Ooops!

Hey,

We’re sitting here today in the middle of a three day (so far) dust storm.  Trying to get anywhere is difficult and I can only imagine the damage it is doing to the car (paint and engine).  Simply walking from the car to the store is hard on your lungs.  The “Qatar Masters” golf tournament is this weekend along with the “Tour of Qatar” cycling race for the next 6 days – just gotta feel sorry for those athletes.  I doubt the crowds they are expecting will be challenging the high wind warnings and low visibility.  With any luck, this is the blowing out of winter and in of summer L

While sitting here surfing on the web, I keep getting more and more popups for unauthorized websites in the growing censorship here in Qatar.  I thought I would show the popup since the portrayal of wrong doers is so funny.  I am now having to use a VPN to access most sites in the US – strangely enough, many of them are blocked on the US side to prevent copying.  The sites that are blocked here are any that use profanity (like the word damn), explicit pictures (like National Geographic), or anything that does not seem to fit into their idea of what is right.  It is not really a pattern, because it changes daily. 

Only 8 ½ workdays until we are on the plane again.  7 nights in Phuket with sun and diving mixed in.  We hope this refuels our engines again until April (spring break).  I have found a diving club here and should get in a boat dive next weekend if the wind dies down.  The water is still cold so I think Missie is going to wait until it warms up a little.  There are several wreck dives that should be fun to explore.  Our understanding is that there are many things to see, but the visibility is usually limited to less than 5 meters.  Sort of like diving in California or Mexico – man, we really got spoiled in Hawaii.  Either way – beats riding the couch and watching TV J

The head of the dive club has been here in Qatar for 15 years, working for most of the oil companies.  He is now a project manager for the largest to date fuel project ($20 billion) here in Qatar.  When I asked him how long is the natural gas going to last, he stated, “less than 40 years”.  Wow, that changes things.  He said that Qatar has been increasing production almost 35% per year.  The numbers he said was over a 100 billion cubic meters per year or 77 million metric tons per month.  He said the Qataris just keep talking like it is an endless well that they keep sticking more and more straws in.  China is gulping down every once they can buy and keep building more and more supertankers to haul it away.  For our students it is going to be a rude awakening when they are our age and the money tree dies. 

Lesson of the Week: Humans don’t really learn much from past generations.  Its just money!

Love to all,

Doug and Missie