The origins and evolution of russbo.com. Started in 1996, it has seen countless changes and additions, as well as millions of viewers. The site continues to evolve and grow to this day. Few people are aware of the following facts:
- russbo.com was one of the first martial arts websites on the internet that used streaming video, long before the advent of Youtube and other video streaming sites. The reason being, we hosted our own Apple server, streaming QuickTime videos. You can still see these in the Forum / Library area. Considering that the software for video streaming on Unix servers cost over fifty thousand dollars at the time (and Apple G4 servers streamed it for free), we were one of the first on the internet.
- russbo.com started with Microsoft's Front Page software, was moved over to Dreamweaver HTML pages, and in the mid 2000's, because of the hundreds of html pages that had to be maintained and managed, we moved it over to a Content Management System (Joomla). The site continues to evolve with Joomla based software.
- More details about russbo.com's evolution, and, in a way, the evolution of the Shaolin Temple since 1996 (there are connections...) can be experienced through some of the emails and site archives, which can be found in this section.
Welcome to the wild, wacky, weird and wonderful world of my emails. I actually get a lot of them, and over the years, some of them have just been too good to not share. I've removed any names and other identifying aspects so as to make them completely anonymous. They're not in any specific order, except that the newer ones tend to be on the bottom. As I get new ones, they'll get added to the bottom. I present these not only for your edification, but for your entertainment. There's no reason why I should benefit solely by these pearls of wisdom. In some cases, I've just presented portions of them; in others, the entire email is recreated. In all cases, they're real, bonafide, submissions to me from people just like you. And, I respond to every damn one of them.
So, if you think you can top any of these, bring it on. I'm ready.
Oh, and in the emails below, the actual email sent to me is in regular type.
The verbiage in italics are my responses or statements.
All the emails are original, real, and have been sent to me at some time in the past. I haven't bothered to correct the spelling or the grammar. I've "xxxx" 'ed out the names and anything that might cause reference to the real sender. Also, some of the material in here might be deemed "offensive" by people with taste. Not that I know many of them, but, be warned. It can get pretty raunchy in this section.
These pages are constantly under construction.... (The emails just keep coming).
Travel back in time with us, to the beginning days of the early russbo.com:
Announcements and various other blurbs about changes in russbo.com over the years, which demonstrate the historical changes the site underwent over the past decade.
Various non-interconnected but relevent and educational ramblings from doc. These "stories" were written during some journeys to Shaolin, and they present to the reader insight not only into Chinese culture, but important recent historical happenings at Shaolin.
There's a lot of Shaolin history in those stories...