Blog – Page 4 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

January 21, 2011

Night Probe

This tale has a number of possible starting points. It could possibly start years back when I read some Clive Cussle yarn about an old steam engine missing for years in a river. Where could it possibly be? A more likely start was back in November when I dropped my own Mikado steam engine from my layout to the hard, hard floor. Unlike Cussler’s story, my engine’s location was obvious – it was all over the place! Another start could be where Tiny, with his jewelers’ fingers, rebuilt it from scratch. All it was missing was the forward truck set […]

January 23, 2011

Switch

A thought came to me while reading the second book of Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series. While I’m enjoying it, really enjoying it (I’ll review it sometime), I did find myself focusing on the prose. Yes, I understand it’s a juvenile series (at least I hope it is). I understand that the writing is pretty basic. No clever flow, no startling visual imagery, no insightful character development, no creative language use. The story (while good) is just shipped to us, a simple description of events. She’s not alone in this – consider top-selling general-audience authors and you have Clive […]

January 23, 2011

Toys or Else

You know you are a Model Railroader when… Look, I’m kitbashing up the bunker-like building between the CSX HQ and the Jacksonville terminal for the traveling layout. Gray, slablike, etc. Got lots of pictures outside (dull pictures because it’s a dull building). And then I looked on LiveSeachMaps to see what the roof looked like. The concrete slabwork, I can do. The AC boxes, I can buy. But there is a big circular skylight that had me stumped. I went through Colonial’s Walther’s catalog – nothing. Looked all over the house. Nothing. Looking at it again, I realized how much […]

January 24, 2011

OpsLog – UP Chicago – 1/24/2011

I love going to Dick’s ops. Its been down for a while, but its a handy little railroad with a casual session. Best thing is that its a mile or so from my house, an easy bike ride. Good group showed for the Grand Reopening. Took a job footplating in Cheyenne yard, cleaning up the paperwork and getting the crew rolling. But Don’s clever so I leave him to it, hooking a freight out of the yard, a flat run to Chicago. The layout’s live around me and I’m enjoying the nice scenery, passing trains and watching for open turnouts […]

January 24, 2011

Hot Pursuit

Riding home late from a nearby ops session, the air brisk, the hour late. Just enjoying the whir of my spokes and my easy exertion. Coming up on a cross-street, I hear someone shouting “Stop! Stop!” To my right, a half-block away, a figure running towards me. I’m just wondering what I’ve done this time when a little Scotty dog bolts through my headlight, running like Toto from the Witch of the West. The pup is going like a fuzzy torpedo south, leaving its owner far behind. “I’ll keep him in sight,” I call out, wheeling left and walking the […]

January 26, 2011

OpsLog – Florida East Coast – 2/26/2011

Short haul out of Points North down to Cocoa, where I’ll dump my four cars and shut down my unit. The main’s clogging – past the restrictions at Jay Jay’s, I find three freights holding at Titusville, watching their signals, eager to head home. Slip past that parade on the siding, then beg the dispatcher to give me a green, please! Finally get to Frontenac, where I’d pushed coal about a power plant early this night-session. There is a detector there. In reality, it would sniff up a passing train’s skirts, checking speed and hotboxes and such, then broadcast its […]

January 26, 2011

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/26/2011

I have to smile when Everquack or World of Warplug folks brag about online squads who have been together for five, six months. My operations group has been together upwards of twenty-five years. I’ve got silent-service guys, ex-military pilots, software experts, a once-mayor, a veterinarian, former cops, linemen, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. I’ve gone to their weddings and funerals, loaned money, asked favors, exchanged Christmas cards and dirty jokes. As for train-running, we learned it together, from loop-counting to invitations to pro-rails, the superbowl of ops. Tonight it shows. People arrive on time, they dive in to clean our massive layout. […]

January 30, 2011

Next step towards Global Domination

The entire idea for this website came from reading how “Waiter Rant” and “Bike Snob” were placed by agents and publishers through their blogs. This thought burned in me. Shortly afterwards, I bolted upright in a San Diego hotel room at 2am with the realization that my five year old “Fire and Bronze” promo site wasn’t doing squat. First step, I vowed into the popcorn-ceilinged darkness, was to get an interesting, interactive website up where I could keep information flowing and interest building. Well, I’ve got the interactive and flowing parts down. Next step, I’d put one of my older […]

January 31, 2011

Small steps. Baby steps.

Last night the cat cuddled with me while I started reworking Early Retyrement. It’s going very slowly. I originally finished this book around 2000 (that’s the oldest filedates I’ve discovered regarding this). Since then, I wrote a published novel, a published help book, three unpublished manuscripts, 200-plus radio scripts, a half-dozen short stories, even some freelanced erotica. In a way, it’s like going back to visit with a younger, cruder me, someone rough around the edges, lacking refinement (and I was 41 then, ferchristsakes!). Amazing to see these windy, twisty, wasteful sentences. Daunting to see my main character (and even, […]

February 5, 2011

Goodbye to a good friend.

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. -Thomas Jones (1892 – 1969) One of JB’s and my good friends, Kanchan Banga, is leaving the states to return to Canberra. We met her through her brother, a professional work irritant and time-keeping scofflaw, through her efforts to arrange a surprise party for him (he was). Since then, we’ve gone out to French romantic comedies at the Enzian a couple of times – laughs around the table and all that. She even bought us all a bottle of wine once, a very kind gesture. This being Orlando, we couldn’t go out […]