Time Magazine says that NYE party fever is going to be less this year than in years past. A little Y2K scare is part of it, but I think many people are tired of the hype for the last few years.
So, what’s everyone here doing for the big odometer rollover from 1999 to 2000? Anything special?
My wife and I are just going to have a quiet evening at some friends’ house. However, they do live under the southern approach to Dulles Int’l; maybe we’ll ask them over to our. Oh, but wait, we’re under RR Nat’l’s approach…
Oh, and a pipe dream for 1/1/2001 (the real century & millenium threshhold): I’d like to go to the Chatham Islands, NZ, and see the first sunrise of the millenium.
(Chatham Is. are in the Western hemisphere, but the date line jogs east around them. Also, their time is GMT+12:45.)
Every year my town enters a float in the Rose Parade. We often win for best animation; it’s in the charter that our float must have animation, and because the Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA) is in town, and so many of those rocket scientists live here, we get some pretty amazing stuff. It’s all done by volunteers, none of this professional float-building company stuff. In another week or so the float frame will be parked in its usual spot under a freeway overpass about three blocks from my house. This is where it will be completed – and always open to the public to stop by, take pictures, help decorate, and buy souvenirs to support the float. Occasionally they put out a last minute call for some specific leaves or flowers, and so two years ago camellia leaves from my backyard plants were on the float.
On New Year’s Eve, generally around 9 - 10 p.m., hundreds of people gather to see the final float up close and wish it well on its way down to Pasadena to line up. Have to take surface streets, going maybe 4-5 mph, and have to be in place in the wee small hours of the morning. There’s very much a party atmosphere. I’ve never followed the float all the way down to Pasadena, but I’m willing to bet one of these years Eldest Son and his high school buddies will decide to do that.
Next, I have a friend who lives along the Parade route. Places on the median strip out in the center of the street are already being marked off by residents. New Year’s Eve is one BIG party along the parade route – last year my kids slept out there – and we figure this year it will be even more so because of Y2K. We’ll either head out there after seeing the float off, and spend the night, or else we’ll drop the kids off before the float takes off, and then return just before dawn. It takes the parade about an hour and a half from the starting point to pass in front of her place.
One big party, a great parade, and lots of fun. That’s what I’m planning for New Year’s this year!
Bob (the New Man In My Life) wants to go to Times Square. I think he’s out of his mind. I have a friend on NYPD who is pegged to work the Square that night… his advice? STAY AWAY!! LOL
Because of my plans for moving, I may be travelling. We’ll see… I don’t really want to be on the road over the holidays, let alone on New Years, but I may not have a choice.
We’ll see.
Mom always said there’d be days like this…she just never said there’d be so MANY of them!!!
My NYE will go as it always does. I will be snarfing down chili and cheesebread (and wine, in mass quantities) at my friend Boostie’s house…playing Balderdash and being amused as her husband maintains vigilance over his computer.
It would be cool if it blew up on the stroke of midnight. Fireworks!!
“…all the prettiest girls live in Des Moines…”
–Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Y2K Task Force! Guy, are they going to give you a red phone like the bat phone? Do you get to slide down a pole if something goes awry??!! Sounds like lots of fun!
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
I don’t know why I, an eminently practical and dependable industrial systems engineer, chose to spend NYE Y2K at a ski resort with a bunch of management consultants. Imagine how useful a management consultant will be when things fall apart.
I intend to be drunk as a lord, standing barefoot in the snow in my tuxedo and kilt when the skies fail to rain fire.
And then I will have a hangover. And we all know what happens when Roachman gets a hangover.
To Guy: Don’t feel all alone, I have a very high maintenance tenant in two of my office buildings (BlueCross BlueShield) and they will no doubt will be calling me if the lights flicker or there is not fiber/phone service. On NYE, they will work NONSTOP until they are satisfied that there is no problem with their PCs, programs and utilities.
I would much rather be doing this than be at some dumb, ol’ college football bowl game in some sunny, southern locale anyway.
since I haven’t got a date yet, I will prolly spend it with a bottle of champagne, some french bread and seafood, and my paintbrush… I forsee a very creative New Year.
“Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good
things.” --Edgar Degas
Change of plans…one of my friends just emailed me to say a group of us are either getting dressed up and going out, or she’s throwing a catered party at her place. I hope it’s the first…that way maybe I can kiss someone at midnight…
“Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.” - George Carlin
