robert.admin – Page 99 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 16, 2020

The nicest morning (DOG EAR)

oke up this Saturday the usual way, my head alive and spinning with ideas. No going back to sleep. So I ended up on the computer for an hour or so, reading the online paper and emailing model railroad design plans back and forth with a buddy. I’d just gone back to bed (at 8am) when the neighbor started mowing the lawn. So that’s out. Instead, I went out and got Manfred (my Brompton folding bike) out of the garage and (sans helmet) went for a spin around the neighborhood. Outside of it being a glorious day full of sunshine […]

July 14, 2020

BuildLog – TBL – 7/14/2020

ow crazy design can be. Steve Raiford (my chief designer and wet blanket) and I have been going round and round about my upcoming Tuscarora Branch Line. We want it to do this, we want it to do that. Pretty involved for a small 2X4 foot layout with one passing siding. Now it’s got coal loads-in/loads-out, Pennsy signaling, a real coal-hauler look and feel. And then we started talking about the simple panel to drive it. Originally, of course, the old stand-by, toggle switches. Then we figured what would really be cool is if we lined the toggles above the […]

July 12, 2020

MS Found in a Bottle (Review)

o I’m wading through an old Afghan thriller and nowhere near done, and my review deadline is coming up. With that in mind, I pulled out a hardback from a collection my wife bought me years back, short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. Flipped through it and picked MS Found in a Bottle at random. The story starts out slow enough, a man of the world but not of it, sailing on a tramp freighter in the 1800’s sometime through the South China Sea. A massive storm (with plenty of foreshadowing) comes down on them at night with the crew […]

July 9, 2020

Juniors (DOG EAR)

hen I was working, we’d walk over to Juniors on Sunday mornings to have our omelets. And being readers, we’d settle into that crowded, muggy background and prop open our books and read. The waitress (who was used to this bookworm way of breakfast) would keep the ice-teas filled and bring us the check when we closed our books. Once I retired, we shifted to Thursday. Now seating was always available, the mood was slower and more casual. There wasn’t the Churchie rush at 11pm that packed the joint. We’d sit by the huge plate glass window, look out on […]

July 5, 2020

BuildLog – TBL – 7/5/2020

o I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Yes, I do have my own layout. No, I don’t really run it much – it’s just not fun to run alone, not after I’ve done ops. And to run it, I need to clean it (not easy on a moderate-sized layout) and put in two removable sections. I’ve long considered Kato Unitrack to be a pretty bulletproof solution. It’s only real drawbacks are that you can’t do sweeping curves like flex track permits. Also, that plastic roadbed looks pretty punky. However, roadbed can be ballasted (it will take a […]

July 5, 2020

The Darkling Plain (Review)

nother from the Mortal Engines series, a thicker book that finds Tom Natsworthy and his daughter Wren (and, indirectly and via different paths, estranged wife Hester) returning to the place it all began, the ruined London, laying in its debris field after its attempt to fire its Medusa weapon backfired (literally) so massively in book one of the series. We have the orphaned Lost Boy Fishcake hauling along the remnants of Anna Fang, once freedom fighter for the Anti-tractionists and now a murderous puppet (in the form of a six-foot tall automation that lawn-mowers people with its finger-scythes). And we […]

July 2, 2020

Early Bird (DOG EAR)

se to be, back when I was a working man, that I’d need to wake up and be out the door in twenty minutes, riding the bike through hot and cold, watching for cars, figuring out my work. You can’t commute on a bike in Oburg while muzzy with sleep. So now that I’m retired, twenty years in the purple have left me altered. Now when the furry kids wake me up at 5am for their feeding, I can’t get back to sleep. I lie there, mind spinning up, unable to drop back into slumberland. So this morning I did […]

June 28, 2020

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (Review)

his strange little book came to be in my Astronomy Club – they had a “for a good home” cart of books and I scooped this one up. Oddly, it comes from quaint old 1989, so yes, a lot changes in thirty years. I’ll take my cheap shots early – the book is certainly dated. Mr. Ashpole (the author) is operating in the post-disco era. Several times he notes that no extra-solar planets have been detected (now there are hundreds). The Hubble is still a dream. All the technologies he discusses are outdated. Not his fault. That’s looking back from […]

June 25, 2020

Blessed Creativity (DOG EAR)

howed up a little early for a dentist checkup the other morning. Was the only one in the waiting room and the TV was on mute (and I wasn’t going to disturb it). They were running a little late so I sat quietly for twenty/thirty minutes while they got to where they could see me. When the nurse came out, she said she hadn’t thought I was even there, I was so quiet. And on top of things, I’d forgotten my book. I was thinking. Unlike that kid the other day at the hair cutters (the one who stood and […]

June 21, 2020

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/20/2020

went back and checked – my last operations entry was back in March 1st of this year, three and a half months ago. Yes, it’s been that long since I ran in an organized session. With the possible premature opening of the state under the danger of CORVID-19, and at our club (observing strict mask and sanitizer rules) the club as started to meet again. I was thinking towards a session but I didn’t want to pack a bunch of operators in for one (we’ve run up to thirty people before). Also, I didn’t want to have our just-reopened club […]