It was a very good year................ **************************************************** When it was 1996/ It was a very good year/ It was a very good year for becoming aware of it all/ Of the date oddity/ We'd persuaded the powers that be/ The budgets they were fixed/ When it was 1996/ ***************************************************** When it was 1997/ It was a very good year/ It was a very good year for assessing it all/ We found systems large and small/ But we were still standing tall/ Our hopes were in heaven/ When it was 1997/ ***************************************************** When it was 1998/ It was a very good year/ It was a very good year for programming it all/ We'd slave day and night/ We knew we'd get it right/ We weren't resigned to our fate/ When it was 1998/ ***************************************************** When it was 1999/ It was a very good year/ It was a very good year for testing it all/ Our fingers were crossed/ We thought we hadn't lost/ We still hoped it would be fine/ When it was 1999/ ***************************************************** But now the days grow short/ We're in the autumn of mankind/ Now I think of our lives as vintage wine/ Poured down the drain/ Wasted without gain/ And they disappeared without trace/ We'd lost the human race/ ***************************************************** It was a very good year/

It was a waste of good years/

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), October 09, 1998

Answers

Richard, today I have been thinking of a friend of mine who died in the coal mines while I was working at another mine owned by the same company. His bulldozer slid into a hopper that was feeding coal from a stockpile onto a conveyor belt and into a plant for washing. The coal had lain on the ground too long and was hot/smoking/burning. When his dozer slid into the hopper, Pete was suffocating from the smoke so tried something you are told never ever to do - climb out of the hopper so he could get air. The coal on the rim of the hopper slid down and covered him, suffocating and cooking him (remember it was near burning) and then the hopper pulled him onto the conveyor belt. His body was found floating in the coal washbox in the washing plant. I have never tried to find out if there was a rock crusher or breaker on that belt line, but there usually is.

Think about his choices when he was in that hopper - and you see how the Y2K problem can look a lot smaller.

BTW I found that poem depressing.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), October 09, 1998.

Give my best wishes to his family.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 09, 1998.

Paul, I think you might finally really "get it".

There comes to most combat soldiers a Moment of Clarity, a Moment of Understanding, when they realize, "I am NOT bulletproof!!?! Some find it at the moment of their death, some only slightly sooner and some find it in time to survive.

That realization may never come to Civilizations, Societies, Corporations or Governments, yet it is surely as true for them all.

And, yes, it is depressing.

-- "Lucky" (btdt@combat.mil), October 09, 1998.

Paul, very sorry indeed about your friend, yes y2k does seems to pale into insignificance alongside such real tragedy, lets hope it doesn't turn into one.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), October 12, 1998.