robert.admin – Page 188 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 29, 2014

OpsLog – TY&E – 6/29/2014

here comes that moment in a session where things go wrong. Anyone who has been to a session has been there. Every host has too. Usually its at the beginning – when everything turns on and the booster chirps, the clock won’t run, a bank of turnouts won’t throw, everything stops. Something’s gone wrong. And everyone gets really quiet and helpful until it’s fixed. Happened today at the TY&E – engines started shorting a booster for no particular reason. The boys all stopped their jokings and everyone got really helpful. Bill and I watched the trip lights to see if […]

June 26, 2014

Facebook and Writers (DOG EAR)

’m a bit of a political/social hothead. I won’t promote any details here concerning my views any more than I have on the front page of the site. I just feel (like most people) that the world could be improved and that my way makes absolute, perfect sense (and that anyone counter to my opinions is a knucklehead). And that’s fine. Unless you are a writer. Look, it’s okay to have political views (like assholes, everyone has them). But one thing we do need to remember is that we are not only representing ourselves on social media, we’re representing our […]

June 25, 2014

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/25/2014

kay, so everyone knows the feeling of biting off more than you can chew. But I should have known my little GP-9’s wouldn’t get that long heavy string of hoppers over the summit. We were stalling and sanding into Hellertown siding. Picked a set of helpers off 244 as it rolled by and tacked them to the front end. Two Dash-9s (in unlikely LM&O green) really made a difference. Soon we were climbing pretty as a picture through the long curves and spiral tunnel leading to Harris Glen. Down below us in Carbon Hill, little Sean was banging and sorting […]

June 22, 2014

12 Years a Slave (Guest Review)

Another review by my very good, very good friend Lynn. I have to thank her for supplying more grist to my blogging mill (and such good grist – top notch stuff). This time, a book she gives five stars to, 12 Years a Slave. his read will ‘tear your heart out’ and make you ‘mad as hell’, simultaneously. Written by a husband, father, educated, and employed free black man, it is the true account of Soloman’s capture and treatment as a slave in the Louisiana bayou. This true account is more gut retching and harrowing than any work of fiction. […]

June 19, 2014

Handful of Eclectic (DOG EAR)

‘m walking out of the building a few days ago, crossing the breezeway to the parking garage. Most of the yuppies are zombie-walking with their phones up in front of their eyes, living their blunt little lives with their foreshortened minds. Me, I’m taking in the sun and air, and I’ve got a handful of goodies the likes of which they couldn’t imagine. I’ll break from the description to note that there are writers out there who read nothing but the area of their speciality. You can tell it in historical novels where the source information lists pages of books. […]

June 15, 2014

The Days Work (partial review)

haven’t read any Kipling – probably because I am a product of the American education system (nowadays, this latest generation, I’d be surprised if they read anything). But I always wanted to have a taste and found this freebie on my favorite place to get ebooks, Project Gutenberg, so I pulled it down and had a look during my gap between books in the Bible. So this review only follows the first three stories (The Bridge Builders, A Walking Delegate, and The Ship That Found Itself). Overall? Meh. I’ll start with The Bridge Builders and you’ll see why I’m saying […]

June 14, 2014

OpsLog – FEC – 6/14/2014

hat’s four feet long, has dozens of lights and even more switches, and looks like the engineer station on a Russian bomber? Answer: The dispatcher panel for Ken Farnham’s Florida East Coast Railroad. Positions are always random (i.e. crew call is based on Ken’s whim) and today I got to be dispatcher. Haven’t run his massive CTC board for over a year (on the previous incarnation of the FEC, back when it was house-side). So today, I got the tag for the panel. Now, I know how these things work – I’ve run them before at the Silverstar club and […]

June 12, 2014

Sitting Pretty (DOG EAR)

t’s pretty tough to keep up the blogs I do. Not only do I need to write something about writing (DOG EAR), but then I have a weekly book review. Dog Ear is generally doable – I just catch whatever is passing through my mind, examine it during a walk and write about its angles. But for book reviews, I need a book. A week. Now, I’ve read literally thousands of books in my life. I’ve got them all over the house and boxes of them in the attic and the storage vault. However, about 95% if them I don’t […]

June 8, 2014

Murat (Celebrated Crimes) (Review)

his was an odd one, a short story from a series from Alexandre Dumas focused on Celebrated Crimes. I don’t know what the context of this was – unfair crimes against people? Crimes that took place and his detailed storytelling of them? Not sure. Anyway, for this one, we start high in the windswept expanse of the Gorge of Olliulles where a ragged traveler looks over the endless vista. It is June 18th, 1815, and on the other side of France Napoleon (that very day) is getting crushed at Waterloo. Two men ride up, marshals of France, and accost the […]

June 5, 2014

House of Cards (DOG EAR)

remember the rank, horrible smell of shitty writing way back when I was in my twenties, watching Blade Runner in the theater. Here’s a movie that focuses on man’s mortality, the close proximity to death, and just how fragile life really is. And in the end, when the point is made and we’re rocking back in our seats, it’s un-made with a stupid final scene with the hero and his girl driving off, explaining how nobody was really going to die, how everything would be happy, and how tomorrow was going to be a better day. Even then, I thought […]