Dirt, heat and more dirt

This morning when I got to work there weren't any assignments on the board for me, so Mark suggested I go shoot the final days of an office building that is being torn down and then photograph the construction of an overpass on I-20. Both assignments were things that the paper has been covering for awhile, so they would just be updates. The first job at the demolished building went by pretty quickly. I was amazed at how they had torn down and 8 or 9 story building and were working on getting debris out of the basement. (By the way, I am going to start posting photos the day after so I don't beat the paper in getting photos out. I realized the other day that many times I put stuff on at 10:00 or 11:00 that isn't out until the next morning in the paper.)
The next assignment was a little more of a challenge, although the supervisor did give me a free hard hat and vest. He was a really nice guy, he explained alot of how their operation works and when they might be doing some interesting stuff in the future. There was a ton of dust though, and it was hot (the type of heat found only West Texas). My camera was covered in a find layer of dust, so when I wanted to change lenses I tried to cover it up. To my surprise when I pulled my 20-35 lens off dust flew from the rear element, which means it was close to or on the sensor as well. I am not talking about a light layer of dust, but grains of sand falling from the back of the lens as I put into the lens bag on my belt system. I was so worried about hurting my camera, but had to go on. I figured that's why I payed thousands of dollars for professional level gear that could take a beating and keep working. Later on, in the office, I blew whatever dust I could off the sensor and lens element, unfortunately I left my cleaing cloth in Abilene, and will try to get another one here in town to clean my lenses with. I think I have a sensor swab left that is going to get filthy here in a few minutes.
Surprisingly, there wasn't much dust shown in the images when I looked at them on the monitor. I guess it wasn't as bad as it looked. I felt dirty all day though, and the rest of my assignments were in normal conditions and not too hard on my gear. Looking at my camera though, I have put more scratches on the finish in the past three weeks that in the whole year since I bought it.
After my experiences my first few weeks I am seriously thinking about finding a second hand body and a new zoom or a couple of prime lenses to round out my system. I don't want the consumer or prosumer bodies though, they would have let even more dirt into the camera today, or I would only be able to use them when they wouldn't be exposed to the elements. Today convinced me that pro equipment is the way to go, it survives dust, light rain, jello and more.