[BrownBuffalo]

Not knocking on my folks in Europe, but if you've ever had to deal with a business relationship with anyone in the EURO-ZONE during the month of December - forget it. It's not to say its anti-production, but I DO want to say a healthy lifestyle as a company owner is based on moderation. There are times when you need to do that 13 consecutive-day hack-o-thon, but those are rare. If you build interatively and not trap yourself you can easily get away once a week to seclusion w/o disrupting the balance of things - even if its a tech start-up. It's scale of economy that applies to your personal life/work balance.