My Published Articles for ViewsHound: February 2018

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Sister Guia Nieva Jambalos will turn 80 Next Week

Sister Guia during her Annual Family Visit here in the US enjoying the Sights and Sounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, 2016

My sister-in-law, Guia Nieva Jambalos, rc., younger sister of my wife Macrine, will celebrate her 80th Birthday this coming March 4 in the Philippines. More than 150 guests have been invited. Unfortunately, because of Macrine's health we will not be able to attend. However, joining the celebration will be Jean Jambalos Maeda, also younger sister of Macrine, a resident of Alameda, CA. Speaking of Jean: She is the most thoughtful and loving sister of Macrine. She visits or calls Macrine regularly. She is a Registered Licensed Nurse and have two adult daughters. The other day she visited us with a few Pinoy dishes from the Hercules Filipino Store. Thank you Jean for your visit, kindness and thoughtfulness. Have a safe trip to the Philippines.

From L to R: Sr Emma Garcia, Macrine, Sr Guia ( postulant), Mama Ellen Nieva Jambalos, Sr Tessie Soriano(RIP) and Dr Rudy Jao.

Sister Guia joined the Order of the Cenacle Sisters in the early 1960's in Warrenville, Illinois. As a Cenacle Sister, she is called to surrender her whole life to God, through a threefold mission: prayer, community and spiritual ministry.

She desires to be filled with the love of Jesus that the fire of her Spirit may, through her ministry, enkindle and deepen faith. This ministry may take the form of retreats, spiritual direction, adult faith formation and other spiritual ministries.

She just recently retired, plan on spending her retirement years in the Cenacle Retirement House in Quezon City as well as spending her summer days in the beach house in Amoingon, Boac, Marindque, Philippines.

Visit with Sister Guia in Warrenville, Illinois. 1963

Visit the following site for more information on the Order of the Cenacle in Asia: http://davidbkatague.blogspot.com/search?q=cenacle

Here's one of the many retreat seminar topics that Sister Guia had been giving to the community in Davao and Quezon City, Philippines.

Befriending the Community Within Us - "Psychosynthesis I" by Sr. Guia Jambalos rc
Date: August 22-24 (Fri.7.30 pm to Sun. 4 pm)
Venue: 47, Jurong West St 42

Description: This seminar focuses on the integration of the personal and transpersonal self through valuing time of darkness and of joy and enlightenment, using obstacles as steps for spiritual growth.

Psychosynthesis is a process for psychological and spiritual growth. It aims to evoke wholeness and the dawn of a new and wider frame of reference in the human psyche. Nothing is meaningful as long as we perceive only separate fragments of our reality. As soon as the fragments come together into a synthesis, a new entity emerges, whose nature we could not have foreseen by considering the fragments alone. So, the aims at an integration of all the potentials we have been gifted with by God. These gifts buried in our unconscious needs to be surfaced, for us to appreciate and led to gratitude for all that we have and still need to been given 100% potentials for greatness.
Contribution: $150

Sister Guia celebrated her Golden Jubilee with the Cenacle in March 2013. Read the homily at:

http://ingeniumschool.org/the-glory-of-god-in-us/

Here's an article on Sr Guia involvement with the free elections( Corazon Aquino vs Ferdinand Marcos, 1986) in the Philippines:

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1988-04-30/features/8801260867_1_philippines-sisters-retreat-ministry

Happy, Happy Birthday, Sister Guia. May the Lord Guide You, Always, Kuya Dave and Manang!

Saturday, February 24, 2018

A Welcome Visit from the Alex Chalfin Family and their Tesla Model S Electric Car

The Tesla Model S in our neighborhood.

Yesterday, we had a nice but a short visit from Alex and Elaine Chalfin and their two kids, Wesley and Samantha. Elaine (Lanie) is Macrine 's niece, the oldest daughter of Pepot (Fe) Jambalos. They were on their way to visit a friend in Folsom. Since Folsom is only 5 minutes away, they decided to visit us. They brought with them my favorite dish ( cooked by Merlet)-Chicken Adobo Sa Gata( Coconut milk). Again thanks a million, Merlet, Chalfin Family for the dish.

While Lanie was visiting Macrine, I ask Alex about Lanie's electric car-Tesla Model S, 2013. ( see photo above). He asked me If I have ever ridden or drove an electric car. I said no, so Alex drove me around the neighborhood for 5 minutes. It was the smoothest and quietest ride I have experience in my life. The car made me feel like a millioneer. I did some Internet search on this car and here a summary for your information.
'
2013 Tesla Model S Overview: The Model S is powered by an electric motor, and test drivers are amazed by its responsive nature and ample power. A single-speed transmission is standard. The EPA reports that the 2013 Tesla Model S can go 208 miles on a charge with a 60 kWh battery pack, which is exceptional for an electric vehicle. Still, the Model S’ 94/97 mpg equivalent isn’t quite as good as the fuel economy equivalent ratings of less expensive electric vehicles, like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Ford Focus Electric. Test drivers write that the Model S’ precise steering and athletic handling add to the exciting driving experience, and while some cars sacrifice ride quality for agility, the available air suspension keeps the Model S comfortable and composed over imperfect roads.

Many auto writers note that the 2013 Tesla Model S’ cabin is just as innovative as its powertrain. While one reviewer complains about wind noise in his test car, others gush about the 2013 Model S’ attractive, modern design and quality construction. Most auto writers say that the Model S’ standard five-seat cabin offers plenty of space in both rows. A pair of optional jump seats in the cargo area can increase seating capacity to seven, though test drivers write that these seats are only intended for small children. The automotive press agrees that the crown jewel of the interior is the vivid 17-inch touch-screen display, which they say is highly-customizable and easy to use.

The 2013 Tesla Model S comes with a backup camera, dual-zone automatic climate control and a seven-speaker stereo with Bluetooth phone and audio streaming and two USB ports. Optional features include a panoramic moonroof, an upgraded stereo and a tech package that includes a power liftgate, automatic keyless entry, navigation and a high-definition backup camera.

2013 Model S Price Increase
George Blankenship, Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Ownership Experience November 29, 2012

NEW PRICING FOR MODEL S

We originally unveiled the Model S in March 2009 with a base price of $57,400 ($49,900 after federal tax credits). Today, Model S is the most award-winning car of the year and the base price remains at $57,400, the same price set over three and a half years ago. During this same period of time most automotive companies have had at least three price increases and general inflation (CPI) has gone up 8.75 percent. A straight 8.75 percent CPI increase would now yield a base price for Model S of $62,400, an increase of $5,000. We are increasing prices only half that amount, giving Model S a new base price of $59,900 before federal tax credits.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Time for Some Violin and Piano Music-Sibelius Violin Concerto

The news of the passing of Macrine's first cousin ( Rene Elizalde Nieva) a couple of days ago caused a lot of turmoil in our household. For the last three days, Macrine kept on asking me when and what time is the wake. She wants to attend the funeral services. I told her its impossible since we are in the US and the service is in the Philippines. Today she finally calm down and realize our situation. With this in mind its about time to have some Piano and Violin Music! We dedicate this piece to Rene Elizalde Nieva! May you rest in Peace, Amen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZjuk7-3gs&list=RDiTZjuk7-3gs&t=745

2015 Heifetz Institute Artist-In-Residence Ji-Won Song performs a stunning rendition of the Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 by Jean Sibelius, in a piano reduction featuring Heifetz faculty collaborative pianist Carlos Avila. Performed at a "Heifetz Sunday Matinee" concert at the 2015 Heifetz International Music Institute, located on the campus of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA.

More Details: http://www.heifetzinstitute.org

Two Comments of this Performance:

1.labémolmineur : I don't think the point was to laugh at the end of her introduction. She was being serious, and Sibelius's tragedy should not be laughable. What a moving performance, from both violinist and pianist. I love that Ji-Won Song is sensitive (and humble) enough to allow the pianist to be a whole orchestra and that this is played intact, no cuts- an intense, continuous story, delivered by two equal artists.

2. elgatosucio : I dare to say this young girl is one the great one of this opening century. Perfect technique and pure passion. She makes the violin talk, scream and cry. Just sparks coming out of that instrument. Congratulations on the pianist too. They are both incredible musicians.

Notes about Sibelius from Wikipedia: Jean Sibelius was born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius on December 8 1865 and died on September 20, 1957 in Finland. He was a composer and violinist of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as his country's greatest composer and, through his music, is often credited with having helped Finland to develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia.

The core of his oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies which, like his other major works, continue to be performed and recorded in his home country and internationally. His other best-known compositions are Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto, the choral symphony Kullervo, and The Swan of Tuonela (from the Lemminkäinen Suite).

Other works include pieces inspired by nature, Nordic mythology, and the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, over a hundred songs for voice and piano, incidental music for numerous plays, the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower), chamber music, piano music, Masonic ritual music, and 21 publications of choral music

Personal Note: Carlos( pianist)is Macrine's nephew-only son of Charro Jambalos-Macrine's youngest sister.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

A Tribute to Rene Nieva-Macrine's First Cousin

Rene Nieva, Macrine's first cousin on her mother side of the Family (Nieva Clan of Marinduque) passed away yesterday after three weeks at the ICU in the Philippines. He was just like a younger brother to us. His life is filled with accomplishments as a writer, PR man, a loving husband, Father and Grand father. Attached are some of his personal and professional accomplishments and a couple of photographs of our family personal relationship with Rene and his family. We will missed you Rene, But I know You are in Peace Now! Macrine and I love you very much!!!
I can not stopped crying!

https://www.facebook.com/david.b.katague/videos/10206321560494258/

https://businessmirror.com.ph/author/renenieva/

http://www.perceptions-inc.com/profile/

http://www.perceptions-inc.com/sea-games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAgJWVrjGEc

http://chateaudumer.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-nieva-clan-of-marinduque-chapter-1.html

Sunday, February 11, 2018

A Surprise Visit from Dinah, Ian and Sara DiCampli

Today we have a surprise visit from my oldest daughter Dinah- a resident of Oregon ( Portland area). She and a friend from Walnut Creek ( Tom) along with Ian(-Dinah's only son) and his girlfriend Sara from Roseville spent 2 hours with us enjoying Chinese lunch- courtesy of Dinah.

Ian and Sara DiCampli

Both Macrine and I are ecstatic of their visit specially Macrine who is suffering from Cabin fever. We had not been to our neighborhood Casino for the last three weeks-because we are scared of the Flu epidemic in our neighborhood.

The last couple of days Macrine had been suffering mild confusion a side effect of one of her medications for her Parkinson. She wants me to drive her to our beach house in Amoingon, Boac, Marinduque. Philippines.

However, after Dinah's visit Macrine's mood improved. She is now binging on the Sees Chocolate candies that Dinah gave her for her advance Valentine gift. Dinah and Ian: Thanks a million again for your visit, the Chinese lunch and the See's Candies.

Hope to see you soon!

Guest Article from Susan Creamer Joy

In The Silence, by Susan Creamer Joy.

Today's guest article is from Susan Creamer Joy. Susan is one of my favorite authors in the ViewsHound community. Susan writes, draws, paints and cobbles together art from found objects making a variety of creations from jewelry to religious shrines. She frequently sports burns on her fingers from her soldering iron, paint on her palms and ink under her fingernails, but her hair is usually combed. When she is not losing time in the creative vortex of her studio, she is likely to be putting her knowledge of metaphysics and esoteric principles including Tarot, numerology, astrology and graphology to good use in consultations. Her children are grown, her husband still works and her four dogs believe she needs serious help. The title of her article is "A Matter Of Love And Death". Thank you Susan.

By the time they reached my bedroom door, I was already sitting up – my stomach ratcheted in the tense grip of an unnamed anxiety; my pillow, unburdened of my drowsy head.

To this day I cannot explain how I heard them coming up those stairs in their bare feet or how I knew that my father struggled to hold his composure as my mother unnaturally clutched at the folds of her dressing gown and followed him through the dark just a little too closely.

As the wooden groan of those old stairs tore into my bones that morning like a hacksaw, all I could see between the predawn shadows was the letter I’d written just hours earlier to my boyfriend, Chris, propped against the lamp on my desk across the room awaiting an envelope.

I had not slept well. It was late November and there had been so many changes since the middle of August when he left for the Air Force in Texas to begin basic training and I began my third new school in as many years.

The conspiracy between fate and the last surge of the Vietnam draft had broken apart the every-waking-minutes of our two-year union with unceremonious indifference. All that night my sleep had been infested by difficult dreams and by the illogical fear that truth and reality were merging into a darkness only a martyr could grasp; and at sixteen, martyrdom seemed reasonable only for the nuns among the poor in Bangladesh

I tried to remind myself that he would be home on leave for Thanksgiving in another few days. It was the only tether to calm I could find, but reviewing the facts offered little relief from my baseless fears.

Chris had been girding his pacifist sensibilities preparing to fight in an unpopular war that had not yet slaughtered its last innocent. I was hovering just over the line of inclusion at an exclusive girl’s school – missing him – and finding myself at odds with these young women and their attachment to propriety and with the prep-school veneer that blinded them to the fact that they were no better than anyone else.

Neither one of us was coping well with the worlds into which we were respectively summoned, and although we both knew that the best hope for any future together depended upon our individual successes apart, it was far from comforting most days.

But in spite of our discomfort, we each did our best; and, of course, there were the letters: Thin, plain-paper sheets with row after row after row of inky blue words penned with the intensity and awkward locutions of a love learned too soon. It had come down to just that little, but without them, I would have had nothing.

Chris was learning to fly. I was learning to drive, and both of us were aching to transport our souls to an earlier time through the hallowed intercourse of memories and dreams. Of course, as with all progress, there was the positive element: We were both clean and drug-free for the first time in years.

Now, without pretense, both healthy cognition and sincere motivation surfaced regularly in my psychology and prompted me to care about myself and to arbitrate against all temptation for a better standing in the world, in school and in my own eyes. I even did my homework.

No longer was I escaping today but, instead, living for my day of escape. Lying still in the dark of my room, I listened to the slow, padded footfall of my parents approaching and looked to the floor and to my history book half hidden beneath the nightstand where I’d tossed it the night before. Even in this early morning dark I could make out the swirls and stars in colored marker and the bubble-formed letters that spelled C H R I S in soft, juvenile curves on the torn book cover I’d fashioned out of a brown paper grocery bag.

I vaguely remembered throwing it there somewhat hastily. I had been doing my homework when a sense of urgency struck and I realized I had not written him as I promised I would and glancing at the clock, I noted it was nine-twenty-three. Why that mattered I had no way of knowing in that strange moment, but within hours, it would be one I would never forget; and although I was becoming drowsy and still needed to finish my work, I felt beyond reason that my letter to him could not wait.

So, I wrote. I would always write. I would always be there. He would always be there.“Suzi."It was my name spoken in the smooth and familiar voice of my mother, although weighted and slow, her head bowed to her chest almost as though she were speaking only to herself.

"Suzi.” She said it again, this time with sharp gravity, like a chisel against stone.

As if on cue, I leaned forward, flanked now by my parents who were sitting on either side of my bed.

I had been waiting for them. I don’t know how. I didn’t know why. The lights in my room remained off, but it seemed that the darkness clung more to them than to me, as though they were holding it there – away from me to give me enough light to see through the next moment. They were crying. My father was crying. My father. “Suzi. We have something very, very bad to tell you." Chris has been in a car accident." And he was killed."

If the world moved forward from that moment, I could not know it. f there were air around me worth breathing, I could not take it in. And if there were another sound beyond the leaden bellow of my own raw grief, I could not hear it.

"Who am I going to talk to? Who am I going to love?” I wailed. Who will love me? In that sodden moment violated by the intrusion of a predawn light that had no business rising, everything I ever believed about happiness, hoped for in life, trusted in or held as my own was annihilated.

After that – there was no after that. After that came months of hollow redundancies that would inform my way of being in the world for years to come. A serial commitment to waking up each morning, remembering he was gone and dedicating the remaining hours to forgetting. To that end I would try anything, drink anything, ingest anything, inject anything. It was a slow and arbitrary suicide by indifference.

Many years later, at 25 years-old and in the midst of a pharmaceutical free-fall leaning dangerously close to terminal, I discovered that I was expecting a child, and after a decade of forgetting, I remembered. I named him Griffin after the legendary winged lion, a symbol of the divine because what he inspired and the miracle that he was, were nothing less. I remembered and I loved again, and I went on to marry and to the gift of two beautiful daughters.

Today my son is struggling not to drown in the same well of drug abuse and apathy that almost swallowed me – his great, divine wings clipped by his own hand; and while it is up to him to restore his place in the sky, I will do my best to help provide an open runway.

In the meantime, I will continue soaring for both of us; bequeathed as I have been, with a determination to fly from a boy whose ragged fate precluded that dream.

Death took one young man from me once upon a dark time. If it has any intention of coming for this one, it will have to go through me. And trust me, it will be in for one hell of a fight.

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