robert.admin – Page 116 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 16, 2016

Go!

ell, like I needed another hobby. I have model railroading, reading, writing (and blogging), astronomy, cycling, and now Go. So what is Go? Essentially it’s an Asian game of strategy. Black and white exchange placing pieces, trying to surround the other forces and claim territory. But it’s amazing the way the patterns flow in this game. You might stalk your opponent for a capture, only to find that he is working to capture you. Astounding. While I love to play (and just purchased my own board and stones) I’ve got a long way to go before getting any good. […]

October 13, 2016

Falling short (DOG EAR)

o it’s said that writing can put you into a scene, allowing you to live an experience that you’d never actually encountered. True? Generally, yeah. Specifically, no. Yes, there are a great number of writers out there that can convey a feeling. As it stands, I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read about, say, hurricanes. I’ve read dozens of stories set on ships at sea, hammered by hurricanes. The Caine Mutiny and Lord Jim are two that stick with me. And I’ve read about huge storms breaking over settlements, of twisters, cyclones, even wacky crime stories (i.e. Hiaasen’s […]

October 9, 2016

The Story of the Treasure Seekers (Audio Review)

nother audio book to while away the excel auditing hours, this time from a story written by Edith Nesbit. She wrote The Railway Children, a story of children with pluck which I enjoyed (but alas, which I read long before I’d gotten into the review-blog business). And this one is also of pluckish children but written before, well back in 1899. So we’ve a largely offscreen father whose children (Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H.O. (Horace Octavius)) (who seem a little overkeen on adventure books) attempt to win back the family fortunes of the Bastables (which, I need to […]

October 6, 2016

Weave (DOG EAR)

f you live a life that is open and full, you can start to see the weave. Stories and events, all wrapping together. Recently an young Indian lady who shares a pod with me was chatting about a function she was at (actually, the story had more to do about parallel parking that the function). But she mentioned the Bhagavad Gita which I admitted to have read (another nice Indian lady on my team picked up a copy on a trip to her homeland years back – it has a chariot in it. I ended up reading the whole epic […]

October 6, 2016

OpsLog – B&B – 10/2/2016

f there is a grand finale for the weekend, it would be the Brandywine & Benedictine, a beautifully massive railroad that sprawls all over. Sadly, progress has overcome this fine line – it is no longer Time Table & Train Order controlled, and now runs on CTC. Traffic lights aside, it’s still a delight to operate with two dozen engineers to make this all work. And my part in this drama begins at 2:30pm, rolling downslope from Sulphur Springs to the town of Allegany at the controls of a massive articulated steam engine, a long string of black coal hoppers […]

October 5, 2016

OpsLog – PCD – 10/1/2016

t’s a long run from Trinidad to Denver, mostly double-track main, one for passenger, one for freight. All down its length, industrial centers, mines and cities sprawl along the desert route. And unlike the SPR, this time I wasn’t bashful. I gave everyone a quarter second to opt for dispatcher and then my hand shot up. “I’ll do it”. The pace of this railroad is pretty easy, and if you look ahead you can pretty much route them from track to track to keep everything moving. Of course, I’m always surprised by how many operators don’t call in control points […]

October 4, 2016

OpsLog – CNW – 10/1/2016

new position for me. Ran on the basement-packing Chicago & NorthWestern, miles of main line with industry all the way, all fed from the massive Proviso Yard. Zoom in on that yard. Dozens of tracks. Zoom closer. At one side, engine facilities and fueling decks. Zoom even closer. See him? The guy who runs engines out from the shops and puts them on the ready track? And who plucks them off the arrivals, inspects them, services them, and refuels them? Yeah, that’s me. Low-class dirty in my suspenders and grubby ball cap. And that’s what I did – moved engines […]

October 3, 2016

OpsLog – SPR – 9/30/2016

dispatch a lot. And usually I have no problem taking this position. So when we were all loitering in our briefing for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Railroad and the super called for the DS, I was standing there doing my “Ah, shucks, sure, I can do it” modest number when someone snatched it right out from under me. Blink blink. Wait. What just happened? It ended up biting me in the ass, too. I was a heavy coal job straining out of Pittsburgh, entering the main (in hidden staging, controlled by the dispatcher). I called. He cleared me and (supposedly) aligned […]

October 2, 2016

Floor Games (Review)

can only imagine what being H.G. Well’s kid must have been like. Sure, his dad was a bit out there, with Free Love and his divorce and such. Who knows what that would have been like, at the tale end of the oh-so-proper Victorian Age. But then again, it must have been fun, too. I mean, wow, your dad was writing about Martians striding about in fighting machines, blasting crowds of people. He wasn’t, say, a chemist. He was an early pioneer of writing. Imagine the bedtime stories. Or the play sessions. This one came out in 1911 (and predated […]

September 29, 2016

Ready Player One (Review)

eady Player One is, in a nutshell, a geeky love-affair with the eighties, the era’s games, its movies and media. And just like some of my girlfreinds from that time, I think I remember them more fondly than they actually deserved (no, not you. If you read this and are mad about it, this isn’t about you ) Like the console games of that time – which were simple and fun – this pretty much discribes this book. So, the setup – Wade is a poor kid (in the future, pretty much everybody is poor) living in stacked trailers in […]