address.
Check out the site lentina.de
In 2003 we were inspired
by ice-skaters in a fake ice-skating ring. The beautiful scenery in the background
shows you the mountains in Colorado. We took the photo in Aspen during
a ski trip in March. In this photo, Valentina is about 13 months old.
In 2004
we went on a wild ride in a whitewater raft. I have actually never tried whitewater
rafting but hope to do so some time. There are lots of good opportunities
in Colorado. Valentina has grown a lot and started talking. Now it's hard to stop her.
In the English version of the card we replaced Tanja and Rainer with the
tiger (I am sure you have seen it before on the other cards) and our home-carved
pumpkin head. We sent this card to our friends in the United States.
Last year (2005)
we flew high in a hot air balloon. As you might have noticed, Tanja and Rainer are now the proud
parents of their newborn babyboy. His name is Vico. In the background you see a photo of
Bryce Canyon that Rainer and I took during a 10-day National Park trip through Colorado, Utah and Arizona.
The rainbow is real (it actually rained on us). We were just in the right spot at the right time for this gorgeous scenery.
In the English version of the card we went back to our good-old motorcycle theme, this time
with the so-called 'Super Motos' bikes. In 2005, Rainer has been racing these bikes 'professionally' as
part of his job. Not too bad, I would say.
Manipulating photos seems quite
easy and in fact - it is. All you need are digital photos and a manipulation
program like 'Adobe Photoshop' and you can start doing anything. Have you
ever been to New York ? Look how easy it is to get there.
The following picture gives you
an impression how a Michigan winter looks like. Especially the winter in
1998/1999 was one of the snowiest since decades. We took this picture in
the Kensington Metropark which is one of the many parks here in the Detroit
Metropolitan Area. When looking carefully you see that we combined two
single photos to create this impressive panoramic view.
Here is another winter wonderland
photo. We took it over the long Thanksgiving weekend in 2002 when we went
up north again (Leelanau Peninsula, Lake Michigan) with our friends Anne
and Michael. Building the snowman with powder snow was hard work but worth
it.
