Very nice.
I like the background graphics. Attractive, but not distracting.
I too find the repetitive animation distracting though. Perhaps it could be set to only run once or twice - or changed to individual hot spot tooltips or mouseovers, or something.
note: I would exercise caution - avoid mouseovers or tooltips that try to run every time a viewers cursor moves across the graphic/link - such as on the way to the top navigation menu. That effect will rapidly become annoying.
I'm wondering if the text might flow a little better with a bit more whitespace - perhaps 20 pixels or so left, and more equal column widths on the home page?
I also notice that when looking at the page - I keep trying to scroll up - it feels like I'm not at the top of the page. I'm thinking that perhaps a continuation of the dark grey frame in a narrow line across the top - above the menu - with a 5-10 pixel white margin above that, might help 'define' top of page.
Alternatively - you might try using a decorative and functional line of text to delineate 'top of page' - perhaps a short tag line, or the text that is currently in the animated banner. The text could be linked to appropriate internal pages if desired.
just my .02