Not so recently read books - I liked them all.

Read these a while ago, so now they are coming off the sidebar list.  They were all terrific.  I recommend each one.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Starbound by Joe Haldeman
Godlike Machines edited by Jonathan Strahan
The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer
The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

These were ones I was going to read, and of course it is so long ago that I did.

The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime by Jason Turbow Engineering Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
Powers, Vol. 13: Z by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Avon Oeming
Fables Vol. 14: Witches by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham
Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love by Chris Roberson, Chrissie Zullo

I also recommend these as well.

I side 87% with Barack Obama - take the quiz yourself.

You can find the link to my results and a chance to take the quiz yourself at the following link.

http://www.isidewith.com/results/12091462

Howard posted this so I tried it.  Now to look up who some of the less famous candidates are.

An unproductive Fielder at bat.

All of this ended in a strikeout.

Cabrera and Fielder vs. the Orioles.

Jesus and crab dogs at the ballpark

I found Jesus at the ballpark and I believe is His message.

 Crab with Macaroni and Cheese on a hot dog at the baseball game.  It was really surprisingly good.

A house made of LEGOs

MovotoBlog has a calculator to let you determine how many Lego bricks it would take to build your own home. 

It's not the millions of bricks and the time it would take to assemble them so much as it is the $1 million it would cost to buy them.  Maybe we should use Duplo(tm) blocks.

Hawaiian Observatories on Mauna Kea from the plane

These are my two best shots of the observatories on Mauna Kea from the plane.  
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I especially like the second one because we were in position to have Mauna Loa in the background.

We didn't get to climb either one, and really only got glimpses of either through the clouds except on our last day when it was very clear.

Monk Seal and Green Turtle at Black Sand beach in Hawaii

These two endangered creatures were sunning themselves on the black sand beach on the big island of Hawaii.

We kept a safe distance but the telephoto lens on my iPhone let me get these close ups.  

Halemaʻumaʻu Vent in the crater of Kīlauea Volcano

Halemaʻumaʻu Vent in the crater of Kīlauea Volcano during the day.  the caldera is huge.  

We were pretty much just inside the rim of a volcano.    We also got pictures at night where the glow of the lava deep in the vent illuminated the vented cloud above.

Captain Cook in Hawaii

Captain Cook performed the first Christian ceremony on the Hawaiian islands, a funeral service for a crew member.

Later he was killed across the bay in an altercation with the native Hawaiians. The monument placed a hundred years later marks the location.  It's only reachable by a strenuous hike or by boat.

In our travels we have followed Captain Cook across the Pacific to Easter Island and to Hawaii.