Enjoy your vacation. Looks great.

About the economy crisis - I work in a german loan and savings bank as database admin. It looks frightening real from  here. There are still some risks which aren't resolved, which means that the trust between the banks isn't going to return soon. The next wave will most probably be started by the credit card companies, when more and more people aren't able to repay their depts. In January alone, more than 500.000 people lost their job and won't be able to spend a lot of money any more. (source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm ) How many will it be in February? In March? Noone nows, no prediction I know came even close to the real numbers. 

And then, there is ALG, the next major problem. Another case of "too big to fail", whith about 300 billions of dollars at risk. I would love to see a sign that it's a hype, but from what I have seen, it isn't. 

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori.