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August 20, 2015

Brown alert (DOG EAR)

have enough problems getting between me an Tubitz and Mergenstein. I’ve got model railroading (twice a week, and pretty much every other weekend). I’ve got Astronomy (though the skies have been shit since June). I’ve got game writing (Solar Trader is about to release). I’ve got cycle commuting (and that poor tandem we haven’t been on in ages!). And I’ve got household chores to work on (after I finish this, I need to go cut back an encroaching hedge). So, lots of stuff. I was thinking about writing the other weekend. Yes, it was Thursday. Was going to give platlettes […]
August 16, 2015

OpsLog – L&S – 8/16/2015

he Longwood & Sweetwater, always an old favorite that’s been down too long. Ran with a couple of the boys and had a great time. Came to realize two things while switching Altamonte today. See, Altamonte is not for the timid nor the short – you need to get under benchwork to switch it and it requires a long reach. That I’ve got. So I’ve run this one more than just about anyone on the planet. The thing is, I’ve really got it down. I moved the cars in, cut them off on the holding track, methodically plucked the outbounds, […]
August 16, 2015

Bad Monkey (Review)

‘ve read a lot of Hiaasen. My shelves are loaded with him. And I’ve been wanting a crack at Bad Monkey, just not a hardback crack. Well, I never got the book but noticed the audio disk in the library right before we went on a vacation trip. Perfect. It would be great for the run home. For those unfamiliar with Hiaasen, he writes whimsical (if you can call foul-languaged, gristly-event crimes whimsical) stories. I love them. He centers them all in Florida, his champions rough but honest heroes and our state’s imperiled beauty against developers, politicians, lawyers, tourists and […]
August 13, 2015

What’s in a name (DOG EAR)

here is a man I’m imagining for my novel. In opposition to his strict discipline father (for whatever reasons) and instead of enlisting in the Emperic Fleet, he shamed his entire line by joining the skiptracers (i.e. vessel recovery services). He’s one of their older captains now, a hard man who is ruthless to his crew. In fact, his long cruises looking for pirates and hijacked hulls and his aversion to limes have cost him his teeth (through scurvy). How he has two pairs of teeth (one in use, one in his pocket) – a wooden set that are marginally […]
August 9, 2015

I Am Legend (Review)

eah, you’ve seen that stupid Will Smith movie. It isn’t that. I am Legend is the title story of a collection of Richard Matheson works. He was doing cutting-edge stuff a few years before I was born, and he really deserves better credit than a plate of CGIed audience-rated bullshit that we got out of this. In the true version, the main character is one of the last humans left after a plague sweeps the Earth, turning everyone else into things resembling, well, vampires. We follow the hero’s mental craziness at this situation, his drinking, his ravings, all that. And […]
August 6, 2015

Who’s MINDING the store? (DOG EAR)

kay, so this one has uses beyond normal writing, but I’m putting it in a writing context because that’s what we do here. Plotting a novel is difficult. I’m at a point in Tubitz and Mergenstein where a lot is going on. And suddenly I wasn’t sure how to do a bridge scene, so they could discover who the pilots of a mythical gunship were – how could that be twined into the action so it would be exciting, logical, and interesting? I needed a gotcha moment. I thought and thought about it in the coarse of my day and […]
August 2, 2015

Days of Infamy (Review)

eah, you read that right. Days. Plural. This one’s a Harry Turtledove epic, an alternate history tale of the attack on Pearl Harbor. And like everyone who’s ever played the old Avalon Hill game Victory in the Pacific, now we get a chance to see what happens when the Japanese go for a third attack run on Pearl. And, oh, they happen to have an invasion force this time. As one would expect from Turtledove, we have a number of different characters (becuase one character can’t carry the POV for an epic this size). We have an American artileryman (who […]
July 30, 2015

The reader’s friend (DOG EAR)

he other night we were coming home from dinner, NPR on the car radio. It was the program Intelligence Squared U.S., where a topic is discussed under formal rules of debate. The “winners” are the team that move public opinion more their way based on surveys run before and after the discussion. So that night’s discussion was “Amazon is the reader’s friend”. I’m not crazy about self-publishing. I’ve mentioned this before, no secret. My own effort (Early ReTyrement, for sale at the bottom of this page (see how this works?)) was decent enough. I got the specific book I wanted, […]
July 26, 2015

The Tenth Planet (Review)

nother book from the dusty stacks, this a gem from 1973 from the wonderful wooden shelves of Maya’s Books & Music. This is an old scifi yard that has a taste of the late-hippy, anti-Vietnam-war, ecology and brash-Earthman-bad-kickback era. And it’s got about the most desperate opening chapters you’re likely to find. The last ship lifts off a doomed Earth, always a depressing topic. Global warming has taken place, with flooding and rains, rains and more rains (sounds a little like my current vacation). With all this going on, Captain Idris Hamilton has a lot on his mind, namely getting […]
July 25, 2015

OpsLog – FEC – 7/25/2015

hen working a switching puzzle, there comes a tipping point when you go from moving cars this way and that (while holding your breath) to seeing the solution. I clearly remember that moment today while working the Rinker Plant in Eau Gallie. Now I’ve seen ever possible cheat on this, from people using the main as extended storage to people lifting a car from one track to another (sorry, Ken, but some people panic when they deadlock). I’ve done the job once before and the first time was a bit of a snarl. This time I had a better feel […]