robert.admin – Page 28 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

August 29, 2024

Stacks (DOG EAR)

eird little story for your blogging pleasure. Of course, I love to read (no shit, right?) And since I just had a week’s vacation, I’ve been plowing through books. My review stack is about six deep right now. Funniest thing, though. I’ve been watching James Garner in The Rockford Files. Great show that echos the old Private Eye Noir of the past. I’ve never really watched it but lived in the time (1974) and the place (LA) so it’s all there for me. Curious about the main star, I picked up a book, The Garner Files, Garner’s autobiography. Enjoyed it. […]

August 25, 2024

The Sudden Star (Review)

o the last time I went back to sci fi in the eighties, it didn’t play out so well for me. I didn’t enjoy it and gave it up at the midpoint. It was simply a dead horse. But in the same purchase, I’d picked up The Sudden Star by Pamela Sargent. Okay, so the premise here is that there are “white holes” (what black holes feed into (look, everyone in 1979 was all excited about black holes. They’d captured the imagination of the public back then. Even Disney cashed in), So we find Earth overlooked by this new star, […]

August 25, 2024

OpsLog – FEC – 8/24/2024

ough day for me on the Florida East Coast. Evidently we simulated love-bug season. I could hardly see out of the cab and the wipers didn’t help. Squinting for half the session. But that comes in later. So Ken wanted to dispatch and in a surprise move, put Zach into the trim job (I’ve done it several times – it’s good casual fun). This, of course, meant we could all talk about Zach in the ops shed, so it was an amusing day. Delighted to find myself moving road units – been a long time. My first job was the […]

August 22, 2024

Addiction (DOG EAR)

ou know, I think the thing about drunks and drug addicts is when you see them in their ragged states, hanging on at the margins of society. The sorrow from this comes from thinking about the lost potential – here was a person who fell through the cracks, who might have gone on to create great art, great items, great friendship and great loves, who, because of a weakness for drink or drugs, lost this chance. I think this every day while in the downtown coffee shop and watching the baristas take pity on the homeless who wander in, giving […]

August 19, 2024

OpsLog – Tusk Coast – 8/18/2024

ub leverman Zeus H had a dream job for a young man about to enroll in Miami Dade College; midnight shift working the levers on Atlantic Coast Line’s Tusk Coast Interlocking Tower. But then a miscommunication between him and Station Operator Kyle put the West Drill out on the main, with rights over all trains, moments before Extra 5001 – the first section of three lugging pea-grade down from the scattered Westly tipples – rang the inbound announciator. The Drill’s cars were scattered over the Tenmile Creek trestle in mid-classificaiton, under rights of seniority granted by his office. Zeus looked […]

August 18, 2024

OpsLog – West Fork – 8/17/2024

ome of you are probably sitting up at this – where is Robert operating now? Tampa? Miami? Atlanta? Nome? Nope, right down at our own Orlando N-Trak Clubhouse. West Fork is the little switching layout Steve and I (mostly Steve) assembled. It runs on batteries (seemingly forever) and is interesting. Essentially you have a lead that can hold an engine and three cars. The main can hold five. The two sidings, three apiece. You’ve got eight cars to shuffle and need to get five (in the right order) on the main. Index switching? How long could this possibly take? Well, […]

August 18, 2024

If Cats Disappeared From The World (Review)

his short little Japanese novel starts with a down-on-his-luck postman shuffling through a useless life, that is, until his doctor tells him he’s got a tumor and only weeks, maybe, to live. That would be a lot to take in. Whats more to take is the next day, when the devil appears and makes an offer – if this doomed man agrees to it, the devil will remove one thing from our world. For each removed thing, the man gains a day. Okay, so the first thing is cell phones to which the man agrees. The next day on the […]

August 11, 2024

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (Review)

o image there is a “Roman” sort of empire, with a huge city and a privileged founding race (literally blue-skinned), an empire that spans most of the known world. Imagine you are a white-skinned “barbarian” who has elevated himself to a position of commanding a regiment of engineers – and hey, you like just building bridges. You also are a smart-ass and a realist with a touch of mild Tourettes. And then your content life of engineering and problem-solving is upset when you realize that a massive army has been moving around inside the borders of this empire. It has […]

August 8, 2024

Drift Away (DOG EAR)

n the early 70s, a singer named Dobie Gray released a song, Drift Away, that was a big hit. I remember being into it, playing the 45 over and over. In a nutshell, it’s a song that notes the way music can sooth us in our troubled world. You can say that it’s a noble ideal to hold, something that can bring comfort to us all. [Verse 1] Day after day I’m more confused Yet I look for the light through the pouring rain You know that’s a game that I hate to lose And I’m feelin’ the strain […]

August 4, 2024

Destroyermen 11: Blood in the Water (Review)

kay, we’ll start with the question I always ask at the end of Destroyermen reviews – where do the reptilian Grik get all their shit? The bad guys in the story (and the author) have been hinting that the Grik (and the crazy Japanese emperor-wannabe, Kurokawa) had a big surprise for the heroes off the east coast of Africa. And (spoilers ahead) did they ever – hundreds of planes. Three carriers. Working torpedoes. Where did they get all this shit? The thing that always makes me wince in these books is the fact that they don’t have railroads. Materials seem […]