robert.admin – Page 181 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 8, 2014

Time and Creativity (DOG EAR)

rom an email from a dear friend of mine… “So I decided to ask you for advice. You have a home, a wife, a job, a yard, a pet, a train hobby, ride a bike, and you and JB travel. So how do you find time to write? Do you apply your stealth mode and disappear……and if so, how do you find time?” I will admit that I face a significant time shortage. I used to set aside every Tuesday and Thursday evening for writing (three hours and then a cool-down walk). I also used my lunch breaks for […]

May 8, 2014

What writing isn’t (DOG EAR)

riting isn’t…. Deleting obvious spam postings out of my comments folders. Backing up this website. Fussing with the state over taxation forms. Dealing with copyright issues for song usage, and paying royalties for use. Sitting at a show booth for hours and only getting nibbles. Standing at the new arrivals section of the book store and seeing nothing but crap. Making sure the automated backups get all my latest versions of my writings. Getting interrupted at lunch when all I want to do is write (and the conversation that supersedes the writing is flat and dull). Having to jog at […]

May 6, 2014

Night flight

In the paper today, there was a bit about three local riders doing a DC to Orlando ride in support of Beautiful Feet International, a Christian charity. But their ride home turned tragic when they were struck by a van in Georgia and two were killed. And my opinion is against them on this. I know they had rights to be on that road, that they were keeping well to the right (as I do), had reflective gear and lights (as I do) and helmets (as I have). They should not have been killed. But then again, they shouldn’t have […]

May 4, 2014

OpsLog – TY&E – 5/4/2014

‘m on the Tipton Turn, sitting on the siding at Heiserburg in the God-awful middle of the night. I’ve just pushed two boxcars of ingredients into the brewery there and pulled two boxcars of beer out. With that, I roll my short local forward and walking speed, giving Jimmy on the crummy a chance to realign the turnout and hop back aboard. No rush – according to the timetable we’re supposed to meet a coal train here. So imagine my surprise when a refrigerated block (not an extra – I’ve got no orders for him) arrives and holds opposite me. […]

May 4, 2014

Chasing Fire (guest review)

Lynn Perry is a dear friend and a writer, and at one time a co-worker (in my rocket-scientist days). I love how she thinks and what makes her purr. And she’s getting her own little fanbase for her reviews. Enjoy her latest recommendation… e all know there are brave individuals out there risking their lives fighting forest fires. That, however, is all most of know. Although we read about fire fighters, see TV news clips of smoke jumpers, and pilots dropping retardant, most of us have no idea of the real job they perform. In her direct, exacting, and informative […]

May 1, 2014

Leaches (DOG EAR)

So the latest on the literature blog front is the siege by unscrupulous mini-marketers, the ones who want to sell cheap purses, knockoff sunglasses, or just get you to go to their site where you can be infected. And what does this have to do with writing? I ask myself that, often. Park of being a writer is exposure, and part of exposure, these days, is maintaining a site. I still slip a few books out through here, now and again (see my wonderful link below, which will take you to reputable sales sites such as amazon). But suddenly I’m […]

April 30, 2014

Is this thing on?

I don’t remember when the last time I checked this was – my CONTACT ME option in the left menu column. And I don’t know why I went and tried it now. But today, out of whimsy, I posted myself an email while at work, from my site. It didn’t work. I clicked it a dozen times. Nothing. Oh, I’d get a form, all with who you were, a numeric anti-bot check, all that stuff. But no message went through. Then I went online and looked up my version of Joomla and guess what – a lot of people were […]

April 29, 2014

Bartleby, The Scrivener (Review)

You’ll remember my love [sic] of Herman Melville HERE, how I couldn’t get his stuff down, not with a spoon-full of sugar, not at the point of a gun. I’ve read long windy lofty books, Atlas Shrugged, Anna Karinina, and currently, Quicksilver. I’ve liked them all to various degrees. But Melville, “He tasks me; he heaps me”. In other words, I could never get in tune with him. Even Billy Budd mauled me. But my crazy sometime’s daughter / sometimes groupie Denise mentioned this book years back with the old “You haven’t read ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener’? Oh, you gotta read […]

April 28, 2014

OpsLog – Cuesta Grade – 4/27/2014

When I’m cleaning my railroad, getting ready for a session after a long time off, I ask myself why I do this. Of course, during the session, when we’re running hot and on-the-dot, it all becomes clear. Since Don wasn’t at the session, that gave me a chance to jump into 3303, the soon-to-be-scraped mikado goating the reefer cuts around Salinas. It’s one of the cool jobs, working the refrigerated cars off the icing deck to the sheds for loading, then waiting for them to get topped off before hauling them back to the docks for reicing. What makes it […]

April 27, 2014

The Vicomte of Bragelonne (review)

Ah, how we associate with our heroic story heroes… Okay, see if you can stick with me here. First, we have the famous Three Musketeers, with the youthful heroes d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Then we have Twenty Years After, which looks at them in late middle age, where these allies of youth find themselves split two against two on matters of royalty (as well as pitted against an evil from their pasts). It is a bittersweet story about growing older, cooler, and more thoughtful. Then, we have the series of three books, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, […]