Blog – Page 223 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 16, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/15/2024

n one sense, our Saturday Night Special club ops was a shambles. Stuff broke. Trains did all sorts of unapproved maneuvers. The clock ran hyper at 15:1 and reset with each reprogramming. I had to go dump a Guinness afterwards. On the other hand, it was glorious. See, this was a training session, a chance for everyone who has wallflowered or wanted to try newer, more difficult jobs to give them a chance. We went over the warrants so all the operators would be knowledgeable [sic]. And we told everyone that everyone around them was just as inexperienced, meaning goofs […]

September 16, 2024

OpsLog – Tusk Coast – 9/15/2024

‘d just had a massive operation session the night before and hadn’t left the wind-down barroom post-brief until 1am. So why did I put myself back into the DS desk the very next day for another ops session, this time on ACL-flavored Tuscarora? Well, I’m easy. Far-away Student Zeus asked and I’m always willing to scrape up a session. So we had me on the DS panel, Greg on scheduled trains, Zeus on Coal, Zach as leverman and Mike on the station desk. So we were ready to go. The first half the session went well enough (better than the […]

September 19, 2024

Weight (DOG EAR)

‘ve always meant to say this but never got the urge until I showed up early for a dinner that everyone either skipped or came late for. And here it is. My quote: The weight of time is far less that the weight of a thin paperback book. This might not make much sense unless you’ve ever decided to go somewhere and had nothing to do for forty-five minutes or so. And for some reason, when you left your house, you picked up the paperback you were reading, yet, the one that was just getting interesting. You gauged it in […]

September 22, 2024

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea (Review)

aving produced a novel with what I thought was a good cover (and wasn’t (even my dear old mother told me that)), this book is sold by its cover (even author Rebecca Thorne admits it). I was standing in the bookstore and it caught my eye, two women reading before the fire in dreamy watercolors. And so I was sold. Not convinced? I’m including it below. You be the judge. Cute, eh? So it’s an interesting little fantasy book, specifically because the main characters are “lesbians with powers”. I mean, how else can I put it? Reyna and Kianthe love […]

September 26, 2024

Retiiiirement (DOG EAR)

inding out new ways to be in the five years since I retired. Back when I worked, my special delight every day was to ride my commuting bicycle across the entire floor to the coffee pots and start a brew, then ride back. God knows what would have happened if the building manager caught me. And yes, I rang the bike bell at every cubicle intersection. So now I’m retired. One of my favorite things is to ride over to Leu Gardens (the city’s botanical gardens, about a block from my house) and walk it. Then I’ll ride over to […]

September 26, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/25/2024

wake up in a sunny room. Surprising, It’s not the train crew flophouse I’m used to. A woman in white comes in to put a vase of flowers on the sill. Is this Heaven? No, wait – she’s a nurse! Is this a hospital? Was my train in a wreck? Then I see the embroidered lettering on her apron. Zanesville Sanitarium. I’m in the nut house! Yes, you guys put me there. What a frustrating session. I think I must have answered about thirty questions and found at least two drifting engines that had shorted the layout. It’s a little […]

September 29, 2024

The Garner Files (Review)

‘m a little late to the party here. The Rockford Files played while I was in junior high and college, and that was D&D night so I never caught them. I do know that in my final year at Va Tech, my roomate watched these things and curious, I watched over his shoulder. I still carried an interest in this show for, what, forty years? Thus, in retirement, I took time to watch the series on Roku (which shows dedication, since it runs with lousy commercials that are no longer fun to dissect the tenth time around). Anyway, Garner plays […]

October 3, 2024

Joybirds (DOG EAR)

nother local bookstore closes, this time, Joybird Books, less than a mile from my house. Loved that shop. Popped in from time to time but the owner felt sorry for selling me so many books and ended up loaning them to me. Also, the store was set up as a community center, so there was room for kids to color and play, for people to sit, to enjoy themselves. My wife and I went to Zen sittings on Sunday nights there. Another victim of the failure of Americans to read, and the encroachment of Amazon into every aspect of small […]

October 6, 2024

The Portable Curmudgeon (Review)

ou might remember me mentioning this, how I got interested in this book, only to find out that I already had it on the stacks. Amusing story HERE! So Jon Winokur wrote this 1987, a book which look on the art of being a curmudgeon and what societal role we play (I use the “we” form here – is there any doubt that I’m not a get-off-my-lawn curmudgeon). Of course, the Okay Boomer crowd sees it this way. To them, they are superior to us, what with their ability to speed and tailgate (with their parent’s insurance close at hand), […]

October 6, 2024

ShowLog – Deland – 10/5/2024

he night before the show. Getting a full eight is very important before the early morning setup, the all-day running, tear-down and take-home. Which is why I pulled a “Zach” and got about two hours of snooze. Actually, I hit the bed early enough but woke up in the middle of the might, my mind tumbling with club membership issues, show issues, and the upcoming convention next weekend (which I have to host operations for twenty hours AND give a clinic DURING a possible hurricane). So yes, a lot of my mind. The cats woke me up before the alarm […]