And the winner is...

Chris Davis was the lucky recipient of the autographed memorabilia package! He was also the highest donor which also won him the autographed Edgar Martinez signed plaque!

I'd like to again thank Chris and all who donated for making a difference in spreading the word about organ donation. Together we raised $3293!

I must appologize for the tardiness of getting the results up on the blog. Today was the first day that I had very little soreness from running the marathon. I also made a minor breakthrough with the web authoring program I am using to build my new website and got busy with that last night. I am hoping to be able to launch the website early next week beginning with the Poetry and Running pages. I also have an anouncement of a new, and fairly lofty, goal I am setting for myself. But no, I'm not going to leak it out tonight! You'll all just have to wait till I get the site up!

Till then stay safe and enjoy life, it only comes around once in a life time!

mk

Seattle Marathon - New personal best!

Ok, so I've only run two marathons. But I did do better this year than last. I finished in 4 hours, 17 minutes! That's about 28 minutes faster than last years race!

It was absolutely beautiful out there today. I took it easier this year in the beginning and didn't walk for the first 16 miles! (it's the walking that kills your time!) Randy Howard joined me at the 14 mile mark and finished with me. It was great having someone there to pass the time with. My parents ran my pit stops for me and I'm sure that was a huge factor in my improved time. I also saw Chris, Sarah, and Mac Davis out on the course. Sorry I didn't have time to visit!Unfortunately, my lovely wife missed it yet again! Maybe next year she'll actually see me finish! LOL (I still love you baby!)

I feel a lot better physically also. A little tightening in the calves but not many other complaints. I'm looking forward to doing it again next year. And maybe I'll even train better!

So far we've raised $3215 for organ and tissue donation awareness. I have heard a few occasions of people having trouble with the website. I've checked it out and have found no problems myself. If you're having troubles try cutting and pasting this link into your browser window, http://www.firstgiving.com/markkorf.

Thanks to all of you who have supported me in this endeavor. I'll be doing the drawing tomorrow and will post the winner her on the blog so check back!

More later...

I gotta SLEEP!

Happy Turkey Day!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

On this day I would like to especially thank all of you who donated to the fundraiser! It is people like you who truly make a difference in our world. Thank you!

I'm currently up on Camano Island having Turkey Day dinner with my wife's family. I'll celebrate with my family on Saturday. Then run the marathon on Sunday! I still question why they have the marathon on Thanksgiving weekend, it kinda spoils being able to stuff yourself with no regrets!

Looks like I'll be going down and spending the night at Ft Lewis tonight so I can get up SUPER EARLY and buy a flat screen TV for my wife. It's actually our present to each other, but she's the one who watches the most TV. If anyone reading is going to be down there as well, BEWARE! I'll be throwing elbows to get my TV! LOL I can find no better way to get into the spirit than to start the season off with some good 'ol combat shopping!

If you're just surfin' tonight while the turkey settles check out the Flight of the Conchords on YouTube. They are hilarious! I recommend 'Business Time', 'Hiphopopotomus', and 'If That's What Your Into'. I guarantee you will laugh!

Well, dinners ready so...

I gotta eat!

The countdown continues...

Hello all,

Sorry it's been a few days since I've posted. Lot's to do with the holidays coming up and my new position. I was at work for 15 1/2 hours yesterday! Work is getting busy as the units I'm assisting are starting to complete some of their training requirements. I've done more data entry in the last week than I think I've ever done before.

I'm getting ready to pace another Soldier as she takes her PT test. I hope she does well. (She shaved almost a minute off her time!!) I'm planning on doing a few short runs over the next few days to remain loose. The important thing is not incurring any unfortunate injuries this close to race day. I'm going to take it slower this year as my training isn't even a quarter of what I wanted to do. I'm not sure how the die hard marathoners find the time to train. Do they not have jobs?

I'm going to have a people cheering me on out on the course this year. I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure I'll be needing any and all motivation to finish this year. Chris, Sarah, and Mac Davis will be out there as well as my parents acting as my pit stops and medication centers. LOL I'll also be joined on the race course by Randy Howard and Cliff Banta. They've agreed to come out and pace/motivate me for a bit. It'll be nice, last year at times it seemed isolated even though there were lots of people around.

We've raised over $2600 so far in the fundraiser! Not as good as last year but in the end, every dollar is going to a good cause. If you haven't donated yet and still wish to, just click on the fundraiser status board to the right!

Many thanks to all of you who have already donated. I truly do appreciate your support. The website is coming along a bit slower than I originally expected, but it's coming. Each time I sit down to work on it it gets a little easier. Anyone out there great with Dreamweaver? I could really use a 'mentor' to help me through the little problems that are so much bigger due to my inexperience with the program. But it's coming, I promise! And soon!

More to follow...

I gotta run

Website is slowly coming...

Hello all,

I have been messing around with a version of Dreamweaver to start building my new website, makopoetic.com. While I am learning a lot, there is too much to learn! This is going to be a slow process as I learn what most people would say is a headache. I do have a 'title page' already built but cannot figure out how to upload it to the server. Hopefully I'll figure that out soon.

The website is going to have 5 areas of interest.

1) The Crusade - Concentrates on my organ donation awareness activism, my disease, and anything affiliated with that part of my life. It will have it's own blog, photos, videos, and other interesting information.

2) The Soldier - This will highlight all aspects of my military career and provide information to interested individuals who might be considering the military as a full or part time job. It will also have a blog of what I am doing militarily, possibly a few blogs from deployed Soldiers, photos and videos, and lots (I mean lots) of military information! I'm hoping to also have a question forum that prospective recruits can use to get answers about the military from a Soldier who's NOT a recruiter.

3) The Traveler - This will be a work in progress. I do a lot of traveling, most notably to Las Vegas a few times a year, and though it might be beneficial to people like me going to Vegas on their own. It will have hotel, restaurant, casino, and show reviews; my travel history, and pictures of some of the beautiful places I've been. I'll also have a question forum to answer questions about travel to Vegas, or other places I have visited.

4) The Poet - This area quite simply will be where I will display my poetry. I told you, simple.

5) The Philosopher - The final area of interest will revolve around a question I often ask people; If you were able to bring back to life someone who actually lived, but is now dead, for one hour... Who Would It Be? I plan on gathering information on ths topic and hopefully writing a book someday with all I have learned, or not learned.

Well, I have some reading to do.

mk

Happy Veterans Day!!!

So, last nights Vanessa Carlton concert was good. I enjoyed hearing her play live and the sound was really good. A bit of a wierd venue though. If you wanted to see her up close you had to stand for the entire concert. And not many people were doing anything except standing and listening. It was kinda ackward. I was unable to meet her, she didn't do any CD signing afterwards as advertised by the people who worked the establishment. I'm glad I went though. Hearing 'A Thousand Miles' live did send tingles up my spine!

I'm in the process of building a new website. It's going to be makopoetic.com and I have alot of great ideas. Just don't have any know how to make them come alive. Ths is going to be a steep learning curve! I was hoping to find something as easy to manipulate as this blogsite but it's proving a little more challeging! I'll be posting on here until the site is up and to my liking so keep checking back.

More later,

I gotta run.

Sub-title change, and the real story...

Wow! A lot has happened in the last nine days. I currently sit at a desk in my hotel room at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. A cool little perk that having a Human Resources manager for a wife brings! I’m spending my time resting, re-connecting with my wife, and establishing and building a new website that will soon be the new home for my blog, organ donation awareness efforts, and other future endeavors.

It’s nice to get away and have time to focus a little, but I do have to admit that I am awfully excited about Sunday evening. Sunday evening I am going to go and see Vanessa Carlton live at the Crocodile Café in Seattle, Washington! This has been a dream of mine ever since I came back from Germany.

Most of you who are close to me already know the story of how Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" pulled me from the depths of hell, and helped guide me towards my current life's mission. But for those of you who don't know, here’s how the story goes...

In May of 2004 I was on annual training in Germany with my National Guard unit. I became ill and was transported to Krakenhuas Eschenbach, a local German hospital. They diagnosed me with a 'bad' gall bladder and arrangements were made to remove it the next day. I called my girlfriend (now my wife) and told her the news. The surgery was completed the next day and I began the process of recovery, hoping that I might be released in time to return home with my unit a few days later.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t always go as hoped or planned. Unbeknownst to me, the doctors were monitoring my hematocrit levels. The hematocrit (Ht or HCT) or packed cell volume (PCV) are measures of the proportion of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells. It is normally 45 ± 7 (38-52%) for males and 42 ± 5 (37-47%) for females. I know, I know… to technical. Let me break it down this way. My normal hematocrit level should be around 45, the doctors were worried because mine was at 17 and falling. This is a symptom of hemorrhaging; or in my case, internal bleeding.

I was sent for an ultrasound and the nurse told me that I had ‘fluid’ pooling in my lower abdomen. When I asked the doctors to give it to me straight, and in the best English they could muster, they then told me I had uncontrolled internal bleeding and that they were going to have to open me up, see what was wrong, and fix it. I wholeheartedly agreed! A second surgery was scheduled for the next day and the unit was informed that I would be staying behind.

My approach to the next surgery was rather relaxed; hell it was the second one in three days. As I counted back from ten the anesthesia took control of my consciousness I could not comprehend how different my life would be in just ten days.

I slowly arose from the depths of my coma ten days later to the faces of doctors, nurses, my parents, and my girlfriend. I am not entirely sure of the timeliness of the events, the participants, or even my actions. I couldn’t even comprehend just how wrong things had gone and how lucky I was to be alive. It took awhile to even realize that I was in a totally different hospital, nearly 50 miles away from where I had the surgeries done. I have spent many hours over the last 3+ years piecing together the events of those ten days. The one thing pertinent to this conversation are the actions of my girlfriend, Jennifer.

When I met Jennifer in college she was studying to become a psychologist. She was learning parts of the human brain that I can’t today even spell, what they did, and how our thoughts are formed and influenced. I truly believe that it was her knowledge of how the brain works, and what she did because of it, which saved my life.

There is a whole long story of what happened between my parents and Jennifer. All I really know is that when I came out of the coma, they couldn’t be in the same room together. I have heard both sides and understand each point of view. I bring this up because it played a large role the circumstances of my recovery. For whatever reasons, my parents ended up on the ‘day shift’ and Jen resorted to ‘sneaking in’ to be with me during the nights. After my parents arrived in Germany they found themselves in a daily meeting where the question was not ‘is he (me) getting any better?’, but more actually ‘is he getting any worse?’ My condition was dire, but stable. I was not getting any worse thus allowing the decision to have me remain on life support another day.

Jennifer would sit with me during the evenings and having the knowledge that she has of how the brain works set out to play music to me. Her attempts to get my laptop with my music on it were without success. She then decided to take a trip to a Czechoslovakian market place with our friend Russell who had come along with her. They poured over the booths looking for pirated CD’s with song on them she knew I liked. Later that night as she sat next to my bed she played the CD’s on Russell’s laptop. Song after song played and she diligently swapped out each CD for the next one when it finished, believing in her heart that this was the right thing to do.

All of the sudden alarms on the medical equipment started going off and the doctors and nurses started to rush in wondering what she had done. When asked she said she was only playing the music when the alarms went off and then questioned the doctors as to what was happening. One of the doctors looked at her and said that there was stimulated relational brain activity, something I had not shown for almost a week. She then turned her attention to calming me down so that no long term damage was done. This would become the point at which I began to get better. It started a process that took almost a year of rehab to get back to being healthy again and led to the diagnosis of my disease, leaving an indelible stamp on my future.



You ask what song it was?
A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton