January 1st 2000

We survived! All the doomsday predictions of total collapse of the banking and other systems all due to a software issue did not come to pass.  Being a programmer and working in the computer industry since it's early years I could almost believe it but didn't.  Computers memory back in those days was a premium, my first computer had only 16K of memory that was on a card the size of legal size envelope, so writing code to take as little memory as possible was considered admirable.  So we coded the year using just two digits, everyone knew the first two were "19", well until the year 2000.  The doomsayers predicted the banking systems of the would stop functioning and there would be economic collapse.  Programmers around the world worked tirelessly to fix the code. 

 I did do some preparation, stocking a bit more food and water.  I stayed tuned to the TV watching the midnight hour come and go as it progressed around the world, Sidney, Paris, London and the US.  It became clear by 10:00 PM or so that there was not going to be any catastrophic  computer failure, both a relief and a let down.

The most significant event for the year was my divorce which became official three days short of our 20th anniversary.