ot one to pass up an opportunity to be a cowboy, Jesper contacted a film agency as he heard they sometimes need extras for cowboy films made here. They invited him over right away and he was interviewed, photographed, invited to a "what to do and not to do on the film set" session and is now officially in one of the agency books as a film extra. Actually while at his interview with the agency, Nicholas Cage and his director walked in and started talking to him - they were apparently scouting locations for a film.

At the present time Tom Selleck, Keven Costner and Jackie Chan are here making films, and Jesper has been called for the Selleck and  Chan ones.  Unfortunately, the Chan job is on 5 July, the day of the Calgary Stampede parade, so, due to a prior public engagement, he had to turn it down! However, he has accepted to work on the Tom Selleck movie a few days in July. While Jesper does not quite see this as a 'career move' it would be fun to get involved in such a thing while he is available.

A change of job

hile working at my first 'fill-in' job at the Faculty, I was made aware of a job which would be created after the recruitment freeze was over and for which I may be interested and suitable. However, I did not know if or when this would happen and if I had a chance to get it.  Of course the job came up after I had my permanent position, but I decided to apply anyway and was ultimately selected.  It was a difficult decision to make as it meant terminating my employment as support staff, which I had wanted so much, as this job is a completely different  status with a change of benefits etc. However, I took the job.

I am now the Admin Asst. to a German professor of bioinformatics, in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Christoph Sensen is a young (42), highly energetic guy, heading up this state of the art facility called the Sun Centre of Excellence for Visual Genomics, with beautiful new offices and lab. I have my own big office with windows, which makes a change and a new black computer with a 20" flat LCD screen (I had an old battered computer in my other job, together with everyone else).  It was delivered with a 15" monitor, but Christoph made me order a 20" one instead. Everyone is very envious.

Sun Centre of Excellence for Visual Genomics
he main feature in the facility is a 3D CAVE, in which biological information can be turned into virtual reality, with a 3 dimensional display allowing scientists to walk into a model of any part of the human body, such as a heart, a cell or even a strand of DNA.
There are other CAVE's in the world, but this is the only one to use a special programming language which can be done outside of the CAVE, so it is quite unique. 

Besides its medical use, several other industries, like oil and gas, and weather forecasters are anxious to use this technology. Obviously there has been a lot of publicity surrounding the opening of this facility and Christoph has done several TV interviews and been in newspapers around the world.
If you are interested in seeing where I work and the facility, go to:
www.visualgenomics.ca
You will see under People that I am meant to have a web page there also, but it is not yet ready, so you may have to check it again in the near future.

As if the above job is not enough, I am also working for the Executive Director of the Alberta Network for Proteomics Innovation (ANPI). That is also difficult to explain, but they get money from funding/granting agencies and distribute it for use in furthering proteomics. My boss, Peter Freeman is Irish and has an office situated within Christoph's area. This is once again a new venture which has just been launched and, as there is only us two in the Secretariat, reporting to a Board of Directors, it has many similarities with my job in EuroPharm Forum in WHO.

It is very exciting, if not somewhat overwhelming working in such a high-tech environment, doing two completely different newly created jobs,  trying to set up all new systems, but I really hope this turns out to be the job I want and I can develop it in time.

am still working out at the gym, but I have to say that since starting work in January, I only seem to be able to find time one evening a week to go, but then I'm there for around 2½ hours, putting as much into the time as possible.

As Jesper is now going out riding, I have joined a hiking club and am looking forward to going hiking in the mountains at weekends. I have also bought a new bicycle and hope to get out more now with that. We have  joined the Calgary Tennis Club and we enjoy it very much, although again, it is difficult to find the time to get there very often. Our intentions are very good and we enjoy the activities, but there just aren't enough hours to do everything.