[pliftkl]

"I believe that in general, some people are more allergic to wood dust than other people. Some people seem to breathe in pine dust all year long and are fine. If I sniff a single crosscut of pine, I'll get stuffy and snotty for 3 days and I won't write code very well afterwards."

This may be true, but allergies aren't the reason that woodworkers should be careful about dust collection. The guy who breathes pine dust all year long might be "fine", in the same sense that you can smoke cigarettes all year long and be "fine". The risk here relates to the long term damage of depositing very small particles of wood in your lungs. I'm glad that your allergies are driving you to do this - I did a lot of woodworking for a few years before taking dust collection seriously, and I may regret that when I'm older.