Party Like It's 1999
Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 09:49AM 
I can't help but think back to New Year's Eve 1999. It was a heady time. The dot com boom was in full blast--the Dow was at 11,500 (ask your stock broker about that the next time he tells you the average return is 10 percent annually over the long haul--he'll have some BS answer, but at least it will make him squirm for a moment). People weren't sure if Y2K was just a computer geek's wet dream, or if computer gliches would indeed shut us down and send us into a post-2000 dystopian steampunk future. Little did we know that the zero decade would be dystopic for sure, but due more to George Bush and Dick Cheney than computer gliches. And speaking of politics, we were just completing a year in which Bill Clinton narrowly avoided impeachment for having an affair with a chubby, not all that bright or attractive, intern.
Personally, I was just coming off a great year with my new business and looking forward to a great year in 2000. Mary and I were working hard at having a baby and were looking for a new house.
It was a wild and crazy time.
We attended a party in Charlotte with our friends Mike and Linda and others in our gourmet dining club. You know who you are! The party was hosted by a couple of lesbians and widely attended by the gay banking community. It was a great party with lots to eat and drink and man did we party. We partied like it was 1999. Around midnight, there was a drunken countdown. The lights flashed on and off. People kissed, hugged, danced. We held our breath to see if the world would crash, if our cars would start, if our electric tooth brushes still held a buzz.
No problemo.
Except the zero decade was upon us. George Bush and Dick Cheney would steal an election with the help of a very partial Supreme Court. Dot com IPOs would go from being trendy to being a joke. 9/11 would unfold before our very eyes. We would invade Afghanistan and Iraq and have no clue what to do when we got there. Anthrax was in the mail and snipers roamed the street. Driven by fear and greed, Bush would give rich folks a tax break and assault civil liberties. Greenspan would cut interest rates in an effort to bring the economy back, allowing everyone to own a home--even if they couldn't afford it. Regulation came to halt. The combination of low interest, low taxes, and a cowboy mentality fueled a dangerous, speculative expansion.
Then, as the decade drew to a close, we somehow we staggered out from under Bush-Cheney and began to right ourselves at home and abroad. We elected a black man with not much of a track record, but with a lot of hope and optimism. Guided by Bernanke and Geithner, we got the economy back on its feet. We took steps to get the hell out of Iraq and plotted a strategy for Afghanistan where none had been before. We got hell scared out of us again on Christmas Day when a young Nigerian almost blew up an airport. We finished the decade with a Dow lower than it was when we started. We finished, as a nation, deep in debt and with a lot more to do to put people back to work and provide decent, affordable health care.
But for all the bad crap in this past decade, there's been a lot of good stuff, too. Especially on a personal level.
- Overall, our little business has prospered, although we hit a couple of bumps in the 2007-2008 economy. All in all 2009 has been a darn good year.
- Our son Reilly was born and his light burns brighter every day.
- We watched my daughters grow up and enter adulthood. The got married and Jessica gave us two beautiful, healthy grandchildren.
- We were blessed to spend most of the decade in the company of Shelby the Dog whose company I miss to this day, and I'm anything but a dog lover.
- We moved into and enjoyed living in the Big Yellow House.
- We stayed healthy, ran a lot of miles, and played a lot of tennis.
- We cruised Lake Norman in our boat from one end to the other. Many times.
- We ate a lot of good food and drank a helluva lot of good wine.
- We listened to a lot of good music. Thanks Robert Earl.
- We got to know our way around what we've come to consider our second homes in Austin, Texas and Manhattan Beach, California.
- Mary did some great volunteer work for United Family Services.
- I wrote some damn good stories, published a few, finaled in several contests and gained the skill and confidence to write a few more damned good stories.
- We made a few new friends and kept in touch and reconnected with old ones.
- We did our small part to elect a new president and send Bush and his ilk packing.
I'm going to focus on the positives. I'm going to watch IU-Michigan at noon with Reilly. I'm going to cook a great meal tonight for family and friends. I'm going to drink some champagne and wine and crank up Robert Earl on the IPod. I'm going to hug my son and kiss my wife.
Man, I'm going to party like it's 1999.
Dick Cheney, Dot Com Crash, George Bush, Monica Lewinsky, Zero Decade in Creative 
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (3)
New Year's Eve 1999 was memorable for me too. My younger brother had bought a business in San Diego, and was quickly going bankrupt. He was ready to jump off his balcony. In November he asked me to design a very special electronic circuit to enhance his product line, and to fill a big market need. Everybody he talked to out there wanted $10K to even start the project. I spent the better part of November and December designing, testing, refining, building and soldering. I shipped him a cool prototype, which worked much better than I had expected. It was pretty awesome.
Then I got on a plane, with a load of spare parts, soldering iron, meters, and fixtures to help train his people to build more. All this crap took some explaining at security, but this was before 9-11. Landed in San Diego, and Chris was jubilant about the prototype. Very happy. It worked better than he expected too. Simpler, faster, better, all that stuff. We talked about patents, production, and product line expansion.
I worked in his plant for days, with his people. Something was wrong. It was too late, and the market was not what he had thought. His people hated change. They didn't know how to solder semiconductors without overheating them. They didn't like me using their work stations or trash cans. Trouble reading color-coding. Very territorial about everything. On and on.
By Chris's birthday on Dec 29th, he was ready to jump from his 15th floor balcony again. I took him to an old Mexican restaurant, and we drank a few margaritas over dinner. He told me it was too late, and it wasn't going to work with the business. Happy 44th birthday, Chris. I asked him not to jump, at least.
New Year's Eve I got an a plane to come back to Maryland. Flew through LAX. High security, which I attributed to the Y2K thing. They really looked over all my equipment. The only battery was in my meter, and that was small. All the other stuff was loose component parts. They asked me a lot of questions, checked my circuit diagrams and schematics, then let me board. I look like a geek, and they didn't seem worried about me.
Got on my plane out of LAX, seat 2A. 2B was empty, until they started to close the door of the plane. A guy in his mid-30's got on very quickly, holding his coat folded around something, and sat down, with his coat tucked into the small of his back. No carry-on luggage. They brought him apple juice instead of a drink. They also seemed to know him pretty well, from the eye contact and familiar chatter. Puzzling.
He nodded to me, said "Hi", and got right into his book. Never said much, though he responded to pleasantries. Seemed very aware of every motion of the plane, and everyone about him, although he appeared to be reading. Didn't turn the pages much, however.
I soon realized that he was a Federal Air Marshall. Seat 2B has the best view of the cockpit door, a good view of the forward galley, allows for right-handed shooting, and a person has 1B ahead of them as cover. The thing in his coat was an automatic weapon. He was ready for anything. I then recalled that LAX had been targeted for a major terror attack on New Year's Eve, 1999. I was in the middle of this nuttiness. What a trip.
While I felt safe, it was kind of surreal. I stuck to my reading, and declined most of the wine they offered. Seemed like I should be sober if anything did happen. I wondered if the plane would drop out of the sky at midnight, as the nut-cases were predicting. Seemed unlikely to me. Commercial planes have a lot of redundant systems in them.
It didn't fall, nobody attacked the cockpit, LAX was not blown up, and I got home safely. Chris lost the business, but kept the prototype that I built, just 'cause it was so cool. He lived in his car for a while, but he now seems to be working steadily.
And Y2K? Hell, most people give a blank look if you bring it up. Long time ago.
Party like it is 1999! Why not, right?
As always, thanks for stopping by and dropping a line.
Have a great 2010.
I was sitting in first class on that flight in 1999, through a series of lucky coincidences. Free drinks. I remember telling Kate, "Man, I didn't want to be pie-eyed if they put me on TV as a witness to an attempted hijacking!" One of those things that a person would never live down.
Why do the Bush and Cheney types act like they invented the whole response to terror? The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. Seems like the terror response failed most miserably on their watch, didn't it? Guess I need to calm down. Somebody should muzzle Cheney.
Best wishes to you and your family in 2010. We are counting on a good year ahead. One way or another.