My DNA

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Several years ago I joined a DNA study by a group called “All of Us”. Their goal is to include at least one million people in the study so that they can learn just how our DNA relates to every aspect of our live. Their main goal is to include people of all races and all ages. Until now, most studies have tended to focus on European men.

When I joined the study, they promised to send me some results of my testing but until now I have received nothing, just a lot of surveys. Last year, however, I did get some results. The first group was interesting but meaningless, but this last round was interesting and provided me with some useful information. I do have at least one defective gene.

Here is what my DNA has taught me so far:

· I am 100% Northern & Central European
· I can taste certain bitter compounds
· I like cilantro
· My earwax is wet and sticky
· I am not lactose intolerant
· I don’t have any of the genetic diseases that they searched for
· My body will metabolize all of the medications normally except for one My SLCO1B1 gene will metabolize simvastatin (Zocor®) very slowly. That means that if I were ever on this medication, it might take my body a long time to remove it and I could have side effects, mostly sore muscles. Simvastatin is a drug to help reduce cholesterol. Luckily, I have very low cholesterol.

-------------------trivia--------------------

There is 10 times more bacteria in your body than actual body cells, and 90% of the cells that make us up of aren’t human but mostly fungi and bacteria.

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San Elijo State Beach

On Saturday, Setpember 9, Dave and Dana Black invited Lisa and I to spend the day with them at San Elijo Beach. We worked with Dave and Dana at the temple and they have an interesting situation. They have a side job where they are camp hosts at the San Elijo Campground.

They park their motorhome at the campground and stay there for four months for free. They work three eight hour shifts a week and the rest of the time they can do what they want. Their campground is huge and private.

We didn’t actually get there until early afternoon and we spent the entire time on the beach.

Dave and I took his paddle boards out in the water but these paddle boards are not like Justins paddle baords. I was standing on Justins boards within fifteen minutes after being on them for the first time but not these boards. They are quite tippy. Part of it is that the water in the ocean is a lot rougher than his lake was but it is mostly the board. I spent the first hour just getting to the point that I could kneel on the board.

Once I felt stable kneeling I tried standing. I quickly realized that it was going to take me a lot longer to stand for any length of time and even then, I wouldn’t be riding a wave while standing. I decided to sit on the board and then I actually caught a few waves. It was truly a blast.

We spent the entire day at the beach until it started to get dark. I even have some fairly significant rashes on my knees from kneeling so long.

As the sun was setting we cleaned up and decided to go to “The Taco Stand” for dinner since it is delicous and very close to San Elijo beach. They also have free refills on their Horchata. The tacos are always delicious but this time their tortillas were soggy. Still tasted wonderful but a bit dissappointing.

---------------trivia---------------

In the United States, there are more vacant homes 

than there are homeless people.

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Wyoming

After Skye was born, Sam's parents were the first to go visit and they were planning to stay through the Labor day weekend. Sam’s parents left earlier than expected and Mom was there the next day on August 29th. She had a great time getting to know our newest grandchild and catching up with the rest of Sarah's family. She also spent a lot of time with Ezzie. She was able to stay through the long weekend.

Her flight home was a bit of an ordeal though. Due to thunderstorms in Denver the flight from Casper was delayed by a couple of hours. She would have missed her connecting flight entirely but luckily the flight from Denver to San Diego was also delayed.

When she landed in Denver she was certain she had missed the connecting flight, and the gate she needed to be at was on the oppossite end of the terminal, but she figured she should give it her best effort. She ran the entire way. As she ran, some guy in one of those golf carts saw that she was about to have a heart attack so he asked if she would like a ride. Lisa gratefully accepted the offer.

When they arrived at the gate, the lady was waiting for her and Lisa was the last person on the plane. It was the last flight leaving for San Diego, if she had missed it she would have been spending the night at the airport.

While Lisa was in Wyoming, I managed to keep myself busy.

On August 16 I got tested for hearing aids. I’ve been trying to ignore this for a while now but Lisa makes it hard for me to ignore. I finally relented and made an appointment to have my hearing checked and sure enough, I could “benefit” from hearing aids.

This is a copy of my hearing test, if you look at the left part of the curve my hearing is on the low end of normal but as you move to the higher frequencies (the right part of the curve) my hearing drops off a lot. That means I’m not getting the higher frequencies which makes it difficult for me to decern speech.

I picked up my new hearing aids on Aug 23.

August 30 was what they called a super blue moon. It was a super moon because the moons orbit isn’t exactly a circle. This means that sometimes it is closer to the earth than at other times. A super moon in when it is closest to the earth and on that day it looks bigger than normal. It was a blue moon because it was the second full moon in a single month. I have no idea why they would call that a blue moon but there you have it.

Our neighbor took this picture of the moon on that night. 

I love this picture of the moon over the San Diego temple but I’m pretty sure that picture is a composite of two different pictures. It is still beautiful.

September 2nd is a special day for me. It is the day I was baptised, it is the day my first child was born making me a father, my Uncle Jay was born on this day and today Evan went to his Homecoming dance.

He didn’t go on an offical date, but rather they went as a group. He did buy himself a boutenier and a corsauge for a girl. When his group got together he gave the corsauge to a girl so in the picture it does look like he is on a date with a pretty girl.

The next day on September 3, I conducted my first sacrament meeting. It is rather scary. I know that it is simple in concept but if I make a mistake everyone in the congregation will see it. I think I would rather deliver a talk than conduct the meeting because I can at least prepare for a talk. There isn’t much you can do to prepare to conduct a meeting. Fast Sunday is even worse because on Fast Sunday I “get” to share my testimoney as well. That is another thing you can’t really prepare for. To make things worse, at the last minute our Stake President came up to the stand and sat by me. It went well. 

Last year when I saw a bunch of weeds growing in one of our planters I figured we might as well put it to good use. At first we planted a bunch of onions which grew really well. After the onions died off, we planted a couple of tomato plants and a couple pepper plants. It was too late in the season and they did not do well. The cherry tomatos were good but we only got a couple of big tomatos and a couple of tiny peppers. This year however thy thrived.

---------------trivia---------------

A Russian man complained of intense chest pain; after some x-rays, doctors believed that he had a tumor. They performed surgery, and the doctors found a pine tree growing inside the man’s set of lungs.

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Hood to Coast

On Thursday, August 24 Kira & justin, Matt & Sheena, Chris, Alex and myself all made our way to Portland Oregan to run a “Hood to Coast” relay race. The “Hood to Coast” is actually the forrunner to the Ragnars that we love so much. It is a 200 mile race from Mt Hood to Seaside Village on the coast.

The reason you only have a picture of my knees is because I don’t do selfies very well and I was thrilled that I was asked to sit in an emergeny row which gave me lots of leg room. I’m usually pretty cramped on these flights.

Matt & Sheena Smith drove down from Calgary with Chris Orre in his car. They arrived early on Thursday and hiked to some gorgeous waterfalls. I arrived next and waited in the airport for Alex to arrive. Kira and Justin arrived late around 10:30. Since we had time to spare, Sheena went to bed while the rest of us went bowling.

 

The next morning the race started at some ski resort near the top of Mount Hood. It was beautiful. Justin started the race so we’re all watching from near the starting gate and when the signal goes off the runners from that heat all start coming but I can’t see Justin. All of a sudden this mad man comes running from behind, and shoots out in front of everyone else. I think it startled everyone, especially if you zoom in and look at his face.

He definitley looks like he’s in it to win it.

One of my favorite shirts to run in is a bright yellow shirt. I guess I like it because it is so bright and cheerful and it makes me happy. 

Some time ago Kira saw a bright yellow running shirt and she decided that she had to buy it so we could be twins. She purposely didn’t use the shirt until I was at her house one day wearing my bright yellow shirt. With those ugly orange shorts that the “team” insists that we wear we are quite well matched. Is that a beautiful shot with beautiful Mt Hood in the background?

Justin then handed off to Alex with a big kiss and Alex then bounced on his way down the road. Alex had a beautiful run with amazing vista’s but he was on the side of busy road with Diesel fuel which detracted some from the experience. 

Of course we can’t stand on the side of the road and cheer our team mates like normal people. We bend over and get slapped on the butt.

Part of the highway was so beautiful that I had Kira take a picture of me runnig down the road. I love this picture.

The team is supposed to consist of 12 runners divided into two vans. Van 1 runs while Van 2 rests and relaxes and then runner 6 in Van 1 hands off to runner 7 in Van 2. Well, at the last minute we had so many people drop out so fast that we couldn’t replace them all and come race time we only had seven runners left on the team. We finally decided to put all seven of us in one Van and we would pick and choose which runs we wanted to do.

At the start we chose to be Van 1 and then we played and ate when Van 2 would normally be running and after Van 2 would normally be done running we showed up at exchange point 13 to start what would have been our second run.

At night time we decided to get a full nights sleep and slept when Van 2 would have been running and for our last run we ran as if we were Van 2. Because we were choosing to be flexible, our runs were very inconsistent but I decided to keep all my runs as if I was runner 5. 

I love that picture of Kira, she looks so happy. Kira handed off to Matt and Sheena who had decided to run their legs together. And then Matt and Sheena handed off to me. 

I didn’t get a kiss, instead they kissed each other and handed off to me.

My run was stunning, it was seven miles long with a steep incline the entire run, but it was well worth it.

My second run was a night time run so I have no decent pictures of it but it was also a wonderful run. I couldn’t see much, but it was not a busy road and very peaceful. There was no van support so I had my solitude for the entire run. It was a six mile run.

At the end of my first run, I handed off to Chris. Anyone who exchanges with Justin gets a kiss but when I handed off to Chris I gave him a hug which was like running into a brick wall and then he ripped off my hat and gave me a big smooch on the head.

Remember, I had just run six miles in 90° weather so my head was all sweaty. He was pretty grossed out but it was kind of funny.

Kira and Alex enjoyed riding in the back seat so they could visit and catch up.

After his second run Alex’s feet were quite sore and after his first run, Chris was certain he had torn his achilles tenden so they both had decided that they weren’t going to run their third legs. By the next morning they were feeling a bit more optimistic so Justin convinced them to all walk the last leg together. That gave us plenty of chances to cheer them on. At one of the pull outs where we were going to cheer them on, we found a patch of black berries. Their season was about over but there were still plenty of ripe and very delicious black berries for us to enjoy.

We got so into our berry picking that we didn’t see Justin, Alex and Chris coming up the road, so they came over and joined us. Well Alex and Justin came over and joined us but Chris kept on running. He was feeling better so he decided to run the remainder of the leg.

At the end of his leg he was walking up a tough hill so Justin got the whole crowd chanting, “Chris! Chris! Chris!”. It got him so fired up that he run into the exchange point with arms stretch out like wings and his bright orange cape flapping.

Kira decided to run the last leg into the finish line so I ended up handing off to her. Of course I gave her a big kiss on our hand off.

And then it was all over. Well at least the running was all over. The race ended Saturday evening and we hung around the finish line for a while enjoying the very cold beach.

Justin, Matt and Chris went into the water even though it was absolutely freezing and the air temperature was pretty chilly as well.

I would have gone in as well but we were a long walk from our car and I didn’t want to make that walk wet and freezing.

And another picture of Kira and I in our matching outfits. How fun.

After we were done at the beach we headed back to the Air B&B looking forward to the hot tub. On our way there we stopped and checked out what is left of this cool ship wreck. It must have been a cool site all these years as it sat there on this beach slowly eroding away.

Sunday morning we caught Sacrament Meeting in the local church and then we moved on to the famous Tilamook Creamery. That place is spectacular.

It wasn’t until recently that we realized just how wonderful Tilamook icecream is. It is pretty much all we buy now. It is just so creamy. I am also very much in love with Tilamook cheese but then I am in love with any cheese.

Tilamook City is the county seat for Tilamook County which is located at the end of Tilamook Bay on the Pacific coast directly west of Portland.

The Tilamook creamery has built a beautiful facility where anyone can walk in off the street and get free cheese samples. You can also walk along an enclosed balcony and watch the entire process for making cheese from where the milk comes in the door to where the packaged cheese is sent to the warehouse. The whole process is explained with signs. I found it interesting that sharp cheese sits in storage for up to six years.

Next on our stop was the Goonies house in Astoria. The Goonies was a cool movie that our kids watched when they were young. Much of the movie took place in this house and it hasn’t changed a bit. I rewatched the movie after I got back.

For dinner we had some delicious clam chowder in this funky little restaurant that Kira and Justin told us about. They ate here a couple of years ago when Kira made her big epic road trip with the kids.

Monday morning we packed up the van and Chris drove us to the airport where we rented a car. We hugged Chris, Matt and Sheena goodbye and Kira, Justin, Alex and I played tourist. We checked out the food and shops in the area until Alex had to catch his plane and then me and the Palmers hiked to some amazing waterfalls. The Columbia river has form a canyon and there are several waterfalls that fall over the edge of the canyon. Three of these are fairly close to each other and to the road.

The first falls that we hiked to was only a mile off the road and it was called bridal veil falls. We could have hiked to the top of these falls but our time was limited and we wanted to see more falls. We then drove down to Multnomah falls.

Multnomah falls are the fifth largest falls in America and they have the honor of being the most visited falls in America. That is because they are amazing and easily accessible. We just parked the car, walked around the corner and there they were. We walked up to that bridge you see in the photo and we were very close to the falls.

In 1994 a bolder the size of a bus fell off of the top of Multnomah Falls into the pool below, it caused a giant wave. A wedding party was there taking photos and captured this picture. Do you see the bridge in the splash? A group from the wedding party were actually on the bridge at the time. No one died but twenty people were hurt.

The last falls that we saw were Wahkeena Falls. These falls were right on the road. They were smaller and very accessible so of course I had to go touch them. I really wanted to walk into the falls but our next stop was the airport and I didn’t want to be drenched when I climbed onto the plane. Justin stuck his whole head in the falls. I would have but I didn’t want to deal with my glasses.

I think this picture of Kira is my favorite from the whole weekend.

From the falls we headed back to the airport and flew home.

What a great weekend.

---------------trivia---------------

If you dug a hole to the center of the Earth and dropped a book down, 

it would take 42 minutes to reach the bottom.

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