4 minutes and 22 seconds

Two years ago, I ran the fastest mile race of my life. 4 minutes and 22 seconds.

At the beginning of my senior-year high school Track season, I set my sights on a 4:22 mile. My best time from the previous season was 4:30. I never took my eyes of the prize – I aimed for that 4:22 all season long, slowly improving my best time every few weeks.

• Mar 8, 2008 — 4 minutes and 31 seconds
• Mar 29, 2008 — 4 minutes and 26 seconds
• Apr 18, 2008 — 4 minutes and 24 seconds
• May 16, 2008 — 4 minutes and 22 seconds

I finally ran a 4:22 mile at the Sac-Joaquin Section Meet. It was the perfect way to finish up my high school running career, and I was quite pleased with myself.

A few days later, I gave a speech at the end-of-year Track banquet where I reflected on the last 3 years of my life as a runner. There, in front of my coaches, all my teammates and their parents, I proudly proclaimed that I was a lifelong runner.

It made me happy to know that I would be a runner for the rest of my life. What a great life! I gave all the credit to my excellent coaches (Rob Fairley and John Mansoor) who showed me how much fun running could be.

Fast forward to today.

I haven’t run consistently for pretty much the past two years (since the first quarter of Stanford). College makes running difficult: No consistent Track or Cross Country practice to attend, no teammates to encourage you to run, and no real consequences for not running. Plus, there are so many other interesting things to do. Time flies.

But, something snapped in me today. I’m determined to start running again — and to keep running. Forever.

Goal: Run daily

So, that’s the point of this blog post. I’m publicly declaring my intent to run daily. It doesn’t matter how many miles I run each day. What’s important is that I run daily. I will share my progress (or lack thereof) publicly. This should raise the stakes. If I fail, everyone will see it.

Now the pressure is on — I have to give this my best effort.

So, take a look at my public running log.

If you like what you see, share your encouragement in the comments. If you’re disappointed, share that too. Everything helps.

I’m determined to reach this goal.

Update: After running pretty consistently for a couple months, YouTube Instant happened to me, and I stopped running.

Big Bang Big Boom

This blows my mind.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra

Tonight, I listened to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra play, and wow. What an amazing concert! It was called Distant Worlds: Music from FINAL FANTASY. All the music was composed by the Japanese video game composer Nobuo Uematsu and conducted by Grammy award-winner Arnie Roth.

This was my second time attending Distant Worlds (I also went last year), and it was even better than I remembered. Nobuo Uematsu was in attendance again, and as expected, the crowd gave him an extremely warm welcome. At the end of the concert, Uematsu got a 4-minute standing ovation from everyone in the Final Fantasy fan-filled hall.

Here’s my favorite song from their CD:

Zanarkand (Final Fantasy X)

Here was the evening’s setlist:

• Opening~Bombing Mission (FINAL FANTASY VII)
• Don’t be Afraid (FINAL FANTASY VIII)
• Memoro de la Stono (FINAL FANTASY XI)
• Medley 2002 (FINAL FANTASY I-III)
• Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII (FINAL FANTASY VII)
• Prima Vista Orchestra (FINAL FANTASY IX)
• Kiss Me Goodbye (FINAL FANTASY XII)
• Zanarkand (FINAL FANTASY X)
• FINAL FANTASY series: Main Theme
• The Man with the Machine Gun (FINAL FANTASY VIII)
• Theme of Love (FINAL FANTASY IV)
• JENOVA (FINAL FANTASY VII)
• Ronfaure (FINAL FANTASY XI)
• FINAL FANTASY XIII medley
• FINAL FANTASY XIV medley
• Opera “Maria and Draco” (FINAL FANTASY VI)
• Terra’s Theme (FINAL FANTASY VI)

Web Security and Privacy

This is a research paper I wrote about Web Security and Privacy. It’s quite an interesting read, if you’ve got 20 minutes to spare.

(Interesting fact: I wrote the entire final draft of this 25-page paper in less than 24 hours. Coding up the proof-of-concept attack page demo took two days, and gathering information took several weeks, but I finished the actual writing in less than one full day.)

Summer @ Facebook

This summer, I get to build stuff at Facebook. Fun!