robert.admin – Page 29 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 11, 2024

Hitler’s War (Review)

nteresting idea here – how would World War Two have changed if Neville Chamberlain had not just given Hitler Czechoslovakia, kicking off the war earlier, say, 1938? It’s interesting in that the Japanese are no-way interested in bombing Pearl Harbor yet. The Germans are slugging their way into France with a lot less then they had in 1940 – only Panzer Is and IIs. More importantly, General Sanjurjo does not die in a plane crash and runs the Spanish Civil War himself, instead of Franco. So there are no quick thrusts – just a slog in Spain, France, Poland and […]

June 9, 2024

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/8/2023

itting in my muggy dispatcher’s office in Denver, the windows open and a fan chattering on the desk, I can only imagine what it’s like in flat, faraway, hellish Navajo in June as the telegraph slowly confesses that 391 has puffed into town an hour the hot side of noon. Easy to imagine the dozen or so passengers stumbling out of their hellishly hot combine, to stagger over the mainline rails to the little cantina while the steamer uncouples off the front end and idles over to the tank to fill its empty boiler. The passengers drink their warm beer […]

June 9, 2024

Destroyermen 10: Straits of Hell (Review)

eah, yeah, another Destroyermen book. I’m over the halfway point now. So our Alternate-World-War (starting when an aging destroyer fell into a primitive world where dinosaurs never went extinct) continues on the allies’ front lines. In the west at the former Grik capitol, the Grik ready a counterattack across the strait between Madagascar and Africa. And over in South America, the Doms prepare to strike the allied base. There is a bit of synergy in the storytelling. In both cases, a massive force looms over the good guys. And as very typical in Taylor Anderson’s story, it seems to always […]

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 […]