Not what it looks like...

We've been pretty dutiful about putting our photos up on Flickr. Whenever we happen across a reasonably fast connection we try to upload what we've got. Hopefully we'll organize them in an easy to digest fashion someday soon. As for now they're just in reverse chronological order.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about with this blog post. I wanted to take a minute address a common misconception. As you're clicking through our photos I know what you're all thinking (but are too polite to say). You're thinking: “Man... Jim is one white dude”. Well, I can see why you may be confused...

…but, if truth be told, my skin is actually a nice hue of golden brown. It's just a bit hard to tell. You see, the only sunscreen we could find in Laos contained skin whitening agents. Asians prefer to look very light skinned. All of their models look very light, and everyone who works outside covers up from toe to head.

So every time we've gone into the sun for the past month or so I've had to choose between getting a sunburn or using “double skin whitening crystals”. Not wanting any part of skin cancer I've decided that I should lotion up, dying my skin white in the process. So, if you see pictures of me with my shirt off in the future you should go ahead and imagine that I have a solid base tan. As long as you're imagining things you can go ahead and throw a muscle or two in there too. Thanks pal, Jim.