robert.admin – Page 229 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 17, 2011

Sisters

Lunches are usually solitary downtime, generally writing. It’s quiet and peaceful and I get a lot done. I wrote most of Indigo over lunch breaks. So at work I was chatting with Cassandra, a dynamic black woman, about international cuisine, and she bluntly asked if I’d ever had soul food. No, I had to say, I hadn’t. She told me she’d take me to lunch the next day. She brought along Darlene (whom I also have worked with professionally), who is every bit as spontaneous and lively as Cassandra. I had to joke, as we went out to the parking […]

September 13, 2011

The Hulk

I knew this was trouble when I pedaled out of the Lock Haven Basin. A slow cyclist on the bike lane ahead of me and a train horning across the 17-92 crossing. Sure enough, we bunched up, the cyclist, me, and a bunch of impatient cars, waiting for the auto-rack string to clear. As we rode to the next light at the mondo intersection at Orange, I studied this guy in front of me. Work boots. No helmet. No lights. Probably a DUI case, someone forced to use a bike. He wasn’t fast, not at all, but I didn’t want […]

September 12, 2011

Yah-snoop!

By using the Services, you consent to allow Yahoo!’s automated systems to scan and analyze all incoming and outgoing communications content sent and received from your account… I’d not known about this, really not known. Not until the day after Labor Day when my email account was suspended. I searched around online and found references to Yahoo’s doing this – that they scan emails – all emails. In fact, if you are not a yahoo member and post to someone who is, Yahoo looks at it. I found references to people who had jokingly said they’d take the lugnuts off […]

September 11, 2011

OpsLog – Nebraska Division – 9/11/2011

I start to forget how far the group has come with model railroad ops. Oh, we’re not those super-prototype groups that do everything by the book (that’s what November at Tehachapi will be about). But over the years, everyone has learned to work radios and throttles simultaneously, and to generate more solutions than problems. And with my dispatcher program, I can keep the railroad moving like an air-traffic controller. So just as contrast helps to define, we had a visitor at Doc’s session today, a nice gentleman from England. He’d come to the club last Wednesday and the offer had […]

September 10, 2011

A rain to wash away sin…

We had rain coming this weekend. For once, the forecasters had it right. First brush was Friday morning when it poured down at 7:00am. I sat around in my bike clothing trying to get any information – the news channels focused on a distant hurricane and the internet was down. Finally it broke and I risked it – thank goodness for fenders! Got to Orange Avenue and suddenly it was bone dry. The ride home was gusty, rainshafts all around. Made it home rain-dry (but sweaty). Friday evening, it started to rain. I like rain. I love the way it […]

September 10, 2011

Early ReTyrement – final effort

I just posted the commission on Elance for the last work on Early ReTyrement, which is going out into Amazon in hard- and kindle-cover. There is still a lot of work to do, and things keep popping up. For example, in the middle of a Spelunky game I suddenly realized I had no idea how much I wanted to charge. Looked around Amazon and saw books at a wide range of prices. Don’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how it is determined, so I picked an average – $2.99 for the eBook, $9.99 for the paper one, […]

September 8, 2011

When I die, please do…

After I die, everyone have a drink to my memory, smile, think of some favor I did or joke I told. In other words, appreciate me. And, please, on some long weekend, crack open one of my books and enjoy it with my spirit. Find a scene, character or phrase you like. Smile. I would like to be cremated. I’d really like if my ashes (it’s more like grit) be glued into 50 model railroad gondola freight cars (I’ll look just like gravel or cinders). Have someone take me to a train swap meet and price me to move. That […]

September 4, 2011

When I die, do not…

Bruno Stachel: Chivalry? To kill a man, then make a ritual out of saluting him – that’s hypocrisy. They kill me, I don’t want anyone to salute. Willi von Klugermann: They probably won’t. If I die, do not get a memorial decal for your back car window, listing my dates and some slogan about always being in your heart or whatever. Don’t. It’s as tacky as dragging a tombstone about in public. If I’m killed on the road, bike or car, do not allow the state to put up one of those cheap aluminum lollypop signs with the “Drive safe” […]

September 1, 2011

Training

I actually used to fear rear blowouts. When I’d have them years back, I’d either take the bike to the shop or spend two hours fussing the back tire off on the ACed porch. My famous Halloween debacle involved a rear blowout, popping the spare while trying to get the tube back on, and a horrible bus ride home. Back tire blowouts involve the saddlebags, that greasy chain, tight quarters and a lot of effort. I don’t like them. Friday’s blowout was different. Then, I was more concerned about the surroundings. I still goofed a few steps but by-in-large, I got […]

August 28, 2011

Snow Crash (review)

If you are going to nit-pick Snow Crash for anything, you can bag it for being 20 years old. Okay, so there are light pens, some of the computer stuff is dodgy, Hong Kong was still independent and there are a lot of people whose pops fought in WW2. So in that, yeah, it feels old. But even on the third reading, the story swept me up again. I can distinctly remember picking up a copy in a downtown bookstore and going to Pizza Unos for lunch (the brick-n-mortar store, the pizza chain, even the cutzy shopping district are as […]