09 May 08 The dust is back

09 May 08 The dust is back

The dust is back. "It comes in on little cat feet" and just hangs
there. Just like during fog, it's not windy at all, just dusty as all
get out. It's not a good day to go running but it is much cooler when
it's dusty here. It'll probably only make it to the low 90s here on a
day that would otherwise be low 100s. Eh, given a choice I'd rather
have the sunny blue skies.

Also to answer some earlier points. The knife fighting is not Kuntao
Silat but rather basic Army edged weapon training.
Yes, the weather usually is hotter here but the dust storms have kept
things cooler. It will get hot soon enough though. And days where we
hit 120F will not be uncommon.
Where I work it is about 1/3 military, 1/3 Army 'civilians' and 1/3
non-Army civilians (like me). I read somewhere that about 120,000
civilians are employed by the US Army (directly or indirectly) in Iraq
but most of these are probably Bosnian, Indian, Phillipino, Nepalese,
Ugandan, etc.
The dust 'storms' are more a nuisance than a real storm. The sand
storms are much worse as small rocks and stuff will get blown around.
It's simply dangerous to go outside during a sand storm but
fortunately, those don't last long. The dust storm kicks up fine dust
that can be very unhealthy to breath and can last for several days.

R/Chris