Kevin Kwak's Blog

The 10th Anniversary Los Angeles Triathlon started its race with the Professional group as early as 7AM in Venice Beach. I was there to witness the pros go at it straight into the treacherous waves without much struggles though the current did push them off course slightly. The spectators and newbie triathletes were a bit shaken witnessing the powerful current dragging the pro triathletes to the left side of the first red buoy. The race director quickly noticed the condition of the current and gave instructions to all following groups to run 100 yards further down the beach and start swimming so that by the time they reach the first buoy, they would be on the right side of the first buoy and safely swimming counter clockwise of the buoy.

Hopefully there will be youtube videos hitting up shortly previewing the six-eight feet waves pounding the swimmers without mercy. If you have Facebook, you can read more about the wave conditions directly from the triathletes over at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Angeles-CA/Kaiser-Permanente-Los-Angeles-Triathlon-Presented-by-Herbalife/73208873200
Here is a clip of the wave conditions:

A crucial technique I should have learned to tackle the devastating waves was the “dolphin kick.” Not only does this save you energy compared to using the freestyle approach, you gain more distance helping the swimmer pass the waves. But this year’s water was really rough throughout the entire course as the sea was not calm due to the wind.

The muscle-burning intensive-cardiovascular endurance sports day finally arrived and I was thrilled all morning long along with the other 2,500 participants this year. To summarize my first experience with the LA Triathlon is “killer waves!” The treacherous current was incredibly strong this year compared to the past two LA triathlons according to several LA veterans (was it because of the tsunami?). I got pounded waves after waves forcing me to run back to the shore and run 100 yards to the right as the powerful currents were grappling swimmers to the west side passing the buoys within seconds. After seven unsuccessful attempts to get over the thunderous waves, I was asked to give my timing chip to one of the officials as all the last age group finished the ocean swimming. So how was the water condition this morning?

Gale force winds of 30 to 35 mph today caused problems for boaters off Dockweiler Beach and in other parts of the Santa Monica Bay, authorities said.
Ten boats were rescued by lifeguards from the Los Angeles County Fire Department for issues ranging from capsizing to becoming separated from their docks and starting to float out to sea, said Inspector Frederic Stowers.
Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/busy-day-for-la-county-lifeguards-results-in-rescues-of-triathlon-athletes-boats.html

I have to admit that I was under prepared with the first triathlon especially with the ocean swim. And after seven tries, I knew I did not store enough carbohydrates during dinner and a bowl of oatmeal with a bar of Power Crunch was not sufficient for the intensive swim. Should have went to that swim clinic Triathlon Lab had the past week at the Venice Beach. apparently I missed valuable tips and techniques on how to approach and overcome the initial waves. Valuable lesson learned. hundreds of visitors visit my blog and if anyone is interested and/or on the border line of trying out for your first triathlon, read on as I will share my personal experiences and knowledge I gathered to this day.

Here are some of the topics that will be blogged throughout the week.

• ocean swimming
• expo (pre-race day and late registration)
• event day
• practice routine
• olympics triathlon
• registration fee and other associated fees

To end the blog entry with a happy note, I finished the 10th anniversary LA Triathlon and earned the medal. My time though will not be registered as the swimming portion was not completed. I think I will get back to pool training throughout winter and train harder and smarter to finish next year’s Olympics triathlon. I learned a valuable lesson today and I shall conquer the ocean swimming with full energy and ease.

Korean-American Coalition is proud to announce the first ever Korean BBQ cook off festival in Los Angeles, CA on August 8, 2009. The first annual Korean BBQ cook off will start at 12PM at the “Summit on Sixth” condo parking lot, 3223 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90020. Lot of programs and attendees will be present to celebrate the delicious and famous Korean BBQ!

The Korean American Coalition – Los Angeles (KAC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1983 to promote the civic and civil rights interests of the Korean American community. KAC endeavors to achieve these goals through education, community organizing, leadership development, and coalition-building with diverse communities.

The Korean BBQ cook-off is partnered with Yelp.com and sponsored by the following companies: California Country Club, the U.S. Census Bureau, The Chadwick, allkpop, Coors Brewing Co., and the Good Samaritan Hospital.

Come eat Korean BBQ from the best BBQ restaurants of K-Town. Entrance is free so come one come all! The best part is, you don’t have to come with your Korean co-worker/friends. There will be various parking lots near the summit, just make sure to use your ears/nose to find us. (shouldn’t be hard) Hope to see you all there

*Mystery eating contest starts at 2pm, you won’t want to miss this…

*Cook-off starts at 5pm

*Update (7/23) 10 confirmed restaurants are participating in the competition including Byul Dae Po (Star BBQ), Ham Ji Park, Jinju Galbi, Mu Dae Po, Park’s BBQ, So Hyang, and Soowon Galbi

*Update (7/21)- Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Gold has been confirmed as a judge for the cook-off.

*Update (7/9) – we just received confirmation that the Mayor of LA will be attending (As a possible cook-off judge?)

The primal urge of grilled and smoked meats transcends cultures and continents. Los Angeles is home to some of the best Korean BBQ restaurants in the nation, a blend of Korean technique and American ingredients. The First Annual Korean BBQ Cookoff will showcase the best Korean barbecue restaurants and dishes – hand-picked by a team of experts – in the largest social enclave for Koreans in America.

Please feel free to pass along to friend, co-workers and family!
“I might not be Korean, but I love me some Korean BBQ!”

You can find additional information at the koreanbbqcookoff.com.

I been itching to write about Twitter, fast-growing microblogging website few months ago. Like many other social networking users (i.e. Facebook, Myspace, etc.), I did not know what the fuss was. Twitter did not have any unique feature that made me want to hop on its bandwagon. But months passed and after playing with Twitter.com, I realized why it has gained substantial “followings” and growth momentum early 2009.

Twitter.com founders did not define a single purpose on how to use Twitter and you’ll discover numerous ways to use Twitter. It is easy to get started: register your account by providing your name, username, password, and an e-mail address. Then go confirm the registration by clicking on the Twitter e-mail in your inbox. You are set to start tweeting which means to post new updates.

You can then search for your friends via the ‘Find People’ link on the top navigation. Four ways to find people you know: Find on Twitter (type in their name), Find on other networks (logon into Facebook and email accounts), Invite by email (type in friend’s email), and Suggested Users. All self explanatory.

Unlike Facebook where friendship is mutual, Twitter is one way. You actually follow the person and he/she may or may not follow you back. Celebrities and renowned authors tend to follow only their colleagues and not strangers. Most of the times, when you follow an individual, they will follow you back. It is up to you whether you want to follow that person because their tweets (updates) will now be visible in the twitter timeline. So it would not make sense if you follow someone that updates irrelevant posts that does not interest you. On the other hand, if you’re the one that wants to deliver your post (contents) to as much number possible, you want to follow as much twitters and hope they follow you back.

Twitter allows you to post a maximum 140 characters in your tweets. Therefore most tweeters shorten their web links (URL) to fit within the 140 character limit, and Twitter does it automatically for you if you decide to post the URL directly. One major downside to shorten URL is that the end user who clicks on the URL does not know where they are being redirected to because the shortened URL link does not reveal the destination. In the past and even in the month of April, people with bad intentions abuse twitter by sending the twitter user to a malicious virus-infested website, or send self-replicating computer program to deliver spams to twitter accounts. Twitter has been on alert mode looking for worms and other illegal activities.

Desktop programs like Tweetdeck is an alternative to using Twitter on your desktop and not on the website. Tweetdeck is free to download, available for both PC and MAC, and has lot of cool features.
* Tweet directly from TweetDeck
* Stay up to date – view all new tweets in real-time
* Use columns to create your personal dashboard
* Create Groups to easily follow friends, colleagues or other interest groups
* Update Facebook and follow your Facebook friends
* Follow topics in real-time with saved searches
* View @replies and direct messages and manage your conversations
* Never miss an important tweet with notifications
* Share your photos and videos with Twitpic and 12seconds
* And many more Twitter favourites including Stocktwits, Twitscoop and all the most popular URL shortening services

The other popular way to use Twitter is via your mobile device. You can tweet directly from your cell phone by sending in a text message to 40404. You need to configure the mobile setting in your Twitter account to use this. There are over dozen other free programs to tweet on your cellphone (google “Twitter mobile”). For those that have a Facebook account and currently use T-Mobile wireless service, you probably know that you CAN NOT configure Facebook Mobile because T-Mobile is not one of the service providers. I found out that Facebook has a Twitter application where you can connect the two so that Twitter mobile updates will also appear as a Facebook status update. This can be quite useful for T-Mobile users.

EDIT: If you know where I can watch the past episodes of “Idea How Much,” please send me a message. Thank you in advance!

A late night television show I watch is a Korean “pitch your entrepreneurial idea to the CEO” show on a Directv channel. For those that have the Korean channel package, the show is broadcast by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and is on channel 2081 Thursday at around 10:20pm PST.

An inventor is invited to the show “Idea How Much” with their new invention and the goal is to pitch their idea at the highest market price to a group of corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEO). There are exactly 20 CEO sitting on the assigned section awaiting for the live auction. Did you just say auction? The inventor briefly introduces and demonstrates their invention, and the auction begins with the help of a female auctioneer. The CEOs decide beforehand whether they want to participate in the bidding and will compete with each other to claim the rights to the acquired idea. Eventually two CEO are engaged in a bidding war.

Three hours prior to the auction broadcast, the group of CEO gets a chance to listen and watch a demonstration by the inventor. Questions are asked as well as feedback provided to the inventor, and then the CEOs decide whether they will bid on the idea and what their maximum bid amount would be. The last point is crucial because when you are in one of the 20 hot seats engaged on a bidding war, they can get carried away. But I doubt that would ever happen.

Qualifications
In popular Korean shows, the program director (PD) carefully selects the participants to come to their show to increase the show ratings by making it more enjoyable to watch. But in “Idea How Much,” there are three product analysts that calculates the estimated market value of the given invention and determine if there is a potential market to sell the product(s) to. Meeting this few requirement would qualify the inventor into the show. Surely there will be hundreds of applications to get on the show but only the selected few with excellent ideas will get accepted. And many of these ideas fetch into the six to seven digits category because of the potential marketability of the idea. We’re talking worldwide sales and not only in South Korea.

In a recent episode I watched, an inventor introduced a bed pillow that produced relaxing music to help the user get a better sleep. The pillow was unique as only the user themselves can hear the sound and the person next to it won’t hear a thing. A small controller was attached to the pillow so that the user can control the volume and change the music being played. An experiment took place using the invention with six subjects that had difficulty sleeping either from a nightmare, insomnia, or other sleeping disorder. Four of the subjects went into a deep sleep, one had a good light sleep, and only one could not get a good sleep. The fascinating part of the experiment is that the pillow actually helped young students improve their memorization skill after getting a quick nap using the pillow. There are scientific studies that daytime nap do improve mental sharpness and this pillow is like the ultimate tool to restore it. The results impressed several of the CEO.