robert.admin – Page 172 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 16, 2013

Carnegie (DOG EAR)

Writing has gotten me to some interesting places. It’s gotten me behind a booth at a scifi convention. It’s gotten me into packed living rooms for a book club speaking engagement, and an empty hall at the library. But this time it got me behind the assistants’ desk at a Dale Carnegie class. I took a twelve week course from the Carnegie folks last year, even got elected class president. I know from previous experience that keeping classes going forward after they end is part of the trick. It’s too easy for people to fade into the woodwork. My idea […]

May 12, 2013

Micro (Review)

I can just see how this came about: Michael Crichton sitting around one night, watching a documentary about all the insect life in a rain forest and some of the amazing ways bugs find to eat other bugs. And he’s thinking, Hmmmm. What if I introduced really small humans into this world? At least Fantastic Voyage had a bit more premise. So the thought is that an evil corporation needs to shrink work teams down to explore all the amazing lifeforms, drugs and properties of Hawaiian rain forests (which is like saying that someone develops commercial air transportation just to […]

May 9, 2013

Inspector Raymond of the Yard (DOG EAR)

I remember in the movie The Sixth Day how a futuristic low-end assassin drove around in a rusted, battered neo-beetle, and how clever that was at the time. Well, now I’ve got one. My car is thirteen years old. It’s in good shape but its had its little share of aging problems. Right now, I’m concerned by the oil it’s burning. A slow steady drop. The other day, before driving to work, I popped the hood and pulled out the dipstick to check it. Stood there blinking. What the hell was this? After a few more seconds spent recalibrating, I […]

May 5, 2013

Deception Point (Review)

Okay, so we’ll start with the turnoff – the suspense. It’s so thick, you can cut it with a knife. Actually, you could shovel it with a snow shovel. Intelligence officer Rachel Sexton (how subliminal!) is told that there is something wonderfully amazing just beyond the next chapter. What this wonderfully amazing thing is, we don’t know. She is led by the nose, first by her boss, then the President of the United States, then by an F-14 pilot, all the way up to the Arctic Circle. All for this wonderfully amazing thing. What is it? You’ll have to go […]

May 2, 2013

In a corner (DOG EAR)

Monday sucked. Like a vampire (and not the nineteen-year-old pouty type, but the prince-of-darkness-and-you’re-dead-as-a-doornail type). Problems with code. Problems with the Indian contractors. Problems with the our patching processes. Finally dragged my tired ass out to the car, slumped into the seat, gasped in tired relief and looked on the floorboards. And there were those three agent packets sitting there. Oh yeah. That vow deal. I would rather have gone home. It was getting ready to rain, the cat needed to be fed, I needed a glass of wine. But Tuesday would be a bike riding day, Wednesday the train […]

April 28, 2013

Tandem

JB and I have been talking about tandems a lot. We used to own one years ago, a weird thing called a “Love Bike” (I think they are also called “Buddy Bikes”). The problem is that you sit pretty close, and the captain in the back has his knees out around the posterior of the stoker. Trust me – a couple of miles like this and you feel like you’re grinding flour with your hips. Oh man, do you. So we’ve been looking at tandems and don’t want to just buy again and find out it was a mistake. The […]

April 28, 2013

The Night Circus (Guest Review)

Another Dad-review. If you were wondering where I got my voracious appetite for books, now you know. Why he has forsaken beloved paper for that glowing screen of electrons, I can’t say. Imagine, if you will, one day the field is empty, the next the circus is there. A cluster of black and white striped tents surrounded by a tall iron fence. You go to the main entrance where a sign states simply “Gate opens at Nightfall, closes at Dawn.” Over the entrance in Baroque letters is “Le Cirque des Reves. You wait impatiently for sundown when the gate opens […]

April 25, 2013

This I vow! (DOG EAR)

I can’t believe this. After all the blogs about pushing yourself out there, of facing the adversity of the publishing field, I suddenly awoke to the fact (as a drunk wakes in a gutter and sees what he’s become) that I’ve been putting off submitting my agent packets. First it was a train show. Then the new computer arrived. And I’ve been cross-loading my files and playing glass-smooth Spelunky. And also weeding the yard, running a 5K race, finishing a “Thrones” book, all sorts of things. It turns out that the best thing you can do for yourself is to […]

April 24, 2013

OpsLog – LM&O – 4/24/2013

I‘m driving home in that easy-smiley way I am once club ops are done and we (as a group) hammered it out of the park. Running west on the 408 in the right lane, just passing Dean Road. To might right, there is an on/off ramp, a short little interchange with two cars coming into merge onto the expressway. I should move over but a glance in the rearview shows a guy overtaking on the left lane. I frown – he’s just in the wrong place for me. Touch of the brake to give the two mergers room in front […]

April 21, 2013

New Computer

I‘ve read all sorts of books about piracy, and the one part of it that really makes me NOT want to be a pirate (outside of dangling in a cage at the end of Execution Dock, slowly rotting until the gulls are picking the eyeballs out of my sun bleached corpse) is careening. See, while you yo-ho your way around the Caribbean, your bottom gets foul (we’re talking your ship’s hull) with long strands of weed. This could prove very disadvantageous if the Spanish Navy (not the English – can we put THAT movie misconception to rest now?) attempt pursuit. […]