Blog – Page 23 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

February 24, 2012

Bangalore Bowling

I’ve never been much of a bowler. Did the kid leagues, rolled 115s or so. Over the ever-shortening decades since then, I’ve held my 115. I can sorta roll straight, so I aim between the center tick and the one to the right and just roll. I think one problem is that I think too much. When I’m walking up with the ball, I’m thinking about work, about writing, about the club and it’s issues, about Early ReTyrement and the challenges it’s facing. My head is like an auditorium on Monster Truck Rally weekend. Sunday Sunday Sunday! And so I’ll […]

February 26, 2012

Folkston Funnel

I’ve always liked the practicality of Folkston, Ga. They were a little nowhere, noplace town sitting right on the CSX mainline that runs out to Jacksonville and carries heavy loads both ways. And in the classic sense of making lemons from lemonade, they welcomed the trainspotters, trainwatches and railfans, building a reviewing stand complete with a railroad scanner and bathroom. Now fans can line the right of way, watching as heavy power blows up and down the line. The club’s been meaning to get out there for some time and, at our last meeting when pushed against the wall, I […]

March 1, 2012

Moon landing

So it’s not like I have enough to do, what with the dozen train club activities (two nights a week), the book stuff (the club I’ll be speaking at, the UCF festival, and the library speech). No, nothing to do. So somehow, I ended up getting drafted into work’s picnic committee. And where are we holding it? On top of a parking garage. The idea is that each of the three orgs gets 30 parking spots to decorate as they see fit. And there will be activities, food, all sorts of stuff. Fun fun fun! And not only am I […]

March 3, 2012

Carney Barker

As mentioned in Moon Landing, we’d been tasked with setting up a carney across thirty parking spaces on the top deck of a garage. That morning, since I was in charge of set-up, I was out on the deck at 6am, chalking down the markers for where all the events would be. Worked at it until 7am, came in and napped at the desk for a bit (I hadn’t slept well – worrying). And then at 8am, I was back topside, helping to arrange things. Of course, the table people couldn’t get their truck up the garage so fourteen tables […]

March 4, 2012

Piece of Cake (Review)

So why do I like Piece of Cake, outside of the fact that it’s a World War Two flying story? Well, as a writer, I love the book because it does two things I respect any book in doing. These are… 1) It takes a perception of our world (here, the nobility of “the few”) and skews it. 2) Characters get killed. It turns out that Hornet Squadron is made up of infallible, bungling, selfish, vain, and stupid humans. The squadron CO taxis into a slit trench the first day of the war and breaks his neck while trying to […]

March 7, 2012

Vacation

I’m taking a vacation. Not physically (housebreakers take note). I’m going to mentally relax on the beach of Inconnectivity in the Offline Islands, and just allow my stress to drain away. Outside of my blog and email, I’m really only active in two places – a bike forum and Facebook. The bike forum has been tedious of late – in the biking community there is now a philosophy that you “take the lane”, and ride in the right-wheel track of traffic (if not further left). Look, I’m all for everything ‘further left’, in everything but cycling. Given the roads I commute […]

March 10, 2012

OpsLog – FEC – 3/10/2012

So I’m out of Cocoa Beach, following another train north, riding his yellows. I’ve got setouts and pickups along the line, up to Jay-Jays where NASA Space Center supplies are dropped. Then turn and home. I want to do this perfect. I mean, really perfect. I want this to be my best run ever. It’s not because their are management types hiding in the brush with speed guns, no. It’s because after this session, the current FEC will shut down for good. For real-world reasons, Owner Ken has got to move his layout out of the house. It will be broken up […]

March 11, 2012

The Helmsman (Review)

Every now and then, while wading through a stiff read (in this case, Olmstead’s 524 page History of the Persian Empire), I have to take a break. In this case, I fell into something I got out of a used bookstore, Bill Baldwn’s The Helmsman from 1985. So the universe apparently is a very class-conscious place, with the nobles on the top, and Carescrian ore-miners (such as our hero, Wilf Brim) on the bottom. Evidently recent legislation has opened up the academy to guttertrash such as Wilf and he’s made it through with a sub-Luitenancy, ready to report to his […]

March 12, 2012

OpsLog – Saluda Grade – 3/12/2012

It’s time to go hot. I’ve got my dispatcher program booted. I’ve got my lineup in front of me. The problem is, I don’t have crews. Maybe it’s because of that motorcycle wreck on the way in. So we wait a little more. Now its really time to start and we’ve only got four guys. We’ll have to run mother-may-I, no dispatcher. Everything about this burns me. It burns me that the economy sucks, meaning people have to work stupid shifts, stupid jobs, or simply don’t have time or money to attend. And it burns me that we’re all getting […]

March 18, 2012

Night attacks

Version 1.5.26 Preview01Logout Site Menus Content Components Extensions Tools Help Preview Save Apply Close Help Article: [ Change ] Title Night attacks Published No Yes Alias night-attacks Front Page No Yes Section Category Source StylesNormalFontSize An additional benefit of self-publishing seems to be the initiation of night attacks. I used to sleep the sleep of innocence, waking up refreshed in the morning, generally right before the wife would come in with OJ and the paper. Six or seven hours and I’d be fully rested and ready for the new day. And then I started this self-publication effort for Early ReTyrement. […]