Six random things with which to bore or entertain

The blogger who I thought among all held the greatest disdain for any of these silly little narcissistic blogger games, Comrade PhysioProf, has tagged me with a meme.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about yourself.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So here are six random things about me:

1. I belong to the Y-chromosome haplogroup J2: my markers carry the path of M168 > M89 > M304 > M172. This lineage originated roughly 50,000 years ago with a man in the Rift Valley of northeast Africa, probably in what is now Kenya, Tanzania, or Ethiopia.

Modern-day descendants of this lineage are most commonly found in the highest frequencies in North Africa, Ethiopia, and the Middle East while at much lower frequencies in Europe, confined mostly to the Mediterranean regions such as southern Italy or southern Spain. While I am most recently of exclusively Eastern European heritiage (the last five or six generations), the J2 haplogroup may explain why PharmSis and I are darker than the average pasty white German or Hungarian (which reminds me that I need to send PharmSis her National Geographic Genographic Project kit to interrogate her mtDNA markers).

2. I was the special demonstration project of an excellent amateur triathlete in graduate school after I told him, "Whenever I get the urge to exercise I sit down and have a beer until it passes." I was clearly not cut out for this demographic: at one race, the course directors announced that an alligator was sighted on the swim course and the participants cheered. Later, on a bicycling training ride, I was hit by a boat.

3. I have actually taken money - twice - from large pharmaceutical companies, but not for my scientific expertise. A band I was in played for a health professionals reception when a now-withdrawn drug was launched, and we were the entertainment for a poster reception at the annual meeting of a major international basic and clinical research society. The proceeds were use to support the recording of two CDs.

4. Speaking of pharmaceuticals, my various maladies require that I take at least six prescription medicines each day. I am happy to report that three of these are semi-synthetic derivatives of natural products.

5. The greatest terrestrial altitude I have achieved under my own foot power is 14,440 ft (4401 m) above sea level. I find that colors are more intense when one is at compromised oxygen saturation.

6. The interstate highway exit numbers for the international airports where I have lived for each of my faculty positions are exactly the same.

And one bonus tidbit...

7. I brake for boiled peanuts.

For those of you who are still awake, I hereby tag:
N.B. at Secundum Artem
Dr Val at Getting Better
PalMD at denialism
acmegirl at Thesis - With Children (only if she wants to)
leigh at the path forward (only if she wants also)
Prof Tom Levenson at The Inverse Square (who also just hit 100,000 visitors!)
and juniorprof at JUNIORPROF, who was whining about not being included