robert.admin – Page 75 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 28, 2021

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/28/2021

eft-seating it in a pair of beat up old C&NW units, rattling down through the spiral tunnel below Harris Glen, running to Lehigh and a possible meet. I’m conducting for a young scout, Aryon. The kid’s got a steady throttle hand and is drifting the helpers down to Calypso nice and easy. The club’s full of people tonight – visitors, a group of boy scouts, lots of people. Most of them have been put on trains as engineers, the guys giving up their throttles to allow newbies to realize that trains are more than just circles of tracks. Trains are […]

October 24, 2021

Battle for the Stars (Review)

here is something to be said about old Space Opera novels from the golden era of sci-fi. The plots aren’t dogged down in technical details (you simply point a ship in the direction you want to go and go) and one man can pretty much change the course of the narrative. Realism doesn’t get in the way too much. And that’s pretty much Battle for the Stars, a 1961 novel by one of the classical masters, Edmond Hamilton. I found myself really enjoying this book. So the human empire has largely fragmented. In the center is Earth, royal yet impotent. […]

October 21, 2021

The Speech Concluded (DogEar)

he Plant City Holiday Inn, out in the middle of nowhere, Florida. Thursday night, the first night of the National Model Railroad Association. And as mentioned in this BLOG, I was slated to give a speech about my small model railroad and how to hold operations on it. It’s 6:45pm, fifteen minutes until go-time. Outside of my wife getting the handouts ready and the twenty-five empty chairs, it’s just me and my layout (propped on an easel). Two scenarios are running through my mind. The convention is just starting and all the guys who might come are shaking hands and […]

October 17, 2021

OpsLog – P&WV – 10/16/2021

y second session of the Plant City Convention took place over at the Pittsburgh & West Virginia. Like the L&N, I got in under boomer law – I was “assisting”. But unlike the other layout, this time there were no Meddling Cody’s to take my seat. This time I was dispatching. So the session went well. Tom’s layout is great to run (even with the East and West confusion that still lingers in the train names). We ran under warrants (I think Tom called this right – under TT&TO, we’d have been sunk by the newbies). As it came out, […]

October 17, 2021

OpsLog – L&N – 10/15/2021

‘ve run on John Wilke’s L&N / Southern layout many times (or rather, I’ve run it from one of the two dispatcher seats). It’s a great railroad full of fun, coal and a lot of switching. And since I was attending the Sunshine Express II Convention, I offered to help out. Assisting on a layout is a great way to be helpful, meet new people, and get around the cost of attending. Since we were only running one line and Cody had beaten me to the dispatcher seat, I was on “turn warden” duty, pointing out where towns and industries […]

October 17, 2021

Klara and the Sun (Guest Review)

lara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is a charming yet nihilistic fable of man’s isolated future. In this not too distant or improbable alternate future, parents arrange mandatory play dates for their children’s social advance, and buy friendship for their children through artificial intelligence robots. Klara, our story’s protagonist, is one such AF. We follow her from her storefront beginnings through her burgeoning understanding of her new charges human interactions through to her planned obsolescence. In a world of robots who possess more humanity than the humans they serve, Kazuo Ishiguro takes us on a beautifully crafted heroes journey […]

October 14, 2021

The Speech (DOG EAR)

took my Dale Carnegie class seriously at work years back. Every speech I would develop, block out, practice, reblock, practice, index card it, and practice. My two minute speeches were always two minutes. In fact, it frustrated me that other people in the class would just show up and wing it (and drone for five minutes or more). I always felt that the class facilitators should have called them out on it. No, they were trying to sell classes and books. When I finally had enough of random um-fests that droned on without purposes I told the group it was […]

October 10, 2021

The Nelson Touch: Ark Royal II (Review)

he Ark Royal series appears to have widespread appeal – at least from what I can tell. Author Christopher Nuttall churned out a bunch of them (seventeen as of 2021). And I can see why they are popular – because they are good. Once again, the titular ship of the series, introduced HERE, is called to duty again. As the only armored ship in the Earth fleets (the rest were only lightly armored death cans), it once more must rise like a phoenix and set sail in finest Star Blazers fashion. This time the idea is a deep penetration raid on […]

October 7, 2021

Books and movies – a positive comparison (DOG EAR)

eah, usually I dislike the differences between books and movies. Occasionally they get it right (such as The Three Musketeers (1973) which (aside from the casting of Porthos, was dead on)). But usually they get it wrong (as I commented on a recent War of the Worlds remake from a few weeks back HERE). But sometimes they do it right. Now, by right, I don’t mean they do the story line-for-line perfect (that would be to much to ask – Hollywood has a lot of writers who wish to “re-imagine” (a word I despise; I prefer the more correct and […]

October 5, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 10/4/2021

t was a rough day and a rough night at the club. I worked on the gravel road outside (doing convict labor) and then traced wires in the hideous mess under Zanesville. And after all that, I wanted to run my own session on the Tuscarora, just the coal job testing out the new tally sheets. And I’d use my SW-7 switched to make sure it was all ready for my clinic/ops session next week. And of course, the chip blew. So I can make the bell and horn works, and the engine idles. But you get headlights on both […]