robert.admin – Page 17 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

February 9, 2025

Panzer (Review)

o we all have our images of Germany’s original push, the blitzkrieg, with well-run German tanks superior in technology and tactics to every nation they faced. Right? Well, as Matthew Cooper and James Lucas lay out in this 1976 book, no, not quite. The two authors make a pretty good case, showing how the successful (yet too little, too late) infiltration tactics of World War One led to the ideal of total mechanized warfare. You punch through a weak point. You drive hard, cutting communications and command, and rout the enemy. It’s how cavalry used to be used. And the […]

February 5, 2025

OpsLog – YVRR – 2/4/2025

he last time (a week or so ago) I was supposed to run on Jack Ferguson’s nifty little Yosemite Valley Railroad, I was at the dealership and found out that my car was a road-surface Hindenburg (fuel was leaking from a defective pump). So we called that one off. This was our reschedule. Now, Jack’s railroad is a nifty little runner, unitracked and smooth running. It’s got a full loop and ops are essentially a train coming onto the line (like my MT-1) and eventually leaving (like my EM-2 (the PeeDee)). There is some yard work, a pair of locals, […]

February 2, 2025

The Forever War (Review)

‘d read this so many years ago (pretty much when it came out) that I finally remembered it about half-way through this pass. The “soap bubble” air defenses – I remembered that. The Forever War was written by Joe Haldeman, a Vietnam vet, just after that pointless war ended. And it has a lot of the national angst that rocked us when it finally did shut down. Other than recent politics (and like the War in Forever, is comprised of half-truths and misconceptions), never had the nation been so divided. Haldeman captures that (hell, he was living it) in this […]

February 2, 2025

OpsLog – TBL – 2/1/2025

ecided on this nice open weekend to head over to the club for a quiet solo run of the Tuscarora Branch Line. The wife came along to read in the back (that’s what she said, anyway) and Pete came out, and later, Mike. So that became a bit distracting. We were either talking or putting run-through, time-jump units on the line. I was trying to run the tower and the scheduled jobs (and didn’t do very well with either). JB and Pete took a mess of pictures. So yes, some blunders on my part. The worst goof was setting out […]

January 26, 2025

Not Taco Bell Material (Review)

don’t know who Adam Carolla is. A friend said he runs a very popular podcast and was a personality as one of those sorts of “zoo crew” guys on various radio shows. He’s quite successful. Found his book on the shelf of a Norfolk used bookstore (where I get lots of books). Anyway, I looked it over and through “why not?” Okay, I did. I didn’t enjoy it very much. I’m sure that Mr. Corolla wouldn’t like me very much either. We are different sorts of people. So Not Taco Bell Material is a memoir of Carolla’s childhood, pretty a […]

January 26, 2025

Butterfly (DOG EAR)

o this brother-sister pair we know used to hang around with us a lot. They worked in my corporation and they always liked the experience of food. But not, it seemed, the experience of friendship. We’d agree to eat in some new, trendy place and agree on a time. Knowing that these places had just opened and other foodies were flocking there, the wife and I would get there about thirty minutes early, doing the line-standing and wedging into a table. And then we’d wait. And wait. Inevitably they would be late. Thirty minutes Sixty minutes. Oh, we’d get a […]

January 23, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/22/2025

o I was lucky to make it at all to the session tonight. After attending to “family issues” (the same way the Titanic’s sinking was noted as “shipping concerns”) I got there windblown and frozen with a half-hour to spare. I’d signed up for ore loads east and ore loads east it was going to be. On the dispatcher desks were Phil and Pete, Phil for a return visit to bedlam and Pete as a newbie DS. Okay, since I didn’t have time to think this out, giving Phil a five minute clinic on how my dispatcher panel works was […]

January 19, 2025

Civilizations (Review)

‘ll admit to not having a solid grasp of European history from the time before, during and after the voyage of Columbus. There was a lot going on in history including the various wars, Spain’s growing domination, the pressure from the Barbary raiders and the eastern frontiers, even Martin Luther hammering his demands to his door. Let’s face it, there is so much history and it is difficult to review (and remember) it all. But I’ll admit to liking Laurent Binet’s Civilizations. Actually, this one always followed a line of pondering of mine – what if the sweeping infestations of […]

January 17, 2025

Too damn busy (DOG EAR)

veryone hears those stories of the businessman who retires and is dead in six months. I know an ex-cop who got a blood clot because he sat around all day watching TV. I don’t have these problems. It really clogged up last week. I’m a good dispatcher in model railroad ops sessions. I’m actually requested most times. So when two good friends of mine, Tom and John, both had sessions on last week’s Thursday (tied into a train convention) I ended up spending the entire day dispatching two layouts, back to back. It was 12 hours of doing what I […]

January 13, 2025

ShowLog – 1-(11,12)-2025 – Deland

f you want to know what it feels like to be a astronaut flying away from Earth, into deep space, try getting to the Deland Fairgrounds at 5:30 AM. I just sat in my car and sighed, thinking my lofty thoughts. One thought – I sure overestimated my travel time. Another thought – I wish I’d brought a book. We got good attendance for setup, other than the Polish Precision Rifle Drill Team performance. You see, it’s quite simple. Two people hold the layout in place. Four people, christened One, Two, Three and Four each take a called-out leg type […]