A Veritable Cornucopia of Useless Information

At some point during the course of moving, I lost my nail clippers, so I bought another pair while on my lunch break.  Nail clippers are one of those mundane items that go unappreciated unless you are without a pair, or worse, have a pair that doesn’t clip nails in a satisfactory manner.  Since I like to keep my nails trimmed such that they are not useful for, well, anything, it’s important to me that the nail clippers’ blades are neither too sharp or too dull; that the curve of the blade is slight; and that the clippers are not overly wide.

Luckily for me, the clippers I purchased today are nearly optimal in those three respects.

As many of you know, I’ve been moving recently.  For the record, this is the 11th time I’ve moved since August 2000.  Hopefully, I will only have 1 or 2 moves left before I’ll be able to settle down somewhere for an extended period of time.

My blog is now also being “simulcast” on Facebook.  Enjoy!

Here’s to another “Only in JDE” moment: watching Snakes on a Plane in a theater with nearly 60 other people that you know or are otherwise connected to in various capacities. If you were there, you understand; if you weren’t, I feel very sorry for you.

I was surprised to find that when I walked home for lunch today, it was only marginally warmer than when I had left for work in the morning.  Combined with the moderate northwest wind and the low humidity, it felt like…late September.

Today is also the first day of Nebraska high school sports practice and UNL’s greek rush; some poor kids even had to go back to school today.  The march of the seasons carries on.

A new store, Bad Robot, opened in the first floor of my apartment building last week; they sell overpriced trinkets and coffee. Along with the Pangaea Cafe that opened up in The Chatterbox last month, there are now five locations that sell coffee within a block of my residence. Oddly enough, none of them is a Starbucks.

I received the results back from my Genographic Project Y-DNA test, which can be summed up thusly:

“Surprise! My genetic markers indicate that I’m descended from western Europeans!”

The markers and values I had tested are listed below. (The markers outlined in red are the ones that place me in the Atlantic Modal Haplotype.)

DYS 385a   13
DYS 385b   14
DYS 388    12
DYS 389-1  13
DYS 389-2  29*
DYS 390    24
DYS 391    11
DYS 392    13
DYS 393    13
DYS 19/394 14
DYS 426    12
DYS 439    12

*Also reported as 16, using Genographic nomenclature.

As for those of you who care for some non-obvious reason, the tests have confirmed that I’m a member of the R1b1 haplogroup. Since my unstoppable thirst for knowledge dovetails nicely with Family Tree DNA’s desire to make money, I have ordered an additional, more detailed Y-DNA test that should place me in a “smaller” haplogroup within R1b1.

So, I guess the upshot of all this is that if you happen to be a male Whidden and you’re thinking about having your DNA tested, don’t bother, as I have taken care of this for you. (Don’t thank me all at once…)

My parents are currently on vacation in Alaska.  I’ve asked them to send back pictures of their travels with the intent of providing some of them as desktop wallpaper.  So, here’s an image of Denali National Park.  Enjoy!  (The mountain itself is barely visible; it’s the very white area among the clouds.)

Downloads:

• 800 x 600
• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 960
• 1280 x 1024
• 1600 x 1200
• 1440 x 900 (widescreen)
• 1680 x 1050 (widescreen)
• 1920 x 1200 (widescreen)

Even though my weekends can’t normally be described as the utmost pinnacle of excitement, I think I may have lowered the bar to a new level this weekend:

• Saturday night: was a frantic-last-minute babysitter for a friend.
• Sunday night: went to bed at 8:30.

(The following paragraph is more or less unrelated to the preceding commentary.)

When taken all together, the events that have happened to me and those that I know during the past few months has led me to believe that we are now living in Bizarro World.

Since one the most frequent comments I make to friends is that they should blog (more), I’ll do my part to add marginally useful content to the Internet.

Being a regular at Doc’s has its advantages: for example, they now carry beers from Rogue and Ommegang. It’s a good thing.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the Six in the City dating pool!  You rock!

Finally, my roommate has succeeded in getting me to enjoy a “traditional” sci-fi series: Firefly.  I don’t know what that means, precisely, but I think we can all hold off about predictions of the apocalypse for the time being.