robert.admin – Page 61 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 9, 2022

On Sheet – Diesels and Drawbars

ot a friend who shares my interests, in railroading and operations, but also in gaming. Both of us have designed and sold games in the past. Both of use have run roleplaying games over the years. For those readers among you who don’t know what a roleplaying game (or RPG) is, it’s a game where one player controls the world and tells the story. The other players (controlling characters with attributes generally randomly determined) listen to the descriptions and work together to express their actions, take their chances and pull a heist/kill a dragon/save a princess/gain lots of money. As […]

September 8, 2022

Bakuman (DOG EAR)

atched onto a new series (on Hulu) that I’m loving – Bakuman. It is an anime (cartoon) adaptation of a manga (comic) (for you squares). And for the writers out there, it’s worth a watch. In the story, young Moritaka Mashiro, a male high school student, gets involved with Akito Takagi (ditto) who wants to be a manga writer. The problem is, he can’t draw. But he’s looked over Moritaka’s shoulder and watched him drawing (mainly moony sketches of the girl from the front row, Miho Azuki). Through long arguments. Akito convinces Moritaka to join him in this quest, to […]

September 5, 2022

OpsLog – WVN – 9/3/2022

‘m in my hard wooden chair in a West Virginia Northern caboose, my coffee sloshing about my green company cup as I ride the rough rails down from Clifton Forge to Harris, a line of WVN green boxes banging along. I hear the head-end throw an uneasy four-note whistle as we reach the engine house grade crossing just outside of town. The engineer in the iron seat up front is a newbie. But it’s not what you would expect, not some gnarled tobacco-spitting local boy made good, no. It’s my wife. JB came along with me to run on the […]

September 4, 2022

If the Allies had Fallen (Review)

ound this on the bargain aisle-cap at Barnes-n-Noble while holding an armful already. Very catchy cover with a picture of Big Ben draped with a huge Nazi flag. And the title. For ten bucks, why not? There has been a lot of speculative literature on this. In The Man in the High Castle, it’s just a given that the Axis had won. Same thing in a lot of alt-hist. The problem comes down to the actuals, which this collection of pieces studies. If the Allies had Fallen is not written by scifi writers looking for a nifty new background for their […]

September 2, 2022

On Sheet – Away Game

aybe this whole idea of operations seems too confusing and complex to you. You’ve got to figure a train timetable, jobs to be filled, a freight forwarding system, a crew-call system, so many things (I’m not talking you into this, am I?). So, if you are facing this daunting challenge, why not see if you can horn your way in on an existing operation session? Maybe you can wallflower and watch, sure, but any good host should push you in (presumably with an easy newbie job). But how to find a session where you live? There are many places where […]

September 1, 2022

The Freaks (DOG EAR)

his is a little secret I’m mentioned a couple of times on this site; I’ve been funning around writing erotica elsewhere for years. While you are all looking at me funny and squirming, I’ll also mentioned that I was quite good. On the base I post on, I’ve got over a thousand watchers and a half-million views. People think I’m pretty good at it. Beside the free stuff there, I also was contacted a few years back by a publisher and created three collections for them (for which I was paid (but not a lot – it’s a tough racket)). […]

August 28, 2022

The Alchemist (Review)

n a way, Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist, reminds me a lot of reading Richard Bach’s books back in the 80s. He was a pilot who discovered new age ways and wrote about it, coupling flying and out-of-body experiences. The Alchemist is more a work of fiction (with thoughts and ideas you can bring to your normal life). It is the story of a Spanish shepherd in a time where there are guns yet no cars (so, maybe the late 1800s) who dreams of traveling to the pyramids, for there (his dreams tell him) is his undiscovered treasure. As the […]

August 28, 2022

OpsLog – FEC – 8/27/2022

‘ve been waiting to run on the Florida East Coast since forever. Well, since two weeks ago. Yes, that is when our club ran this line, as reported HERE. But yes, I wanted to run again. So we drove all the way to Palm Bay, met with people, I trained a new dispatcher, then my wife took me aside and told me her sister (who she was with on Wednesday) phoned her with the news she is positive with Covid. Da fug? We had this conference on the host’s front porch. Going back inside (with masks now on) we confessed […]

August 26, 2022

On Sheet – The Straight and Narrow

p front, I’ll admit that railroads made most towns. The rails would come through, the depot would be built, and then “Railroad Avenue” would parallel the line. The town grid would firm up off this, buildings in line with track, everything lain down as if on graph paper. Historically accurate? Sure. Interesting? Um…. Too often, small railroaders with limited space instinctively snap their sectional track on a bead two to three inches from the forward edge. And their town naturally follows, with ninety degree corners in the streets, everything placed to parallel the sides of the layout’s edge with geometric […]

August 25, 2022

Recommendation (DOG EAR)

have a peach of a physical therapist. In the weeks following my surgery, she’d been the one outlining my exercise program, making me stretch and flex and hurt and get better. A lot of my recovery, I owe to her. She’s from Brazil and we’ve chatted about life there, life here, all that. One cool down following a rough session, we got to talking about books (I always bring a new one every week for the waiting room). Anyway, she told me she loved a Brazilian author named Paulo Coelho, who I’ve never heard of. She told me she’s read […]