On Monday, my parents' last day in Dubai, we went to the beach for a few hours. Jumeirah Open Beach over by the Burj al-Arab, the one that almost closed last year about this time (see Jumeirah Open Beach Still Open).

It was a brilliant day out, our friends at the U.S. Navy Naval Oceanographic Office say the temperature in The Gulf is about 74 degrees.

Temps on land are in the low 80s, I'd bet.

Anyway, long story short although we were there for two or three hours I didn't put in sunblock and I ended the day looking a pretty healthy shade of pink.

Now I woudldn't lie to you, I wasn't red. This was not in the top ten worst sunburns of my life. No sunstroke, no blisters, my dermis was fine - the epidermis was a little toasted. Maybe it was a first-degree burn, but really, I doubt it. Let's call it a half-degree burn.

Anyway, that night I had class before I took my folks to the airport. And, as can be common with the program here, I'm really the only person in the class of eighteen-to-twenty students who could be considered Caucasoid in his ethnicity (save for the German professor).

White-boy Josh.

Alone in my Anglo-Saxon ways.

Melanin missing.

Pigmentationally poor.

Coloration challenged.

Okay, that's more than enough. So who are the rest of the students? Well, we have a host of different Arab nations representing, plus a Kazakhstani, a few Indians, an Iraqi, a Chinese lady. A veritable UN.

Well anyway, they all walk in (especially two of the Lebanese guys, the Kazakhstani and one of the Indians) and just bust out laughing. I mean, I must look as foolish to them as the fire-engine-red British tourists look to me when I'm in Florida.

Their amusement is all in fun, I know they're not laughing at me, just at my pink fleshtone, but it got me thinking - some of these guys, they're pretty immune to sunburns. I mean me, with my British Isles (plus a dash of German) predecessors, well darn, our natural habitat is all cloudy and rainy.

And what with climate change and global warming these days having pale skin is like a evolutionary drawback.

I read somewhere (perhaps in the excellent book Mapping Human History by Steve Olson) that it takes around a thousand years for any group of people to evolve a new skin color. At least, that's what I think I remember. Let's say it's around that.

So pretty much all of us pale folks of European-descent? We're in trouble.

I mean, is it any mistake that James Cameron picked Jessica Alba with her mixed Danish-Mexican heritage to play the genetically-engineered super-soldier on Dark Angel? I mean, besides the fact that she's, you know, easy on the eyes?

I really do wonder in the future if the whole world will be a little closer in shades, more holistic in hues. Like we all started one color about 140,000 years ago and one day we'll all get back there.

Something to ponder.

Okay, that's enough philosophy for one day. I've got to go put some aloe on my peeling nose. Later.