2008 so far…

Let’s be honest.  The first 12 minutes of 2008 were rough.

First of all, the world realized we only have one more year to enjoy the always-classy millennial New Year’s glasses.  What will we do when the clock strikes 2010?  Dangle a “1″ from our noses? 

More tragic, however, was the annual fireworks display at the Seattle Space Needle.  My wife and I had enjoyed a delicious meal of decadent fondue with some of my colleagues, and we decided to drive up Queen Anne hill to watch the infamous display.  Feeling proud of the fantastic view we found on a Queen Anne side street (not to mention the common sigh of relief we breathed for avoiding the urine-scented drunken spectacle at Kerry Park), our little group assembled under a streetlamp to await the show.  What happened next is too difficult to talk about.  I’ll allow Emily Heffter from the Seattle Times to recap:

“A corrupted computer file is to blame for the three-minute delay to last night’s start of the fireworks show at the Space Needle.

Two technicians had to press buttons to manually set off about 5,000 fireworks.

About a minute before midnight, technicians with California-based Pyro Spectaculars realized that the computer program that controlled the display was not going to work, said Mary Bacarella, a spokeswoman for the Space Needle. They rebooted twice, then decided to do the show by hand.

“It was like, well, should we go for it, or should we shut it down? And we decided to go for it,” she said.

Usually, technicians press a single button to start the show, then run outside to watch it. This time, they had to manually start 1,582 “cues,” the lines of computer code that control the choreographed show. The fireworks couldn’t go off simultaneously as planned, so the show lasted 11 ½ minutes instead of 8 ½. The music sequence ran as scheduled, so it was not in sync with the fireworks.

The Space Needle Corp. paid Pyro Spectaculars about $110,000 for the fireworks show. Pyro Spectaculars has been doing the show for 14 years without a hitch, Bacarella said.”

Those extra minutes are minutes we will NEVER get back!  So now, here I am, only 13 hours into the new year and I’m already 4 or 5 minutes behind.  Great.

I guess the good news is, we still got to see ALL the fireworks…just not in their original sequence.  While I’m counting my blessings, at least we weren’t the ones spending the first 11 ½ minutes of 2008 pressing 1,582 buttons (2.3 buttons per second of 11 1/2 minutes…bummer).  So, even though they served up a slow-paced and less-than-dazzling fireworks display riddled with LONG awkward pauses, Seattle appreciates Pyro Spectaculars for sticking with it and ushering us into a brand new year.  Give those fingers a rest a pour yourselves a nice cold beverage…you’ve earned it.

In other news…this is my new blog.  A blog?  Me?  Really?  I guess so.  Who knows?  I could be the new big thing on the internet.  Maybe even bigger than that frightening guy under the blanket telling us to “leave Britney ALONE!”  Or maybe I’ll be like the Pyro Spectaculars guys…pushing all kinds of buttons, trying to please the people, and remaining largely ignored for all my hard work.

We’ll see.

Happy New Year!