robert.admin – Page 76 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

February 18, 2022

Ideas (DOG EAR)

‘ve had a lot of experience with short pieces over my life. I’ve written many short stories for various audiences. I’ve reffed a number of RPGs and come up with crazy adventures. I wrote blog and radio pieces for Dr. Sister. And now, for the past ten years, I’ve been blogging twice a week, either my takes on media or on books. That’s a lot of shit to generate. It’s funny how it works. Right now I’ve got a piece I need to put into the NMRA newsletter I edit – something about model railroading. And I can remember walking […]

February 13, 2022

Bait and Switch (Review)

n the mid-nineties, I got fired from a job. The company blamed me to shield their nepotistic connections and even denied my benefits by perjuring themselves in arbitration. It stunned me how petty and retributionist they were. After four months of pointless looking, I found work on a furniture van and decided never to go back to the corporate world. But I had two more interviews to do. And, of course, I got them both (and went with contracting at Nasa). This directly led to my twenty year stint at an international transport company, a job I enjoyed and was […]

February 11, 2022

Intentions (DOG EAR)

had a lot of intentions for this site. First off, I thought it would be a good way to drive sales (it didn’t, not really). Also, as I was moving my first book to market shelves, I thought that it would be great to make this site into a cyber coffee shop. Originally I clumped it all together, discussions about books I was reading and thoughts about publishing and media. But quickly I realized that these were two different things so I split hem into reviews (about books I read) and Dog Ear (which is about thoughts I had). Of […]

February 7, 2022

OpsLog – Hartford Division – 2/6/2022

f you found way way to the town of Waterbury in the late forties, you’d discover a dual main running through a five track yard, a busy station with full RPO operations facing it. But follow the track swinging away from the yard’s caboose track, down a long grade along a time-stained retaining wall, down to the Low Grade Yard. Here is a busy capillary for the railroad, a busting TOFC spur and a two track freight house where four doors and ramps between the cars keep the LCL freight flowing to destinations beyond Bidgeport and the Boston docks. And […]

February 6, 2022

A Small Colonial War (Review)

o you’ll remember how in A Savage War of Peace, the Nation of India grabbed up the world of Vesy and forced the Great Powers out. Well, this book involves the second part of their plans. Moving their fleet (and two carriers quickly), they seize two British colonies and stall on the diplomatic front. Yes, where Warspite II mimicked the English conquest of India, Warpspite III is the Falklands War. The Warspite joins the force to take back one of the two colonies, it being thought that a short and decisive naval battle will end this thing. But the Indians […]

February 3, 2022

Scythe (DOG EAR)

ince I’m retired but ordered off the beloved bike because of medical reasons, I’ve taken to walking. I can venture out two miles from the house (giving me a comfortable range of operations). Given that most shops are a mile or less away, it’s pretty handy as well as a utilitarian way to combine exercises and errands. So I needed a scythe. The weeds at the club are getting long and I need a way to mow them down (the grass, of course, is inert in winter). Walked over to the hardware store and bought the tool, then hooked it […]

January 30, 2022

A Savage War of Peace (Review)

s you’ll recall, in the original book of this Ark Royal spin-off, Warspite, the crew of this experimental cruiser found a planet Vesy, which Russian defectors (who’d fled the initial crushing battle against the then enemy race, the Tadpoles, had settled on). Using it as a pirate base, they’ve been raiding shipping for supplies (and women) and slowly corrupting the indigenous people. Things heat up in this book, sub-titled as Warspite II. The indigenous race on Vesy live in small city states. Everything is about war, about knocking off rival cities and forming your own little empire. So since it’s […]

January 30, 2022

OpsLog – TY&E – 1/29/2022

n Bob Martin’s long-lost N&W line, there was one train that was mine. I’d dispatch all the way through the session (yeah, that seat was mine, too) but the last train, the long, long, overlong coal train was mine. I’d run it slow and easy, mindful of just how it bunched down through Irvine, easing it into the yard. Then I’d roll out, picking up speed on the long straight track along the back wall, making up time and hearing those little wheels clickity-clack. My train. Hands off. Same thing on the TY&E. The sand and lumber train runs up […]

January 27, 2022

Sense of Place (DOG EAR)

ne important element of storytelling is a sense of place. If you feel that you know a location that the story is taking place in, if it feels real and connected to the rest of the world, the story “grounds” its foundation. And while this can work in literature, it’s very important in more visual media. We just stated watching Goliath, a tale about a lawyer who drinks too much and has fallen on hard times. Taking place in LA, the lawyer lives on the second story of a sea-side motel. Right next door is a bar. Ranging around outside […]

January 27, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/26/2022

t was touch and go whether we’d get enough crew for a session but right before 7:30, the roster filled out. Some us took early trains, some of us had to wait for later trains, and some of us sat and chatted. And from the central table, many an amusing story was recounted. I picked one right off the bat – I’d given a buddy my Zanesville Turn but did the next best, a shakedown run of an express parts train from Mingo Interchange to the LeVasseur Plant. Brought over the cars, pushed them (racks and then long boxes) in […]