First off, thanks to all of you who volunteered opinions either via comments, email or phonecalls, as to whether I should stay in the US and work on this new job, or go back to Europe.

For now, at least, I'm going to give the new job a go. Part of my reticence is that the money is not great. I'm not talking "not enough for a new Porsche", I'm talking, "2/3 of what I was earning in my last job".

However, I'm looking upon this new job thusly:

• it's 100% more money than being unemployed
• It's in an area of IT that I'm really interested in
• I get the ultra-flexibility and lack of administrivia that comes with a small company
• I'm effectively getting paid to study new areas of IT
• It's way more creative than any other IT job I've ever had
• It's an all-Mac office

But it gets even better.

Dog Days
Miles - handsome Golden Retriever At Large - is allowed to come to work with me. He was instantly adopted as the company mascot, and now spends his days, either sleeping by my works' PowerMac, or rushing to the front of the office to great visitors and clients. Luckily, this hasn't annoyed any clients so far. In fact, the general consensus is that he's adorable. I think he needs to be put on commission.

The reason his coming to work with me is important, is that right now, he's seeing some changes in lifestyle. Without wanting to go too deeply into my private life, as of yesterday, Miles and I find ourselves living alone. I didn't want him being left in an un-airconditioned house all on his own, at least this close to losing his doggie sister's company.

So, he gets to spend the day with me (which of course he loves doing), and he gets to snooze in an air-conditioned office (temps have been around 100ºF / 38ºC every day this week), and he gets to either go to City Park during our lunch break, or our favourite Englewood off-leash park, after work.

The Job
My new job as a web designer/developer/tea boy/cat wrangler is shaping up nicely. I've been thrown in at the deep end, and we're working out butts off to meet deadlines. I have to say, after so long unemployed, I'm really enjoying the mayhem.

I seem to learn a little something new about web design tools every day, and I'm going to get into Flash animation at some point. Don't worry. I'm not about to turn DMfM into an animation-heavy-fuck-you-if-you-don't-have-broadband site, but I might just share some of the more crazy results with you on a separate page.

OK, so it's 11pm, still insanely hot (temps over 100ºF most of this week), and I need to pack my entire house up. Frankly, after the intense race against time at work, I feel like sleeping for a week, but it's not to be. I'm moving out of the house, so I need to pack. Deep joy.

If I'm still alive by the end of the weekend, I'll let you know.