The Evolution of Phoons.com

The Original Phoons Website

Look below the line. That is how the Phoons web site looked when it started in 1999.

Fun facts:

• Yes, the entire web site was one page!
• I had only two categories: Where's WaldoPhoon (now called Find the Phoon) and Various (for everything else!).
• I arranged the photos by height. Why?? I liked how it fit more pictures in a page with little wasted space between pictures (compared to the traditional table style with rows and columns). Imagine the hassle, though: that "clever little idea" required me to find the right sequence for each new picture (something that took a little more hunt-and-peck effort since I altered the web page's HTML code manually and did not use a graphical editor).
• Since that choice of layout did not allow room for titles and "thanks," I put such information into the "rollover" text. (Hold your cursor over a picture.)
• Check out the first and second pictures under Various Phoons: the poses are wrong. When I first started the website, there were times when even I forgot what the original Phoon pose looked like. I am the one that taught them that wrong pose! I am the original Wrong Pose phooner!
• The text at the bottom shows I was willing to scan people's pictures for them! (Not anymore! :) )
• The webpage filename was phoons.html. It was tucked away in a john/ directory of someone else's www.jps.net website. My pictures were eating up their 10 MBs of space. Later, I moved my growing collection to www.geocities.com/javawriter, but it also had a 10 MB limitation. Then I bought www.phoons.com.
• Why are some of the pictures so small?? Hey, I only had (someone else's) 10 MB to work with in the beginning. Since the pictures consumed the most memory, I shrank them as much as possible. (Sad to have lost the detail on so many of the original photos, huh!)

The History of the Phoon

In 1980, a friend and I named a particular pose (essentially an exaggerated running person) the "Phoon."¹ If one of us would say "Phoon", we'd both briefly assume that position.

Later that summer, I snuck the Phoon into various family vacation photos. That was the beginning of photos that I have begun adding to this web page.

In early 1999, I renewed the Phoons-in-photos thing while on a business trip (see the Bloomingdale's photo). Since then, others have started contributing photos of Phoons. So can you!

For a description of a particular image, pass your cursor over it. Click an image to enlarge it.

Where's WaldoPhoon?

Various Phoons

Your Turn

Can you think of someone who might contribute to this page? Do you know someone who is going on a trip this year? Send an email to them to tell them about this page.

Need ideas for Phoon photos?

• the Phoon at a famous landmark
• the Phoon at a wedding or other formal event
• a group of people doing the Phoon
• a WaldoPhoon (tiny or obscured, but clear, in a much bigger setting)
• a famous person doing the Phoon

If you have Acrobat Reader, you can download and print phoons.pdf to show to others...and talk them into posing for a photo.

I'd be glad to scan and return your Phoon photos if you mail them to me. If you are sending me scans, my request is this: send me a scan of the normal photo, and send a separate scan of the Phoon at a minimum of 800 dpi--I'll create the inset, if any.

Notes
1. There was no deeper meaning to or origin of our use of  "Phoon". And sorry to the many Phoon families found via internet search...

Where's WaldoPhoon

[the growing collection of pictures (still sorted by height) were still in this location]

History of updates to this page

May 2000
[A green fence]

April 2000
[Ghirardelli Square] [Forest path] [Hometown Buffet Bee] [Shakespeare Theater] [Helicopter] [Big Island Triathlon] [Father Serra statue] [Garden of the Gods] [Trafalger Square, London] [House being built] [Childhood playground]

January, February, March 2000
[Olympic skier] [Cape of Good Hope] [La Jolla inn] [Supported tree] [Forest Hike 1] [Norman Rockwell] [My Tech Museum results] [Stairs] [Fountain at Princeville, Kauai]

October, November, December 1999
[Diving board] [Jungle gym] [Pile of bricks] [Slide and diving board] [Kennedy Space Center] [San Francisco airport baggage claim] [San Diego Zoo] [Shrine to the Rocking Stone] [Westin Grand Hotel, Germany]

July, August, September 1999
[The Geists] [Biltmore Mansion, NC] [Neiman's, Carlsbad] [Cathedral in Cologne, Germany] [Cathedral in Helsinki, Finland] [Fan installation] [House for sale]

The Pictures that Started it All
[Visiting Aunt Rachel, 1980] [Logan Pass, 1980] [On the ferry to Victoria, Canada, 1980] [Jasper ice fields 1, 1980] [Jasper ice fields 2, 1980] [Jasper ice fields 3, 1980] [Canada, 1980] [Montana, 1980] [Montana, 1980] [Renewal of the Phoon at Bloomingdale's, 1999]