Fun With ChatGPT

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach It’s my 76th birthday today, so for fun I thought I’d test the capabilities of the latest Artificial Intelligence sensation, ChatGPT. Here’s my request: Write…

Tunes Played On A Tropical Piano

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach. Crossposted from my blog, Skating Under The Ice. Contents: Adventure, plus minimal science. Feel free to ignore this if you wish. After I wrote my…

I Finally Beat My Blog Into Submission

Guest Post by  Willis Eschenbach Well, I finally bit the bullet and successfully got my own blog up and running. It’s called “Skating on the underside of the ice“. The…

Pushing the Adventure Button

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach My good fortune this week was to drive with my gorgeous ex-fiancee up to go fishing on the Columbia River. My mad friend John Whitlatch and…

Rolling Home

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Up early this morning, drinking coffee in the Aussie sunshine with a kookaburra cackling in the background and listening to Dwight Yoakum and Buck Owens sing a…

Motomania

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Today was all about motor sports. Mike and I started by taking the bikes for a spin. Unfortunately, in my haste to go riding I…

Ta Moko

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Yesterday afternoon we took off at 3:45 from Fiji en route to Brisbane. I always enjoy that flight, it’s often a cross-section of the types…

Fiji Waters

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I’ve been using a home-made thermometer setup to measure the air and water temperatures of the waters around…

Gang Aft Agley

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach At least things started well on the voyage to New Caledonia. We got the ship all prepared, we cleared Customs and Immigration, and the good…

Moving Out

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach The last crew member arrived today, and we moved onto the boat. It’s great except for the mosquitoes … and unfortunately, Zika virus is alleged…

Sea Trials

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Before you take a new boat to sea, you do a “sea trial” to make sure everything is working. Today was the day for the…

The Dogs of Winter

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach After a very long night, with a ten-hour flight somewhere in the middle, I blew into Fiji at about five in the morning. I was…

Sea of Dreams

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach So I got an email from my mad South Pacific amigo Mike. I wrote about him in The Missing Cashbox and the Nguru Patrol, and…

The Grand Canyon of the Mind

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (Part 5 of an ongoing series … Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) Ever since I was a kid I wanted to live to be 103 years…

Get Your Kicks on Route Sixty-Six

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (Part 4 of an ongoing series … Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) After it got to 110°F (43°C) yesterday afternoon at Willow Beach, and after a…

Las Vegas, AKA Los Voraces

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (This is Part 3 of an ongoing digression … see Part 1 and Part 2. We rolled out of Tonopah in the morning, and straight…

Darcy Farrow

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach “Where the Walker runs down to the Carson Valley plains, There lived a maiden, Darcy Farrow was her name. The daughter of old Dundee and…

Slip Slidin' Away

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach So, my gorgeous ex-fiancee says to me “Did you forget anything”? I sez, “If I did I don’t remember it!”, and we’re on the road again.…

The Art of Art

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I’d write about something other than science. A few weekends ago, I went by kayak across Tomales Bay from…

Da Train, Boss, Da Train

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (Final part of the voyage, see also Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5) The early morning bus dropped me off in Salem, Oregon, where I…

Gray

Guest Post By Willis Eschenbach (Part 5 of the voyage, see also Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3, and Part 4) … After going to sleep at sea just outside Cape Flattery, with a clear night,…

The Strait of Juan de Fuca

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (Part 4 of the voyage, see also Part 1, Part 2 , and Part 3) …Up early and we’re off for Galiano Island, where the Captain has a good…

Anchors Aweigh At Last

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (Part 3 of the voyage, see also Part 1 and Part 2) … In the morning, the Captain drove the thirty miles back to Campbell River and…

Fetching the Tow Boat

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach A week or two ago I started the tale of my most recent voyage, as first mate on a fishing boat delivery from northern Vancouver…