robert.admin – Page 68 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 17, 2022

On Sheet – Just die!

o I was asked to explain all the facets of model railroad operations, to spool this out and gradually teach you how to research, string diagram and prototype your operations so you’ll have ops so successful you’ll need velvet ropes and a bouncer to keep things manageable. But you aren’t sure about ops and want to try, just you, on your little home layout? So here’s what you do. Go into the den and loot through your board games, Risk or Monopoly or whatever. Take a single six-sided die from the box. Now, on your layout, build a train with […]

June 16, 2022

Cartoon Characters (DOG EAR)

aw an interesting thing on a walk – I was trudging up 17-92 (a four-lane arterial street with businesses down both sides). Over this all towers a billboard and on this billboard as an ad for emergency room availability. Personally, having had to rely on their emergency room service, I’m mixed on their claims. But it wasn’t the claims that caught my eye – it was the image. A nurse, arms crossed, looking all competent and in charge. Now look, I’m enough of a realist to know that nurses you see in advertisements are likely from central casting. And I […]

June 12, 2022

The Dark Forest (Review)

he Dark Forest is the follow-up book to Cixin Liu’s fantastic The Three Body Problem. As you’ll remember, the Trisolarian race, with intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes* and have launched an invasion fleet to destroy humanity and use Earth as their new homeworld (if you know what the three body problem means, you might better understand why this is). The good news is that the invasion fleet will take 400 years to get here. The bad news is they have launched tiny atomic spies at our Earth, spies that that alter computer data […]

June 9, 2022

A Chinese POV (a story) (DOG EAR)

o I was having one of those bad days – it’s taking forever to get surgery scheduled to get my cancer out and, yes, it freaks me out no end. I’d woken up early with a 5am panic attack and was now using the internet to try to distract myself. And that’s when, a couple of later, a friend (won’t say who) called to gripe about something trivial. Pretty much my involvement in the call was to say “yes” and “no” and “I agree”, just making noises so they thought I was alive. But I’m listening to life’s small little […]

June 9, 2022

On Sheet – 6/9/2022

arrell Maples asked if I’d contribute to the group. Since it’s what I do best – writing for free – how could I turn him down? It’s what I was born to do. So I’ll be contributing these On Sheet postings, short pieces about model train operations, why they are fun and how you can get involved in them (by yourself or with two dozen or more people). I’ll start my first bit with a sorta-quote (I might not be exact) from Atlas Shrugged (the book, of course). In it, a woman who runs a railroad mentions that trains are […]

June 5, 2022

Gods of Risk (Review)

es, the trilogy covering The Three Body Problem are all big books and I’m enjoying them immensely. But good things take time and I have a weekly review to run. Sooooo I’m pulling in another short story from The Expanse novella collection, Memories Legion, specifically Gods of Risk. Not quiet sure why this (or any of the books) are named as they are. Asides, it’s a novella (and a bit of a long one) from the POV of Gunny Draper’s (i.e. Bobby’s) brother David. We know from the show that he got involved with cooking for a pusher and ended […]

June 2, 2022

The Cure (DOG EAR)

o last Sunday I reviewed The Cure, a book by Sonia Levitin that details the persecutions of the Jews in Strasbourg in 1348. In a nutshell, the Jews of that town (like in every other place across Europe at the time) were blamed for the Black Death that was sweeping through. The claims that Jews were poisoning the wells were backed by the solid evidence gained by barbaric torture. And it’s all historic fact, as Ms. Levitin outlines in her epilogue. Fine and dandy. I love, after reading a novel, to find out just what is true and what isn’t. […]

May 30, 2022

OpsLog – TBL/WAZU – 5/29/2022

t all started because I wanted to introduce my friend Doc to micro layout switching and operations. I figured that he, Greg, myself and some undetermined person would give it a go. And that’s why I got to drive out to the club to drop my layout back off on Memorial Day morning, early, to clear out my wife’s car so she could use it. So what started as a quiet session for four turned into an all-day event, the Tuscarora Branch Line in the morning, the WAZU in the afternoon. And since my pal Greg went to dinner and […]

May 29, 2022

The Cure (Review)

his was an interesting science fiction book I picked out of a curbside library somewhere. And the last page was interesting enough that I’m going to comment at length (and possibly with obscenities) in the next Dog Ear. Nothing against the writer, just… something. Anyway, yes, The Cure. So, the story starts in a future human society, 2400 AD or so, where every chance of emotion or love or anger has been removed. This includes sex, music, and even facial expressions (everyone wears masks day and night to hide their true faces). Calming drugs are openly given to them (in […]

May 26, 2022

ManualLog – LM&O Freight Flow – 5/26/2022

Given our last few sessions, it’s clear the crews (on the road and in the yard) don’t understand the LM&O’s freight flow. Hopefully this will help them understand. It is your responsibility to make sure that our cargoes enter, cross, and leave our bridge route as intended. So first, a legend showing car types… Below shows the basic routing of cars across our railroad. Blue cars (Bridge Traffic) are nothing more than cuts of cars that travel endlessly between Martin and Calypso yards. You pick these cars up at the first yard you […]