... is at zero the moment before you start it. The instant you start it, it IS at one SOMETHING (nanosecond, if nothing else). Furthermore, as we now well know, there was NO year zero. The current calendar started with year 1 A.D., like it or not.

The only way you (or anyone else) and I can get on the same page is if you get on the right one, Bob! <g> The one in which the new millennium starts at one second after midnight, January 1, 2001.

BTW, the short hand manner in which we refer to decades as the 1990's, 1980's, and so forth, has nothing to do with the centuries or millenniums. If you count the "decades" of that type backwards far enough, you'll find that the very first one only had nine years in it (1-9 A.D.). Doesn't really mean anything, though, because this way of referring to the decades is not a means of counting years, it is simply a means of providing a frame of reference for recording events of perceived significance. And not a very useful frame of reference at that. Was John Force's accomplishment of winning the NHRA Nitro Funny Car Championship 9 times more meaningful because they (coincidentally) all happened in the 1990's than it would have been had he happened to win nine times in the ten years from 1985-1994, inclusive? Not really. Just a fluke. Sorta like the big phony baloney over a baseball player playing in "four decades" because he happened to play from 1969 to 1990. He still only played 22 years and deserves no greater credit for longevity than the player who put in his 22 years from 1970-1991 ... and somewhat less than the player who played in "only" three decades, but managed to squeeze 30 years into his service (1970-1999).

Damn, and I thought I was done with this. ----- jim o\-S