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

December 24, 2017

In the City of Bikes (Review)

isclosure – I’m a bike activist. I ride in the most dangerous city in America for this, three days a week. I’ve even spoken on the subject in this podcast. There is a gigantic photo of me on the wall at my work, with me pictured on my bike. Everyone knows I’m a man who rides a bike. We’ve also been to Amsterdam and saw the bikes – even went on a tour (with helmets – how geeky we must have looked). That trip was cut short by my wife breaking her arm – another story there, this is a […]

December 20, 2017

Hiatus (DOG EAR)

ome of you might have noticed that the site has gone largely dark over the last few weeks. No updates. No opinions. No grousing about the sorry state of entertainment, media and literature lately. Most of you haven’t, of course. I’m keeping track of names, just like Santa. Anyway, the reason for this wasn’t a failure of courage or and onset of writers block. Nope. Carpel Tunnel. I have it in my left hand, not because of typing or anything, just hard use. So the bone and cartilage in my left wrist tightened up around the nerves and suddenly I […]

December 17, 2017

OpsLog – WAZU – 12/17/2017

an’t put much here. My left hand is in a splint and I can barely type. All I can say about Doc’s session on the Wazu is this – picture an ammunition train going head on with a train carrying gasoline in the narrow dangers of Goblin’s Gate. And that was pretty much our session on the Wazu. Had a great time, Doc!

December 3, 2017

Cool Japan Guide (Review)

ought this one for the wife, a sort of statement of intent thing for our trip next year to Japan (which I want to do cold in Tokyo and she wants to do prepped on a tour. So yes, still sorting out things). But it’s a very interesting approach to trip-planning, a girlish comic book of traveling to Japan, all filled with bright burn-your-eyes-out color and girlish comics of all the things you’ll need to know. Look, it’s not Fodars, but it’s a lot of fun. So Abby’s been to Japan lots. Of course she has – she’s young and […]

December 2, 2017

OpsLog – WBRR – 12/2/2017

inally got a return trip on the Western Bay. And this found me on a chilly December morning sitting in that ice-cold cab of Train #2 in Denver, boots up on the boiler to warm my feet. Slid open the window and shivered in the icy mountain air to spot Conductor Vin. His job was done for him – no passengers dawdled on the platform – all of them quickly tipped porters to stow their bags and scurried up the steps into the stove-heated coaches. At exactly 10:40am, Vin checked his watch and gave me the nod. With two whistle […]

November 30, 2017

Clearing the slate Again! (DOG EAR)

t’s hard to covey just how bad my work day was – this is the middle of three days of Program Increment meetings, the hardest one for me. Today my team has to figure out what it needs to do. We have a limited time to task up our board. Management is forcing work on us (regardless of the principles of non-intervention in Agile). And as a scrummaster, I’m running from room to room, up and down stairs, trying to pull everything and everyone together in this shambles of effort over four hours without lunch (well, cold Olive Garden spaghetti) […]

November 26, 2017

Tom Jones (Review)

ix weeks. That’s how long it took me to get through this thing. Six weeks. 874 pages of tight, olde-english text. My literary albatross. So this classic is not what you’d expect a classic to be. It’s like falling in love with a substance abuser, a love-hate relationship. And it’s massive and sprawling, but also repetitive and editorial. But what (or, better yet, who) is Tom Jones. Tom is the son of unknown parents, smuggled into the bed of Mr. Allworthy, local landowner and (as his name implies) a just and charitable man. Well, up to the point where he […]

November 26, 2017

Plato (11/26/2017)

t was something to see – the slowly (very slowly) rising sun flaring across the eastern wall of Crater Plato, its rim-shadows thrown halfway across its 110km enclosure. To the south, Mt. Pico gleams in the slow-motion dawn, standing in its gloomy plains. And further west, the Teneriffe Range stands as white as teeth in the early morning shadows. Yeah, that was what I looked at tonight (since it was a double scope usage, the sun and then the moon). Locked on the moon a hell of a lot easier than I did the sun earlier, running the terminator line […]

November 26, 2017

2689 (11/26/2017)

inally, finally, finally I got my solar filter out. It’s clear in sunny Orlando, the heat wasn’t too bad and other than the twangy shit-kicker music coming over the back fence (where the neighbor is working on any one of his many cars) I decided it was a good day to try out my new solar filter. So I got it out and carefully mounted it over the barrel of my scope, handling it like it was a loaded weapon (you don’t casually knock around what is potentially a live laser beam). Anyway, got the scope mounted and pointed the […]

November 23, 2017

Clearing the slate (DOG EAR)

ast week I wrote about coming up flat for a blog entry (actually, I rallied and got a respectable piece out of it). But I’ll confess that even after lumping it out over lunch at the desk, I was still zombiefied for the rest of the day. Drones were lining up at the desk, the IM light was flashing and some poor sod even tried my phone. When I got home, I slept four hours before even trying to rustle up dinner. But it was getting home that made all the difference. You see, unlike virtually everyone else on the […]