robert.admin – Page 190 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 25, 2014

Louise de la Valliere (Review)

o we’re into the third book of the Ten Years After saga. We’ve seen the corruption of Louise in Court (a corruption that she, I have to say, willingly embraced – after all, it was her incessant babbling of how sexy the king was that brought his attentions around to focus on her). And then there’s Raoul, youthfully proud and making pretty much the same mistakes I, myself, made at that age. And through it all, the Musketeers (all advancing in age and power) flit about in the background (and occasionally get to make impacts to our story). Overall, I […]

May 22, 2014

Miss Understood (DOG EAR)

ne thing about writing – people can sure misunderstand what you say. Perhaps you didn’t word it correctly. Or perhaps the reader came to your piece with emotions clouding his reception. Who knows? It doesn’t matter what the reason is – just know that it happens. Recently, I wrote about a coworker playing a pretty good prank on me (HERE). It was really funny when I related it to my buddy Greg, laughing in recollection as I spooled it out. A little later, I decided to blog it up, describing it in terms of the interruption it caused to a […]

May 21, 2014

OpsLog – LM&O – 5/21/2014

ne of my favorite moments in history is when, at the height of the German air assault on London and the plotting board full of enemy planes, Prime Minister Churchill turned to Air Vice Marshal Park and asked what reserves they had remaining. He was told, “There are none.” That’s how I felt on ops night when I came into the club lot and found only a handful of cars. My dispatcher had lost a filling and wouldn’t be there. Several other people were out traveling or in hospitals. We were really, really short. And that’s when the club really […]

May 18, 2014

OpsLog – FEC – 5/18/2014

t’s wonderful to be really good at something. You scrape along the bottom edge of perfect. And Saturday’s run across the Florida East Coast was pretty much there. We’ve got a good crew. The owner is dispatching. Everyone has good jobs. And there aren’t newbies wandering about asking about where Palm Bay or the bathrooms are. We’ve all run this dozens (if not a hundred) times. I’ve already run 920 that day, a turn up from Miami that made stops in Palm Bay, Melbourne and a bit further north before turning around and running back. Interacted with a lot of […]

May 18, 2014

The Powder Monkey (Review)

t’s been cynically stated that there are only two true plot lines, those being (a) a man comes to town or (b) a man leaves town. The Powder Monkey sees both of these come to play. Seaman Jack Jeens plods into our story along a countryside road, his dear ol’ mother at his back (he’s just given her half his wages, d’ya see, to keep the poor ald lady whole and hale), his schooner at anchor in nearby Torquay*. And that’s when he comes upon a poor little lad weeping in the lane, his mum and da passed on, his […]

May 15, 2014

Boot in the butt (DOG EAR)

ast DOG EAR, I told my friend that it isn’t time writers lack, it’s creativity and passion. And she told me in her comment to my piece that while that might be true, she was going to fight to find her creativity. And that opens an interesting thought. Writers have to make time, this I know. But why should we have to wait for creativity to strike? Perhaps we need to make that, too. Yeah, she kicked me in the ass. I sat there looking over her comments – it was 10:30 on a Sunday night. I’d just finished the […]

May 12, 2014

OpsLog – L&S – 5/12/2014

o here I am running a switch engine in the industrial yard I was born to run (or at least physically built to run), Altamonte Springs. The Longwood & Sweetwater RR is pretty tight here, something like a foot of headspace under the host’s backup N-scale layout (my long arms really help here). I’ve run this turn before and am just going into the drill. John is on the back end, tossing the throws and lining me up. Together we’re working the yard, bottom to top, cleaning it out a spur at a time. Then I tell him that I […]

May 11, 2014

Ten Years Later (Review)

‘ve noted before how confusing this series is (from a structural sense) – it’s been released as two books, as three, and including (or excluding) The Man in the Iron Mask. So the version I’m reading is the middle three of the The Vicomte of Bragelonne series, all about Athos’ son’s love for Louise de la Vallière, a confused country girl made even more confused by the glitter (and corruptive influence) of the court (she now has a position as a lady-in-waiting for Lady Henrietta, the English wife of the son of the French King, second in line to the […]

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 […]