Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Since this is the third weekend that this movie has been out, I thought it would be safe to go to the muliplex to see it without waiting on a long line. It was still playing on three screens. I guess I am getting old. I think these fantasy movies are good for scenery, special effects, and fights. The story in the movie was just too far fetched. Lee said he enjoyed it.

Jazz Concert in the Neighborhood

I really wanted to do something different this weekend.  For years I have passed by Flushing Town Hall and noticed that they featured concerts.  On most Friday evenings I would be too tired to do anything, but over the summers I  would like to take advantage of the 3 day weekends so we went to a concert there last night with the Jeb Patton Trio .  I became somewhat interested in traditional jazz by listening to WBGO  whose studios are within walking distance on NJIT in Newark.  Most of the audiences were senior citizens.  Speaking of seniors, I ran into an old friend, Lenny, who I knew years ago through Queens Bnai Brith Singles.  I hand't seen Lenny for at least 20 years.  I was active in that group from 1978-81.  Back then I thought the members were using the group as a substitute for dating.  I did make several long time friends in that group.

Three Day Weekends All Summer

One of the perks of working for a university is having lots of time off.  I get 20 vacation days, 3 personal days, and the week off between Christmas and New Years.  For many years we were given a 30 hour work week during the summers by having to work one hour less each day.  About 5 years ago the NJIT administration decided that in order to save money on energy we could work 30 hours in 4 days.  By closing the university on Fridays they save $200,000 every year by not providing air conditioning and lights for that one day.  Everybody just loves it.

I Don't Need an IPOD

I started collecting records in 1964 at the time the Beatles came to America.  In the late 1970s I started to collect 8-track tapes and then cassette tapes.  I have plenty of  cassettes of  recording artists plus several hundred radio tapes.  Many of these tapes I made by recording New York Radio stations over the years.  Other tapes I received through trades with other collectors.  In fact last June on the WABC Rewound Cruise I met Rob Frankel who restores tapes to be played each Memorial Day on the Rewound broadcast.  He was impressed by my collection of radio tapes from cities all over the country with different music and talk formats.  I stopped making tapes a few years ago since there is homogenization of radio format and because I can get most radio stations over the Internet.  I still have a cassette walkman like the one in the photo above..  Twice a month I take it to listen to and from work on the trains.  Today I listened to a tape of Barry Scott's Lost 45s from 1996 which was then heard on WBMX Boston. Today the show is heard Sunday nights on WODS Boston which I can get online.  Twice a month I take my personal CD Player/Radio instead of reading on the trains.  I must be one of the only people without an IPOD.  It would take me forever to digitize all my music and transfer it to an IPOD.

Patience was a virtue today

Throught my career I have taught many students, faculty, and staff to find technical and popular information from online databases.  Students at a technological university are very savvy and learn how to search very easily.  We actually try to take them away from Google to databases which provide more reliable information.  Last week I received a phone call from an older woman, a Professor of English Literature.  She asked for an appointment for me to teach her how to search.  She also told me that she becam agoraphobic and there was no medication that could help her with that condition.  She needed information about a certain poet.  I worked very slowly with her going through each step to demonstrate how to find the information she would need.  The elderly gentleman in the photo above seems quite happy to take a listen from his grandson.  The Professor seemed to want to learn, but she was extremely slow in picking up the technique that I have taught to thousands of students over the years.  She wants to see me again.  I was very careful to be extremely patient with her.  During the lesson, she received a cell phone call.  If she can learn the cell phone, I am sure she will evenutally master the computer.

Extra!!! Extra!!! Bob Dylan is coming to Brooklyn in August

I got some unexpected good news today.  Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour is coming to Brooklyn's Prospect Park on August 12th.  I am usually the first to know when these things will come up but I must be spending too much time on the radio message boards and not enough time on the Dylan folders. At 9:50 this morning I received and e-mail from my NJIT colleague Heather saying that she got a message from a Brooklyn blog stating that Dylan will be playing in Prospect Park in August.  It gave a link to the Tickemaster site which stated that the pre-sale starts at 10 AM today.  I went to the Bob Dylan website to get the password.  I wasted no time.  At 10:02 I bought the tickets.  Ticketmaster is ripoff at $12/ticket as a service charge, but what else can you do.  There is no other way to buy the tickets.  I have not been to that part of Brooklyn in many years.  Back in 1970-71 my fraternity at City College had a house at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Parkside Avenue a few blocks away.  Now I really have something to look forward to.  The last time we saw Dylan was in November 2006 at the Nassau Colisseum.  He came to Jones Beach lat June but we already made arrangements for the baseball tour.  I will follow the set lists for the concerts earlier in August.

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Radio Station Contests

 

For the most part I don't get involved in radio station contests.  They are just a gimmick to get people to listen more often. Right now WCBS-FM is running a contest where the 11th caller wins tickets to the station's 35th anniversary concert in Jones Beach at the end of June. Back in the mid 1980s Bob Shannon ran a Tuesday Night Trivia contest.  There were no prizes, but just the glory of getting the right answer.  Back then I had a rotary dial phone and was usually beaten out.  One Sunday morning about 7:30 at the spur of the moment I phoned into Gary Clark and answered a question about the Temptations and won a video of their peformance at a concert.  A few years ago I listened to Holly Levis at 10:45 PM and won tickets to see the Righteous Brothers at Westbury.  A few weeks later Bobby Hatfield passed away.

I know there are some "contest nuts" out there who are obsessive about winning.  I know one person who wins and has to give away the prize because she can't go to the concert.  I understand that she actually recieved a letter from the station forbidding her to win contests, but she gets around it by using names of relatives.  To each his own.