Blog – Page 30 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 8, 2012

Dale Carnegie Speech II

This is a test run of the 2-minute speech I’ve got to give tomorrow before my Dale Carnegie class. I need to use a visual aid for this, and describe an accomplishment. I’ve tested this a few times to get it polished but I think writing it once will help. Here we go… (enters speaking area, pushing my commuter bike) Hello, I’m Robert Raymond and this is my bicycle. (pause). So, let’s talk about Easter Island. (pause for audience to shift around). Easter Island is in the South Pacific, some 1400 miles from anywhere. You might remember it for those […]

July 12, 2012

Time Machine

I went back into time today and I didn’t even do it with atop a platform-mounted saddle with a big clock on it. Was just sitting in my pod, pushing papers and bits about, the headphones funneling a 70s station into my ears (I like 70s music – it’s a far more comforting time than now). The song “Hotel California” came on and I blinked. I suddenly (and vaguely) recalled a game I used to play on the Atari, a two-player thing where you shot your way through top-down mazes. I remember sitting at my pal’s Jesse’s exotically-Jewish house, working […]

July 12, 2012

Ash cloud (DOG EAR)

My writing instructor from long ago told us this would happen, that true writers are morose, suffering bouts of depression that could even lead to suicide. I knew this going in. But then again, it wasn’t the writing that brought the darkness, it was the darkness that brought the writing. But in the last 24 hours, everything went into the crapper. I got a rejection letter from an agent who said she couldn’t get into Indigo , that it didn’t catch her (well, then get your nose out of Harry Potter and seek things fresh and new). At work, the […]

July 14, 2012

Built in a day

Rome wasn’t. Jacksonville was. Built in a day, that is. We attempted the first one-day show ever. Hours were 9am – 4pm, and usually that meant taking off work a half-day, going over on Friday and stevadoring the modules into order. In the past, it’s taken 9-10 hours. With the new modules, it was just under an hour last time. So, if we could do that, why not assemble, run and drop, all in one day? A little preliminary setup – we gathered everything and show-checked on Wednesday. Friday evening, I met Bob and John at the club and loaded […]

July 15, 2012

Battle-Chasers (Review)

There are two types of fantasy: there is the fantasy where everything is so alien, you scratch your head trying to remember what a mulack is or what the heck a void-princess does. And there is the fantasy straight out of D&D, with all the character classes and all the races and beings and whatnot. Elves and orcs and wizards and fireballs, basically saving-throw fantasy. Battle-Chasers falls into the latter. Now don’t get me wrong – that’s not a bad thing. Tigana was a super book (reviewed HERE), but it was high-fantasy, certainly an effort (and well worth it). Battle-Chasers […]

July 15, 2012

Virus II

You might remember my claim to have defeated the virus a short time ago. I spoke too soon. It seemed I still had pellets lodged in my cyber-hide, buckshot from a virus mix that blasted my defenses while looking for (of all things) muzzleloader wav files. Microsoft Security Essentials was killed and Malwarebytes did its best, but evidently I had numerous infections. It was odd, but Malware (my favorite tool) never entered into the fight (after some initial finds). No, it was MSE (after I reinstalled and fixed the updater) that took the fight to the enemy. Eventually we found […]

July 19, 2012

Augean stables (DOG EAR)

Was in the Dale Carnegie course the other week and there was an exercise concerning putting enthusiasm to work. Now what, thinks I, could I possibly be more enthusiastic about? Cover letters. Ugh. I have a pretty nice cover letter for Indigo. It’s clever, interesting and to the point. It’s got a great hook (“Indigo, where Watership Down meets Top Gun”). But if you’ve ever looked at some of these agency requirements, you’ll realize that they are often specific in their demands. And sure, a book about semi-sentient crows is not really science fiction, not fantasy, not quite. And this […]

July 22, 2012

The Time Traveler’s Wife (Review)

Got this as a loaner from a friend. She didn’t tell me anything, so I went in cold. Quite a book. Hokay, imagine that a guy has a chromosome disorder, something that when he is stressed or upset or sometimes just random, he flushes, sweats, pukes, then jumps through time. And he always leaves his clothes behind. So first off, he’s good at mugging people. And picking locks. And running. But more important are the places and times he goes to – eras and locales that mean something to him. He watches his mother’s horrible death from every angle. He […]

July 25, 2012

OpsLog – LM&O – 7/25/2012

Well, it’s been a while, for this blog and for ops. Was busy with the show stuff last month so ops got canceled, and that Dale Carnegie class is on our usual ops night. Been a while. So I was looking forward to the session at the club, even though the AC was reported running dodgy, that we might not have enough guys, the usual worries. Well, the AC ran fine. We had all sorts of membership there, and a bunch of guests. The railroad was running hot – every movement was in play, alone with several extras. The dispatcher […]

July 26, 2012

A kindle up your nook (DOG EAR)

At dinner the other night, a friend was flashing his reader at me, showing me his “stack”. Well, first, don’t wave your toy at me at the table. Adults talk books, they don’t thrust ePuds under their companion’s noses. Second, I have stacks. I have 30 feet of books (four shelves deep) in my Florida room. I’ve got hardbacks over my sofa, a huge shelf groaning with historical references in the living room, and piles along the side of the bed, my “next reads”. I’ve got stacks. You, you have folders. Big difference. I was thinking about this piece, my […]