So I am sitting on the plane flying home, finally. Natalie and I left the United States on October 3rd, it is now the 19th/20th (depending on what time-zone you are in. I am currently sitting in row 36, seat G, having moved from the window (J) to the isle thanks to the young guy sitting in the isle seat agreeing to the swap. I figured it would be easier as I figure I might be up for a while working, and if the other two in my row go to sleep I don’t have to wake them to get up and get/put-away my laptop.

I’m sitting at the airport in Dubai, reading to finally hit the road home. Today we had quite the adventure. I’ll see if I get this story all typed up here or not, I am sitting here at the airport without power for the laptop, but I did get on wifi without having to pay anything!

Actually it looks like some people are getting into my gate, so I am going to go try and see if I can’t get through and find a chair with power near it for the 2 hour wait I still have. Perhaps I’ll be back blogging shortly.

So today is Friday in Dubai, and for those of you who don’t know, that means it is the weekend! The weekend here is Friday and Saturday, the business week goes Sunday through Thursday. Derek, Rajat and I took off to the Mall of the Emirates this morning to go to Ski Dubai, the indoor Ski resort here in Dubai.

We got to the mall just after 10am, and found our way to SD shortly there after. On the way I saw an Oakley store, so I made plans to stop in there after we were done on the slopes. At Ski Dubai you can pay DHS180 for a 2 hour lift ticket and ski/board/clothing rental. We found out that Rajat wouldn’t be able to ski or snowboard as they don’t let newbies go up without a lesson, and they didn’t have any lessons scheduled :(  He ended up getting a park pass which allowed him into the snow park, but not the slopes themselves.

Derek grabbed his skis and I my board and changed so we could out. It was even cold in there, not cold enough to be too uncomfortable, but cold enough to make you appreciate the jacket and pants they provided. We had a blast for two hours, it was great. If you are ever in Dubai I highly recommend taking a few hours for the experience. The snow was soft, cold, and the slopes weren’t half bad considering they were in doors! It definitely takes longer to get up the slopes than down, but it is still worth the effort.

After the snowboarding we headed out to the Oakley store so I could purchase some shorts (somehow I didn’t pack any) and then a swimsuit as we plan to go to the beach tomorrow. I didn’t buy anything else from the O store, but I sure would have if there had been any deals. We grabbed a bite to eat for lunch and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our desert safari.

The desert safari was a good time as well, though I definitely should have taken some Dramamine before the trip. The driver from Lama tours picked us up at the hotel and took us out to the meeting point. It was an interesting location, hundreds of people, lots of land cruisers and quads running around, I’m not sure how someone didn’t die there, it was completely insane. From there we headed off into the sand dunes, a stop for sunset and then into a conservation area where we went to the camp for dinner. They had dinner, drinks, and a belly dancer.

I’ll try to get bigger photos posted on Flickr after I get back to the states. Here are some uploaded to the blog.

So I haven’t blogged in a few days, it’s busy here in Dubai! I haven’t seen too much, though Derek did drive me around a little bit to see some of the buildings. It is amazing how much haze there is here, I call it smog though, it’s actually kind of disgusting, doesn’t make for pretty views in what could be a very pretty skyline(s). I say skylines because there appears to be many different skylines here in Dubai, as there are groupings of large buildings spread out all over the place.

It’s Monday here, day 2 of the workweek here, we’re heading off to the client shortly, I just spent the past 20 minutes ironing my shirts for the week. It took some effort to get the ironing board up here finally.

Before I go, I’ll comment on the topic of this blog. The mirror in the bathroom doesn’t fog, at least I haven’t been able to make it do so. The thing is heated! It’s pretty cool I must say, when we buy/build a house we’ll have to look into this as an option! So long for now

So I slept in this morning, well morning and afternoon, I was up till around 3am trying to give Natalie a call to make sure she arrived home. I woke up today around 1pm and finally got myself out of bed around 2pm. I took a shower and headed downstairs for the VERY LARGE brunch they have here at the hotel on Fridays.

Following brunch I walked around for about an hour. I must say, so far I am not impressed with Dubai. The area around the hotel is under so much construction, at least where I walked, that everything is dirty. Did I mention the heat yet? I might end up taking a darn shower here before my conference call at 5pm just because I am so hot and sweaty from my walk! Here are some photos I snapped while walking around, notice it is extremely hazy

So I am sitting at Schiphol airport waiting for my flight at 1:40pm to Dubai. I’ll be there for 10 days, then finally flying home to St. Louis.

Natalie and I had a great time here in Amsterdam, the OpenForce Europe conference was great, and getting to meet more DNN community and team members, as well as other speakers that do a LOT MORE speaking than I do was educational. I look forward to applying for sessions for the conference next year!

Natalie is on her way back to St. Louis, she’ll be home Thursday evening and then will be picking up John from the airport Friday morning. He’ll be driving the Corvette back to Washington DC tomorrow, so when I get home the car will be gone :(

Hope everyone back home is doing well, I’m going to get ready to find my gate, the flights here have the security screening at the gate, rather than when entering the terminal, so the lines for the gates seem to be rather long.

Still have to pack and take the dogs to the kennel. Flight at 2pm

So it's been a while since I've made any real progress on the 240Z, but come the end of October I hope my weekends will finally slow down enough that I can start working on the car again with the intention of getting it running before Christmas!

The Corvette goes away in just over a week, which will leave me without a fun car to drive, so hopefully that will motivate me a little bit to work on the 240 after I get done travelling for the month of October.