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Thursday, October 05, 2006

"The glittering fantasy land from the travel brochures is only one of those cities, a beautiful optical illusion arranged by the the world's public relations managers. Whoever believes in it must think of Dubai as a kind of fairy tale, a place of Arab magic, an oasis of camels and sheiks and a cluster of luxury hotels where no day goes by without a golf tournament or swanky horse races.

But Dubai these days is mostly a noisy, rough, unkempt city -- one of the world's largest construction sites. Construction work is going on throughout most of the urbanized coastal strip, and the jackhammers can still be heard from the terraces of seaside hotels at night."

Story....

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Uh.... hi.

My gosh, it's the longest I've not blogged in like forever.

I'll be in Prague the first week of November.

In September I moved into a great new apartment in the Marina section. I never blogged about how awful it was to find a decent place to stay here. I never blogged about it because it was too awful, on a deep spiritual level. It's better now, much much better.

I bought a Toyota Corolla. It runs nicely, but cars here require constant washing.

Over the weekend I drove to Al Ain, on the Omani border, for an excursion. It was much different from the city I live in. I drove to the highest point in the country. Sadly this was the first I'd really been out of the city I live in, but now that I have my own wheels I plan to do that more often.

Both my sisters turn 37 today. Congratulations.

Here's a little video about the city I live in. I found it didn't really get under the surface, but it's nice that somebody shot some video inside the Cyclone.