Taipei Ice Skating

Finally went to the new Taipei Ice Arena. It is off of DunHwa North Road (or TunHwa) by Ikea, Holiday Inn and Asia World. You can't miss it. The public ice arena is on the second floor above the Starbucks outside NanJing East Road. It is an area just off the main complex which is used for sports, concerts and such.

My little one (20 months old), just loved having the ice skates on. He could hardly walk but after an hour or so he was moving around on the hard ground pretty well. Just needed a railing or a hand to hold on to. We took him on the ice but it was too difficult to hold him up, plus my wife and I are not skating stars. After a lap or so one of the workers pointed out we should go the far end of the rink they have sectioned off for beginners and little ones. So over there we went. Tehy gave us a plastic chair and my son was off on his own. He looked like he was sleep-skating. He had his body and head on slumped on the chair while he pushed around with his skates. He has gone once, but loves to talk about, "me skate."

On the net I ran into www.monoclub.com.tw and the people there have been great. Will stop buy their shop to pick up some skates this weekend. Also hope to catch a few hocky games this Sunday.

My Chinese Development is Slow

I have been in Taipei for over 5 years and my Chinese language skills are still not up to snuff. I am taking classes again, but words are just not sticking as quickly as I would like. Getting a better understanding, but concentrating on it is hard when work, child and other activities get in the way. Need to somehow get the Chinese involved in the other activities. Problem is the people around you don't want to deal with your slow American accented Chinese, so they revert to English and stop your growth. So that means I need to learn Chinese on my time. I my time is very limited. I will find time and become better. I need to. In the meantime I will continue to stumble.

Doomsday - World Overcrowding

There are just too many of us in the world. Pollution, over wrapping of products, the killing and the pillaging of land and animals is just taking us to the inevitable.

I can only image one day us humans will be tossed back to the stone age or time of living in a past age (horse and buggy). How long can we over populate, over build and over take land until there is no more to take? Most of these issues are new and this growth has been in the last century. Progress seems to be pushing us backwards.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I wonder if it is positive. I do think the world will change or the earth my just swallow a large majority to clean house.

-my condensed thinking

Man Pulls a "Triple Talaq" in His Sleep

I just learned a new term and it must be weilded very carefully. The term is "Triple Talaq." Forget formal divorce just say these particular words three times and the divorse if final.

• "The religious leaders ruled that if the couple wanted to remarry they would have to wait at least 100 days. Sohela (the woman) would also have to spend a night with another man and be divorced by him in turn." read story

Sound a bit like wife/husband swapping. There is possibly a big untapped business model that can be drawn up around this.

I don't know but I'm left a bit unclear on this "Triple Talaq" and the sense of it.

I also see the "Triple Talaq" may become history for the acceptable "Nikaahnama" (marrage contract as see here:

World Baseball Classic 2006

Don't know about you all, but I think this series (tournament) is great. This world wide game has brought back baseball fever to me. I've watched just about every game. I hope they continue with this event in the future. From the American turnout it seems that there are many unfilled seats, but rest assured the rest of the world is watching. I hope you are..............

Taiwan is Taiwan: as I last checked today

From the Xinhua English website:

HONG KONG, March 9 (Xinhuanet) -- An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale hit Yunlin County of China's Taiwan at noon on Thursday, according to reports reaching here from Taipei.

When did Taiwan become: "China's Taiwan?"

It is called: Responsibility or Control

Full Story - Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men's rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child.

The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit -- nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men -- to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter. . . .

- pure sillyness