Dear friends,  On behalf of KDV, the Dutch society for preservation
of mechanical music, I take the liberty to wish you all a good and
musical 2000 and further on.

I would like to express my thanks to Robbie for his wise and competent
way in which he has been editing this group, and Jody for keeping the
server up.  You both deserve our gratitude, boys!

In the Netherlands we had a very good and quiet millennium event.  The
temperature was around 5 C (41 F) and we had no rain or wind, which is
quite extraordinary here.  Personally I had a good time playing the
"Hommerson March" on my orchestrion organ in the middle of the night,
and after that I had a still better time with my family and friends.

We were able to fire all of our fireworks safely. (Firing private fire-
works is a European mischief; I don't know if the American authorities
are still permitting that because of environment regulations, although
most of you will have fire arms to make noise, which we have not.)

After a few more Belgian beers we all had a good nights sleep, and we
are ready for the new millennium right now.  We were talking about the
"Millennium bug" last year, but fortunately it turned out to be a
"Millennium mug" ('mosquito' in English, I think).

 [ My small Dutch-to-American-English dictionary says
 [   de muskiet = the mosquito (from Spanish mosca, the fly),
 [   de mug = the gnat (Anglo-Saxon, the fly which bites),
 [ so the bug is less bloodthirsty and even tinier!
 [ -- Robbie

I am already looking forward to the coming year.  Let us all keep up
this wonderful platform for mechanical music fans!

Best regards from the Netherlands,

Hans van Oost,
General Secretary,
Kring van Draaiorgelvrienden

 [ Hans, thanks for the positive feedback!
 [
 [ The irresponsible discharging of firearms in Los Angels has been
 [ such a problem in the past that there was a major advertising
 [ blitz reminding people that discharging firearms into the air
 [ in the city is illegal and that the police will be making a point
 [ of arresting people for this practice.  Last Independence Day,
 [ July 4th, 1999, a 9-year-old Los Angeles boy was killed when
 [ a stray bullet fired up into air came down on the boy.
 [
 [ -- Jody