# Where were you in the year 1999?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 22, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378 "2014-06-22T19:25:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/41 "2014-06-23T15:14:59Z")
Making mortgage payments, raising a daughter, working like a dog.
Much like now but the daughter is grown and raising her own.
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/42 "2014-06-23T16:08:38Z")
I just remembered that 1999 was The Year of the Gallbladder. I had mine removed in June, my sister had hers out in Sept, and my husband gave his up in November. Good times! 😃
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/43 "2014-06-23T17:22:56Z")
Started working where I work now, but as a temp and at a lower wage. Since it was a temp job, I didn’t move and therefore had a hour and a quarter commute (one way). Got into a car pool, but still didn’t have much time left for much else to happen in.
They didn’t lie when they said it would put my foot in the door for a decent job, though. As a reaction to the commute, I now live ten minutes from work. Fifteen if I don’t catch the lights.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/44 "2014-06-23T17:53:34Z")
Let’s see…
For the first 7 months of the year, I was 26, in the middle of my third year out of college, and working for the same small electronics company in Houston that I’d started working for out of college. I had a few friends in Houston, along with my family, but wasn’t terribly happy. My job was kind of stagnating- although I was in the IT department, the company was suffering due to the Asian financial crisis, and had instituted pay-freezes. As a guy with a relatively new computer science degree, I decided to bail and move to greener pastures.
So at the end of July 1999, I packed up my shit and moved to Dallas, to move in with my old college roommate. Thus began the most fun period of my life- the period between about 1999 and 2004 when I got in with a couple of fun groups of single people about my age and partied my ass off.
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### Author:  [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/45 "2014-06-23T17:54:20Z")
It’s kind of surprising so many people remember Y2K. From what I remember, any worries about the Y2K bug were jokes for at least the last few months.
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### Author:  [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/46 "2014-06-23T17:56:54Z")
I was a sophomore in high school in a small town in MN. I think it was a pretty good year.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/47 "2014-06-23T18:01:10Z")
Performing QA testing on the diagnostic consoles being shipped by Beckman-Coulter in Brea, CA. Celebrated my 43rd birthday, my daughter’s third birthday, our sixteenth wedding anniversary.
Joined the SDMB.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/48 "2014-06-23T20:23:38Z")
Working for a benefits management/consulting firm outside of Chicago, working like crazy to implement various web portal projects and to be ready for Y2K. I was also in the early stages of a long-distance relationship that by the following year turned into my marriage.
By the way, New Year’s Eve of 1999/2000 was a good time to fly. Y2K hysteria had people afraid to be in the air that night, so tickets were dirt cheap and they served us champagne on the flight. I also got to watch a number of fireworks shows from above.
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### Author:  [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/49 "2014-06-23T20:26:18Z")
The first half of the year I was working in southern California, and I discovered the Straight Dope.
Then my husband lost his job at a big biotech, and due to the dearth of eligible employers in the area, we moved to the Silicon Valley area on the wave of the big tech bubble. We’re 99ers!
I’ve been at the same Silicon Valley law firm ever since, and he has been in and out of work with the many local biotechs and high-tech companies. It has been a volatile decade-and-a-half for him, but there were very, very few employers in our previous area. Me, I’ve been surfing the Dope that entire time.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/50 "2014-06-23T20:35:40Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> I didn’t have no teeth, and no eyes. Which made partying difficult.
You’re mistaken. The OP was about living in 1999, not in the[year 4545](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic).
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/51 "2014-06-23T20:40:18Z")
OK, I looked it up. Yankees won four straight over the Braves. Now, I remember where I was. Moved that year from Missouri to Michigan. Stayed up until 10:30 on New Years Eve to see if I recognized any of my friends in Newfoundland, then I went to bed.
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### Author:  [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/52 "2014-06-23T23:12:16Z")
On January 4, 1999, I started a new job, the one I still work at today.
In early November 1999, my husband (now ex) and I moved into our beautiful new home, which sadly I had to leave in the divorce 12 years later.
On December 2, 1999, my beloved mother died one month and 9 days short of her 81st birthday. Still miss you, Mom! While closing up her estate, my brother encouraged me to convert her savings into gold so we wouldn’t lose it in Y2K. I ignored him.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/53 "2014-06-23T23:25:47Z")
Living in the same house I’m in now. My kids were 18 months old and one month old at this point in the year.
A good friend was murdered by his 14 year old stepson in October or November. That sucked. He’s the only person I’ve ever personally known who’s been murdered.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/54 "2014-06-25T00:17:56Z")
I think that was the year I discovered fire.
But we were right here in Bangkok. Or rather Greater Bangkok, as we lived in the suburbs then, had our place out in Muang Thong Thani but went into Bangkok proper almost every day. Now we live in central Bangkok.
My in-laws were both still alive then. My father died that year, in April. The mother and sister, both dead now, of my American buddy upcountry came to Thailand in June and July, and we all took a nice trip together to Hua Hin, on the upper peninsula. In October and November, the wife and I did Malaysia and Singapore; she attended a conference in Kuala Lumpur, and I flew down to meet her there at the end. We stayed at the hotel inside the beautiful old [Kuala Lumpur Railway Station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_Railway_Station#mediaviewer/File:Kuala_Lumpur_railway_station_%28Rawang-Seremban_%26_Sentul-Port_Klang_Line%29_%28frontal_facade%29,_Kuala_Lumpur.jpg).
EDIT: Oh, and that was the year the Skytrain, our above-ground mass-transit system, started operations. Kicked off on the king’s birthday, December 5, but there had been test runs for a few months during that year where people could ride for free. The wife and I waited until December 5 though, as the times of the test runs were never convenient for us. The Skytrain has been a real boon despite its limited extent. Before then, you pretty much picked just one place to go, because just getting there and back could take half a day, IF you were lucky.
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### Author:  [@Whatever4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whatever4)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/55 "2014-06-25T04:09:15Z")
1999 was my Year of Living Surreptitiously. I was on the verge of a second breakdown and had finally realized that domestic abuse could happen without any physical injury. I used the tax money to rent an apartment and buy a cell phone. Whenever I could do so safely, I moved some of my belongings there. In December I filed for divorce; left a note on the fridge; grabbed my dog and left.
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### Author:  [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/56 "2014-06-25T04:54:17Z")
I had just moved from London to Tokyo and bought an Annual Passport (Disney theme park ticket) for Tokyo Disneyland. I would visit the park at least once a week.
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### Author:  [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/57 "2014-06-25T10:43:33Z")
A great year for me.
I got my first job in 1998 and at the end of that year I broke up with my then girlfriend. So, by the start of 1999 I was getting used to my new life: single, with my own flat and financially independent.
It was undoubtedly the busiest year in my love life, with a particularly crazy time (in a very good way) in October-November.
I had a great holiday in Crete in July, visiting wonderful places during the day (Knossos and Phaistos, Spili) while at night, well… _summer lovin’ had me a blast_.
I spent New Year’s Eve with a girl I was briefly dating. No partying, just the of us at her place. Honestly, it was a bit boring and, in hindsight, a fitting prelude to the pretty shitty couple of years that were coming.
Come to think of it, the '90-'99 was a wonderful time for me. **1990** , 1991, **1992** , **1994** , 1996,1997 and **1999** stand out as very good years particularly the ones that I’ve bolded.
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### Author:  [@DrumBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrumBum)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/58 "2014-06-25T14:13:45Z")
I was in a pub in Aberdeen. I don’t remember much…
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### Author:  [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/59 "2014-06-25T20:14:53Z")
Ahhh, 1999. I was working as tech support for a local ISP, and just started seeing the lady who would eventually become my wife. Gas was cheap, life was good. I think I joined the SDMB in '99 as well!
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-in-the-year-1999/691378/60 "2014-06-25T20:28:32Z")
In 1998, my wife and I left our old jobs in academia, packed up and moved up to the DC area, and began our new lives as government number-crunchers.
1999 was our first full year of the new normal, so to speak. We’re still in the same house, still work for the same agency, she’s still even in more or less the same job, while I did one internal transfer back in the early 00’s.
We’re parents now, and we weren’t then. And _our_ parents are way older and need more attention than 15 years ago. But we’re in the same places at home and work, and other than those two factors, our lives are very similar then and now.
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