"Time enough for that in the grave." Conan the Barbarian

I'm not all that "tense" now...but I'' relax a bit more about the end of hurricane season, 2000...November or so...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 12, 1999.

My definition of relaxed would be when I would be willing to put any extra money in the stock market.

For me that date would be about this time next year if the market has not dropped more than 10% or so and real estate has held its value.

My actual belief is that this time next year we will be hip deep in a depression including an oil crisis that just won't quit with a political landscape that will look as different from today as a moonscape is to Earth.

At that point I would be looking to buy foreclosed rural real estate at deeply distressed prices.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), September 12, 1999.

Best wishes to you and your family, Carol.

We are relaxing now. No major calamities yet, hey, we're all still able to yak at each other via a forum, right? The time to enjoy is moment by moment, now. Best wishes to all.

-- Barb (awaltrip@telepath.com), September 12, 1999.

"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it." Herodotus

-- quoter (quoter@quoterr.com), September 12, 1999.

Ditto for me Carol. Blessings to you & yours. My prayers, & those of not a few of the many caring individuals who populate this forum, are on their way.

Flint - I don't mean to be unsupportive, but...if smoking means that much to your peace of mind, then why not go back to it? What are your reasons for attempting to stop? Are they worth being miserable, both within & without?

Now to the main thrust of this thread. GD, I'm as relaxed now as I've ever been. I've slowly come to realize outer circumstances should not be given the power, by me, to dictate the state of my being. Easier said than done, yet practice forms habit. It simply requires a steadfast commitment to regular introspective pauses throughout the day. A practice I highly recommended to all.

Y2K no longer absorbs my every moment, conscious & subconscious. Yes, its potential is a factor in my decision-making process. However, I no longer run on the wheel of speculation, endlessly imagining "what if".

My family finished most of our preps this past Spring. As all of you know anyone who states, "My preps are completely finished," is probably a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. :-) Odds & ends still require my attention. Stovepipe & gasketing need replacing. A trip to the dentist is in the works. (Yes Bob, you read right).

Most importantly, my focus must remain upon my spiritual practice. With that taken care of each day, all else falls in place.

Best Wishes,

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), September 12, 1999.

Carol,

Our prayers are with you at this time. We lost our 3 year old angel last year. The agony of that is what spurs my preps. I could not bear to see it repeated, with any other family members, because I wasn't preparing for the risk of problems.

If the economy is in good shape by next July, I will relax for now. Will my preps stop? No. I will simply change my levels of preps.

-- Dian (bdp@accessunited.com), September 12, 1999.

Dian, my heart goes out to you. I hope your tragedy brought your family closer rather than ripping it apart, and admire you for using your grief to drive you rather than letting it bury you.

Carol, like most on this board, I pray that your terror comes to a happy ending and soonest!

-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), September 12, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

I'll relax when I own about twenty acres of farmable land with trees and access to water that does not depend upon grid electricity, where I have a fallout shelter and spare electronics shielded from EMP. Meanwhile, it would help my stress levels a great deal if China, Russia and others would stop rattling their sabres.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), September 12, 1999.

Wow... a thread referencing a statement I made. Truly a moment of some sort, gasp!!... am I a doomer now? :o

In that thread where I was basically fantasizing about a 'let down guard date' I was asked a question, I will add it and the response to this thread:

------------------ Will, why 'June of 2000 to relax'? What magical dates will we have passed that will make it O.k.? IOW, what *CAN* happen before June that *CANNOT* happen after June?

-- lurker2473826 (shmi@theforce.org), September 12, 1999.

lurker2473826:

Like everything y2k, it's guesswork. My premise is that most computer problems (y2k) will have manifested themselves and any negative consequences will be working their way through the marketplace. June 2000 is just a personal date that *I* think is useful for guaging the damage.

-------------------------------

So.. yes, it's a process. If you keep the process of y2k free of dogma then finding one's own personal risk management path is possible.

Oh BTW Flint, you are not a Jedi yet....

-- Will (sibola@hotmail.com), September 13, 1999.

GD,

When the focus crosses over from being something which preserves my life, into becoming something which keeps me from having a life.

My wife and I have sacrificed so many things, this past year, because there was a target date involved. There's a difference between saying there is a hurricane headed your way, and saying you live in an area that might one day experience one. With the latter, you might always want to keep the flashlight batteries fresh, but how long are you going to leave the plywood on the windows and the lounge chairs in the pool and the boat up on dry dock?

It can't all be about keeping the biological machine running. We're both eager to get back to the life we had before this interruption came along.

If there are any rollover problems that take awhile to manifest themselves, we figure by summer we should be seeing them. And that's just about the amount of time we figure we can tolerate a life spent watching the sword hang over our heads.

We intend to keep the food pantry going as well as the water storage, because it's a good habit to be in and it would be a shame to waste the amount of effort it took to clear the space. We have alternative heat sources now (solar and propane) and won't abandon them, for the same reasons. But after next summer, we will no longer be viewing them as preps for imminent disaster, but just as smart habits that were a good side effect from a near miss with apocalypse. After that, they really will be there, in case there's a three day snowstorm.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), September 13, 1999.

From 1 snowstorm into the next. It's been a lot of years since I've felt fully prepared for a storm whether it's a computer glitch or a disaster compliments of the el nino weather machine. I say don't relax but be prepared to relaxative (bend over again).

-- Susan (number9@mindspring.com), September 13, 1999.

I'll relax a bit if the power stays up in January. I'll feel even better if the Post Office is delivering mail in February and the IRS is still alive and causing us misery.

If we are NOT seeing oil refineries and chemical plants shutting down and/or blowing up by the end of March, and if there is no reduction in the flow of imported oil by then, I'll relax a lot more.

By July 1, if we have not slid into a depression (I'll take my chances with a mild to moderate recession), then we got through this OK.

So, if most things are going pretty well by July 1st, then I was suffering from a meme, or just my normal pessimism.

Still, I think I'll keep most of my preps. I feel a lot more secure with them on board.

-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), September 13, 1999.

I agree regarding the approx date of July 1, 2000. By then we should know about ENERGY - which is the underlying basis of our "life as we know it". I expect that oil supplies will be cut in half, with all the ripples that will cause. I really dread the thought of next summer w/o air conditioning. I've been thinking of buying a water cooler type and getting it set up on battery/solar. I personally predict a depression world-wide that will be hard to come out of within 10 years.

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), September 13, 1999.

First, and most important, good luck and God's graces be with you Carol, and also the baby - there's where TLC is needed! - and congratulations on the recovery with all alive.

Y2K relaxing? - Perhaps I'm more optimistic than most who've printed replies above, but that's most likely because I absolutely know that the world will survive a even a world-wide depression (though with hardships!); and of course, it has survived dozens of "recessions" and "panics" through the middle 1800's through today's latest Far East economic troubles.

Separate the problem though - a point where optimism (about being able to recover) can be found, is not the same point as recovery itself, or even the "beginning" of recovery. Further, optimism itself about recovery merely means that "the problem can't get worse, all of the symptoms have showed up" - and is much, mush earlier than actually recovery from the problem.

So, when to consider the probable y2k damage is "contained" - to use a forest fire analogy. First two, maybe three things to keep in mind: unless fatally destroyed by an industrial accident, or unless distroyed by social upheavel (riots or looting), the fundemental infrastrucuture will remain intact - parts and pieces, but not all, will likely suffer significant control and communication failures.

Almost all of these stopped production lines (food, manufactoring, oil and gas production, etc.) can, given power, time, money, and effort to reporgram, reset, or restart, be recovered. Thus, the source company can resume productioin and services. If the economic damage at any given company is too great to receover, the basic economic demand for goods and services will allow a better managed company to buy the assets not being used, and then to resume production.

Second, unless socially disrupted, most people are far more resiliant than imaged - once they HAVE to be resiliant. (Caveat - am I too optimistic - has TV/media/movies/Washington removed too much backbone in too many people to permit "recovery from discomfort" to be assumed?

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly, 2%-5%-10% have shown they will riot and beginning looting given any excuse and 45-65% will condone any illegal behavior as long as "the economy is good" or "their candidate" can remain in power.

So, optimism absolutely requires: no widespread civil unrest (rioting, looting, robbery, or assaults). If these occur in only limited areas, then these areas (like the inner city riots in the mid-sixties) will have extreme impact locally, but little elsewhere directly.

(Greater likelihood of civil liberties withdrawn everywhere based on a few riots anywhere. (Anything and any excuse will be used to confiscate a gun!)

So, immediate life-safety impacts will occur first in the first 24-48 hours - if power and water and sewage are lost, there can be no recovery until these are restored. Once "restored" - if civil unrest has been avoided - then fundemental life safety has been maintained.

A cause for optimism, happening maybe as early as 48 hours.

Heat and longer-term utilities. Depends on oil supplies, natural gas distribution - most likely we will know nothing until at least 2-4 days have gone by. (Distribution could have immediately gone out, but if it cannot be recovered by 2-4 days, then nothing can recover (too many industrial processes, houses, utilities themselves) until distribution and telecom's recover.

Once the national distribution systems are back in regular operation - including air, postal, UPS, Fedex, and trucking - then recovery can resume, and so optimisim is warranted. These may fail immediately, or may fail slowly - as they get "clobbered up" by secondary failures: if only 5% of the mail cannot be delivered, withing one week there is no place to "put" the excess mail that cannot be delivered and so more cannot be received.....

Billing? No optimism until middle of March - if a bill is good by then, it will most likely remain correctly processed. If a company cannot process bills by mid March - then it will be bankrupt. ___

Government bureacracies may fail quickly, may fail slowly, or may just slowly grind to a stop - the people in the government bureacracies are the key - and based on experience, perhaps only 10-20% can "work out of the box" when things fail. The rest just make excuses and stop = "The (office,state,federalcomputer is down, I can't do anything until they fix it."

So, what happens when (if ?) their programs fail? The opposite from regular jobs of course - this is government at work after all. Little at first, then increasing troubles as problems cascade from one bureacracy to another: depending on the "enforcement" of the failure, each failure may be severe, minor, neglible, or a relief from problems. If no taxi permits are issued, but nobody jails taxi drivers for driving without a license, then there is no impact. If the taxi drivers are being fined and jailed, then taxi service immediately stops = big impact in some cities.

If no EPA permits are issued, and so no car tags are renewd, little impact except the hardship of reprocessing the "missed" tags - if police start issuing fines for having an outdated tag in February 1 for January tags, then there is a big commotion.

Those who rely on government checks (if issued early for January) will have no impact until the last week of january - then riotign could resume again if ANYTHING is delayed.

If the personal electronic welfare payments are missed at any time during January, or if these are stopped by any other impacts (power, tlecom's, banking stoppages, or government account failures), then there will be immediate unrest and perhaps rioting. Therefore, until the government welfare system

Companies, including health care, on the other hand, who depend on federal, state, or local government checks, probably can get by (if okayed by their banks) with a "few" missed checks - but not for too long. They will face bankrupcy and layoff's within 6-8 weeks if the government checks stop, but we will not know if these checks stop (or are accurate again) until end of February.

Government workers? They are union and so will be complacent if so ordered by the Democrats to protect Clinton; but are also tied to labor, and so may stop work if not paid. It is a toss-up.

___

What are further impacts? And when will they most likely occur?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 13, 1999.

MOST IMPORTANT!!!!!!! CAROL I hope you mean the 5 yr old is returning ALIVE after six weeks. Do you know how rare that is? Thank the powers that be!

Secondly, my apologies for being unclear. I meant 'relax' in the sense of selling off some (less)neccesary prep items (generators, bulky water storage containers, excess fuel, etc.) I too am relaxed (as most of you are) precisely BECAUSE OF my preps! What a great stress reliever!

Thank you all for your wonderful replies. (Robert, I will have to digest your post before I can respond. Very indepth!) {;)

-- Good Discussion (sparks@the.mind), September 13, 1999.