Goog mernin all...er, uh afpernoon, uh, arggh where's the ibuprofen? Finally crawled out of bed after last night's celebrations. No, we weren't 'huddled in the bunker' last night, but my head would probably feel much better if we had been. Oh well, that was my choice and I must now suffer the consequences of my own actions...

We are very encouraged by both the lack of evident Y2K problems as well as by the the lack of 'terrorist' activities. But just as we would not conclude 'there are no terrorists' based on last night's relative lack of intentional chaos, neither do we believe the entire truth about Y2K is clear at this time.

Make no mistake though, we do belive that any problems that do occur will be much easier to deal with given a functioning electrical and telecommunication infrastructure. For that we are indeed grateful.

Somewhere along the line this past year and a half, the issue for us personally became less about Y2K and more about making our dependencies more fault-tolerant across the board. Like any worthwhile learning experience, it was both difficult and rewarding.

By preparing for Y2K, we got ourselves out of debt, learned many new skills, met many good hearted people, read many excellent books, totally eliminated our vulnerability to ice storms or other sources of electrical/heating disruptions and gained confidence in our ability to be self-reliant in many potentially serious situations.

The down side? Hmmm. Well, it could be argued that we spent money in ways that were not absolutely necessary. We didn't buy that home theatre system we were looking at a 18 months ago. There's also the time we spent learning and doing, but nothing worthwhile comes for free.

Also, because we had spent the past year and a half becomming more fault-tolerant, we were able to take the past 2 weeks off and really enjoy Christmas and New Years with friends and family. The many contributors here deserve a lot of the credit.

For the record, I still encourage others to live a more prepared lifestyle. Not only will we not be giving our preps to food banks or charities, we will continue to build on them as time allows. While the initial signs on Y2K are very encouraging, we do not belive that all data points are known at this time. And beyond Y2K, there are many other sources of potential disruption.

Maybe we can even pick up some more of the expensive/elaborate/luxury items as people who prepared and are now convinced that all is well seek to dump those items at a reduced cost. I suspect that on Monday, we will see the 'irrational exuberance' that Mr. Greenspan has described so aptly go into hyperdrive.

But for now, I'm off to celebrate the lack of current problems with my most essential luxury item of all - a long, hot shower. Thanks to all and please keep your ears to the ground.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 01, 2000

Answers

Thanks Arnie, well said. I know I am a much better person and certainly more informed now than ever in my life. I know how to better care for others in an emergency situation and that I can be counted on. I love every minute spent learning and preparing, today the world looks like a better place to be.

-- Sammie (sammiex0@yahoo.com), January 01, 2000.