robert.admin – Page 11 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 12, 2025

Bugs (DOG EAR)

ound out that our 1949 bungalow has termites. Not bad, but worrying. We’re not going to just tent and gas (that only is good for a few years). Rather, we’re going to treat, which means injecting shit into the baseboards to keep them at bay. Also, they’ll climb under the house and put poison barriers around all the supports. Fine and good, right? However, to get AT the baseboards, they need to get TO the baseboards. The problem there is that we read a lot of books and have bought a lot of DVDs (yes, I know, old school, right?). […]

June 8, 2025

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/7/2025

knew this would happen. Turns out that the station agents for Dulce, Placerville and Dolores decided to celebrate a birthday. They went to the bath house in Placerville and steamed in their tubs, drinking stump hole. Coming out, they encountered three loose women and retired to the Lemmon Hotel next door where they engaged in activities outlawed in the Western Bay employee handbook. Needless to say, they are all now suffering Cupid’s Measles. This left the railroad shorthanded during a change in operational methods, with the superintendent agenting all the stations and the dispatcher keeping an eye on Navajo and […]

June 8, 2025

To The Last Man (Review)

n interesting premise here. Jeff Shaara, a historian, writes a fictional account with real people, trying his best to tell the events of a war (this time, World War One) from the surmised point of view from some of the people who lived (and died) in it. For this novel, the author chose four people to represent various viewpoints – Rosco Temple (an American doughboy), John J. Pershing (his general), Manfred Von Richthofen (the “Red Baron”) and Raoul Lufbery (one of the early fliers in the Lafayette Escadrille, a French squadron of Americans). Other historic figures are also encountered, and […]

June 5, 2025

Charms and tokens (DOG EAR)

never understood tattoos for years. I finally got a bit of insight following a Becky Chamber’s book (I don’t remember the title) where one of the characters is a tattoo artist. It was noted (and I’m going from memory here) that tattoos shouldn’t just be a cute picture or a Japanese letter you know nothing about; a tattoo should be something of meaning from your past, or something that guides you into the future. And that’s the thing I’d missed; meaning. While I don’t have a tattoo, I do have my own things like that. I keep items that have […]

June 1, 2025

OpsLog – VSW – 5/31/2025

oke up on the day of operations to find the rain thundering down like the weeping of gods. And since gods are omnipotent and can presumably see the future and what would happen, no wonder they were weeping. Maybe I should have invited the gods to run with me on the Virginia SouthWestern. They’d probably to better than Orlando N-Trak did. So I hydroplaned my way to the clubhouse meet point/swamp to group up and ride out. Got to John’s in time, the whole squad, where we got a nice breakfast of donuts and coffee, a real lifesaver. I took […]

June 1, 2025

The Unfeeling Sky (Review)

was something like ten years old, visiting the Wright Patterson AFB museum. In the gift shop were a number of aviation novels (remember those quaint old days when people actually read?). Plucked this one off the shelf and loved it. So Frank Thompson is an infantry officer in World War One. While in the shitty, muddy trenches, he watches his childhood friend get shot down into no mans’ land, and the hun that does it comes back around and kills him. Thompson watches the German buzz away, noting his distinctive aircraft paint scheme. And then he joins the Royal Flying […]

May 29, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 5/28/2025

wo years ago, I was writing weekly pieces on train ops to a Facebook N-scale page. Reverend Jim and John DV know this guy who hosts it (“knew”, rather). Anyway, I’d also add our OpsLogs to his page so his readers could enjoy our massive sessions. And you know me – I try to punch up the sessions with drama and humor. Well, after one submission, the guy responds (I don’t remember verbatim – I left the page following this). Anyway, he told us me that we needed to get better. This chaos and confusion was amateur-level stuff and clearly […]

May 29, 2025

Education (DOG EAR)

We don’t need no education! -Pink Floyd (The Wall) Yes you do; you just used a double-negative! -Moss (The IT Crowd) here seems to be a discouraging trend in modern America, the idea that college and education is overrated, that plumbers own boats and liberal arts students own debt, that native intelligence is more than enough to get through life happy, wealthy and successful. I don’t know if this is a drive on some dark cabal of anti-intellectuals to dumb down the voting citizenry. After all, we recently elected the biggest idiot on the block and his base is cheering […]

May 25, 2025

OpsLog – FEC – 5/24/2025

nother Grand Day Out on the Florida East Coast over in Palm Bay. And if you think it’s all about running trains, no, it’s about all the stuff it takes to get together, to exchange greetings, eat too many cookies and get ready for top-level operations on this fully-signaled line. The setup was good. Rode over with Kyle and Terry, JB and me in the back seat. No Brightlines spotted, alas, but lunch at Culvers was good. All the usual guys showed at the Farnhams’, with JB and Jack talking about their shared butterfly fetish, me chatting with Chip, Al […]

May 25, 2025

Dungeons and Drama (Review)

kay, Hell is freezing over. Pigs are flying. Dogs and cats are living together. I read a romcom. I’m in a Sunday evening class and when our old bookstore closed, I thought we were done. But then the class reformed in the same space, new owners. But this bookstore, The New Romantic, is a Romance bookstore. Not really my thing. But I was there early one night, poking around the store just before they closed, and I found Dungeons and Drama, a YA romance about a high school drama student, Riley, who is forced to work in her father’s game store as […]