Right, I promised a proper catch up on life down here, so here goes:

I had an online marketing/search engine optimisation (SEO) job going on with a friend of mine. It was his business, and I was brought it to run the day to day bits of the company. All was going well, then it all came crashing down, in a truly impressive fashion.

I started having cash flow issues, company credit cards would bounce for small payments ($50US and less!) and I'd be told to wait till funds cleared into company accounts. This was worrying as we had a lot of well paying clients and I couldn't work out where the funds had gone. The only person with access to the finances was my buddy, (let's call him) Mr X.

He had recently had a big lifestyle change, had left his fiancee (they had been together for like 15 years) and started dating some brazilian chick he met on a business trip to London, UK. She moved out of London and came to live with him, and when I say moved out, he smuggled her out of the UK as her visa had expired! This brazilian bird has kids back in Rio, but he was besotted by her... and she liked the fact he drove a mercedes and I think we can all guess where the money went!

Mr X and Tramp came to my new years eve party, with Tramp's trampier younger sister, and her 65+ husband/pimp, drank my booze, ate my food, and that was the last time I saw him face to face. He became harder and harder to contact, then I heard he had moved out of his house down here and shipped off back to the UK... and then the phone started ringing: Accountants, lawyers, investors, suppliers, employees, you name it, they called me, asking where Mr X was... ohh, and the police, that was fun. He had vanished off the face of the earth, taking with him ALL the company money. I ended up a fair bit out of pocket, not being paid for 2 months, but got a new job and am settling in well.

To make matters worse, in December Mrs Aninymal was made redundant due to a big company reshuffle where she was working, but I was raking in big bucks, so we decided she didn't need to get a new job and could stay home looking after Aninymal Junior V.1. Then all this shit happened, so we spent just about all our savings on moving into a much smaller apartment, from about 4500sq ft to just under 1000sq ft... BIG CHANGE! Moving doesn't cost too much, but we had to live for 2 months, and get new furniture and stuff as we had rented the last apartment fully furnished from the landlord...

But, things are looking up, Mrs Aninymal and I got engaged the same week I started the new job, and later that week we found out we had been successful in making Aninymal Junior V.2! He/She/It is due just before Christmas We're looking to tie the knot in August/September 09, giving us a while to shed the pregnancy pounds (yes, me included, as she seems to love baking cookies, muffins, cakes, brownies, etc when pregnant!!!)

So there you have it... life was up, life went down, life is back again...

Life is a rollercoaster Grep, You just gotta ride it.
Good to hear things are on the up, and congrats on aninymal V.2
Sounds like your 'buddy' stitched you up good and proper, what a nightmare.

Spoiler:
	I only just got the silence of the lambs referance in you AV. Doh!

I often wonder if people were more trustworthy in the past... or do we just hear more about nowadays.

Congrats on the engagement and V.2!!!!

Cheers OCT.

And toys... don't follow you 100%...

Ok, forgive my ignorance here...and I hope I don't upset anybody or anything...but like...didn't you and Mrs (take your pick of nick) get brokened up after your first offspring was sprung? Where did you move to when you refer to down here?


I'm a little lost.

Tis a wonderful island paradise ;P

I don't know why, but I seem to attract controversy. I like making things difficult for myself.

I handed my notice of resignation of my well paid, permanent, secure job in to my boss first thing this morning, in favour of taking a 6 month consultancy... a 2 hour flight away from where I live. I can work most of it from home, but will need to travel every now and again...

I'm a sucker! Still, the money is fucking awesome, and I won't have to work for a few months after I finish, which means lots of time with the new baby when it arrives.

Good luck mate , sounds good to me.

Found out yesterday I may need to travel to Dallas in a couple of months to meet some of the head honchos... anyone nearby that can show Aninymal a good time?

I'm of no help, I'm way the fuck up in New York.

Is it true you need a new biometric passport to get to the USofA nowadays? My mate went to canada a few weeks back, wanted to drive to NYC but they won't let him across the US border?