robert.admin – Page 240 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

February 10, 2011

Irony

Yeah, its ironic. On the bike beneath leaden (hell, rainy) skies, sitting at a stop light, waiting for the oncoming left-turn lane traffic to get their red so I’ll get my green. A look up into the light-shield overhead. Yeah, its yellow. They’ll be stopping soon. A look to the oncoming lane. Here comes an FUV, racing along like a barrel of gluttons, flying to make his hard left turn on slick pavement. Light: Bing Sizzlesizzlesizzle go his tires as he slides through on the one-second-old red, crossing across my nose and my right-of-way. And the irony? The Lynx transport company […]

February 7, 2011

OpsLog – SP Coast Line – 2/7/2011

In my last two blogs I went over the ass-aches I went through to drag this railroad into operations. Let’s add one more – the cat got INTO the layout, crawling around inside the framework and walking along the hidden mainlines. I had to drag her out from under it – this stunt earned her a big squirt off the spray bottle. She’s still sulking. So there I was, bringing a new automated dispatching program online, unsure if I had track damage under the layout, wondering what was going to happen. And what happened was wonders. The trains ticked out […]

February 7, 2011

Logical mind meets Illogical line

Continuing the earlier posting… Got home early, everything in control. Moved things into place for ops, a very methodical process (in a little house, you have to do a number of things to make it ready for 8-12 operators). Anyway, was performing the final step, adding CRC to spots on the line and then running a set of F3s up and down the track to spread it out. The engines were running smooth and I was actually goosing them right along. On the first uphill, at high speeds, they piled up at the lower Serrano turnout. Odd. Well, I was […]

February 7, 2011

Isn’t this supposed to be a hobby?

I’m sweating bullets and biting my nails right now – I’ve got Ops. I hate hosting. Once it gets going, its generally okay. But until then, I’m like an actor before going out on stage. I’m wired, tight to twanging. Problems I dealt with this weekend: A corroded wire (again!) the in Salinas panel. A Watsonville turnout that wouldn’t carry power. A steam engine that worked fine until I added the front coupler, and now its dogging. My new sound-equipped E8s are jacked a little high, putting their pilot couplers out of line. And the Salinas switch engine, which no […]

February 5, 2011

Three days without a drop!

I’ve gone three days without a drop… of petroleum. Thursday and Friday I ground out the commute on the bike. Friday inbound was really interesting with the heavy mist that soaked as bad as any rain. Late out of work, too, riding after the rush was done, oddly quiet and peaceful. Today I spent the morning readying the train layout for its next ops session. Rode over to the hobby shop on my bike. How gratifying that the bike rack in Little Saigon (where the hobby shop is) was filled with bikes. I’m sure the people at AA (automobics anonymous) […]

February 5, 2011

Goodbye to a good friend.

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. -Thomas Jones (1892 – 1969) One of JB’s and my good friends, Kanchan Banga, is leaving the states to return to Canberra. We met her through her brother, a professional work irritant and time-keeping scofflaw, through her efforts to arrange a surprise party for him (he was). Since then, we’ve gone out to French romantic comedies at the Enzian a couple of times – laughs around the table and all that. She even bought us all a bottle of wine once, a very kind gesture. This being Orlando, we couldn’t go out […]

January 31, 2011

Small steps. Baby steps.

Last night the cat cuddled with me while I started reworking Early Retyrement. It’s going very slowly. I originally finished this book around 2000 (that’s the oldest filedates I’ve discovered regarding this). Since then, I wrote a published novel, a published help book, three unpublished manuscripts, 200-plus radio scripts, a half-dozen short stories, even some freelanced erotica. In a way, it’s like going back to visit with a younger, cruder me, someone rough around the edges, lacking refinement (and I was 41 then, ferchristsakes!). Amazing to see these windy, twisty, wasteful sentences. Daunting to see my main character (and even, […]

January 30, 2011

Next step towards Global Domination

The entire idea for this website came from reading how “Waiter Rant” and “Bike Snob” were placed by agents and publishers through their blogs. This thought burned in me. Shortly afterwards, I bolted upright in a San Diego hotel room at 2am with the realization that my five year old “Fire and Bronze” promo site wasn’t doing squat. First step, I vowed into the popcorn-ceilinged darkness, was to get an interesting, interactive website up where I could keep information flowing and interest building. Well, I’ve got the interactive and flowing parts down. Next step, I’d put one of my older […]

January 26, 2011

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/26/2011

I have to smile when Everquack or World of Warplug folks brag about online squads who have been together for five, six months. My operations group has been together upwards of twenty-five years. I’ve got silent-service guys, ex-military pilots, software experts, a once-mayor, a veterinarian, former cops, linemen, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. I’ve gone to their weddings and funerals, loaned money, asked favors, exchanged Christmas cards and dirty jokes. As for train-running, we learned it together, from loop-counting to invitations to pro-rails, the superbowl of ops. Tonight it shows. People arrive on time, they dive in to clean our massive layout. […]

January 26, 2011

OpsLog – Florida East Coast – 2/26/2011

Short haul out of Points North down to Cocoa, where I’ll dump my four cars and shut down my unit. The main’s clogging – past the restrictions at Jay Jay’s, I find three freights holding at Titusville, watching their signals, eager to head home. Slip past that parade on the siding, then beg the dispatcher to give me a green, please! Finally get to Frontenac, where I’d pushed coal about a power plant early this night-session. There is a detector there. In reality, it would sniff up a passing train’s skirts, checking speed and hotboxes and such, then broadcast its […]