I work for a small (10 engineers) custom software engineering firm. I do all the accounting, pay the bills, collect da money, answer the phone, dump the trash, etc. etc. Basically I babysit these 10 nerds. I have made casual inquiries to my co-workers about Y to K preparations the answer is always the same: "I'll be at a party, dude" or "nothing is going to happen". Now I sincerely hope they're right but Jeezz folks, shouldn't you be making at least SOME plans if TSHTF. I sure don't want them all coming to my place because I have food & water stored and had the foresight to get a Generac from Northern Tool BEFORE they were all on back-order status. And my own family (mom, brother & sisters) is no more alarmed than my co-workers. My mom actually expects that the utilities MUST keep her gas & electric on just because she pays the bills on time! I tried to warm then all at a recent birthday party but no one cares. Oh well. My wife and I will continue to make preparations. This consists of taking handgun training, which starts this week. When we are finished sometime in March we will buy a shotgun and maybe a .38 or 9 mill. Also plenty of rounds. We are stocking up on food, not too much, but enough to take us through a couple of months. I have 20 5-gallon tanks for water and A guy from church has a couple of wells on his property that he said i can use if I need to (we are on city water in our development). I have a couple of question for this forum: Another GI from church mentioned that he would be getting some type of a "plumbers balloon" from a plumbing supply store. The purpose is to insert it into the clean-out hole on the sanitary sewer line, in his basement. If the waste-water treatment plant has to shut down this would prevent raw sewage from backing-up into his house, flooding his basement with s%*t. Anyone comment on this plan? Any plumbers? The other question concerns the generator. I got a Generac 4000XL and If i need to use it I DON'T WANT TO PUT IT OUTSIDE. I also don't want to die from the fumes. I would like to run the thing in my closed garage, perhaps built some kind of box for the thing to deaden the sound and then vent the box the the outdoors for the exhaust. Or put some kind of snorkle around the muffler to channel the exhaust outside the garage. Any comments on these ideas would be much appreciated. My family are all Christians and being such, would not turn anyone away who needed food, water, or shelter. So our door, In Prior Lake, Minnesota, will be open to any of you who need help. Just don't come to my house expecting to break in and take things. You'll get shot. Ask and ye shall receive.

-- The only one (confused@work.com), February 20, 1999

Answers

1) Geeks look at life through a microscope, like any other expert. They generally can't see the big picture.

2) Most people trust "them" (as in "they" will fix it). I never met "them". I have a "bad feeling" about "them", though.

3) Generator is bad news in close-in development. Too noisy - drives people nuts, and lets everyone know YOU are prepared and have resources. I have seen NOTHING that indicates using a generator indoors is possible. Folks on bigger lots NEED a generator, though, since they typically have wells - no electricity, no water!

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), February 20, 1999.

'The only one' sounds as if he is in a state of shock.

-- (clear@rest.com), February 20, 1999.

Not in a state of shock, just wondering what the hell everyone (DGI's) expect to do about all this. Let us GI's take of them???

-- The only one? (confused@work.com), February 20, 1999.

That's about it. Yeah, the DGI's figure someone will take care of them and if the gov. doesn't do it, you're elected. Stinks, doesn't it?

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), February 20, 1999.

The heat from the generator has to go somewhere, too. Perhaps a small fan (like a bathroom exhaust fan) pulling out exhaust/heat and drawing fresh air from outside. I would have a large 6 in. plus tube for fresh outside air to come in to your box and a fan/vent to draw air through the box. Sound insulation requires deadair space, with absorbing foam in between and ofcourse the inner box must be fireproof. Good luck.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), February 20, 1999.

We have an indoor gen. where I work. It was hooked up through a hole in the block wall with some flexi. car tail pipe and some other tail pipe piece's. Put muffler outside or inside. Do not enclose gen. It will overheat. Noise is bad ! Solar and batteries are much better. 6 Deep cycle batteries 90 watt solar panels. Scotty

-- Scotty (BLehman202@aol.com), February 20, 1999.

I've seen other posts about the plumbers balloon, looks like a good idea.

I work at a similar place, as one of the programmers. Same story, everybody blows it off. When you keep making more money it's hard to imagine it coming to an end. Although the guy I work with on my project allows that he will take all his money out of the bank...

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), February 20, 1999.

I'm taking a class on generator repair. I bought a 4400 W gen and wanted to use it the same way, in the garage. The instuctor said that would not work because of the oxygen requirment. For each gallon of gas it burns, the equivelent of an 11 x 12 room of oxygen is consumed. He said one student told him he put his gen in the basement, and his reply was, "It'll suck all the oxygen out of that basement in an hour." His real concern with having the gen in the garage was the exhaust. Has to be vented. On our course video the Briggs & Stratton instructor warned about putting a box over the gen. Causes vapor lock.

-- Richard L. Potter (rcjesp@juno.com), February 20, 1999.

This seems to have become a generator thread. OK, generators are expensive. They're noisy. Hooking one to your home circuitry is not trivial. They are thirsty. Storing fuel is dangerous. Generators don't last long, and maintenance isn't easy. In a nutshell, if you can buy gasoline you don't need one, and if you can't buy gasoline you don't need one either.

As for whether expertise disqualifies anyone from seeing the big picture, this is silly. Everyone who earns a living develops expertise. Is the big picture only visible to those who aren't very good at what they do? Geeks are people just like everyone else -- they see only what they look at. If you don't look at y2k, you don't see the problem. If you only look at bad news, that's all you see. Our opinions are all products of what we choose to see. What else is new?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 20, 1999.

After some thinking over the weekend I came up with an idea that might work. Build an air-tight, insulated box with 2 pieces of sheet metal duct work, 6" diameter, going into each side of this box and terminating outside the garage wall. Have the air inlet come into the box down low and the outlet exit the box up high. Then install a fan inside the inlet duct, pulling fresh cool air from outdoors, circulating it through the box for cooling and combustion, and exiting through the exit duct. This airflow would also pull the engine exhaust gases out the exit duct. The fan could be pluged directly into one of the unused 120v sockets and as long as the motor was running, the fan would be too. Will this work?

-- The only one (confused@work.com), February 22, 1999.

Oops, I guess I should have read the answers before I sent that last post. Someone suggested the very same idea to me already. You can have the credit for it.

-- The only one (confused@work.com), February 22, 1999.