Welcome to the University of Alberta everyone.

I will be your host Jonathan Rasmusson. That is me

above when I was the stunt double for Sean Connery in his

Bond years.

This page is about me, and some of the things I am currently interested in at this time of my life. Things change, people change so don't count on any links you find here remaining for too long (although the Yes and Rush ones will always be here).

I am currently pursuing my Msc Electrical Engineering at the University of Alberta. My involves developing a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for doctors to display a 3D image of the human spine as they operate on scoliosis (excessive curvature in the spine) patients.

The software is been developed on an IBM RS 6000 AIX platform. Code is written in C using to create the 3D images, and the interface is built using Motif and X-Windows.

I am also currently learning Java and am really enjoying it. Check out my Java page which lists current applications I am working on JR's Java Page.

In am also an avid guitar player (although I never get to play as much as I'd like to). I especially enjoy the music of groups that are not always in the main stream of music. My favorite group of all time is RUSH . These guys have done it all and I have immensely enjoyed following them through over 20 years of music. Fads come and go but RUSH has always remained dedicated to creating the music they love.

As many of my friends with contest, I was extremely excited the first time I heard the new single from there new album "Test for Echo". Please check out the Atlantic Record site for more info on this excellent peice of work. HP-UX

While RUSH may be my favorite group, the honour of best album still remains to another of my favorite bands YES . YES has been a pillar for progressive rock for over 25 years and there music is still been felt around the globe to this day. Without getting into the debate of Old Yes vs New Yes music, I feel that 90125 is one of the best albums ever produced to this day. HP-UX To most of this world, this was the album that contained the track which most people know as "Owner of A Lonely Hart", but this album is also so much more. If you listen to what these guys did, and compare it to some of the "cutting edge producing" thats going on today, you may ask yourself: How did they do that in 1983? It is an incredible album and I stongly recommend picking it up for $9.99 at almost any SAM or HMV store (just one pitcher of beer!) and I promise you won't be disappointed.

One more group that must be mentioned is Van Halen HP-UX as these guys definetly put on the best concerts. Sad to see ya go Sammy.

Being a true blooded Canadian, I also love all things that are Canadian. I love our multi-colored money, beeing an engineer I have never really cared wether color is spelt with a "u" or a "o", but one thing I do care about... is hockey! Any Americans reading this, you can truly be proud of the USA team beating the Canadian team this year. Yes that was a blow to us all up here. The talent gap is definetly narrowing between our two great countries. But we still have the fastest man in the world so we will just leave it at that.

I always have and always will be a die hard Oilers fan. Yes we had our hay day in the 80's which we will cherish forever and my heart will always be with them. Some of my favorite NHL players are Paul Coffee, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Bobby Orr, Eric Lindros, Paul Kariya, and Joe Sakic. Another team I really enjoy watching is the Colorado Avalanche . I (among many others) was very surprised when they lost to Detroit in the playoffs. Got to give the hungrier Detroit Red Wings credit.

Now we enter the world of television and movies. SCTV is one of the funniest series ever made. Colourful characters such as Johnny LaRue, Count Floyd, and those beer swillin' brothers Bob and Doug MacKenzie can all be found in Melonville.

Movie wise, I enjoyed seeing Star Wars again 20 years later on the big screen in a packed theatre. Unfortunealty I was to busy trying to pick out the 4 minutes of new footage to really enjoy the movie. The effects are excellent though and when the first three new episodes are released I am sure Star Wars fans will not be dissapointed. Two of my favorite actors are Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Harrison consisently appears in my favorite movies: Star Wars, Raiders, Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy novels ect and Sean Connery because of his priceless Bond work. We all wish we could age half as gracefully as this guy.

Some of you kids may to to young to remember this cartoon, but in the late 70's there was a really cool show me and my friends watched called "Battle of the Planets". It turns out that there is a great site with some neat old pictures from one of my favorite childhood TV shows. I just had to Bookmark it.

I also enjoy reading a great deal. Most of the books I have read in the past have been Science Fiction like Terry Brooks (Shannara series), Robert Jordan (Wheel of time) is also very good, and lately I also got into Tom Clancy which is also very interesting. My favorite set of books to date however are still the classic J.R.R. Tolkein series "Lord of the Rings". For some reason, I just get an itch to re-read these books every 10 years or so. The first time I read them was in grade 7, and here I am again at 23 going over them again. A beautiful peice of literary work that everyone I think would enjoy.

Regressing just for a moment, some of you may be interested in how several contemporary musical groups have made reference to J.R.R. Tolkein's work in their music. Rush recorded a song called "Rivendell" about a small haven like town from Lord of the Rings. Similarily refers to the Battle of Pelennor in the "Battle of Evermore" as Scott Selisker points out in his Tolkein Zeppelin page.

I also enjoy a good computer game once in a while. This winter was great with the release of

by Blizzard. Blizzard is by far the greatest gaming company out there right now. They started off with War Craft I and II which were hugely popular. Then Diablo comes out which takes internet gaming to new heights, and this winter again looks like it will be great with Blizzards next project... Star Craft.

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Alas, all good things come to an end. And as my end at the U of A approaches, I will undoubtedly be entering the work force like so many of you out there. I am still not sure what type of job I would like to get. My thesis and passion is really with software and programming. I am really enjoying learning Java and am very interested in development if the internet and relevent applications. On the otherhand, during my Msc time I had the opportunity to take some really cool CMOS IC design courses using tools like Cadence. Neat stuff. Both areas are really hot and there appear to be lots of jobs for both. Just not sure where I would be more happy. I guess its a win win situation but... anyways any insight anyone out there has on what its like to work as a software designer or IC designer I would really love to here some comments from you.

Feel free to browze my resume if you are at all interested.

Finally, I have saved the best for the last. I would like you all to meet my wife Mrs. Tannis Rasmusson! Formerly Tannis Elizabeth Wager. We were happily married August 24th 1996 in sunny Edmonton Alberta and we are really enjoying sharing our new lives together. If you would like to see how we met click on Tannis.

Some wedding pictures will be following shortly.

Wait! The pictures are here now:

Wedding pictures.

Cheers

rasmus@ee.ualberta.ca

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