This is a GREAT little "meme" from Live from Waterloo... he effectively gives his readers a list of "big events" and ask them to whack out some pixels about "Where They Were" during those times... and hey, I thought I'd play along...

So...

1) ...When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans
(29/Aug/2005 - 30/Aug/2005)

This is an interesting one... Sue was GLUED to the television watching events unfold on all the major news stations...

I was more-or-less in my own little world... and I'd be remissed if I didn't mention the "busly" aspect of things...

Although this blog wasn't around, it was the HEIGHT of our fiscal issues and when we discussed the bus a whole lot in terms of using it as a focus to forget our troubles... and I did say, without reservation, that had we had it, we would have been en route out of town with friends and family and anyone else we could gather (especially some of the elderly people we know of locally who might not be so fortunate) in the bus about two days before the strike and head inland towards my mother's area of the province... In as much, we started talking about our own plans... "What If...?" kind of scenarios as hurricanes are rare, but not unheard of in Toronto...

That said, Sue just watched everything in horror... and I... well... I was kind of admittedly numbed by the devastation for a while...

A terrible time... but because of thinking of our own "Disaster Preparedness", it is a time I do remember...

Once events had calmed somewhat (within 24 hours of the storm coming ashore,) I did help prepare a few fund raising things online though... and assisted a couple of historical societies (War of 1812-ers have a big stake in New Orleans,) and other charities I've worked with organize help through my online efforts... and that I'm kind of proud of.... lots of webpage building, typing, e-mailing, coordinating... that sort of thing. Basically, getting money in and sent to the right folks as quickly as possible...

Still, I watched with Sue during the clean-up... and really, Really, REALLY wished I could do a hell of a lot more.

2) ...When most of the world celebrated thinking that a new Millennium had started (and then waited a whole year for that to effectively happen)
(01/Jan/2000)

Pity me... I was a senior technician at a large company and therefore rang in the new year "testing" for a Y2K bug we KNEW wasn't coming...

I honestly don't think I'll ever forgive my old company for that horrendous waste of an evening.

3) ...When Seinfeld aired its final episode (which, by the way, was the same day Frank Sinatra died.)
(14/May/1998)

As they say in cases like this... Oh, so YOU'RE the one!

Believe it or not, I never watched a "first run" Seinfeld episode... ever...

It's not that I was a "non-fan" or had no access, it's just that sitcoms and the like haven't been my "thing" since the age of about sixteen.

I never watched "Friends", "Rosanne"... I did like "Cheers" and "Fraser" when I caught it... but mainstream sitcoms just weren't all that important to me.

I believe the last American sit-com (save "The Simpsons") I watched with any regularity was "Mork and Mindy" when it first aired...

Even now, the only shows I make time to catch fresh are "Doctor Who" and "Dexter".

I do remember when Frank Sinatra died though... I must have listened to "Summer Wind", "The Old Black Magic", and "Mac the Knife" about a dozen times that evening... and haven't really stopped...

...but "Seinfeld" was only a thing I'd occasionally catch out of boredom in reruns...

I'm so ashamed...