robert.admin – Page 171 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 4, 2013

Dark (DOG EAR)

It’s a Western character type, the dark and world-worn hero. He’s got back-story, haunted eyes and a half-growth of beard. His cynicism is cool and his standoffishness endearing. It doesn’t really translate well to real life. I’m finding out how grief and depression really work since my father passed a few weeks ago. The event itself moved me (in a quiet way). I reflected on him, I wrote his obit, and experienced a few moments where his memory came back to me. I talked about him a bit more than I expected, finding myself relating stories about him. But now […]

June 30, 2013

Dick Trevanion (Review)

Readers talk about “junk novels”, novels they read for low effort and high pleasure. My brain surgeon sister reads bodice-rippers. Everyone below the age of thirty reads Harry Potter. And me? I read old adventure stories. That’s why Project Gutenberg is such a find. You can get anything there. I touched on that in my recent Dog Ear piece about a test download that caught my interest. The only thing I regret about my choice is that I couldn’t recommend it to my late father. He’d have loved this one. You see, Dick Trevanion lives on the Cornish coast in […]

June 27, 2013

Really? (DOG EAR)

“Really?” Got a coffee-buddy at work, a God-fearing, pool-shooting, sharp-tongued lady with whom I chat over lowest-bidder coffee every morning. She’s a fireball and I like her. The thing is, she has this phrase – “Really?” (used with a dash of incredibility). When she describes someone doing something stupid, her shift from straw-man-protagonist to her own level-headed take is to toss in this word. It’s sorta the story clutch-press, the shift from dumb action to witty observation. And it’s fine – it works. And it’s the word I want to use, fellow writers, when I describe what I feel when […]

June 26, 2013

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/26/2013

“Red over red means more bread.” This is a contemporary railroad saying. It refers to twin-targeted signals (one light over another) and how the absolute stop position is a red light over another one. This phrase is very sage advice in that it translates to “Don’t fret and worry that you have a fully restrictive signal. So you wait. You get paid by the hour.” So I’m grinding my way up the eastern ascent to Harris Glen. I’ve had traffic in Calypso Yard and met a well-overdue coal train in Hellertown. Now I’m easing onto the main at Harris, meeting […]

June 23, 2013

Opslog – Longwood & Sweetwater – 6/23/2013

Working a double shift – two sessions in two days. Doing the Altamonte Local, pushing cars into a tight corner, trying to get everything sorted in a minimum number of moves. While working a food distributor, I found a reefer that I had to shift over to the icing deck. With a throttle in one hand, cards in the other, and my mind three moves ahead, it suddenly struck me that I was pushing cars into my late father’s industry. This structure from his old layout was now on Jim T’s pike. On his old New River Gorge route, he’d […]

June 23, 2013

OpsLog – FEC – 6/22/2013

It’s hot in Miami. Really hot. A scorcher. I’ve just trotted back from the ready track, tugging the crumpled call-sheet out of my oil-stained jeans pocket. The next train north is a general merchandiser – we’ll need a two-engine lashup on the point. But its been a slow day – everyone on duty is green, the line up to Jax is snarled, and I’m not getting units in fast enough to roll those out. I’ve got one set, just refueled – nothing to do but clamber up into the cab, check with the south end yardmaster to make sure I […]

June 23, 2013

The Enlightened Cyclist (Review)

Hey, I like BikeSnob’s writing – he’s a blogger who is going big with his books. Good for him. He also writes in a witty, flowing fashion. But…. (You knew there was a but coming) The Enlightened Cyclist is a look at the idea of commuting by bike (something I do two to three times a week) (see my bike blog on this site for my postings). I love cycling in the worst city in the United States for bikes. The weather is hot and/or rainy, the motorists are reckless, pushy and distracted. But it’s riding, and that’s brilliant. Beats […]

June 20, 2013

Styles (DOG EAR)

Nothing prepared me for the contrast in writing styles I just received. Was doing the hipster thing recently – there is a local anthology of books I’ve been interested in reading and they had an open-mike event from some of their authors recently. I’m rather downtown (looks so cool to write that) so my wife and I walked a couple of blocks over to the deal – had sushi at a local restaurant, checked out the hairstylist and considered going there in future (I did – great cut) and then wandered over to the CD shop. They have a good […]

June 16, 2013

The Forgotten Soldier (Review)

My brother passed this one to me (I could have done with a guest review, too, but I only got the book). Okay, first off, make sure you aren’t depressed when you read it. I’d finished it right before my dad’s passing and it’s a good thing. I don’t think I’d have made it otherwise. So the book is Guy Sajer’s memoir from World War Two. As a young French male (in living in occupied France), it made sense to him to join the German Army. Before everyone shouts “Boo! Hiss!”, we need to put ourselves in his place. If […]

June 13, 2013

Sleeping with the enemy (DOG EAR)

To know me is to know my disdain for Apples and Kindles and all that nonsense. Apples are just hipster connectivity crap. And Kindles I’ve spent many a Dog Ear piece on, talking about how they are rotting the core out of reading, destroying the concepts of libraries and used book stores. Yes, they have giving greater access to the everyday writer, and now we have millions of crappy books floating around in cyberspace. So we got home from dealing with my father’s passing, helping mom with the obit, with cleaning things up, with getting everything rerigged. And that’s when […]