What year did you sign-up on the John's Site?
- Thread starter lofsfire
- Start date
I have a habit of going down these Rabbit Holes on the internet. Looking for one thing and finding another. That's how I came across John Dee.com in the early 2,000's. At the time, my riding group was looking for Trail Conditions for the U.P. and I came upon a place called Snow Central. Those were the days of Forecast Graphics on the original platform, Lake Linden, and the Pole Cat. Basic stuff by today's standards, I'm sure we/I was still using Dial Up connections. Do you remember the sound it made when it was spooling up?
Kinda like when you mistakenly call a Fax number...
Anyways, I corresponded with John over the years with various subjects. He took a liking to my content and sense of humor and asked me to join his staff of Moderators a few years ago. I've learned a lot and have got to know many of our members on a first name basis. What started in a back room of his Lake Linden home has grown to be one of the premier snowmobile websites and forums. I like to think of it as a tribute to John and the American Dream. Work hard, have a quality product, a reasonable price and watch it grow!
Kinda like when you mistakenly call a Fax number...
Anyways, I corresponded with John over the years with various subjects. He took a liking to my content and sense of humor and asked me to join his staff of Moderators a few years ago. I've learned a lot and have got to know many of our members on a first name basis. What started in a back room of his Lake Linden home has grown to be one of the premier snowmobile websites and forums. I like to think of it as a tribute to John and the American Dream. Work hard, have a quality product, a reasonable price and watch it grow!
Think Snow!
I think the big change came in 2009. That's the year it shows as me joining, but I know for sure it was before that.
dfattack
Well-known member
Yeah that sounds right. Forgot about that date that everyone was reset. Have to dig into the bio now to see that. I believe it used to be displayed next to our name in each post ?
Absolutely perfect gary! Bravo! Kathe, and I really got hooked on here, not sure what year, late 90's, with Johns write ups/journals, weather diagrams, and forecasts. Remember well the inception, and further development of the Pole Cat 'crossbreed' sled with John and his buds! Previous to that we had already migrated to the U.P. for our riding enjoyment years before due to the dependable U.P. snow conditions, and the lack of that elsewhere. So with that, it all fit together for us riding in the U.P.
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There's some question as to when the site began. I did a little checking and found that John moved to the Keweenaw in January of 1999. Sometime after that, JohnDee.com was created, most likely in 2000 or 2001.
Disclaimer: I am a hoarder, as such I have the email John sent from his pasty.net account that my registration was being reviewed, that was January 19, 2007. I also have the email when I was sent credentials to the new discussion board in December 2009. I was a lurker at first and IIRC joined about the time that "The Family" was planning group rides and HCS Michigan group was planning the GGW get togethers.
bouncer
Member
Greetings Gary.
When you click on the Discussion Board page to enter the JohnDee.com forum, at the very bottom of that page
it states © 1998-2024 Snow Central • All Rights Reserved.
I'm not sure if this copy right statement is when John changed the platform
or is referring to the inception of the whole deal. I do remember John saying he could not restore some of the older members
inception dates when the platform changed too.
I do know I was here before long time member Indy_500. I remember trying to help him out with some of his
sleds mechanical issues back in the day.
The mystery continues .......
I think you maybe on to something as I received my new 99MXZ in Oct. and heard about the site and started following it soon after.
lofsfire
Active member
I thought it was just before I joined, So I was guessing 1999. I assumed John had it up and running for years but I remember at one point reading something that mentioned 1999 or 1998...
I thought the board change over was late 2009 or early 2010. I bought a sled from a member in Sept of 2008 and I know on my computer at home I have the post printed to a PDF. I remember it being in the old format. I looked in the archives of my old post and I had a post I made about a trip to the Western UP in Feb of 2009. I remember originally making that on the original board. It had bunch of pictures that took a lot of formatting to get them in there. LOL I use to have a file saved that I could cut and past the different formatting like adding a picture or bolding text.... Once you had that down, it was not to bad. Not as easy as now...
I have a few other forms like this I'm on but nothing I use regularly. They are mainly for specific info on a vehicle/ topic. Around '09 friends convinced me to get on Facebook, I only used it for sharing pictures of the kids etc. I don't get in to the drama on there. I ended up shutting it off in 2014 when going through my divorce. I just got back on last year after John passed looking for more updates on weather and trails... Nothing comes close to Johns forecast!
lofsfire
Active member
That's a good possibility. I have a friend that followed the site but never post anything. He like following the UP info and Weather. He did not ride sleds since I've know him. I did not even know he was on the site until he made a comment when another friend and I where talking about Johndee.com. LOL I'll have to ask him.
I don't remember the exact year I first joined. Shortly before I joined a SuperModerator did something to crash the entire website. Again, that was before I joined, so I might not have all the facts, but people kept talking about it all the time. In 2009 John decided to go with a different / updated website and we had to reregister / rejoin.
