We can eat in public again. It’s a glorious day in Dubai! Beth and I just returned from having lunch out. We gave our doorman a gift of hazelnut dates. It’s like Christmas here. Everyone is “Eid Mubarak”ing everyone else. There were fireworks last night once word reached everyone that the moon was officially sighted by the proper authorities, and nobody is working today.
Very sorry about the lack of posts lately. As you can see from the last one I have a job now. So that is taking a lot of my free time. I’m not used to working; it’s a tough transition. It’s made even more difficult given the fact that the job I’m jumping into is one of the most demanding ever. The Masdar team is attempting to build a city for 45,000 people in three years and also have it redefine every assumption that we’ve had building cities for the last 500 years. So for example, there are not really streets. This makes construction a little difficult because you can’t maneuver mobile cranes through the city. The PRT (personal rapid transit) system is being designed at the same time as the infrastructure is being built to carry it. Needless to say, coordination is very important and a little demanding.
We’ll be leaving tomorrow on a trip to Muscat, so we’ll post lots of pictures and stories on Saturday night when we get back.
Congratulations on your position working on Masdar. I’m actually envious.
It’s an exciting project — more than a showpiece, in that it possesses a strong research and development component for developing sustainable technologies, on a fast track.
Most of all I’m looking forward to seeing what a modern city can look like when not planned around the automobile.
Hope you’ll have a lot of pictures and stories about the project in the coming months/years. Best of luck to you.