Travel weather tar

This was written yesterday but we're having internet issues so I'm not getting round to posting it til today.

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Well the biggest news lately has been the temperatures here.
Quite hot to say the least.
I usually check the forecast online several times a day to see the current temps,
but also to check for what's coming later in the week.
The strange thing is, the forecast can vary a lot from morning to noon to night.
I took a few screen shots one day to show this.
Pay attention to the last day listed here, the forecast goes from 111, to 118 to 105.

In reality, Sunday ended up being the hot day at about 113, and Monday was only a comparatively mild 109.

We also get sand in our forecast, but often when it says sand there isn't any, so I'm not sure how they
forecast that.  It also often says rain or light rain and I can promise you it doesn't rain as often as it says.

Here's a couple of the sand forecasts.  Actually it wasn't a forecast, it was the current weather at the time.

So, that's the exciting weather news.

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I've been trying to book a ticket for my trip back to the States.  The travel agent I used last time has been
less than helpful so I've been looking online.  I can get some better prices than the agent quoted me,
but I was really really hoping to avoid going through JFK airport, as it's pretty much a nightmare to
get around in, but I'm not sure how to avoid it when I'm checking flights online.  There is no check box for
"avoid _____ airport".   If anyone has any tips about that or a great place online that they've used for
booking tickets, please let me know.

The place that I've found the best deals through so far is cheaptickets.com
I've never used them before and not sure if anyone I know has used them, but they look okay.

The last trip I had was booked through Delta but the flights were actually operated by Air France.
Best service I've ever had flying.  Unfortunately, if I try to book through any of the airlines directly,
they are very expensive compared to checking the "cheap" flights websites.

In any case, I really need to get the tickets done since I'm planning to fly in less than a month insha'Allah!

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They've been working on our street this week.  Despite the heat and the smell, it's a good thing.

It started the other day, Monday I believe (or was it Sunday?), with a lot of very loud noise out on the street.  It kind of sounded like a tractor at a construction site hefting and dumping rocks or something.  What it turned out to be was some kind of tractor with a lift thingy in front, and they were using the lift part to scoop up any protruding cement chunks from the road and then also to flatten the surface out.  At least that's what it looked like.

Today I heard some banging out on the street around 9 a.m.
It sounded like someone hammering large spikes with a sledgehammer.  I wasn't about to get out of bed
to see what it actually was, so that will have to remain a mystery.

But, around 2:30 this afternoon I heard trucks on the street and could hear they were getting ready to get some  more work done, so I got myself "decent" (long sleeve sweater over my t-shirt and hair covered) and went out on the balcony to check it out.  They had some kind of paving machine and a dump truck full of black pebble stuff and then I could see they had what looked like a 55 gallon drum with a fire going underneath it.  It turns out they were making some of the pebble stuff into a liquid, which they then spread out on the street before the paving truck went over it.  I'm not sure the sense in that but they must have a reason.  Perhaps to help it stick better to the rock that had been laid all over the street. (pebble stuff = tar I suppose?) (In Egyptian, tar is called zift, which can also mean something else entirely)

And then the paving machine slowly made it's way down the street.  I could see other neighbors out on their
balconies, also watching the progression of the noisy smelly beast.

I took a bunch of videos in 30 second segments.  I didn't want to make it one long video because it takes too long to upload and for anyone to download.  Also took a few pictures.

The pictures and videos are not ready to post yet but I should get to it this week insha'Allah (provided internet issues are solved).
And that was the excitement for today!