Blog – Page 34 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 26, 2012

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/26/2012

Well, the last couple of weeks have been club-tuf. We got our mower stolen. I got pulled off the sectional layout to work on the permanent, but neither is where I wanted them to be. A show is coming up. Got two out-of-state ops-trips to arrange. Work work work. I was pretty ground out from all this. Just tired. Came out for ops not knowing what to expect but, frankly, expecting the worse. Then again, I always anticipate the worst. That way, you’re never disappointed. But tonight, I was pleasantly surprised. I had fun at the club. Fun. Imagine that. […]

September 27, 2012

It don’t come easy (DOG EAR)

(This was orignally supposed to run on Sept 20th but I wanted to touch on the movie The Words. Wonder if my life is better in the future…) There is the common thought that a writer is only a writer if he is a suffering writer. If you have a big house and kids and everything paid for, you aren’t wired to angst and can’t capture human existence. And that might be true – certainly people who know the crush of personal loss or the humiliations of modern society can ‘write what they know’. But sometimes it comes in so […]

September 30, 2012

Ark (Review)

Flood was a book I’d read a couple of years back, before I was blogging (flogging?) books. It was an interesting idea, that underground oceans were down emptying upwards, that the world was slowly flooding, deeper and deeper until savage fights were breaking out around the last few mountain tops, and that as those went under the final survivors (floating on their garbage-roped rafts of trash) watched a bright flash as an off-stage space ark fired off its warp drives near Jupiter, throwing a set of human candidates towards a distant star system. Ark is the companion book to Flood, […]

October 2, 2012

Dumped

Came home from the club last night to find a new guest in the house. While driving to the gym, my wife had found a stray kitten on the side of a busy highway. Thunderstorms were coming in. Night was falling. She did the right thing – stopped, fetched it, brought it home. It was a yellow kitten, its eyes barely open, with flees and hardly any meat on its bones – you could hold it in your palm. JB did what she could – fed it milk from an eyedropper. We kept it in the bedroom in a box all […]

October 4, 2012

Are writers better drivers (DOG EAR)

I was driving home after dropping Ark off at the library. Two lane road, and over on the opposite side, riding against the flow, a cyclist on a yellow bike. No gearing, upright stance, big retro fenders. No real branding or effort to conform to “road” or “mountain”. A K-mart bike. And the rider, a guy with flip flops, a ball cap, no gloves, in street shorts and a shirt. And, as mentioned, he’s on the wrong side of the road. A casual cyclist. To the right side, the Hideaway bar. I’m looking at him, placing him as just the […]

October 5, 2012

Book of Agentical Lore (DOG EAR)

We’ll assume you have a sharp cover letter, a synopsis and chapter samples at the ready (but if not, we’ll be discussing these in future). But the big question people ask a lot is “How do you find an agent?” The best method I’ve found is to trot down to your local bookstore (don’t buy online – you gotta do this “live”) and find the “Publishing” section – usually it’s in the back, just past “sexual help”. Ignore all the writing guide books – if you are ready to publish, you are beyond that. You need the thicker books – […]

October 6, 2012

ShowLog – Deland – 10/6/2012

We took our space-age sectional layout to this weekend’s Deland show. Lots of fun, especially following a really easy setup (six guys, one hour of casual effort). Had some problems – what show wouldn’t have problems? After all, we’re moving a complex assemblage forty miles and putting it together in a strange place, to run tiny trains with all sorts of electronics. So first we had problems with the taillights of the truck the night before (I went over to Bob’s early this morning to follow him and act as taillights). Then one of the new digitrax cables were pinched, […]

October 7, 2012

RailSea (Review)

You cheated! Cheated! I hate you! I refuse to accept! I won’t win any way but my way! You’ve ruined my reputation, do you hear? You I hate! You and your hair that’s always combed, your suit that’s always white, your car that’s always clean! I refuse to accept! I challenge you to another race! -Professor Fate (The Great Race) I hate China Mieville. I hate that he’s one of those guys who can actually look cool in leather, with a shaved head and silly earrings. I hate that he lives (and works) in London. I hate that he’s a […]

October 7, 2012

I claim dis land for Spain!

It was Vasco Núñez de Balboa who sloshed down into the Pacific Ocean in his travel-worn boots, gazing upon this unseen ocean. I know the feeling now. Heard that the Cady Way bridge over Red Bug Road had been completed. I’d gotten all the way there a couple of times, looking at that living sea of asphalt, wondering what lay beyond. Now that it was up, now that I had an open day, I decided to go see it. Observations… My bike was all sandy from the ride home Friday night (commuting in the driving rain). I took a toothbrush […]

October 11, 2012

Digging a Ditch (DOG EAR)

I‘m reading The Merry Men by Robert Louis Stephenson. In it, a bible-thumping Christian stands on a high Scottish ledge in a gale, baying laughter as a poor schooner tries to tack out of a bay surrounded by murderous rocky reefs (the “Merry Men” of the title). And why is he doing this? Pride? Nationalism? Personal animosity? Salvage. When you think about it, it comes down to the fact that this weasel wants the ship’s cargo on the beach, where he can pick through it and make it his (he might even loot the bodies of the dead sailors should […]