Jim Brooks:  

July 18, 2008 Well, I think I'm going to get a real good suntan, along with heat stroke. I am off to Dubai August 1, on a project I'm working on. We checked the weather channel yesterday and it said temps were 40-41C. I know a guy working over there and he reported it's around 49 to 51C around 122F. Seems they have to have a holiday if the temp exceeds 43C so of course it never does. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. The project is huge with house values exceeding 6.5Billion dollars. Our part is much smaller but still the largest I've ever been involved with. So we'll see whether I come back as over cooked bacon, or not. Well that was fun. A real eye opener. First, it's really hot. I mean really hot. Well maybe not that hot but real hot. It's also very monochromatic. The sky is kind of grey with the sun kind of bright. There is sand everywhere. There is construction everywhere. It looks like some giant kid with a toy shovel has been playing in the sand. And everywhere you see workers in slaving in the sun or being driven to or from a worksite in un-air-conditioned buses. I guess it's a dry heat???. I went for a 1 hour walk on the golf course and went through a large bottle of water and could have used more. You don't sweat, or if you do, the evaporation is so fast, you never get wet. I drove onto the man-made palm island but when your on the ground, there's not much to see except gated communitys and sand. Did I mention there is lots of sand here? Went to a couple of shopping malls. I guess if you were very rich, they would be neat but when a change purse cost $600, the enhu...Expand for more