Not to get off subject, but if I was totally burned out and had to start over, I'd definitely take a trip to Brasil. I knew a Brasilian guy at my last job who was always trying to get people to go with him on his vacations back home. A couple of guys went with him over Carnaval and said that everything he had told them was true --- great beaches, great parties, beautiful girls, and all of it very inexpensive by American standards. They had a great time. This guy has a son here with his ex-wife and wants to be around while his boy finishes up school, so he has a few years to go. But he is planning to keep working here in the US as a software engineer, and then head back home comparatively rich. He would probably be pretty wealthy anyway, because his family is well off.