robert.admin – Page 144 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 20, 2016

To a Certain Degree (DOG EAR)

’m not a loyal radio listener. I’ve got a half-dozen stations on my presets and as soon as a dumb-ass commercial comes on (usually aimed at suburbanites and their standardized needs) I jump. Came out of hyperspace the other day on WPRK (Rollins student radio, 91.1 on your dial) and heard a fascinating interview on the program To a Certain Degree. I’m sorry, I don’t know who the interviewer or the guest were. I couldn’t find names on any of the station’s site and I’ll only dig so far for acknowledgments. Still, it was interesting. The guest was talking about […]

October 19, 2016

OpsLog – FEC – 11/11/2016

eah, Dog! Ken let me run the panel again! And it’s the FEC holiday party – a full lunch followed by hours of mainline action. And everyone is there – open invitation – so we’ve got the cores, the casuals and the crazies in the cabs. And now we can really answer the Universal Question: How many ways can you cut a caboose off? Well, if you are a dispatcher, there are at least three ways. See, engines and cabooses light the block on the DS panel, letting you know where they are. Ken even said in the briefing – […]

October 16, 2016

The Siege of Dome (Review)

his is the second part of Empyrion, which started with The Search for Fierra. I’d finished the first monster part, and after wandering through a number of other books, came back to see where Orion Treet and his heroes had gotten to. As we left them, there was blood in the sand – Treet hiding in the evil colony of Dome, his girlfriend and another fellow traveler remaining with the elf-loving Fierrians, and former pilot Crocker (having been brainwashed) having pulled a Manchurian Candidate by tearing out the throat of their cute guide and going, literally, jungle, so yes, lots […]

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 […]