robert.admin – Page 148 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

March 16, 2016

MaintLog – Orlando NTrak – 3/6/2016

asn’t looking forward to this – started getting reports while in India (of all places) that the front porch of the train club was rotting away and needed replacement. Could there be something I’d want to do less that that? Okay, so great thanks are due to Bill Sterner, John Ligda and Bill White who all came out on a Sunday to work this. Our plans were to spend today getting as far as we could with demolition and see what a future rebuild effort would entail. First good luck – a few months ago I happened to find some […]

March 13, 2016

Grunts (Review)

always enjoy a story that takes me to the other side of an issue, where I can see things from a different point of view. In Grunts, Mary Gentle does just that, placing us with a squad of orcs in a fantasy world lifted from Tolkien. Ashnak (the captain) and their brood are hapless underlings. And here’s that POV-switch I’d mentioned; did you ever wonder what it’s like one the other side when the battle breaks for the heroes, when the orc lines collapse, when evil streams in raw panic from the field? So here these guys are up in […]

March 12, 2016

OpsLog – WBRR – 3/12/2016

staple of western drama (overblown western drama, indeed) is that of the misunderstood genius, one who dreams magnificently and throws himself into reaching efforts, only to suffer the destruction of his mad plans. In the end, he is left to croak in the ruins of his endeavors about how “it should have worked, the fools, the fools…!” Yes. Look, I know you can get three trains past on a single siding. I’ve done it in warrants, on CTC boards, and various forms of mother-may-I. It is a stock in trade maneuver on the L&N (where sidings are short and sharp […]

March 10, 2016

Near miss at 40,000 feet! (DOG EAR)

found myself off a quiet little street in noisy big Delhi last week, inside a nookish bookshop. I was looking for a fashion magazine for a friend, not thinking I’d find something for myself. But there on the shelf was a used copy of Gods of War, Indian sci-fi by Ashok Banker. The woman shop owner was letting her daughter (she must have been all of twelve, cute-as-a-button, and giving us bold loud Yankees sidelong glances) work the transaction. She counted my change back very precisely, unlike the stores stateside where they just dump it into your palm, unable to […]

March 6, 2016

CultureSmart!India (Review)

ust barely in time for our India trip, the CultureSmart! series book on India. Where I am going. Right now. Sitting in JFK writing this review. Finished the book on the first leg. The book isn’t a “go see this, check this out” guild book. No, it’s actually a small guide to the people and customs of India. It gives a brief history, a layout of the place, its geography and weather, before explaining what makes Indians tick. Very interesting insights on these diverse people. It explains their traditional culture and how it’s manifested given their urban, emigration and technology […]

March 1, 2016

India – Day Nine – Liquid Death in all forms

oday was our trip to the Ganges. “But wait,” you say. “I’ve already read this.” No, this time it was to see the sun coming up over the Ganges, a time of prayer. But in starting the day off I got two pieces of bad news. First, my sister had explosive Ebola-level liquid death (likely from that Air India sandwich she ate on the short flight out – two other people were down for similar reasons). And then a good friend, Ed Rieg, had passed away. So I had a lot on my mind when we pushed through traffic (human, […]

February 29, 2016

India – Day Eight – Love and Death

kay, so, Khajuraho Temple – looks like those temples out of the Jungle Book (yeah, already made that comparison). But that’s where the G-rating ends. Whoever the natives were, they were very open-minded. Their temples showed all manner of court life (unclothed court life) and all manner of sexual configurations (69, three-somes, voyeurism, bestiality). So yeah, I got a lot of pictures. Really, there is something (as an occasional writer of erotica) that these stone-masons of 1000AD captured, the saucy cant of a woman’s hip, her come-hither expression, all that. And did they ever catch it. Honestly, much of it […]

February 28, 2016

India – Day Seven – Steel Rails to Jhansi

errible start for the day (the usual 3am bing awake deal). Turns out JB had some sort of mango tea drink for dinner. Either that or something else dumped her guts. I’m lying in bed, trying to will myself to sleep, and I’m hearing say that her bowels are dumping, that she’s got a throbbing headache, that she’s sick as a dog, and my mind whirls on the logistics of three hours on a train and five more in a bus. Told her to pull the ripcord and take the anti-diuretics, aspirins, everything. Bomb bay doors open. Salvo. Within ten […]

February 27, 2016

India – Day Six – Grieving with marble

o the first thing today – the Taj Mahal. And what can I say – as soon as you walk in, forget all those movies and photos you’ve seen of this place. The reality, especially on a cool clear morning, is just of walking through the sandstone entry gate, looking through the darkened portal at the gleaming white dome, and spouting an expletive. This was my India moment, where I stood and shot photos and just shook my head and said “Wow…” Strolled around it for a bit. Sat with JB on a bench and watched the parrots and chipmunks […]

February 27, 2016

OpsLog – FEC – 2/27/2016

he Hindus have a little idea, how everyone who dies is resurrected. I can only hope this is true. If it is, in my next life, perhaps I’ll run that Cocoa switcher a little better than I did today. Just stupid blunders. I needed tanks, gons and a couple of boxcars for a train I was building. Tanks and gons were all scattered in the north yard – had to go cherrypicking. The boxes were in a neat little grouping one track away from where I’d construct the outbound turn. And it seemed like a good idea (at the time) […]