robert.admin – Page 205 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 22, 2011

Opslog LM&O – 06/22/2011

With warrants (where a dispatcher reads checkbox orders to a crew, who reads them back) there is a handy little order for “Not in effect until arrival of train ____ “. With this, you can latch orders. If Train 101 is going from A to C, and train 102 is at B, wanting to go to A, you can cut an order to 102 that clears him but it isn’t “in effect until arrival of 101”. If a dispatcher is clever, he can latch orders ahead of time, letting the trains roll as events trigger them. It’s really cool… when […]

June 21, 2011

Black out

So what’s cycling like during an apocalypse? 4:30 at work. Just finishing up an email to a friend. Another couple minutes of boning about, a little small talk, then down to the locker to swap out clothing and away. Nice thought. But suddenly my screen, the overheads, my lava lamp, all the computers around me, all snapped off. In the silence I could hear the fans spin down. Power failure. We hung around for a bit, watching the major intersection on Maitland, the cars careening though it beneath blackened signals. Nobody stopped. Nobody yielded. I was certain I’d see a […]

June 21, 2011

Load Night

The sun is only hinting across the 5am sky. The world is pretty peaceful on a Sunday. I’ve been up since, oh, 2:30am. It’s load night. Three times a year, my corporation shuts everything down and loads a new release. Thirty times over my career here, I’ve been up to work it. Years ago, we’d actually go down to the ops center and watch the data flow in (like water into freshly cut irrigation canals). Now its all done from our desks. And of course, it’s for free. I don’t get a dime. It used to be (back in the […]

June 19, 2011

OpsLog – Florida East Coast – 6/18/2011

On the panel again on the FEC (as mentioned HERE). Always easier the second time around – I know what to expect. And now we’re in the zone. In the early days of programming (back before SOX and process and other such rubbish) I’d go into the zone a lot. Also, writing sometimes puts me there. This is when you are furiously working on multiple levels, with your brain seemingly running at capacity, fully engaged. In the zone, time doesn’t pass, it doesn’t even exist. You are fully focused, dealing with each issue as they come up. I’ve got the sheet […]

June 17, 2011

Omega Bike

Came out of the driveway a week ago for the ride in – as I swung onto the work route, I looked back to see a flamingo (i.e. a road biker with colorful plumage) coming up the street. Quick calculations – the only reason someone would come that way is if they were running my route. Sure enough, when I got to the bottom of the hill at Merritt and slowed for the stop (it’s a blind intersection), I could see the guy leaning into the turn behind me, not even looking. When I got to the spot where the […]

June 13, 2011

Opslog – Saluda Grade – 6/13/2011

Observations from running ahead of a young fella with a short attention span. In Knoxville, I climb aboard Train 172, which will hang down the W line to Spartanburg after car swapping in Asheville. A couple of tracks over, this young man is fumbling radio, cards and whatnot, trying to get train 162 onto the line. He’s crestfallen when the dispatcher tells him to hold. “Train 172, clear to enter the main,” the dispatcher responds to my initial call. “Cross over to track 2 and call clear into Asheville Yard.” “Don’t take it personally,” I tell him. “I’m running an […]

June 7, 2011

That’s my girl!

Yesterday we attended niece Kirstin’s graduation. We got to their house early and lounged around with family for a bit (I think I snoozed). Went to UCF for the ceremony (I’d gotten a degree from that joint but not much else). If anything, it’s sprawled out since I was there. How sad to see little on-campus rows of fake shops, Subway and Dominoes and the like – I remember Blacksburg and the dingy (yet real) downtown street. At least I didn’t ever go to this… Stepford. Anyway, this isn’t about me, its about her. Kirstin graduated Summa Cum Laude from […]

June 6, 2011

Hobo with a shotgun (review)

I first became aware of Rutger Hauer in a Miami movie theater in 1982, watching Blade Runner. When Roy (Hauer), an android with a very limited life-span remaining, glides like a leather-clad punk cloud towards his manufacturer, Tyrell, and says, “I want more life, fucker”, it was a “frankly, Scarlett” moment for me. And later, when he slowly pushes his thumbs into Tyrell’s eye-sockets, releasing a horrific ooze of blood, I was sinking into my seat while the camera cut away to an imperial owl, its eyes reflecting the light while the screams went on. Hobo with a Shotgun is […]

June 5, 2011

Thinker

So this isn’t only once or twice. Every time I go to the bathroom at work (not the touch and go numbah one, but the big brown effort), one of the two stalls is closed. I’ll sit on my own little seat and there will be a set of shoes under the wall, as motionless as an Afghan rifleman in the rocks. Worse, bathrooms are tiled, perfect for magnifying sounds. Knowing there will always be a certain… um… outburst… (in the words of HG Wells, “He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of […]

June 1, 2011

The morning after

It’s a misty morning, the film of dew drifting over silent fields. In King City, things are waking up. The helper engine pops and hisses on the siding, its steam confusing the mists. The Coast Mail, Train 72, has just made its long stop at the nearby platform, the station help yawning as they heaved the bags up. Now it’s gone, the wig-wags motionless now that their guarded rails are empty. Over to the left, you can see the head end of the beet string I’d left on the sugar refinery spur the evening before. They’ve been unloading through the […]