I’m Miles Miller!

So I just returned from 3 wonderful weeks in Taiwan. I spent time with my sweetie-pie, saw the sites, caught myself counting “foreigners”, ate with chopsticks every meal, rode on a scooter, walked by a million Buddhist/Taoist temples, saw a lot of Chien-Ming Wang jerseys and took lots of pictures. I also had jet-lag and couldn’t sleep for a week, sweat a lot, ate pig ear, pig feet and chicken blood snacks, and did a lot of “smile and nod”. I noticed that some of the main staples of the Taiwanese diet are tofu, seafood, and mushrooms. These are not a few of my favorite things. I think it’s the soggy, spongy, chewy texture that gets to me. How to get along with or around these food items will need to be considered if there is any prospect of living in Taiwan someday.

Taiwan is an interesting place. For those of you unawares, the residents speak Mandarin Chinese, not “Taiwanese”, although that is a real language spoken by a minority (including my fiancée’s grandmother). Most students know some English, and the capital city Taipei has an English translation next to every Chinese sign or instructions/directions. So it is visitor friendly. You should come.

Like the United States, there are two political parties, the green party and the blue party, who are bitter enemies. Chiang Kai-Shek, one of the greatest political figures in Taiwan history, was from the blue party. The last President was green, and he decided to spend lots of money changing the airport’s name from Chang Kai-Shek International Airport to Taoyuan International Airport, and the memorial park dedicated to Chiang Kai-Shek was changed to “Freedom Square”. And we think our elephants and donkeys are bitter!

Did you know: the tallest building in the world is in Taiwan (Taipei 101).

 Baseball is the most popular sport in Taiwan (not soccer, thank goodness). There are 3 Taiwanese players in the Major Leagues here in America: Chien-Ming Wang (Yankees), Hong-Chih Kuo and Chin-Lung Hu (Dodgers). The Chinese Taipei team advanced far in the Little League World Series last year. There are 6 teams in the professional baseball league in Taiwan.

It is so hot and humid in Taiwan. One bedroom in my fiancée’s home that has a thermometer said it was 34 degrees celsius (around 94 degrees) before 10am on Tuesday. The Shu family, like many other Taiwanese, are tough: don’t use the air conditioner if you can endure without it. Yet somehow, my fiancée who does not wear deodorant does not smell at all. No joke. Good draw, huh? I wore deodorant the whole time and I still stunk.

People don’t drink tap water and there are almost no drinking fountains in Taiwan. It is cheaper to order soda in restaurants than water. The bottled water that is available in most places is room temperature. At meals, I was the only one who used a glass of water. Instead, most meals have soup instead, which usually has a little meat, a little vegetables, and hot water. Not very refreshing. I was hot the whole time. And I think they are in the wrong time zone: it gets light around 5 am and gets dark before 7pm.

Public restrooms do not provide toilet paper. You need to bring your own.

Recently, the government informed that gas would go up 3-4 cents a liter starting on Wednesday. On our way home Tuesday night, we drove by a gas station that had like 150 scooters waiting in line and like a dozen cars. Those scooter’s gas tank only hold like 3 liters anyway.

Speaking of cars and scooters, Taiwanese drivers are the craziest I have ever seen.

There is no Right Turn on Red.  However, my taxi driver took a left turn on red…

The movie theaters show American movies. We watched Iron Man. Chinese subtitles are included.

I enjoyed my visit to Taiwan. The country is beautiful and people (despite their driving) are kind and wonderful. I hope I return next year for my 3rd annual visit.

The first full month of the season is finished! Here are the hard facts:

• Bradon Webb: 7 starts, 7-0. That’s brilliant.
• Chase Utley: 13 home runs. On pace to become the 3rd different Philly MVP in a row. He’s also batting .369.
• Chipper Jones: .421 batting average.
• Oakland A’s: leading the American League in runs scored AND ERA. (This is the team I picked to lose 100 games.)
• LA Dodgers: 8 wins in a row
• Arizona Dbacks: still the best record in baseball. (This shouldn’t be a surprise, they had the most wins in the National League last year, too.)
• AL Central: zero teams over .500
• Robinson Cano: the man who experts pick to win a batting title within 5 years is the worst-hitting everday player in baseball (.150 average)
• Ryan Howard: 45 strikeouts in 31 games.

So last year, Phil Hughes was the top Yankees prospect. This year after 6 starts he is 0-4 with an ERA of 9.00. His fastball speed is way down, and he has trouble seeing the catcher signs/signals. After some examinations, the doctors found that he has a broken rib and he needs glasses. Why did it take this long to find out? He didn’t even make it through the 4th inning in 4 of his last 5 starts. There were plenty of red flags going up.

Want to know why I think general managers are idiots for giving monster contracts? Jason Giambi is getting paid $23 mil this year, 2nd highest salary in all of baseball, from a contract signed back in like 2001. He hasn’t hit above .271 since 2002, hasn’t hit 40 homers since 2003, has reached 90 RBI only once in the last 4 seasons, and is a defensive liablity at first base. Right now he is “earning” that $23 million hitting .154.

Here’s something I don’t understand. The Seattle Mariners have one of the worst offenses in the American League. Today, Miguel Cairo had the #2 spot in the lineup. Coming into the game he was batting .000, 0 for 5. I could almost understand if this was a proven slugger just coming off the DL, but Cairo is a lifetime bench player. Why is he hitting 2nd in the order? He went 0-4, and the Mariners scored only one run again, even though the 4 guys before him (7-8-9-1) totalled 6 hits. Bad managing.

Roy Halladay is the hardest-working, most unlucky man in baseball. He has 5 straight games going at least 8 innings, his ERA is a good 3.26, and his team scores no runs for him so he has 4 losses. In those 4 losses the Blue Jays have scored only 6 runs total. What a shame! The Dodgers have scored 8 or more in Brad Penny’s last 4 games (and at least five runs in 6 out of 7 games).  If Roy was on a team with any offense he would win 20 games every year.