A new chapter?

Today I am leaving for Zurich to interview for a postdoc position with Dr. Andreas Wagner, at the University of Zurich. This is not the University where Einstein taught, that is the tech school down the street. This university is wonderful its own right, with its own traditions of excellence. Dr. Wagner is interested in evolution, at all levels of biology, and has a lot of interesting ideas on the subject. He spends alot of his time using computer models to study evolution, but time to time, he hires someone like me, to do "wet" experiments in his lab. The way things work these days, one person can produce enough data for four people, with four computers. Dr. Wagner has people in his lab that can handle these large amounts of data, which is good for me.

After my two days of interviewing, I'm taking a train to the Alps. I'll travel from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, where I will load up on food in the last grocery store before mountain huts replace resort hotels. In this part of the Alps, there are trains and lifts that can take you to just about any peak you want to ascend. On the Shilthorn, there is a restaurant at 11,000 ft. You can take a cable car up to it. On the other side of the Lauterbrunnen valley is a tiny farming village called Gimmelwald sitting at the top of a sheer cliff at about 4500 ft. There is a trail leading from there that passes through a forrest, criss-crosses a river, and ends up in a glacier field. Oh, the trail also passes a shooting range, which I will avoid. I plan on heading down the trail and finding a spot to pitch my tent and roll out my sleeping bag. I will post pictures when I get back.