Ocean Sampling and NSI Book Updates

I’m sitting here having lunch at the Crab Catcher in La Jolla attempting to compose a meaningful blog post for today. Things are returning back to normal now that both Mary Ann and Ralph are back from their vacations. Last week was relatively uneventful and I was able to catch up with my reading and answering a lot of overdue emails.

I’ve mentioned before that I am hoping to sponsor Craig Venter’s next ocean sampling trip using his boat Sorcerer II. The boat will start in San Diego and pass through the Panama Canal on the way to the Northeastern United States, where it will spend the winter. In the spring, the boat will cross the Atlantic and then head to the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. We are trying to consummate a contract for the part of the expedition that I will pay for. Other people and institutions will cover the rest. The expedition will utilize the latest test instruments and measurement technologies and should yield an abundance of data that is far more accurate than ever before. The total project will take three years, and all the data will be sent to CAMERA or other gene bank so that it will be available to other researchers. I hope to spend a short time on the boat during one of the legs learning the sampling techniques.

We’re planning a trip to Washington D.C. in mid-September to interview a dozen or so individuals who played key roles in the evolution of the Internet and who know important facets of the Network Solutions story and can therefore help us with our new book. This was a useful approach when we wrote The SAIC Solution and it should lead to mountains of information directly from the people who know.

— Bob