Some Random Things That Have Happenened Lately

Joyce decided that we needed to repaint the house. She started on the trim and painted it a real bright, kind of Shrek green. Then she decided to paint the doors the same color. Our colleague Brad Boydston liked it. You can see in the picture, with his green shirt, he almost disappears while standing in front of our door. Joyce is now trying to decide whether to keep the main color of our house green or change it to yellow. She painted both bathrooms too. Now the guest bathroom is purple (light shade). While she was painting our bathroom she fell off the ladder. It was a miracle that she was not injured. Joyce really likes to paint - she does most of it while I am teaching my summer class sessions - so she doesn't mind that the tropical weather necessitates putting on a new coat of paint a little more often than other places we have lived.

Last night when I was driving home from class there were a lot of frogs on the road. It is rainy season and the frogs tend to come out. We had to take Jens and Karin's dog to the vet a couple weeks ago because it had a seizure from licking and biting the frogs. Anyway I drove home trying to dodge the frogs (along with the holes and caverns in the road in front of my house). I think I avoided most of them, but there is a good reason that people buy T-shirts here that say, "Guam-Island of flat frogs."

I still like to drink carbonated soft drinks. I know they are not good for me but it is something I enjoy. I was overwhelmed with the soft drink choices in California when I was there. There are more choices now in the stores than there were a few years ago, but in most places it still boils down to Coke or Pepsi products. I am a Pepsi guy. I have switched to Pepsi Max from Diet Pepsi because I like it better. I think our campus is pretty evenly divided between Coke and Pepsi people.

Media and communications have improved greatly in our time on Guam. Joyce and I just replaced our 5 year old cell phones. We have a prepaid plan and we can use our minutes to call pretty much anywhere with a US area code. In fact, it is cheaper for us to call the US than locally. The cable TV is now digital and they have just started promoting high definition stations. I am not sure that I can justify paying an extra $20 per month for 4 or 5 extra stations, even when two of them are ESPN, with "crystal clarity." It would be nice to watch college football in high def but I think I will stick with the regular channels for my Sunday afternoon college football watching (This is when we get the live games on the other side of the date line).

In the meantime we spend most of our time getting ready for the upcoming semester!