Thinking Ahead to Retirement

Today I was sitting on a park bench in Alley Pond Park reading the business section of yesterday's New York Times. An article titled How to Make the Best of a Delayed Retirement hit close to home. Since I hit my 60th birthday this year, there have been more thoughts of retirement. Hopefully, I will only have 8 years to go when I will have completed 25 years at NJIT. I am envious of some friends who have already retired. It is nice to be able to go to a park bench and read or listen to the radio as I did today since NJIT gave us today off for the 4th of July. After a while this can get boring. The article discussed the fact that not everybody retires abruptly, they can ease into retirement by working part time for a while at their last employer. If I did that I would like to do something different. I would really want to put an end to the mundane questions that I have answered for years. There is always that great fear of not having enough money for retirement. Some of my investments in TIAA-CREF and other funds have gone down during this economic downturn. Hopefully in 8 years they will rebound.

The Wiz at New York City Center

It's nice to do something different so we saw The Wiz at the New York City Center last night. Ashanti played Dorothy in this encore of a show that debuted on Broadway in January 1975. Last night's performance was the last in this run that began on June 12. Some of the other performers were Coleman Domingo, LaChanze, and Joshua Henry. We enjoyed the acting, singing, and costumes. There was a movie version of the Wiz released in 1978 starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and the late Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow.

Why a regular caller from WFAN disappeared

I have certainly posted many times in this journal about music radio, but I think this is the first time I have written about a talk radio station. WFAN became the nation's first all sportstalk radio station on July 1, 1987 at 1050 on the AM dial. About a year later it moved to 660 AM. I listen to the sports talk programming very irregularly. This morning while I was in my Twitter account I did a search for WFAN and found reference to this article in the New York Times. Political and talk radio shows do have their regular callers. When a caller is no longer heard, people think of the worst. A few years ago when regular caller Doris from Rego Park passed away many WFAN listeners went to her funeral. This gentleman named Al called regularly at about 4 AM. He was elderly and could no longer live at home and moved in with his daughter who forbade him from calling since it would wake her up. :)

Queens Museum of Art Revisited Today

One advantage of having a journal is to find out when I last visited an attraction. On March 29, 2008 I last visited the Queens Museum of Art in nearby Flushing Meadows Park. All museums have permanent and temporary exhibits so one should never visit a museum too often or he/she will see the same attractions. I always like to see the Panorama of New York City which has been there since the 1964 New York World's Fair. There were displays of collectables from the Worlds Fairs of 1939 and 1964 which we've seen before.

A few of the temporary exhibits were:

• Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center, a large-scale installation of models, drawings, photographs, and videos by artist-designer Damon Rich
• Tarjama Translation - an exhibition featuring artists from the Middle East, Central Asia and its diasporas

I guess since today was a holiday, the museum was not crowded. For a $5 admission fee, how could we go wrong?

The Hangover

I haven't reported on movies that I have seen recently, but we walked over to the local multiplex and saw The Hangover. It was silly and far fetched, but it was funny and suitable for adults. I think they used the "F" word a little bit too much, but it was an R rated movie. The multiplex was crowded likely because of the opening of Ice Age,

Facebook and the AARP

I have written about Facebook several times in this journal. You just need to go to the search box at the top and search on "facebook" to read my earlier comments. I would like to comment on an article in the AARP Magazine titled Confessions of a Facebook Addict. AARP is open to those over 50 whether they are retired or not. Believe me when my favorite bald man starts making the rounds, I wish I were retired.

Anyway, Hugh Delehanty the author of this article,who is about my age talks about his experiences with Facebook. He says baby boomers are the web site's fastest growing demographic. He says that the "friending" thing was what got him hooked on Facebook. I first got invloved with it just after I attended a library seminar demonstrating how it could be an outreach tool to students. So I tried to friend as many NJIT students as I could. Since Slutsky is not a common surname I tried to befriend other Slutsky's even though there is no relation.

I have 436 friends, but I am not even acquainted with many of them. If a complete stranger makes a friend request, I will likely return the favor unless I am in a rotten mood that day. My friends fall into the following categories:

• NJIT Students
• NJIT Faculty and Staff
• Family (blood relatives)
• Radio Friends
• Radio Personalities
• Librarians and Information Professionals (non-NJIT)
• People from my past - PS 139, JHS 190, Forest Hills HS, City College
• Strangers - some have read my journal

I try to limit my time on Facebook, so I am don't consider myself an addict. There are certainly other social networking sites which I must avoid since there is only so much time in a day.

Moving On and Letting Go

I found this web site by Karim Hajee, author and creator of the Creating Power system. I think one of my problems is that I remember too many things, both positive and negative. I just have to get rid of some of that baggage. To quote Barbra Streisand:

Whats too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

I can't do that. I remember the good and the bad