Who woulda ever thought! We made it to 2000 and Y2K did not change anything! Winter in Utica and it was the first time in 30 years that I didn't have to work in the snow and cold. It was kinda refreshing! All though I did get up early and shovel the snow up Bradford Ave. Hey I was getting a buncha money from unemployment and it is not like they were banging on the door for ex-gravediggers! But there was something gnawing at me that had nibbled for a coupla years now. And lo and behold, with a lotta extra time on my hands, ON FEB.12, 2000, I went up to Circuit City.......AND BOUGHT A COMPUTER!!!!!!! INCREDIBLE!!!!!!

Thanks cousin Rick for your influence. I remember being so uncoordinated I had a very hard time clicking the mouse. But there was so much stuff out there! I bought a coupla books and read them through and on Sunday morning, with the sweat dripping from my palms in a weird kinda fear, I plugged that thing in and it came to life and Gooch entered CYBERSPACE! Exhilerating!!! Changed my life!

Naturally I devoured everything I could on that machine and 18 hour computer days were mere drops in the bucket! Winter passed! Amazing how time flies! And as April dawned it was time to go job-hunting. Good old Doug R grave digger extraordinaire needed a little help so I worked with him a few weeks through the Memorial Day rush and wouldn't ya know it, he said check out the Heritage Home cause they needed somebody to maintain the grounds. And the rest is history.

Well seeing that I didn't have any vacation time, I had to rein things in. Oh well, not that much going on that I was overly enthused about. Pearl Jam had released BINAURAL and were touring, but there wasn't a burning desire to see them. All though I seen them in Saratoga in August, Hey Karen, How are ya!, and Jones Beach as a birthday gift from dearest Jackie. Thank you Jackie! and The Pretenders were on the road but they were opening for Neil Young, and even though I do like Neil, I wasn't gonna spend money to see a 50 minute Pretender set in front of 80% of an indifferent audience. Oh well....and one thing still mattered though...... THE OAKLAND RAIDERS!

Opening Day of the 2000 season. It had been years since the team made the playoffs and the faithful were dwindling. Poor teams and shoddy play and ridiculous ticket prices and the genius of Al Davis-long gone, added up to a miserable product. BUT it was still the OAKLAND RAIDERS-a part of me since time eternal-and though other stuff had fallen by the wayside, I still had that burning passion for the Silver and Black! And this year there was a buncha things going on. A Raider Rally at Jack London Square and a Raider day at the Southland Mall and gameday verse the San Diego Chargers! I had an incredible time and hopes sprang eternal with a Raider victory. And I met The Davidson Bros., a coupla long-haired 60's relics living in Oakland and die-hard Raider fans. Naturally I thought they were great guys! We became instant friends! A belated Happy Birthday Dave! And back home. The fall had made it to central New York heralding our annual California trek and how about that 2000 World Series, not like I really care, but being a Yankee hater for so long, still I was pulling for a Met victory! Oh well....Time to take a little break cause...FOOTBALL starts today-Raiders Chiefs, so I gotta find the game somewhere! Talk to ya later! A few hours later and an incredible Raider comeback as they demolish the red clad creeps in KC! Tough luck McCoy!!!! 4 in a row now!

Well come October, the HHHC boys were so kind to let me take a coupla weeks off for my West Coast pilgrimmage. Arriving in time for the Raiders destruction of the 'Hawks, too bad Jeff T, and then heading southward to visit Lenny and Deb and new discoveries, such as KRISPIE KREMES-oops sorry, that is next year,hahaha. Went to the Greek Theater for Pearl Jam and this classic Observatory of Rebel Without a Cause fame, back track to James Dean, we passed the site where he passed away in a Porsche, no less, of interest to Dicky. We also did a Doors kinda tour in LA. Their hangouts and influences from the far-distant BUT never forgotten 60's. We drove down to San Diego to a sea of Raider fans cheering their team on to a Janikowski fueled victory on Sunday night. Then preceding some how to Seattle for a visit with Jared and Stan and Alison got married!!! A peek at the Experience Music Center and back to Oakland for one of my all-time fave Raider games, a 49-31 total destruction of the HATED Chiefs! Got to admit, it was a buncha fun stuff. And before it was over, we did a little San Franciscoing with an interesting Haight-Ashbury tour, the homes of Janis, the Dead and the Airplane, and finished off with an Alcatraz adventure! Kinda neat! And that was it. Homeward bound to good old Utica!? And now we are getting close to the end and I geuss we have a little break here cause in the morning, we are GOING TO CALIFORNIA!!!!!!!!(no way!)BUT WAIT A MINUTE! The Raiders make the playoffs!!! First time in 8 years and it looks like 2001 is gonna start off nice with.....a trip to California!!!(Didn't I just get back?)