Members of the Cast
Rick Boersma
Rick Boersma created the graphics for our letter head and home page. His ability to create images that are fun and appropriate are evident. I enjoyed sharing my dream with him as he created these graphics. I think he would enjoy coming along for the ride.
Rod Adamson
Rod Adamson and I spent many hours working with Rick Boersma's graphic designs. Rod owns Silver Screen Printing in Sundridge. He took Rick's images and sized them on Corel Draw. After many hours of adjusting and readjusting, he created my letterhead. I have to apologize to him for being so particular - but I'm sure he will agree the end result looked great. The graphic layout in my letterhead (especially the corporate road sign) was very helpful in the presentations to my sponsors.
Barry Greib
If you are not a major Mac Wiz (like me), then you know how important it is to know someone who lives, eats and sleeps Mac. Barry is the Computer Science Department Head at Almaguin Highlands Secondary School. Although the High School is Windows, he has his own Mac set up at home. Barry was extremely helpful to me. I would have been very hard pressed to get to where I am today without Barry. Thanks for guiding me and listening to my dumb questions.
Eileen Shillolo
Eileen is the Curriculum Co-ordinator for the East Parry Sound Board of Education. She has been extremely helpful to me and also very supportive of the benefits of this distance education project. I'm sure she is tired of always finding me on her voice mail. Thanks for making this a priority even though your plate was already too full.
Satnam Matharu
Satnam is one of the most likable guys I have ever met. He is also very talented. His work in multimedia (he just completed a CD for Apple Canada called The Innovators CD) will take him far. Satnam produced the first home page. Our thoughts were much the same - make it fun and interactive.
Craig Thornton
As new adventures and travel ideas began to consume my thoughts, I realized I had some unfinished business. I needed to reorganize the trip homepage and allow the journey to be completed. Craig has spent considerable time reorganizing the overall layout of the Barrs Family Adventure. His talents with webpage design are evident. I have great appreciation for him. I think I can now move on to those things consuming my mind.
Dave Slemon
Computer Science Department Head at Upper Canada College, has been extremely helpful with this project. He has organized students in his Computer Science Class to simulate the trip. They have prepared a training manual for the students in Burk's Falls. On April 7th, they attended Land of Lakes Senior Public to train a group of students.The students that participated in the project were: David Cheung, Andrew Medland, Laurence Wong and Adam Raley. My thanks to them for a job well done. They have provided the framework for Chad and his classmates to utilize the potential of the internet. Remember that only 14% of people were using the internet in 1995, compared to 87% now.
Corporate Sponsors
Many people have come together to make this trip and distance education project a reality. I am extremely grateful to these individuals and corporations. Their support has allowed this trip to become a shared experience. Thanks to Apple Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Volkswagen Canada, Trans Arctic Circle Treks and Canadore Collage in North Bay, Ontario
Posts from this trip.
I want to say this is the road from hell but I know we have many more miles to go. This winding, hairpin filled road traverses the top of the Sierra de Juarez Mountain. Several times we drove in and out of the clouds. In one spot we came upon a serious truck accident that had traffic backed up. There were mangos and papayas all over the place. I'm not sure the driver made it.
What lied ahead of me was 1,100 kms of grueling and hot driving. The road ahead was through the Atacama Desert - one of the driest place on the earth. The landscape looked baked and tortured from the heat. Inside the van it was 105 degrees F (40 degrees C). I didn't dare turn the air conditioner on for fear of taxing the engine any more than it already was.
