2008.08.14 - Chicago
Just got back from visiting my brother Kiley who is working for the Hyatt of Chicago. I was really impressed with the architecture there. Definitely a cool city. Also, I found out that the hotel I was staying at (Hotel 71) is where they filmed Bruce Wayne's penthouse scenes from The Dark Knight, and it just happens to be down the block from the bridge that the batmobile jumps in Batman Begins. Sweet!
2008.06.08 - Escape From Alcatraz 2
I didn't get too many pictures from the event, unfortunately, but my parents were there and got to see me race, so that was nice. I also saw a bunch of my old TNT friends tearing it up as usual. I didn't finish as strong as I'd have liked (I think the 4-mile warm up run the day before was a little overkill), but at least I can say now that I've swum from The Rock! The weather and race course were absolutely beautiful, even better than Wildflower, in my opinion. I'll cross my fingers and hope that I can get into the random drawing for next year.
2008.04.01 - I'm hungry
But I couldn't decide what to eat. So I made a program to do it for me!
To do:
- option for takeout/delivery/eat-in only
- check for restaurant types that are nearby based on zipcode
- check for restaurant hours
- price range
- ???
- PROFIT!!!
2007.12.15 - Escape from Alcatraz 1
Holy crap, I got into the random drawing! From the e-mail:
"You are one of the lucky triathletes that have been selected as a winner the December 15, 2007 random drawing for a slot in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon to be held in San Francisco on June 8, 2008.
"On June 8th, you will get to jump off a perfectly good boat into the frigid water of the San Francisco Bay, swim with 1800 of your best friends from Alcatraz to Little Marina Green. You will climb out of the water and run (with or without shoes) one half mile to the transition area, jump on your bike and ride 18 miles (most people say that it is all up hill) and then run 8 miles (under the Golden Gate Bridge, through the sands of baker beach, up the infamous sand ladder and back to Marina Green to the finish line. What a great way to spend your life."
This is pretty exciting; I guess it's time to start training again. :\
2007.08.19 - France
Another family vacation. Did a lot of sightseeing in Paris and we also rented a boat and took a trip down the canal in the South of France for a few days.
2007.07.29 - San Francisco Marathon
So I've said that I would never do a marathon, but when Tom told me that he was thinking of doing one with a couple of friends and they're not really big runners, I figured what the hell, I'll do it with them and just go slow, hang out, and talk the whole way. Anyway, the joke was on me, my knees are pretty much useless now. Thanks a lot Tom! :P
2007.05.04 - Wildflower
Was pretty brutal. Took me 7 hours 15 minutes, which is dog slow, but I was just happy to finish. From now on I think I'll stick to the shorter tri's.
A big thank you to all the people who supported me through Team in Training, you guys rock!
Pictures here.
2007.03.24 - Triathlon Round 2
Participating with Team in Training last Fall was such a great experience, the race went so well (despite a flat tire on lap 3 of the bike course), I met lots of people and had a ton of fun, but I couldn't have done it without all the wonderful support and generosity from my friends and family. I owe you all a great debt.
Anyway, it might not come as a surprise to you that I'm doing it again! But I really need your support, because this time I'm going for double the distance! Please help support my cause by visiting my TNT website here: http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/kouri and donating. A little bit goes a long way!
Those of you who may be curious about the Wildflower Triathlon (it's very popular because it's the first big Spring triathlon and involves camping over the weekend) can read more about it here: http://www.tricalifornia.com/wildflower/2007/.
2006.09.24 - Triathlon
Wow, seems like I disappeared for a little while, at least from this website. Actually I've been sorta busy training for this triathlon which is coming up on November 5th (holy crap, that's only one month away, I really need to start training harder). It's going to be at Treasure Island in San Francisco, so if anyone wants to come out and show their support, I'd be more than grateful. :) It's an olympic distance tri, which is a .93 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, followed by a 6.2 mile run. This, by the way, is only a quarter of an Ironman distance triathlon.
So why a triathlon? Well a) I've been pretty inactive physically since college and I wanted to get back in shape, and b) it's for a good cause. I'm doing the triathlon with Team In Training, an organization which raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I'm hoping that my efforts will raise a little awareness and inspire people enough to help fight a disease that affects hundreds of thousands of people every year. The money that I raise will go to support patients and their families dealing with the disease, as well as cancer research which will hopefully lead to better treatments and ultimately a cure.
Now that I think about it, it was almost one year ago when one of my classmates from high school, Kelly Potter, was first diagnosed with lymphoma. She was a bright girl who you could tell just by looking at her that she had so much potential, and I can't remember her ever not having a smile on her face. Unfortunately, by the time she was diagnosed, it had progressed so far that it was too late. She passed away in late November; she was only 24. The unfairness of it all saddened me and I vowed to do something, even it's only a drop in the bucket compared to what others can do. There's an addage among the TNT participants that goes "the worst day of training beats the best day of chemo by a mile." I try to think about that every day when I'm working out.
So anyway, if you'd like to make a donation and sponsor me for my race, I have a little side website here: http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/kouri. I wish I could say that I'm keeping it up to date with all my training and progress so far, but honestly I think it would be boring. Swim, bike, run, rest, repeat. That's pretty much it. I do keep a list of "honorees", that is, the people who I am training on behalf of, so if you know someone who has leukemia or lymphoma or has been affected by cancer, please e-mail me and I will add them to the list. Thanks for reading.
2006.03.11 - Random
My fortune cookie today said "You are going to take a vacation." Guess you can never have too many of those.
2006.02.18 - Vietnam, China, Hong Kong
Family vacation. Spent 3 days in Hanoi, 2 in Guangzhou, 1 in Kowloon. <- * fill in later *
2005.08.23 - Japan 3
Too lazy to write about the rest of my trip, except that Japan is awesome and two weeks was not enough. Hopefully pictures are worth a thousand words.
2005.08.18 - Japan 2
I'm in Osaka now... Hiroshima was a really nice town... best sightseeing I've done so far...
The peace museum was really sad. They have a shrine dedicated to this girl Sadako who got lukemia when she was 12 because of the a-bomb radiation... she thought that if she folded 1000 paper cranes her wish would come true and she would be cured... but after she folded 1000 she didn't get any better, so she started folding another 1000. She died when she got to about 1500. Her classmates were so sad they folded 1000 more for her after she died, and even now you can see all these little paper cranes left around the shrine for her...
2005.08.16 - Japan 1
Japan rocks.
I've been to Tokyo and Nagoya mostly so far, and also to Shizuoka. I climbed Mount Fuji yesterday, but it sucked. I started at 9pm because supposedly it takes 8 hours to reach the summit, and I wanted to see the sunrise at 5am, but I made it to the summit in 4 hours. So I tried to sleep from 1am to 5am because I hadn't gotten to rest yet, but I didn't bring enough clothes and it was about 4-5 degrees Celcius. I think that was the coldest I've ever been in my life. Finally the sun came up but it was too cloudy and misty to see anything, so I waited around at the top for a few hours hoping it would clear up, but it didn't. I tried to take a few pictures but the camera wasn't working and I could only get one or two shots off before it would say that the batteries were too low, and that's after I just put new batteries in, so I don't know why it wasn't working. The descent took 3 hours and was mind-numbingly boring, and it rained most of the way down.
Today I took the bullet train to Hiroshima and tomorrow I'm going to see the Atomic Dome and Peace Museum.
2005.08.04 - Going to Japan!
I'm going for two weeks by myself, but when I get there I will be meeting up with a couple of friends who are living around the Tokyo area. Besides eating lots of good Japanese food, I still don't know what I'm going to be doing yet. I'm thinking of climbing Mt. Fuji and going to some hot springs. I also want to explore Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and maybe Nagasaki. It will be interesting to be there during the Obon festival (Buddhist festival of homecoming, honoring ancestors and the dead) at the same time of the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb. I'm sure there will be a lot of war-time sentiment. I'm probably going to stick out like a sore thumb, being so unfashionable, tall, and unable to speak any Japanese. :P Oh well.