On This Day Pre-Y2K

Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!

February 4, 1999 Permalink

Has anyone trustworthy in your eyes, yet informed you of where MOST companies, governments, non-profit organizations, federal agencies, girl scout troops, ball-bering manufacturers, chip manufacturers, board mfgs. power generation companies, autombile mfgs., military organizations, neo-military organizations, third world, second world, first world countries, and virtually every single financial institution, stands on this remediation thing. In general, the consensus is that a large number of the above WILL NOT finish with remediation and testing before Jan.1. Ok, this is where it gets harder, since now we have some math.

1 + 1 = 3

hmmm...I guess the math works out after all! You’re right, we’ve got nothing to worry about.

—blackmo, comp.software.year-2000, 02/04/99

I have three plans.

Plan-A is essentially business as usual, life in the big city but with some nominal precautions. The flashlight that runs for months, the 120 rounds in the office safe, the month’s worth of canned goods, a few dozen logs, enough to keep from freezing.

Plan-B is the exurbs. A borrowed $700 contractor’s generator, two cords of wood, 3 months of food and other supplies. More remote and more supplies. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Plan-C is DragonRanch, Masada, a hundred acres in the beautiful Virginia countryside, surrounded by orchards and dairy farms and owned by a survivalist nut-case former COBOL programmer.

If Y2K is just a “Bradley Sherman”, I’ll stay in the city, watch the problems on the Trinitron, no big deal.

If Y2K is an Edwards 4+, I’ll hide in the Exurbs and pull in the welcome mat.

If Y2K goes milne/Infomagic, I’ll toss everyone into the station wagon and head west to DragonRanch, live in a plywood shed until things quiet down. If they don’t, life is an adventure, I’ll get up each morning and we’ll rebuild the world.

Considering the misery that most of the world lives in, a 12x30 T-111 shed in the Shennandoah Valley is a palace.

This isn’t about panic. This is about facing reality, knowing the consequences, and being ready for what ever comes.

Being prepared if “Something Wicked, This Way Comes.”

There is no doubt that the remediation has failed. Senator Bennet and even Ko-Skin-em himself is advising preparations somewhere between my Plan-A and Plan-B.

Something unlike anything we have ever seen before is about to happen.

—Cory Hamasaki, Cory Hamasaki’s DC Y2K Weather Report, 02/04/99

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