Y2k

The people at the 1-800-THERAPIST network have designated the first day of each month Y2K Anxiety Day. Those afflicted are invited to call 800-843-7274 and vent, for free. A psychotherapist will be standing by, donating time to "help relieve fear and calm hysteria," according to a press release.Is this really necessary? It is, insists Dr. Kevin Grold of the San Diego-based nationwide therapists network. Those who view the turn of the millennium as just another day, even a cause for celebration, may find it difficult to credit the scope and intensity of some people's Y2K-related fears.

New Year's Eve comes just once a year - and even less often on a Saturday night. For Baltimore-area restaurants, that's a very good thing. One in five Americans is planning to dine out this New Year's Eve, according to a recent National Restaurant Association survey, and restaurants are competing for them with Champagne toasts, fixed-price menus and views of fireworks. Not all restaurants are going with fixed-price menus, though. Donna's in Charles Village, Henninger's in Upper Fells Point, Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia, Paladar Latin Kitchen & Rum Bar in Annapolis, Jack's Bistro in Canton, The Oceanaire in Harbor East and the Capital Grille Downtown are all serving their regular menus, along with a few celebratory specials.

WASHINGTON -- Congress has been dragging its feet on passing even the mildest form of Y2K remedial legislation, thereby offering yet another sign that the sky is not about to fall on our digital desktops. In those rare times in the life of the nation when a true crisis looms, lawmakers have a way of ending their bickering with breathtaking dispatch.In an era when powerful computer networks have revamped Wall Street to look and feel more like a Las Vegas casino, it's quite possible to place bets on whether the Y2K glitch will land a telling blow on the economy.

Remember Y2K? That temporal computer glitch is a hazy memory today, but there's another one on the horizon that could cause us grief in less than three weeks: Call it the Daylight Saving Devil. Y2K, you'll remember, was the result of years of neglect by programmers who cut corners by using two digits for the year in date calculations - threatening worldwide crashes when the clock ticked into the year 2000. This time, Congress created the Daylight Saving Devil by approving the U.S. Energy Act of 2005.

IF YOU'VE BEEN worrying about this Y2K computer problem, you can relax. I am pleased to report that, according to computer experts, everything is totally under control. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact, you might as well stop reading this article right now!I said, there is nothing to worry about and you should stop reading this column right now.OK, good. We have gotten rid of the idiots who still actually believe the news media. We are down to the savvy individuals like you -- people who know, from personal experience, that nothing involving computers is ever "under control"; people who have attempted to perform some seemingly simple computer-related task, such as connecting a computer to a printer, and eventually decided -- after weeks of puzzling over manuals written in the Ewok language and trying to communicate with "Technical Support" -- that the only workable printing solution is to hold a piece of blank paper in front of the computer screen and trace the words manually.

The computer world's brightest minds may have licked the Y2K bug and stopped it from mucking up the new year. But 17-year-old Matt Ashburn thinks the nation's nerds shouldn't get too cocky. On his new Web page the high school senior from Martinsville, Va., has documented more than a hundred Web sites that succumbed to the millennium bug, usually in the form of screwy dates. "We just find it funny that, even after months of preparation by the entire world, some sites have had date and year-related follies," he writes on the site.

ARE YOUR finances prepared for Y2K? "The good news," says Working Woman, "is that the mad rush to prepare for 2000 has probably eliminated serious threats to your bank accounts and other holdings."Nevertheless, ask your banker exactly what steps are being taken to head off Y2K problems. Keep bank and brokerage statments, deposit slips, ATM receipts, etc.; report discrepancies immediately. Keep cash on hand; withdraw enough for the first few weeks of 2000."Also, there's little need to worry about your bank if your accounts are less than the $100,000 covered by federal deposit insurance."

Despite being listed on a federal report of cities not prepared to handle potential year-2000 computer problems, Baltimore officials said yesterday that they are putting the finishing touches on making the city systems secure.The reason the city ended up on the list is because it still needs to officially test the system, said Alonza Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke."We are ready," said Williams. "You'll need no bottled water, you'll see all the traffic lights."The investigative arm of Congress, the U.S. General Accounting Office, issued a report yesterday on computer readiness of the nation's top 21 cities.

So we're not facing The End of Civilization as We Know it. Y2K is likely to ring itself in without a massive disaster. Airplanes will not fall from the sky. Elvis will not reappear.But Y2K could still be a pain in the neck. Despite the hundreds of billions we've spent collectively on the problem, when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, there will still be computers that see the new year abbreviated as "00" and think it's 1900. Or worse, they won't know what to think at all, and they'll just quit.

PREDICTIONS ON the Y2K problem range from minor inconveniences to the destruction of the world as we know it. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.If you want to learn more about Y2K, attend the meeting of the Olde Brooklyn Park Improvement Association at 7 p.m. Tuesday. In addition to addressing general community concerns, representatives from Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. and Allfirst Bank will discuss how their companies are preparing for what may happen at midnight Dec. 31.The meeting will be at the Brooklyn Park Elementary School, Morgan Road and 14th Avenue.

As Y2K approached and the world waited for blackouts that never came, human-powered electric gadgets saw a surge of popularity. These radios, flashlights and other devices don't need batteries - they get their power from cranks, levers and other gizmos that work on the principles of induction discovered almost two centuries ago by British physicist Michael Faraday. Although Y2K is now remembered as the "Disaster that Wasn't," some of these gadgets are still handy to have around. The Excalibur Forever Flashlight is one of them.

The Baltimore County Police Department is 6 1/2 months behind in compiling official countywide crime statistics, a time lag department officials blame on Year 2000 computer modifications. The delay has caused concern among members of the County Council, which in its 2002-2003 budget message urged the department to speed the process. The statistics - which measure crimes such as homicide, rape, robbery and vehicle theft - are voluntarily given to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow the bureau to track national crime trends.

COMPUTERS, carefully examined and feverishly retrofitted, took us into this year with new confidence in a fail-safe life. A vibrant economy all but erased our fear of mass layoffs. Consumers spent with even more exuberance than Americans seem programmed to do. (It's our patriotic duty to resist saving and to sustain the marketplace.) Life is good and totally predictable. The illusion of an environment capable of absorbing unlimited SUVs might well have gone undisturbed in 2000. And then a jolt.

Powered by new clients and a sales jump in one of its divisions, RWD Technologies Inc. reported record earnings yesterday for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30, but noted some "uncertainty" for the next two quarters. The Columbia provider of technology solutions and manufacturing consulting services for Fortune 500 companies met analysts' estimates, reporting net income of $1.5 million, or 10 cents per share, on revenue of $35.7 million. That's 23 percent more than last year's third-quarter revenue of $29.1 million.

RWD Technologies Inc., recovering from business it lost as companies spent their information-technology budgets on preventing the Y2K bug, reported yesterday that its first-quarter profit dropped 86 percent to $539,500, or 4 cents a share. Revenue for the three months that ended March 31 was $30.8 million, down 7 percent. "They were slightly above our revised expectations," said William Loomis, an analyst at Legg Mason Wood Walker in Baltimore, who had expected $30 million in revenue and earnings per share of 3 cents.

RWD Technologies Inc. said yesterday that it was awarded a five-year contract by Ford Motor Co. that will bring the Columbia company $50 million to $90 million during the life of the agreement. RWD will implement "lean manufacturing" processes at four Ford plants in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. The company helps manufacturers find ways of reducing waste and increasing efficiency. RWD is receiving a base amount for the work and will get a percentage of any money Ford saves through the processes.

You're probably rooting for Y2K to come and go tonight without gas lines erupting, savings accounts vanishing, everything going black and, worst of all, your coffee pot not working tomorrow morning.Fine. Whatever. That's your prerogative.Me? I'm rooting for some Y2 chaos.Rivers of sludge to come bubbling out of the sewers? Tap water to start glowing in the dark? Computer viruses to start pac-manning hard drives? Bud Selig promising to show up at every baseball fan's door with a fresh fruitcake and a few hours to kill?

MY BIG Y2K worry was whether the clothes dryer would make it to 2000. It didn't. A few days before confetti fell from the sky, the old dryer decided it did not want to work in the new year. It stopped spinning. The circuit breaker flipped, shutting off electrical power to it. No amount of coaxing or tinkering could bring it back to life. It died of old age. I am not sure exactly how old this dryer was, but its model number was written in Roman numerals. The dryer's demise was a disappointing way to end the century, because a few days earlier I thought I had fixed its problems and had put it in shape to work for at least another decade.

MONDAY NIGHT, as Larry Young and others shouted for the resignation of the acting police commissioner, presumably because he is white and from the city of New York, the city of Baltimore recorded its 69th homicide of 2000, and the victim was black. Within the hour after Young and others had assembled in a West Baltimore church to call for Ed Norris to pack his bags, 21-year-old Dante Bryan was running for his life through the streets of East Baltimore. Another young man with a gun chased Bryan on a red mountain bike.

Janet McKenzie's "Jesus of the People" has received quite a bit of attention since winning a worldwide art competition late last year -- some positive, some damning. In choosing McKenzie's subtly feminine, African-American image of Christ as winner of its "Jesus 2000" competition, the National Catholic Reporter, a self-proclaimed "liberal" newspaper based in Kansas City, has touched on three essential -- and sensitive -- elements of Christ's traditional persona: race, religion and gender.