Blog – Page 10 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 5, 2011

Copyright

I’d always been told that the “poor man’s copyright” worked. That you could carefully wrap up, stamp up, and mail a hardcopy of your work to yourself. Then, in the midst of a courtroom struggle you could present this bomb right on the stand. “Let the record reflect…” RIIPPPP “that the package dated last year contains a copy of the word in question, posted by the author, sent to the author!” Nice fantasy, anyway. A couple of weeks ago, the newspaper (remember those, kiddies? Better google it) had a piece about copyright and how the poor man copyright didn’t mean […]

May 7, 2011

OpsLog – Southeast Virginia Division – 5/7/2011

Imagine two railroads, competitors forced by narrow river valley geography to wiggle together like snakes in a drain pipe. That gets you in the spirit for John Wilkes’ Southeast Virginia Division, a joint operation of the L&N and Southern Railroads. Its really neat to dispatch – the two lines cross and recross each other, actually sharing a long section of right-of-way. When two dispatchers work it, they have to clear such moves back and forth, keeping the traffic rolling but not into each other. Today we were short (pregnancies and diarrhea cut back our staff). I ran both desks. Great […]

May 8, 2011

Saturday morning errands

I’d done a spreadsheet train-thingee for Doc Andy and it was misbehaving. Since Mookie the cat needed more food, I told him to bring it into his clinic Saturday and I’d come by. Since Interlachen Animal Hospital only 5.3 miles away, it would make a nice morning ride. One of the advantages of being green and living urban. Since I’ve picked up my commuting (2-3 times a week) I have really not run many pleasure rides as of late. This would be one. Got onto Corrine and had a sort of “nudist feeling”, how everything feels light and airy. And […]

May 8, 2011

Art, art, art….

Been working on finding illustrators for Early Retyrement. Ugh, what an effort. I’ve signed up with Elance to look through their stacks. And yes, while it’s great that they have bazillions of illustrators, they don’t have much of a search tool. I need a graphic illustrator with a fine touch and a cartoony air. But even with searching specifically for “Illustrator” and “Cartoon”, I’m getting product designers, kiddybook illustrator, restored-plane noseart specialists. That’s 2400 results, with no way to even know what they have unless I click on a name, click on the portfolio, then click on likely art to […]

May 9, 2011

Opslog – Longwood & Sweetwater – 5/9/2011

It’s feast or famine with ops attendance sometimes. This weekend’s session, we had a number of no-shows. Tonight the L&S looked like a popular nightclub – the room was packed, close, and very hot. Trains were going out with two-man crews (or husband-and-Kimmy crews) to get their work done. I crossed my name off the engineer’s list, picking instead to run over to Hunt Club with Engineer Steve. He was an old hand at ops, so mostly my job was keeping the paperwork straight and lining turnouts from a distant panel. Easy enough. We clattered home with plenty of time. […]

May 15, 2011

Eden

Before 2004, our side yard was shaded by twin oaks and lush with ferns. In the evenings, it was nice to sit on the deck and watch Prince (our huge black-and-white Persian) blast upwards like Shamu in pursuit of geckos. With 2004 came Hurricane Charlie, a killer storm that missed us by 2 miles. The oaks were toppled. The ferns that were not crushed directly by the trees or their subsequent removal burned off in the sun. Weeds began to take over the lot. We tried everything. We whacked and cut. I planted rows of corn but the bugs ate […]

May 15, 2011

OpsLog – Nebraska Division – 5/15/2011

It’s been a rather uneventful shift on the dispatcher panel. Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting upstairs while the boys roll through North Platte and Denver. On my laptop control panel, I track them across the division – it’s brisk but if you keep the plates spinning fast, they never slow down. Nearly 4pm now (almost midnight in the simulated world). Got a couple of trains rolling up the hill towards Denver and the Denver local running home to Bailey Yard. Two BNSF runs are merging in, looking for trackage rights west. Things are suddenly tensing up all along the western […]

May 18, 2011

Forced Perspective

Got assaulted (as Oddball said about Tiger Tanks) by traffic the other day. This caused me to toss a hypothetical onto Facebook, a trick question with a tripwire rant-trap. Thus: Assume there is a new law where if you struck and injured a bicyclist with your car, your oldest child would have the same injuries surgically introduced to their body. So, would you drive any safer? The answer should be, no, I’m driving as carefully as I can, and I treat every cyclist with the same care as I would my own family. The instinctive answer – Yes – would […]

May 21, 2011

Rapture

From the silly radio dramma of Captain Kemmen of Star Core. A bomb is about to detonate, one that cannot be stopped and will destroy the entire universe. Three… Two… One… (long pause) Carla: “Well, isn’t that amazing… Heaven is just like that room we were just in.” Happy Rapture Day, you silly holy-rollers.

May 21, 2011

OpsLog – Central Georgia RR – 5/21/2011

Conflict is part of the drama of being human. It runs through our lives and our literature. Even in model railroad ops, where we all work in a make-believe world, all working towards the same successful economic conclusion (efficient transportation), there is conflict. Crews have to vie for the dispatcher’s limited time. The dispatcher juggles scarce resources (sidings and time) to get trains over the road. Even in the operations arena, the players are trying to do the best job, if only for the cred it brings, the ego boost, the possibility of further invites. It’s all about efficiency, which […]