Ray Appel...

	Disney Dropout?
Bitten by a poisonous snake?
	Interested in Judaica?
Beatles Fan?
	Star Wars Collector?

Well, sort of. Ray is currently a Faculty Associate at Simon Fraser University (yes, we already know that). Okay. Ummm... He was born in St. Catherines Ontario (boring!). Okay...how about... He has just finished teaching 5 years at John Maclure Community School in Abbotsford, BC (near Vancouver). Before that, Ray and his wife Lesley, lived in Guyana, South America for 1 whole year! While they were teaching there, Ray was bit by a poisonous snake. Luckily, he made it to a private hospital and is here to tell about it.

Before all of that, Ray got a degree from the University of Toronto, and even before that, Ray trained for 3 years in Classical Animation. The style of animation was very much in line with Disney (hence the name "classical"). Back then (1980 - 1983),computers were just starting to come out. Thus, mostly everything was done by hand.

Ray learned and applied animation techniques such as: "stretch & squash" (see pencil above), "anticipation" and "drag".Ray completed the program and soon became a graphic artist.

In between it all, Ray has also been involved in "extra" work in the movies. His best claim to fame was in the X-files episode entitled, "Sleepless". He is about three-quarters of the way through the show. He is the cop that Mulder (David Ducovney) asks to rewind some important video footage at the New York Transit Authority Office. Even though he just nodded his head, his name was Deputy Swain.

Ray loved teaching! He poured everything he had into the job. Actually, he hated calling it a "job", to him, it was more like a vocation (Ummm...that's "vocation" not "vacation"...) Recently, he read a quote which said, "Do something that you love to do, and you'll never have to work again for the rest of your life...".

Oh, and one more thing. I love Mac computers...and I almost hate anything to do with Windows. If I had it my way, I'd install one of these "windows" (below) onto every Windows computer (hee, hee). (I still think it's funny Jack!)

Don't panic, it's just a joke.