Sorry, no Web Link but anyone interested can verify story at:

Winnipeg Free Press 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R2X 3B6 Telephone 204-697-7000

Grocery stores feel bite in test for Y2K bug

MAYBE THE Y2K doom sayers aren't so far off after all, and the food supply will be vulnerable to the so-called millennium computer bug.

04/13/99

Retailers say distribution giant Agora Food Merchants ran a year 2000 test last weekend that resulted in a number of its stores not receiving their grocery orders. ``It's affected us horribly,'' Blair Yakimoski, manager of Concordia IGA, said yesterday. ``We're a day behind in getting our grocery order.''

(Snip)

Agora spokesmen didn't return calls yesterday, but a number of stores said they were told the system crashed Saturday night. ``It seems they didn't have a backup plan,'' Yakimoski said. ``Hopefully it'll be up and running any time.''

The article goes on to say that it's unclear whether the problem has been corrected

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 13, 1999

Answers

This is kind of good news, right? These places are testing now to see what they'll wind up with in the future. Now they can make plans.

Right...? (I mean, better to now than later...)

M. Moth

-- M. Moth (DeRigueur2@aol.com), April 13, 1999.

"It's affected us horribly,'' Blair Yakimoski, manager of Concordia IGA, said yesterday. ``We're a day behind in getting our grocery order.''"

Just one day behind? Has a horrible effect?

But somehow Krogers' is good for 60 days?

I wonder if they ran out of essentials (milk, etc) and whether customers were apprised that it was a 2000 test.

-- Lisa (lisa@here.now), April 13, 1999.

Figure it this way = the guys who test now, goof now, repair now, retest now, fix it now; will be the ones most likely to be in business most successfully then.

They may have lost a little money now, but those who don't test now may not be in business very long then. Survival of the fittest .... fastest .... biggest ..... and now "preparedest"?

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 13, 1999.

Yup, this is a good time for this kind of problem to happen.

The distributors that don't catch and fix this kind of bug now will cause all sorts of havoc next year, when not only the distribution computers but fuel, trucking, etc. could be compounding the problems.

BTW, if you recall, Nash-Finch (a big midwestern distributor) threw out SAP last fall because it couldn't be implemented by 1/1/00. So they STARTED remediating their current system at that time (according to news reports).

Doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moines (dtmiller@nevia.net), April 13, 1999.

here is an e-mail I got back from one of their staffers (she confirmed it verbally when I called her):

Dear Mr. Johnson:

We are unable to locate any story like this in our library.

Yours truly, M. McMillan for Nicholas Hirst

At 08:12 PM 4/13/99 -0400, you wrote: >Hello, > >I learned today of an article you allegedly published about a Year 2000 >test that disrupted Agora Food Merchants' grocery orders. I wanted to >confirm this with you, and also to see if there is some way we could >either reprint this article on our site (crediting you and acknowledging >your copyright, of course) or link to a web version (which I couldn't >find). Many thanks for your help in this matter. > >Sincerely, >Scott Johnson >-- >Scott Johnson >Editor, y2ktoday >http://www.y2ktoday.com/ >sjohnson@idefense.com

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

More info... I spoke with the father of the guy who was quoted, who works there as well, and he said it was an accurate quote and there was such a story. more to come, hopefully...

scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

...so I talked to the guy at the Winnipeg shipping office, and he extremely brusquely referred me to the Edmonton office.

Uh-oh.

Scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

The article did run... I just got confirmation from their biz editor. VidPro, hope you don't think I doubted you... :) We are going to try to re-run it on our site.

Scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

Scott -

Good work. Verify the blankety-blank sources on these stories! "Trust, but verify."

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 14, 1999.

Mac, I wish you coulda heard the voice of the guy in the shipping dept. He sounded like he'd just seen a ghost (if one can sound that way)... I live for moments like that...

scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

Scott and Mac,

Yes. Good legwork Scott.

You're absolutely right Mac. "When in doubt--check it out."

(Now if I could only get Bruce Beach out of my mind. . . I'm still REALLY confused over THAT one. Here's a guy, who looks like a professor at my local university, but has a BUNKER on his property made out of old buses, whose theory has been discredited using terminology I cannot hope to understand, who says that ENGINEERS don't understand it, because it's a THEORETICAL problem.

This wouldn't bother me, if it weren't for the following:

"After Albert Einstein graduated with an undistinguished record, he made a number of efforts to get a university job, and failed."

Ack!

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

Thanks FM. I called the Edmonton office and have not heard back. I will be calling them constantly tomorrow afternoon, after I go to the House hearing on Y2K and VA. These hearings are pretty funny (my third one this week)... you learn a lot more by cornering the panelists outside the hearing room than you do from their testimony... I talked to Koskinen for a good half-hour with other reporters (although the last ten minutes was just me, him, and a student reporter). Will post a report within the next few days on our site (y2ktoday)... scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

Scott,

You're welcome. Hey, if you get a chance to corner Koskinen again, asking him if this story is true!

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000iVO

Y2K Czar Pushes 'Community Conversations'

March 26, 1999 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Identifying the nation's smaller communities and local governments as possibly the weakest link in the chain of Year 2000 awareness, President Clinton's Year 2000 czar, John Koskinen, today unveiled plans for a summer campaign to promote awareness at that level.

Specifically, Koskinen pledged to release in May a World Wide Web "toolkit" of best practices for communities to use as they near the millennial date change. Then, in early June, the White House's Year 2000 office will begin traveling to communities to promote town hall-like meetings that will bring together local officials, citizens and service providers for discussions on potential Year 2000 failures.

Koskinen said in an interview that the idea grew out of a series of notable community campaigns to cushion the blow that citizens might take if some systems fail to successfully roll over. Koskinen recognized Norfolk, Neb.; Columbus, Ohio; and Montgomery Co., Md.; as leaders in Year 2000 outreach. Koskinen announced the campaign at Metropolitan Council of Governments' "Y2K Contingency Planning and Business Continuity Forum."

"We will encourage communities to bring in principals from hospitals, emergency response services the local banking communities and other services and to engage with the public in a dialogue about what to expect," Koskinen said. "My goal is to have the public know as much about this issue as I know."

Not all communities will deal with Year 2000 outreach in the same way, nor will the White House prescribe solutions, Koskinen said. "In some cases, local governments will take the lead, in some cases it might be a local newspaper; and in other cases it might be a service provider like the power company," Koskinen continued. "This will be a national campaign with national leadership, but it will also be a local campaign with local leadership."

(I think this article appeared in Federal Computer World, but I haven't been able to verify.)

Have fun!

Got No Doze?

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

ooops. Shoulda been "ask him" not "asking him." (Although asking him kind of rhymes with Koskinem--as Cory Hamasaki has nick-named him)

Time for sleep!

Cheers!

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

The federal government already has a website with its community guide to y2k at www.itpolicy.gsa.gov/mks/yr2000/community/community.htm

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), April 15, 1999.

M.

Yes it is execllent news, it happened now and they have time to fix. Remeber the old saying "Failures today keep Y2K away."

jh

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), April 15, 1999.