Most folks won't ever see Diamond Head from this perspective. This is a picture from Waialae Nui. A rare rainbow ending up in Diamond Head. Maybe the hikers found the pot of gold.

Part of my exploration of panoramas. This one I made from 9 photos using Autostitch: http://www.photo-freeware.net/autostitch.php Not designed to work on Macs but works just fine using Crossover Mac from Codeweavers: http://www.codeweavers.com/

Year of the Rat Fortune Poster Want to know what the Year of the Rat will bring you this year? Find your zodiac sign and read your fortune. Not as sharp a picture as I would like but you can probably read most of it at Original size. If it is too difficult to figure out what year is which animal from the poster you can also determine it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac#Table_of_the_sixty_year_calendar

A little Chinese Lion puppet (hung appealingly at eye level of course) in a booth at the Chinese New Year celebration in Honolulu's Chinatown. This is my entry for this month's Red challenge. Xin Nian Kuai Le! (Happy New Year) Happy Year of the Rat!

Rainbow on Ocean What you're looking at is a picture of a rainbow hovering directly over the ocean. I was taking this picture from above. You see, I was on the passenger deck of this large, fast-moving ship known as the Hawaii Superferry (more on the ship, the interesting trip, and the controversy later). It was late morning, the sun was almost overhead. The ship's hull swiftly cutting through the water cast a fine spray out over the ocean. The coincidence of sunlight, fine water droplets, and my high angle of view made this photo possible. Not many people appeared to have noticed but I did... and it's something you don't see every day.

From my trip to New Jersey in May, you won't likely see these this time of year but I found the photo in my collection and thought I should post it.

Okay so it isn't a triceratops but it is a three-horned lizard and it lives in my yard. He is a Jackson's Chameleon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamaeleo_jacksonii http://www.hear.org/species/chamaeleo_jacksonii/ Although there are wild populations around Hawaii, there aren't any known populations around where I live so it is a bit of a mystery how this one came to be in my yard. Probably some neighbor kid dropped him off in our yard after his mom refused to allow him to keep it. Anyway, it appears he's alone so no need to worry about being overrun by chameleons any time soon. Hopefully he'll stay around and help control the pest bug population. That would be nice.

[Liberty Bell and Independence Hall] Let freedom ring, And when this happens,and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last." ~Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963 http://holidays.net/mlk/speech.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountainside Let freedom ring! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Country,_'Tis_of_Thee http://holidays.net/mlk/speech.htm From my trip to Philadelphia

A Gift From the Ocean As a parting gift of my service trip to Midway Atoll, the wife of the Refuge Manager gave me this beautiful blue-green glass float. It is pretty good sized. About 6 inches in diameter. You can tell it was hand-blown and has a rounded glass plug that lights up nicely when the sunlight strikes it right. Glass floats are not uncommon on Midway. Its location in the Pacific and the fact that there aren't that many people living there makes finding and collecting them a little easier. Most glass floats are Japanese in origin. They were fashioned out of recycled sake bottle glass (giving them that blue-green color) and attached to fishing nets. When the floats got loose from their nets, they joined the rest of the flotsam and jetsam riding the oceans' currents until one day this one ended up on the beaches of Midway Atoll. If only it could talk, I'm sure this float would have some pretty interesting stories to tell.