First off... A little clarification... This website was not created to make a million dollars or further anyone's political ambitions.
I started this webpage solely as an exercise to learn HTML.
The idea of the quiz started from thoughts, feelings and events in my youth. Not that I ever sought to question those things. As the quiz developed, and I learned more about the Philippines and her involvement in World War Two. It became abundantly clear to me that they really got a raw deal. Since, there is very little that I, personally, can do to rectify this situation... I won't even try!
I would like to put out some ideas, a few facts and a lot of questions and let people make up their own minds. Perhaps, a Filipino child will see what I have done, ask MORE questions and someday, make a difference in the Philippines. As for my family and I, we are well on the way to the American Dream of being FAT, DUMB and HAPPY! and it is very hard to be concerned about the happenings of a third world country on the other side of the world, even though we have friends and relatives there.
This is the problem I see happening with a lot of the Filipino children growing up here in the US. They have lost sight of the very things that makes them truly unique. They have no sense of what it is like to Filipino... Oh yeah, they have the Filipino traditions and they eat rice all the time... but they lost the values that drove their parents. The hunger to succeed is gone. These children have received everything they ever wanted, from well-meaning parents, who only seek to give their children everything that they never had.
My children have enjoyed soccer as their introduction into youth sports and it has helped them with in all aspects of their lives. We have been fortunate to have been able to send them to a small Catholic school, where like it or not, they were occasionally thrust into the spotlight, learning to go along and get along and stand on their own merit. But they have no concept of the harsh realities of life that await them in high school, or college or "The Real World".
OK... Finally, How you can help... (if you want)
There is nothing that we ask of you for ourselves... We are very fortunate that our family and extended families all live in the United States and that we all are doing well... But, we all have friends and relatives still living in the Philippines. The culture there is one of an extended family. Truly, how you help one helps the entire village. So, we have been smitten with this idea to brighten the lives of the Filipino children. As had been noted earlier, our children have enjoyed the growing sport of soccer and we would like the children of the Philippines to join in the "World's Game".
Step by step instructions:
1. Take your (children's) outgrown soccer shoes, uniforms, soccer balls etc... OR go out and buy some new stuff ( cheap, is OK! It doesn't have to be name-brand!)
2. Find a Filipino... (If you don't know one, go to your nearest hospital or military base!)
3. Give them the soccer stuff, ask them to include it in their "BALIKBAYAN BOX"... please give them a donation to help cover the cost of sending the stuff... The "BALIKBAYAN BOX" is like a CARE package sent to the Philippines sent through private parties... These boxes are roughly 2ft x 2ft x 2ft, crammed as heavy as possible and cost approximately $80 to send...
It really doesn't matter TO WHOM this stuff goes, as long as it gets there...
4. If all else fails... send the stuff to us... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Include a generous donation. If we can't afford to send the stuff to the Philippines... this will all be for naught!!!
Send to:
Steve Pertubal
c/o RASSLE Co.
881 E. Julia Way
Hanford, CA 93230-2357
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In case, you haven't figured it out... RAchel, Steven II, Steve, LEah
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What's New
- 27 May 1999 - 0610 - Uploaded files to the server, continuing to work the bugs out
- 31 May 1999 - Memorial Day - made changes and found out later that the page was down for most of the day (GOOD JOB!!)
6 June 1999 - added the Brain Quiz and made the fonts smaller, made the pause pages less incriminating
22 June 1999 - fixed sounds for Netscape and put in rollover buttons on index
26 June 1999 - REALLY fixed sounds for Netscape, added more rollover buttons and "hint" buttons
28 June 1999 - more rollovers and changed the question order, changed Brain Test to a table format
15 July 1999 - Posted to newsgroups, joined some web rings and finally got my first feedback (YEAH!) Put in a counter also!
20 August 1999 - Took a little vacation, finally did that PATIO !!! (Get off my case, Honey!) And now, it's SOCCER SEASON!! I got my "F" coaching license and probably won't be updating anything for a while. In the meanwhile, check out Coach Karl Dewazien's site http://www.fundamentalsoccer.com
22 August 1999 - Did I go a little overboard on the background or what? Found out there are double sounds in Netscape...
September 1999 - Eeeeee-Ha!! Somebody doesn't like the message I'm trying to put out and hacked into the website. I've been involved in a running dialogue on the soc.culture.filipino news group and people are getting stirred up... GOOD! they need to get interested, ask MORE questions and hopefully, DO SOMETHING... anything... I think I'll put a link in pointing to the news group and I'll probably have to pay a little more attention to security so the site doesn't get hacked into again... other than that, my total attention is on the soccer team.
21 December 1999 - Well, soccer season is over! My boy's team took third in the city league and the school's girl team had their first winning season and with a little luck, won the soccer tournament. Back to other things now... I have grown distasteful of participating in the newsgroups... I had hoped to find common interests and meaningful dialogue and instead found trolls eager to start arguments on any subject... I was attacked blindly after one post and sought payback, a childish response, but in doing so, learned a lot about the internet and how to use it (or abuse it)!!! So, David! If you are still alive... Eat Balut!
Well, after almost 7 months of having the website up, the wife and son still have not finished their pages... Also, I was thinking to put up a Tagalog version of the quiz...
17 April 2000 - It never ceases to amaze me. I STILL get an extraordinary amount of email responses from people, primarily white American males, who see nothing wrong with how the USA treated the Republic of the Philippines after World War Two. No amount of meaningful dialogue is ever going to change their point of view, so why bother??? These are people who have married into the Filipino culture, WHO (you would think!) should have some semblance of empathy for the heritage of their spouses, children, "Little Brown Brothers, co-workers, friends", etc...
As I have said before, I really didn't have a passion for my heritage. Only that my thoughts, values, PROBLEMS... stemmed from my heritage. I went into this webpage project with the sole intent to LEARN HTML and webpage design. The history lessons I have learned were an aside to that. Even now, the webpage has taken a backseat to other things that I would rather be doing. I'm having a hard enough time trying to keep my family firmly entrenched in middle class suburbia. Since my work hours have changed, I really don't have the time or inclination to pursue diminishing returns... meaning, the webpage no longer gave me any enjoyment. As a technician, you would think that I am accustomed to negative re-enforcement. People never see the good job you do, day in and day out, and only need you when everything goes to hell in a hand basket... and then, they want the problem fixed... Yesterday!! Yeah, I was feeling like that with the webpage... All I got was negative feedback from white Americans and never once did I get anything back from FILIPINOS.
But, that's OK... I really do understand why Filipinos are that way... And so, my webpage will remain on the Internet, hopefully, someday, some Filipino kid will see this stuff and be inspired to ASK even more questions and maybe, even be able to make a difference... What a concept! Filipinos being able to control the destiny of the Philippines.
31 July 2002 - Has it really been that long since I have updated this thing? I think I updated last year after my Brother-in-law, Eddie, passed away... but the changes got lost or something... Oh yeah, Eddie was half Japanese, and my first brother-in-law, Kyle, was half German... so go figure! Anyway, some time constraints have changed and I will have some time to check the website once in a while... Oh yeah, after I retired from the US Navy Reserve, thought I would fiddle-fart with school... got enough units to get a CCNA certificate... that's Cisco Certified Network Associate and someday, I'll get around to getting the authentic certification from Cisco... The kids are in high school now, Rachel will be a junior and Steven, a sophomore. Leah (the wife) got involved with the local Filipino-American group, so guess who is a candidate for the upcoming 2003-2004 Miss Fil-Am of Kings County... (OK, it's Rachel) All in all, we are doing well, living the American Dream, getting FAT, DUMB and HAPPY... Yeah right... Stay Hungry, Stay Lean and Mean
1 March 2003 - Has it really been that long since I have updated this thing? This really is a re-occurring thing. Well, went to renew our Internet service and found that they no longer provided web hosting... Didn't have anything new to add to the website, so I really didn't care. Well, now I do have something to add... for starters, Rachel won the Miss Fil-Am of Kings County 2003-2004, got a Weider Crossbow to get seriously get serious about getting in shape (in keeping with the program to run a marathon on my 50th birthday in the 50th state), and then we got an HP Photosmart 850 digital camera... So, I set up the website on the Yahoo Geocities... Only natural, since I've been participating in the Yahoo Crossbow and HP 850 Users groups... and then I have to get back into being a webmaster, so I can help with the Fil-Am website.
OK, how's this for being a total dork... the wife and I signed up to take ballroom dancing lessons. The kids had taken lessons for the last year, and then the wife had to get a fixed workday schedule, so she didn't work evenings. I was already off evenings and we all we needed was the money, which came when we finally paid off one of the cars. I don't know how we did it, but we dug a hole with the credit... Things are slowly looking up, one car paid off; this summer, another loan paid off; then next summer, the second car paid off... Whew!... and then the wife wants to get cars for the kids so they can go to college, I, on the other hand, want to boot them out of the house when they turn 18 and call the USMC recruiter (Just kidding!) Anyway, I never thought I would say this, but those dancing lessons are really fun. In the same way, that the wife got me into karaoke... Hmmm... OK see you next year!
Oh yeah, it's Hawaii! you know, the 50th state
Send Email to us - [email protected]
Our Internet Address - http://www.geocities.com/rassle_co/
