robert.admin – Page 114 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

November 20, 2016

Across the River and into the Trees (Review)

‘ve read a number of Hemingway stories and pretty much enjoyed them all. This one was a little tougher. While, yes, Hemingway could carry a tale of a man fighting an unseen fish along on the open sea, there were some long evenings in this one at a dinner table, a lot of small talk. Yes, a true test for an experienced reader. I can even now imaging Hemingway calling me a bastard for criticizing him. Still, the story is a slow one, a tale of a May-December romance between two people who might have been better off not lingering […]

November 20, 2016

Quiet night (11/20/2016)

unday is my best night for going out. During the week, I’m tired, I’ve got incoming calls from friends, just not good for dragging the scope out. So, yes, it’s Sunday. Yes, it’s clear. Yes, the moon is down. So let’s go scoping. I cast about as best I could given our downtown location. Picked up the double cluster, tried for Andromeda (no joy) and hunted for a couple of other clusters. We’ve got problems with the lights and a restricted viewing area (the trees) so I did as best I could. Still, I got to use the new StarBound […]

November 17, 2016

Shared (DOG EAR)

he election. Yeah, fuck, the election. Nothing more depressing than waking up in a world where the efforts and victories of the past eight years are swept away. The same-sex couple down the street? Their marriage is in real danger now. The freelance writer I know at NationalGeo? Her heathcare will likely be ripped away (leaving her with a pre-existing and no insurance). My Muslim friends are concerned; who wouldn’t be in this sea of rising rage. I mean, fuck. So that Wednesday was pretty gray for me. On the bus-link to work, the black riders and driver talked about […]

November 13, 2016

Beginning Go (Review)

ang, GO is a confusing game!” This from my sister, who is learning this game at my recommendation. And yes, it is a confusing game. Basically, if play your stones, black or white, in turn with the opposing player. If you manage to surround a stone (or group of stones) with yours, you take them. Territory, too. But in this, it’s deceptively complex. There are students of this game who start as children and train, train, train to be pros. Me, I’m just a fifty-seven year old guy who has come about this game late in life and is delving […]

November 9, 2016

Life and Art (DOG EAR)

alking under cloudy pre-dawn skies (Mordor skies) to the train station. Was thinking about what had happened the night before, the breaking of the line, the loss of the field, the fall of our future. Amid these morose thoughts, I noticed a Hillary sign hanging like a defeated frigate’s sail in the sweeping lights of passing suburban FUVs. And it made me think of who I am, what has made me, and the changes before us. My thoughts went to Winds of War and War and Remembrance which I can still largely remember reading while I was in my teens, some […]

November 7, 2016

OpsLog – Tehachapi – 11/6/2016

o this was a long train day. Or a long day with trains. Or a day of long trains. I don’t know. But I broke a personal record here. Started off with a nice railroady breakfast (eggs and bacon) severed up by our hostess Andrea (such a sweetie). Then, the railroad belched to life. Crews reported in. John and I went onto the signup board, separate – my bird was ready to shake off its blood crusts and fly. And off he went to run helpers off Tehachapi. And there I sat. And sat and sat. Last on the board. […]

November 6, 2016

Red Hill (Review)

othing makes the miles go by faster on a road trip than audio books. I only wish I could listen to more of them but my commute is only twenty minutes and most of the times I’m biking anyway. But we had to go to Atlanta for a model railroad function and stopped by the library the night before for a couple of audios. And that’s where we picked up Red Hill. I’d shown the description to the wife – a brief read of the back cover made me believe that some vague disaster had happened to civilization and a […]

November 6, 2016

OpsLog – Tehachapi – 11/5/2016

irst day of the two day full-throttle ops weekend at the La Mesa Club, San Diego. Great layout; 1950’s California railroading under Time Table and Train Order, on a layout 25 scale miles long. It started with bloodshed. So, off to a good start. John, getting ready for his inaugural run aboard Extra 170 out of Boran for Bakersfield and parts west didn’t quite see a step, so down he went five minutes before departure, a sprained hand and a bloody elbow. Now that he’d learned his place beneath a conductor, we could proceed. Well, that was until we found […]

November 3, 2016

DNF (DOG EAR)

or all the stuff people say about the wonderful new dynamic publishing model, with all these books out that never would have seen the light of day, I have to say that some of them should have been buried in deep graves in the woods and forgotten. I won’t say which book this was (but those with sharp eyes might spot it sometime) but some coworker raved on it I bought a $3 book on his recommendation. You know, I’m dropping book titles by Stephenson and Wells and even Pratchett, and this guy pushes a off-brand. But sure, why not […]

October 30, 2016

American Flagg (Review)

OGANG: 7:32 For those who have never read American Flagg, you simply have missed one of the more interesting comics ever produced (listen to me speak like an authority – I gave up on comics when Cerebus started to drag). But still, American Flagg. It was the first comic I’d ever read that captured the idea of media overflow (and this, in the 80s before the internet). Every panel was awash with infographics, trade marks, click throughs and raunchy videos attempting to get you to “stick your card into the slot (bum ba bum) and you’re going to see something […]