robert.admin – Page 121 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 1, 2018

Specters Anonymous (Review)

ometimes authors and readers just don’t couple up. Not sure why. But it happened here for me. My sister gave me Specters Anonymous for a birthday present during a complicated period of my life (with carpel tunnel surgery and a damn sling and all that). But I got the book and read it and it didn’t click for me. So Ralph starts the book dead. He’s a ghost. And ghosts, like humans, have weaknesses. For them, sunlight and bright illumination is like alcohol to them. Some of them can sip and be satisfied. Others need help. So in the basement […]

June 30, 2018

OpsLog – FEC – 6/30/2018

ell, this one was one for the record books. I’m working a dispatcher’s panel that is as big as a coffin lid. We have a full crew – the yard behind me is “manned” (bad joke) by four wives (including my own JB). Ken has loaded up his line so trains are running hot and heavy. I’m trying to get three by at Palm Bay, two more around each other in Titusville, and two locals are futzing around near Pinetta. And over towards City Point, a rock train is shifting loads about. And that’s when I get the call from […]

June 27, 2018

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/27/2018

just spent today at work doing Agile planning. This “event” takes rooms packed with people in Memphis, Orlando and Bangalore three days to do. There are meeting, roving meetings, phone calls, meetings, planning, sticky-notes on board, and, of course, talktalktalktalktalk. By the time I got out in the car this evening to run out to the club, my head was throbbing and I felt like I just wanted to go home and lie down in a dark room. Dinner with the guys was good. Then we got out to the club for ops. And guess what. Everyone started cleaning the […]

June 27, 2018

The Good, the Bad and the Chekhov (DOG EAR)

or reasons mentioned HERE, every year like clockwork I watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. As a Western placed in the Civil War, it is as sprawling and vast as a huge budget can make it. But when I was watching the heroes get past their final object, two armies poised over an idiotic bridge, I began to wonder. In a nutshell, the Good and the Ugly (reunited after a series of parched misunderstandings) are bootstriding their way towards their final goal, a military graveyard (poetically named the Sad Hill Cemetery) and bumble into a Union Army. They […]

June 24, 2018

A Compendium of Model Railroad Operations (Review)

kay, for people who’ve never listened to my hobby-babble, model train operations means running your model train layout (your own or a club’s) like a real railroad. I’ve been doing this for years and have been blogging about it endlessly HERE. So this, like anything else; stamp collecting, slot cars, whatever, is total geekdom stuff. But, oh yeah, it’s cool. This book goes into how railroads work. What positions should you simulate. What do trains do. How do they make money. And how do they avoid crashing into one another. It’s actually a fascinating subject (trust me on this, or […]

June 23, 2018

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/23/2018

y boots are centered on the warped boards of the Delores platform, my hat jammed over my head as thunder crashes around the high Colorado peaks, spooking the cattle in the nearby pen. A small engine is just chuffing along a distant curve, its headlamp shimmering down the long rails. Suddenly the rain is smoking down and I neatly step back into my tobacco-stuffy station office, touching the telegraph key without fishing the chair forward. “OS DELORES WEST” A delay. “DISPATCHER” The windows rattle, causing a small avalanche of fly corpses from the sill as 243 East rolls past. With […]

June 20, 2018

The Good, The Bad and The Movie (DOG EAR)

y dad passed away a number of years ago. Our relationship was okay; not the continuing nurturing warmth of the modern suburban buddy-dad, but the classic father/son bond. He wasn’t my everyday friend but we did have a number of special things we shared in our lives. And one of them occurred when I was a lad of twelve – we were stationed in the Philippines as the Vietnam war was winding down, with the body counts and all that stuff. And one day, he said he was going to watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on Armed […]

June 17, 2018

Terminal (Review)

he big conversation these days is the settlement of Mars and how everyone would go (well, now, if you ask them). And this story centers on how they will go. In this case, it’s in Jalopies – single person pods that will feed you, entertain you, and keep you somewhat sane on that long voyage across space to Terminal, the new city being built on Mars. For once you’ll arrive you’ll be a citizen, your Jalopy will be scrapped for the city, and you’ll join the others in this hardscrabble existence. But that’s the thing. Jalopies are cheap – you […]

June 14, 2018

You might remember (DOG EAR)

he above comes from a flashy new space opera on WebToons, a little tale that is still finding its legs. The reason I note it was the speedbump reaction I felt when I read it. It’s that rocky little literary trick when two characters who should know something overword it so that the reader can pick up a fact they need. While not quite as bad as the writer specifically conversing with the reader (“…for you see, Dear Reader, they had been searching the entire station…”), writers have been struggling since stories got complex and backstory important. […]

June 7, 2018

Clichés (DOG EAR)

rostitutes have no substance-abuse issues, perfect hygiene, elegant poise and hearts of gold. Retiring cops have plans to fish. Their demise is certain. Hackers earbud heavy-metal music and spin in their seats, banging on their keyboards. Fighter pilots all hang around the bar and address each other by call-signs. Patriot-warriors (ex-seals) always live simple lives in book-lined cabins until a senseless killing rewinds their bloodletting clocksprings. Villians always kill off a mook, just to show how bad-ass they are. Robots rise against the slavery of their manual work. Mothers are always Buddha-wise, kids razor-clever in family matters, and fathers clueless. […]