OK, so here is how the shoes are doing. ('cause I know you all care.

On Thursday night. 1 day before I officially owned the shoes for four weeks, they fell apart again! So I took them back to the store and bought a pair of Nikes from a different store. The manager wasn't in so they told me to come back today (saturday) to see what could be done for me.

Today I went into the store and they told me I could get 1000NT towards a new pair of shoes. So I now also own a new pair of reebok sneakers.

Because of all this talk of shoes I figured it would be intresting to list the amount of shoes I have gone through in the past 12 months.

Shoes Brought To Taiwan:
1. slip-on sneakers (new)
2. Lace up sneakers (new)
3. Hiking shoes (5 years old)
4. Teva Sandals (6.5 years old)
5. Black dress shoes (12 years old)

Slip-ons and lace ups fell apart. Hiking shoes were uselss and old, tevas were falling apart. So they were replaced with . . .

6. Merril walking shoes
7. teva Hiking boots
8. New teva sandals
9. A pair of slip-on sandals for kicking around

The new merrils were shredded when my foot hit a piece of metal as I was driving my scooter. They were replaced with . . .

10. White Nike Sneakers

These are holding up good. I also brought another pair of hiking boots to finish off their life in taiwan. So I brought them back from canada, and . . . because The dress shoes were so old and bad looking they were replaced with . . .

11. stylish black pegabo slip on dress shoes
12. brown hiking boots from mec

The Nikes developed a funk that was overpowering so they were replaced with . . .

13. Black adidas sneakers

Which as you know were replaced with

14. Black adidas sneakers

Which were replaced with

15. WHite nike sneakers
16. Blue reebok sneakers

And I recently bought . . .

17. A pair of running shoes

So all told I have purchased/gone through 17 pairs of shoes in just over 12 months.

Hey Everybody,
Sorry it has been so long since you have heard from me. I have been rather slack at my letter writing this go-around. I��ve got two months to cover in this letter and I don��t want to bore you so I will be quick.

Let's see where to begin. Last I��d told you was that I have blue walls. Don��t know if I told all of you, but the Mohawk and handle bar
moustache are gone. I stuck with my traditional tuft of hair at the end of my chin, and now, in lieu of the cold weather I am going for the Grizzly Adams.

September didn��t have a whole lot of experiences to write about. Basically it was just getting back to business with the high school and decorating the apartment. It finally looks and feels like a real home. I have no pictures as of yet, but they will be coming soon. Along with pictures of my walls and other goodies. I believe I was sick at some time in the past period, but honestly I have no idea when it was. It lasted about a week, like the typical cold here and now I am fine again.

At the end of September things finally started to get happening. At the beginning of the month I decided it was about time I took a driving test to get a scooter driver��s license. I went to Tao-Yuan, took the test. Did the driving part. It involved driving a track that is 40cm wide and 15m long in over 7 seconds. It sounds easy, but believe me it isn��t. I watched 10 people go ahead of me, and more than a few had difficulties. When it was my turn I was confident and I figured, how hard could it be. Hmmmpphhhh. It��s like they don��t want you to pass. I kept my eyes on the ground and my balance was true. But then I looked up to see my time and it all went to hell.

I started edging towards the right, and so I shifted my weight played with the throttle and pulled it back, but then I realized ��Oh God I��ve overcompensated!�� And then I was fighting to stay away from the left side. I saw the line disappear under the front of my tire, and I thought for sure that was it. Game over Man! But then I saw the clock hit 7. I gunned the engine and straightened out and got out of it with only a fluttering heart. Ahhhhh . . .

So, I now have my license and don��t have to worry about being stopped by the police if they ever check me out. October 12th was a fantastic day. Why is that? you might ask. Well let me tell you. I went to Taipei and saw Paul Oakenfold (broke-the-mold or choke-n-fold as some might also call him) in concert. I used to scoff at DJs playing live. How hard is it to put a record on and play a song, and
when the song is over play a different one? Well, I know there is no way I could keep a crowd interested in a groove for over 5 hours, but somehow he was able to do it with the help of two other superb DJs.

Another highlight in October happened just the other day. Louise and I had nothing to do so we decided to ride or scooters up to the airport to watch the planes coming in and out of the airport. Well it��s a 45-minute ride to the airport. Which to you sounds simple, but my ass didn��t think it was that easy. One thing you should know is that scooters aren��t actually allowed to drive to the airport terminals. So louise and I are driving along and the next thing we know we are sitting outside Terminal 1, wondering how the hell we got there. There were no signs telling us we shouldn��t be there, so it��s not like we were warned. So we got out of there before the police could catch us, and drove home a different way, stopping at a huge mall along the way. All told it was over two hours of driving and we only got to see one plane taking off.

Another little thing that happened in the past two months was a fiasco over a pair of ADIDAS sneakers I��d bought. I needed a new pair of kicking around shoes, because my white nike��s were eminating a stench that would make a sewer rat run the other way. So I went to a store on September 9th and paid about 75 Canadian for a nice black pair of sneakers. Then 4 weeks later the glue on the sole of my right shoe decided it would no longer work. So I took the shoes back to the store and they told me they would send the shoes back to ADIDAS to determine if it was my fault, or the company��s. Two weeks after this I went back to the store and was called a liar by the manager. Now anyone who knows me knows that I don��t take this kind of thing very well. She claimed I had to have owned the shoes for at least 3 months for them to look like they did. Admittedly I am hard on shoes, but I expect them to last at
least 5 months after I buy them.

So I explained that I bought them on the Thursday after I was paid on the tenth of September. And that I didn��t wear them everyday and therefore it is not possibly my fault. (I had a translator to help with the proceedings). The manager then started going off in Chinese about Americans Foreigners and liars. I know these words and was not happy to hear them. My friend didn��t want to translate what the manager said but I heard enough to get the drift. I just kept reiterating that I only had them for four weeks.
Then she asked me how much I paid. I remembered it was around 1,600NT. So that��s what I said. She said that was impossible. So I grabbed the exact same shoe off of the display and indicated the price tag showing me 1550NT. Hmmmm, strange that. She told me I must have received a discount. I didn��t. This again she said was ��impossible.�� Well, to make an already long story short, I was pissed off and was not wanting to leave the store with abroken pair of shoes. I know that ��face�� is important in Taiwan so I just kept pushing until she had to give me something or lose face. So to shut me up she gave me a replacement shoes and told me they will not replace them if they break again. I have been wearing these shoes for two weeks,a nd in two more I will return to show her that after 4 weeks they do look like the old pair. grrr . . . .

So the past two months have flown by and already it is November 6th and I have no idea where time is going. Tomorrow I will start running in the mornings, hopefully I��ll be able to keep it up.