Strobist

I've been impressed with David Hobby (aka Strobist) for quite some time and have signed up for his course at Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai next week. Essentially he preaches the use of small, off-camera, flashes and my Strobist kit arrived from the States last week. I still haven't entirely figured it out, but here's one of my first efforts using Ben as an unwilling subject.

It's all gone quiet

Whilst not as bad as made out by some slightly hysterical and inaccurate reporting in the UK press (reports of 3,000 abandoned cars, for example, at the airport are complete nonsense and local media put the number at 11), it has definitely got much quieter. There is less traffic on the roads and I've noticed normally busy places obviously doing less business. Rents and property prices have also dropped sharply and reportedly half of all projects are now on hold. For me, this is not a bad thing as the rate of development, and the problems it brings, was unsustainable.

In spite of all the gloom in the world, business is still being done and, although I do know of people who have left (of their own free will or otherwise) there still seems a generally optimistic outlook and a view that things are better here than elsewhere in the world.

Twitter

I've just found out about Twitter (independently from Stephen Fry and Tim Ferris). Since I think Facebook is primarily for the young (and grammatically challenged) this is more appealing to me and I think it's going to be the next big social networking thing. You can follow me here to see just how tedious my life generally is.

Hot

In spite of having been here for over two years, I can't seem to rid myself of my British obsession with the weather. So here's the weather report. After a chilly start to February, it really has heated up over the past couple of weeks. It was 36 degrees at the weekend - only one degree less than the highest recorded February temperature. We also had strong winds and a sandstorm.

It was 29 degrees at the Road Runners on Saturday evening and my 6 year old, Ben, really struggled to get round Safa Park. Running is getting much harder now and I was proud of him for not giving up and making it round without stopping.