I am a cellist...in my orchestra, everyone knows that I am preparing. One girl even asked if I have a BOMB SHELTER!! Granted, I am extreme (preparing for a 10+...preps include AR-15, goats, community garden, etc.), but I am also well-liked, and considered normal in every other respect (because I am). Given this, it never ceases to amaze me that NO ONE EVER ASKS ME WHY I AM PREPARING FOR Y2K. They just make little jokes like, "one month left buddy", or "so are we all going to die [snicker]". Now understand that I NEVER talk about y2k anymore ...haven't for months now. But nonetheless, on the rare occasion that I am talking with someone about it (like when they see me reading GN or TB2000), they politely listen, then off they go to the practice room (or whatever), never to give it another thought. It makes me very pessimistic about the human race.

Three of them are behind me laghing and fooling around...they have no clue of what's coming.

Sometimes it feels like I'm living in a dream...

-Orson

-- Orson Wells (wells@whitebulb.com), December 03, 1999

Answers

You are living in a dream, reality comes after Dec 31st. I have the same dream also.

-- ~***~ (~***~@earth.ebe), December 03, 1999.

Orson, you dont have a clue whats coming either.

I dont mean that as an insult, I mean you are there prepping for a 10 and made it well known so they are having fun with your extremist reaction to the unknown. Of course they are going to laugh.

In 30 days or so we will know if laughing at you is right or wrong. Next time you go off on the deep end of anything, dont tell anyone. Even if you think you are right.

I am prepped for a 4 to 5, nobody knows about it. Why should they.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), December 03, 1999.

"I'll let you be in my dream/if I can be in yours/and I said that..." Bob Dylan (1964) "And it's a hard rain/that's gonna fall..." ibid. (1966) "Right now I can't read too good/don't send me no more letters, no/not unless you mail them from/Desolation Row..." ibiid. (1967) "We're all idots, babe/it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves..." ibid. (1971)

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 03, 1999.

Orson:

When I was a little boy, I was afraid of the dark. Funny thing though--to hide from the dark, I'd pull the covers over my head (it was dark under the pillows too) to protect me. When I grew up I realized that I never was afraid of the dark, I was afraid of the unknown.

In the army, I learned that courage is not the absence of fear, it is the reserve that allows you to act IN THE FACE OF THE FEAR.

Some of us can handle the fear a little better than others. Be patient with them, and prepare away while you have the time.

I'm with you sir.

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), December 03, 1999.

"By faith, Noah, warned by God of things not as yet seen, moved with fear, prepared and ark so that his family might be saved." Written by Saint Paul 64 AD.

"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the time of my return. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking and marrying (without concern for Noah's warning)until the day that Noah entered into the ark. And none paid any attention until the flood came and took all of them and their civilization away." Spoken by Jesus Christ 33 AD

"For that nation's sins have reached up to Heaven and God has remembered her iniquities. (mind altering drugs, infanticide, greed,lies, murders, pornography, hatred of God....)Now shall her plagues come in one day, death, mourning, and famine. For in one hour so great riches are brought down to nothing." Written by Saint John in 96 AD

Keep focused, don't give up...

-- Don (don@aol.com), December 03, 1999.

Dear Orson, I want to relate to you my experience. When I first GI'd, I sent around a print out from the Red Cross site that wrote about the possibilities and need to prepare. I wrote on it "Please sign and return to me". Heck, it took so long to get back to me, I had forgotten it.I have spoken about the Y2K possibility ( informal office conversations) only two or three times, in the past year+. But according to some occasional, snide remarks from Co-workers, they are calling it "MY Y2K", not their Y2K. I never knew I possessed such potential power or devastation!

-- Wash Daily (Leper@thejob.com), December 03, 1999.

Orson,

I don't drink or do drugs. I don't believe in ghosts, spooks, angels, demons, etc. I'm a realist. I look around and see everyone going about their life as if tomorrow will never come. It's so...surreal.

-- GoldReal (GoldReal@aol.com), December 03, 1999.

Orson,

I was thinking this morn that the cello is the single most magnificent sounding instrument I've ever heard. How many strings and rosin have you bought?

I've talked a bit at work of y2k, but downplayed my fears, and still came across as a fool. I don't care really because I feel it is my morale responsibility to warn. I hushed up after GN et. al. gave the warnings, so finally earlier this week the receptionist asked if my opinions have changed cause I hadn't brought it up. I hesitated, then started by asking "Are you preparing?" I was thrilled to learn that she was, based in large on what I had relayed over the past few months.

My point is that although people may tease us to fit in with the crowd, some of those seeds of thought we've planted are growing. Counting me there are 14 daytime staff in my office suite. I've directly caused 7.6923% of my staff to prepare.

If you have a hundred piece orchestra, then you may have just saved 7 lives, as well as the lives of the folks in their households, families,...You have no idea. So don't take it to heart, is my advice. The truth would surprise all of us.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 03, 1999.

I teach at a state military college and have been making Y2k noise for a year now. I get heckled by other faculty and even cadets make fun of me, but I've mentioned Y2k in every class I've taught for three semesters now, giving sample informative and argumentative speeches in speech class, sharing my op-ed pieces for local papers with my comp classes, reading press releases and newspaper articles in lit classes. Today the last issue of the student newspaper for the semester was published and they did an interview with me. I had a copy of TimeBomb 2000 sent to our president in July, 1998, hoping that he would get motivated. I've pressed the issue with our comptroller and deans, handed out info at department faculty meetings. One colleague and his wife are prepping and some cadets have shared this info with their parents and say their parents are prepping, too. It is still too weird, though. I've done the best I could to nudge my work community and the community where I live to think for themselves rather than swallow the PR pablum. Soon they'll see, I hope, that something stanky this way comes. My final op-ed piece for the local paper comes out on Sunday. We'll see what good it does.

-- Kurt Ayau (Ayau@iwinet.com), December 03, 1999.

Wow,Kurt,you've done your part.All we have left to us now is prayer.

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), December 04, 1999.

I took the liberty to post some Y2K stuff from very mainstream sites like Red Cross, FEMA, State of Alaska Y2K site about 9 months ago at work. Most everyone read it, most yawned and went back to their regularly scheduled programs.

I think a couple of folks that read that stuff have been prepping to some degree, as small things they say on occasion strike me as being aware of Y2K's potential for more than a three day snowstorm. (Could someone send us one of those snowstorms please? I was planning to augment my water supply with snow melt and it's a very dry year and I'm going to be forced to buy more water storage containers. DOH!) Anyway, since that time I haven't said a word nor posted anything more about it. They have the info, the alarm has been sounded and what they choose to do about Y2K is their business and there is nothing I can say or do to get the unwilling to think about the possibility of Y2K being something more than the "bump" in the road. I think that those that do say more and try to do their duty on a small and unofficial basis do get ridiculed and place themselves in positions of vulnerability should things melt down past the slow moving 3 to 5 with lasting (3 to 5 years) economic slowdown or recessionary effects that I'm personally planning on.

As an example: There are some very nice but very ineffecient people that I know that don't have vehicles that run properly and whose houses are falling apart that are buying beanie babies and Happy Meal toys, designer jeans, $45 bottles of skin cream and other useless trinkets with no intrinsic value that are touted as the latest "must have" by Madison Avenue....sad but true.

We can't save those folks from whatever tragedy, with whatever effort we expend, unless one is willing to become a welfare agency to these folks and stockpile and plan for them. Many of them don't even have anything of value (like tools, skills, art, antiquities, books, etc) but their collections of crapola trinkets to trade for the necessities of life should a shortage occur for whatever reason. This is the mentality of a great number of citizens of the USA as there has not been any real hardship here since the depression. I hope sincerely for everyone's sake that this is a minor bump, enough to shake and wake some folks in their media induced consumerist trances up but not enough to do real lasting damage. This scenario could actually be good for the national character in the long run.

-- Ramp Rat (aviation_R_us@anchorage.ak), December 04, 1999.