Travels With An Airhead

Millennium Madness

— by Notch Miyake

I hope everyone has recovered from the Millennium festivities. Thank God we only have to do this once every thousand years.

But wait! There is a group of scholars who maintain that the Millennium is at the end, not the beginning, of 2000. We have jumped the gun, so to speak. By a whole year.

You see, we are still in the Second Millennium, just as we are still in the 20th Century, until 2001, when we begin the Third Millennium and the 21st Century. Look at it this way: A millennium is 1000 years, not 999 years. So celebrating at the end of 1999 is a year early.

"O.K.," you are saying, "Spare me the math lesson." So what? Or, to put it more precisely, "Who gives a shit?"

Well, you ought to. For one, it means you have an opportunity to make an even greater fool of yourself next New Year?s Eve. After all, there is a Millennium only once every thousand years. And there is a good chance you won?t be around for the next one.

For those who still don?t get it, some people celebrate the Millennium at the beginning of 2000 and some at the end of 2000. And some do both, just for the hell of it.

So what does this have to do with motorcycles, which used to be the subject of this newsletter?

Were you one of those people who sprung for a 2000 BMW because you wanted the first model in the Third Millennium? Too bad. It is still a Second Millennium model. How ironic! Instead of the first model in the new Millennium, it is the last model in the old.

Tough luck. But not as bad as those who bought 1999?s so they could get the last model of the passing Millennium. These guys are neither first nor last. Just in the middle someplace. Ordinary.

Luckily, I have a solution. The first model guys (or babes) stuck with last model bikes (2000?s), can advertise them for sale in this very newsletter. The last model babes (or guys) can buy them and advertise their 1999?s for sale cheap to the rest of us who don?t give a shit.

Look for the surge of bikes offered for sale in the newsletter beginning next month.

These are the kinds of desperate matters that occupy motorcyclists in mid-winter, along with checking the battery on the trickle charger.

But don?t despair, Spring is coming. Unlike Millennia, there is no confusion. It happens once a year, every year. Even in the Finger Lakes.

Hang in there.

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