Today's Follow-Up Visit With the Oral Surgeon

On March 31 I reported that I had a tooth extracted. Today I return to the oral surgeon who does not run a radio message board for a followup visit. He determined that I was ready for a dental implant. I will have to return on July 28 for the implant. I will then have to wait 6 months until I will be ready to have a crown put where the original tooth was extracted. This entire "ordeal" will have taken almost a year when the job will be completed.

Bus and Subway Fares Go Up in NYC

I can remember way back in the early to mid 1960s the fare in NYC was 15 cents. Over the weekend it went up to $2.25. There are various fare discounts that regular riders can use to save some money. You can get unlimited rides for 7 days, 14 days, or 30 days. However, for those fares riders must go for more than one trip a day or ride the buses and trains regularly on weekends. I take advantage of the 15% discount when one buys a Metrocard for $8 or more. Since the fare is an odd number at $2.25, there is a little complication involved in "zeroing out a card." This morning I had $12 on my card which was reduced to $9.75 when I rode this morning. I had to go to one of the Metrocard machines as seen above to add $1.50 to my card to get to $11.25 which will go to zero after 5 rides. In the future I will have to put $20 on my card, let it go to a low amount and add $25 to get to a number divisible by $2.25. And so it goes.

Paul McCartney Talks About Bob Dylan

Nothing has been confirmed or denied about McCartney collaborating with Bob Dylan. Your truly is hoping that when Paul takes the stage at Citifield on July 21, there will be a guest appearance by the man from Hibbing, Minnesota. Three people sitting in section 506 will be very happy. We would also be pleased if Ringo Starr played.

Mets lose to Yankees again 5-0

Post #1000 is about the New York Mets

Our 15 game package at Citifield included the Saturday night game of the subway series with the Mets facing the Yankees. The Mets could only get one hit off Yankee pitching as the Bronx Bombers won 5-0. The game featured home runs by Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada. Over the last 3 Subway Series games the Yankees have outscored the Mets 29-1. The injuries have really caught up to the Mets as they have lost Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Oliver Perez, John Maine, and JJ Putz for extended periods of time. Box score.

Reconnecting with People from Different Schools in my lifetime

Recently I have reconnected with several people from different schools in my lifetime. Here goes.

• P.S. 139 - Rich Jacoby
• Russell Sage JHS - Larry Stahl
• Forest Hills HS - Mike Seidman
• City College of NY - Joe Viel
• University of Rhode Island - I run into Louis Kirschenbaum, a chemistry professor back then at American Chemical Society meetings, but I have never reconnected with any of my fellow graduate students. I just did a search in Facebook, but couldn't find anyone
• Pratt Institute - I was a part time graduate student from 1979-82. The social interactions among part time students was minimal. I haven't reconnected with anyone.

Thoughts about this journal as it aproaches 1000 entries

Bruces's Journal will hit 1000 entries within a day or two. Since I have time on this Saturday moring, I'll write entry #998 with my thoughts about this journal.

Blogging has become very popular in the Web 2.0 era. There are probably millions of blogs (a shortened version of weblog) that are out there. As I reported a few weeks ago, 95% of them are abandoned evidently since the writer just lost interest.

There are different types of blogs. They can be about news events, political points of view, and personal experiences. I have chosen the latter approach.

My first entry was on October 15, 2005 when AOL offered its subscribers a place to publish blogs. In October 2008 Bruce's Journal made the transition to Blogger, a service of Google. At that point its address became http://bigtownman.blogspot.com which likely still works. Since Google sells domain names at $10/year, I used http://www.bruceslutsky.com as the major name for my journal. In August 2008 I started a work related journal at http://njitbruce.blogspot.com.

I always have to remember that anyone can read either journal so I have to remember to be careful what I write. I try not be be too personal in this journal. Certainly I have frustrations at work, but I will not write about them in either journal. I have been guilty of a few minor indiscretions and I thank people for pointing them out.

Here are some of the major topics of Bruce's Journal over the 1000 postings:

• Bob Dylan
• The Mets
• Going back into past stages of my life
• Radio
• Songs of the day
• Family activities

Since its inception Bruce's journal has received about 18,400 hits. This includes my own accessions When the journal made the transition to Blogger, I used Google Analytics to track usage. The post that got the most hits was a review of a new DVD about Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour. It got so many hits since it was linked to Expecting Rain, a very popular Dylan fan site. The next two popular postings were about WABC Rewound. These entries were very high when I did a Google search on the phrase WABC Rewound.

I don't know how many different people have read Bruce's Journal. I am sure many just found it once as a result using Google or other search engine. I don't know what percentage of the readers actually know me. I know several radio enthusiast friends and one colleague from NJIT read it regularly. From Google Analytics, I can determine where the readers are located. There is one reader from Stamford, CT whom I don't know. The journal is also imported into my Facebook feed and I know many of my Facebook friends read it. This number is not counted by Google Analytics.

Very few people make comments to the journal directly, but several people have done so on Facebook.

I am happy to say that almost all my experience with my journal have been positive. There was only one individual who made some negative comments about me which I deleted. He disagreed with me on a radio related issue, but attacked my by making comments about my family which were just none of his business.

I will keep positing and hope you will keep reading.

Economic Stimulus Package from NJIT

May paycheck was nuch larger than normal today since I received two years of retroactive pay from NJIT. To make a long story short, my union was very slow in settling with the university administration, but we finally got our raises and retroactive pay. I decided to put 70% of this extra pay into a certificate of deposit and hold it aside for retirement. I must be careful about spending money in this poor economic climate. I decided to use the other 30% to go to cultural activities over the summer. I just bought tickets for the Wiz at City Center on July 5.