The next week, Lynda came back from Ottawa. She was very tired. It took a couple of days for her to recover. I explained to her about getting fired at the University of Phoenix and she said you will find something else to keep yourselves busy.
Funny enough that the next week I had a call from Larry, the vice president of the consulting company. He wanted to have lunch with me to explore the possibility of assisting them with their idea of modifying their system with the help of one of the casinos. I got in touch with Larry. Larry wanted me to come on board to look at what’s going on with them and assist them to get organized.
I accepted his offer and told him that I will be there first thing in the morning to start working with his group.
It was unexpected, but I wanted to do that. I explained to him that I will have to continue to teach a couple of days during the week otherwise I will spend whatever time I can spend to help them out. Larry appeared to be a reasonable guy and demonstrated a lot of respect for my background, and he was prepared to take whatever time I could afford to spend with them. I left Larry with the promise to show up at 8:00 AM on Monday.
I called Judy, the president, to thank her for her recommendations and told her that perhaps Larry is looking for your support to get their business going in Las Vegas and he is smart enough to hire me with the objective to keep in touch with you.
She said, “You are right”. She continued – At the same time, you being there will provide me with a comfort level that I need to learn whether Larry’s company has the expertise to support the casinos. She said it works both ways. I only know for a short period of time, but I trust you more than trusting Larry.
I thanked her and said I will do my best not to let her down.
I was so amazed how things worked out for me. It was pure luck but nothing else.
While everything appeared to be going just fine with me, I was worried about the overall impact of the Year 2000 (Y2K) Problem which was cripping up on us. Perhaps the best way to explain the problem was to say The Y2K problem, refers the potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after 2000. Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900.
This led to widespread fears that computer systems would fail to recognize the correct date, causing disruption in critical sectors such as banking and government databases. Deep ties the panic, few major failures occurred, and extensive preparations were made to address the issue, highlighting the importance of foresight and proactive measures in technology management.
In other words, bank system storing “31-12-99” followed by “01-01-00” could mistakenly think a customer’s next payment was due 99 years earlier, causing transaction or record errors.
Even though we were not in the Information Technology business to take the responsibility for coming up with an answer to the problem but all our contracts in Ottawa were with the federal government and every department was totally in panic which was affecting our performance and Adam was wondering whether or not we would be able deliver the results of our contracts on time and within budgets to full fill our commitment.
In summary, the Y2K crisis was solved through massive global collaboration, where programmers reviewed and updated billions of lines of code, tested systems extensively, and replaced outdated technology – ensuring computers correctly recognized the year 2000.
The Y2K crisis cost the world an estimated $400–500 billion to fix and prevent potential problems. While the actual disruptions were minimal, the large-scale investment modernized global computer infrastructure and prevented what could have been catastrophic about system failures.
While there was a panic in Las Vegas about Y2K but didn’t affect my consulting work. I was still teaching three classes a week and spending three days on the consulting assignment.
It was indeed an interesting consulting assignment. I was learning how casinos manage their procurement requirements. Some casinos were using semi-automated procurement process to acquire products and services but at the same time there were some casinos where the use of the technology was minimum and getting those casinos interested was indeed a challenge.
On a personal note, this year was our 27th wedding anniversary and Lynda wanted to do “something” to celebrate it.
When we got married in Toronto, it was a civil marriage performed by a justice of peace in the middle of a snowstorm, and we didn’t have two pennies to rub together. The ceremony also a non-denominational simply because I was Muslim and Lynda was Jewish. I could only afford to buy a ring for $100 dollars which she had accepted without any hesitation.
I agreed with Lynda wholeheartedly. I thought she deserved more and better than anything.
I said to her, “Let’s go shopping for a ring before we determine where and when we celebrate our wedding anniversary”.
The next day I took her to Jeweler shops outside Chinook Centre and told her to pick any shop and we will do the ring shopping.
She picked up a shop right in the middle, and we went in to start browsing the wedding rings. We spent a few minutes looking at the rings and whispering until we got the attention of one of the sell staff who was watching us with interest.
Lynda never let it bother her and continued to assess the rings one by one. Finally, she zoomed in a couple of rings and turned around and pointed them to me.
I pointed out those rings to the guy who appeared to be keeping an eye on us. He right away pulled his keys to the showcase and opened it and pointed out to confirm the rings that Lynda was interested in.
She nodded her head to confirm and then we followed the guy to his office where he put both rings on the desk in front of Lynda and wanted her to try them on.
She tried it one by one and looked at me asking me to say something. I remember saying – I like both rings and you pick whichever you like the best.
The guy said once you selected the ring, I will make sure that it fits you perfectly.
Once she was happy with the ring, she handed me over the ring that she liked the best and said hope we can afford it, babe.
I said don’t worry about it. I owe you one for a long time.
It didn’t take too long for me to work it out with the sell person, and I paid for it. He cleaned the ring and put it in a nice box before he gave it to Lynda. Lynda appeared to be very happy with the ring.
Before we left the store, the guy suggested “You need to bring the ring every year for appraisal as we do that for every customer to let them know the increase in the value each year.”
I thought it was kind of never heard of a thing, but I agreed with him.
On Sunday, Lynda took the ring to the clubhouse where he showed it to everybody and explained that we were going to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary on the 23rd of January.
Brenda, our friend suggested she, with a couple of other folks, would throw a little party at the clubhouse and invite our friends to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
Lynda and I were very impressed with the offer and delighted to hear the other folks agreeing with Brenda.
Thanks for the offer but Lynda wanted to get married once again at a casino like millions of folks come to Vegas t get married.
Brenda said in that case you go ahead and plan to do that, but as soon as you’re done at the casino, come to the clubhouse. We all be here with food and music to make a rememberable night for you.
