robert.admin – Page 21 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 7, 2024

OpsLog – Mini LM&O – 6/6/2024

o being an officer, a member of several committees and the senior club member has its drawbacks. Last club night, I had to inspect erosion on our entry culvert, jimmy the lock of a car, take minutes for the monthly meeting, deal with an upset member, repair a turnout, replace tumble-barriers under the layout, pick up all the dead cockroaches I found under there, issue a new club key and go over the alarm system, crush cans, fix a broken phone, deal with an upset member again, help restore a locomotive address, replace paper towels in the bathroom, deal with […]

June 6, 2024

Snapshots (DOG EAR)

ith the advent of cheap yet reliable camera technology, people take pictures of everything now. For every train activity we do, I get at least twenty photos “snapped” of the action. No focus. No lighting hassles. Just point and snap. And who hasn’t seen the wave of selfies (where people block otherwise amazing vistas with their own smiling, V-fingered images) or food shots (I saw someone recently in a McDonalds snapping a photo of their burger). Pictures pictures pictures. And sure, I take pictures of things. When we went overseas, I took pictures of places I saw (without me in […]

June 2, 2024

Infomocracy (Review)

o an interesting book, especially given our time. Imagine a company named “Information”, that unlike Truth Social or X, strives for a bias-free platform. You can ask anything and it should be reasonably correct (wasn’t this the original goal of the internet?). And further imagine that for the last twenty years, world-wide elections take place for local representations. You vote for your party and if you win, your immediate area is now under the control of that party. And there are dozens of parties – nationalistic, green, protectionist, etc. I really liked the party named Policity1st, which does not campaign […]

June 1, 2024

Heavy yet Virtual Metal

o I’m sitting on the end of a runway in nighttime New York at the controls of an Airbus 320. James Paul, our instructor, goes through the basic controls of this advanced passenger aircraft (it must be advanced – the doors stay on in flight). The engines are rumbling – I can feel them spool up through the bottom of my seat. James tells me to just keep it on the runway centerline during takeoff, hold it there until he calls rotate, and then I’ll pull back into a fifteen degree climb out, and then I’m to pull the gear […]

May 30, 2024

Brightline

mage of an egg. “This is your brain”. Crack the egg and dump it into a skillet “This is your brain in downtown West Palm Beach.” Sizzles. “Get the picture?” My buddy Pete F got some Brightline tickets (I don’t wanna know where), good for two seats from Orlando International to West Palm Beach (this high speed rail goes all the way to Miami). So we drove out and went into their sleek space port – I mean railroad station, waited in comfortable seats and were eventually permitted to enter our coach. While there was lots of leg room (and […]

May 29, 2024

Anime on the Menu (DOG EAR)

nteresting little event tonight. We were in a chain-ish deli, enjoying dinner. Just quiet time, my wife and I reading over our meals. I had on my My Hero Academia t-shirt on, the character Bakugo, the rival of the hero, a guy who can cause explosions from his hands. He’s loud, crazy and fun to watch. Anyway, when it was check-time, the waitress said, “I like your shirt. And I like anime.” And that got us both wound up, comparing titles and frothing about that media. Turns out she watch all of Bleach (something like 20+ seasons of 24 episodes […]

May 26, 2024

When You are Engulfed in Flames (Review)

‘ve listened to David Sedaris many times on NPR. He’s the Jewish gag guy, a sad sack replacement for the crashed-n-burned Woody Allen. And he’s funny and observational. When you are Engulfed in Flames is his collection of short stories of his life. I really enjoyed his piece on The Smoking Section – here, Sedaris talks about smoking, how he started, and all the times he tried to quit. Interestingly, he and his partner moved to Tokyo for three months, as if the change of scenery would help. He even takes a class in Japanese and manages to finish dead […]

May 26, 2024

OpsLog – VSW – 05/25/2024

uite a day over at the Virginia SouthWestern. It was great to have four members there – all in our yellow shirts! we looked like some sort of Japanese anime super-group – “N-Trak Avengers ASSEMBLE!” Also present were two old-time members, Bob M and Frankie Z. Good to see the old group reformed, ready to show these HO guys how we do things! Kinda a bit of a bracer, to sit in the L&N hotseat and get ready to do dispatcher magic. So much is weighing on this – if I mess up, everyone will know (so much for that […]

May 23, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O – 5/22/2024

o we had a crazy session last night – all sorts of delays. John C had to pry a dead bird out of Greg W’s grill (no wonder he was thinking about chicken for dinner the long drive out). And then Shannon and I had to deal with club business – once the air was cleared, we could get on with Zach B’s threats (pre-brief) and get down to the business of running trains. And for that, let me set the scene for the opening hour. Imagine Pete dressed in a dapper suit, smoking a high-brand cigarette. He’s in the […]

May 19, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O – 5/18/2024

ou’ll notice that this OpsLog starts with a banner image, a nice one captured by Zach B during the pre-dawn hours of our club operations, a special Saturday Night Special event open only to club members (God help us – we can’t afford to have guests wandering around while we’re running under subdued lighting). The thing is, it was a usual session held on a weekend where we shut down the bank of lights over the layout, making things gloomy and using the layout’s lighting to best effect (you’ll notice the Westinghouse Bridge in the background of the above shot, […]