'Something should be done'

  6000 candles: 1 big birthday

Revelers toast, yes, the Earth
by Katherine Ackley
The Coloradoan, October 24th 1997, Fort Collins, CO
  
  Gene Younkin read an essay defending Bishop James Ussher's biblically based
theory that the Earth was created on October 23, 4004 B.C.
  Younkin didn't see any cause for controversy, he saw an opportunity.
  A chance to party.
  'I just thought something should be done," said the 25-year-old Hewlett-
Packard Co. engineer [note - Gene does not work at HP], celebrated the Earth's
6,000th birthday Thursday with 100 others.
  "Who really cares how old the Earth is?" Ljung said.  "It's time to party."
  The birthday bash took months of planning and quite a bit of cash.  Younkin
says he had to order the 6,000 candles three months in advance, and they
cost $120.
  Ljung cut the candle wax down and split the wicks so that they touched each
other [note - Dave did *not* do this work by himself].  Light one and it
spreads like a forest fire -- that was the plan, Ljung said.
  As the plan's engineers looked on at a raging bonfire that once was a
cake, joy was plastered all over their glowing faces.
  "We've been working on this too damn long for it not to have worked,"
Ljung said after the cake burned as partygoers cheered "burn, baby, burn."
  An anthropology major at Colorado State University, Lesley Drayton, 18,
doesn't really think the Earth is 6,000 years old.
  "I'm sure it's much older than that," she said.  "But the cake was very
cool, I was very impressed."
  So how old is the Earth, anyway?
  Sean Roberts, a graduate student in physics at CSU, said that to be
scientifically accurate, the partygoers neede about 4 billion candles -
give or take a few million.
  But Younkin said it best right before the cake went up in flames:  "We are
here for one reason and one reason only: to party!"