Good News... I'm Not Adopted

Recently I had the opportunity to take an Ancestry DNA test. And it was a lot easier than I had anticipated. All I had to do was spit in a tube and drop it in the mail. No blood required. The Ancestry DNA test calculates where your DNA comes from, and my results were very interesting.

My whole life I have been told that I am one half English, three-eighths Czech, and one-eighth German. Period. While I am still "European", my Ethnicity Estimate is not what I expected.

I am primarily Western European. I am guessing that most of that would be German. After that I am Eastern European, most likely my Czech ancestors. But the real shocker was that only 20% of my DNA comes from the British Isles. Now this test does not mean that only 20% of my ancestors came from the British Isles, but that about 20% of my genes come from there. I am very interested in finding out more about my roots.

In light of all this new information, I am starting a Genealogy Worksheet where I will record information about my direct line. I will only use official documents to track my family. Hopefully I can find what I'm looking for. Like many families, a lot of what I know (or think I know) about my ancestors come from oral tradition. "My father told me that his father told him....." Let's see what has been forgot or lost. I might even post some of my findings on my other blog Cooking with the Plouzeks. I want to know more about their lives then just dates and places.

Another nice feature about Ancestry DNA is that it predicts your relationships to other people who have also taken this test. And Good News, I'm Not Adopted. It correctly connected me with one of my uncles and some of my first cousins. It also connected me with over 400 people who are fourth cousins or closer. It really is a small world. We are all Family.

So be kind to the person you pass on the street, you might be related.

What is a blog?

Hello, it has been a while since my last post. I think I have not posted because I thought I had to write about something profound and life changing. That I should work on getting a world wide presence and make the world a better place. That was scary. But I realized that a blog is just a blog. It does not matter if anyone even reads it. Like the name of my blog implies, it is simply my two bits (my opinion). It is my opinion about everything and anything (except for polities, I will stay far away from all the things going on in this country politically). But this is a place where I can express myself, put my thoughts down on virtual paper. It will be fun.

See you around.

Look Up

My wife showed me an interesting video the other day called "Look Up". It is about the dramatic impact technology is having on our relationships.

Smart Phones are making us Stupid. We have hundreds of acquaintances but very few friends. I know that I am just as guilty of this. I have spent hours playing games, watching Youtube videos, and scrolling through Pinterest. As I mentioned in my first post, we don't have a Facebook now, but when I did, I would waste hours Facebook staking. However, if I was stranded somewhere, none of my "friends" would come pick me up. 

I will be taking a 40 day fast from digital communication and video games. If I want to talk to someone, I will actually Talk to them. No more texting, emailing, or commenting through social media. I want to have real relationships again. I invite you to examine your own life and determine how you can improve your relationships. I wish you luck. 

Secret Combinations

The Book of Mormon brings to light the wickedness that prevailed in an ancient society on the American continent. The people organized covert groups referred to as "secret combinations". 

(They) did enter into their covenants and their oaths, that they would protect and preserve one another in whatsoever difficult circumstances they should be placed, that they should not suffer for their murders, and their plunderings, and their stealings.

And it came to pass that they did have their signs, yea, their secret signs, and their secret words; and this that they might distinguish a brother who had entered into the covenant, that whatsoever wickedness his brother should do he should not be injured by his brother, nor by those who did belong to his band, who had taken this covenant.

And thus they might murder, and plunder, and steal, and commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness, contrary to the laws of their country and also the laws of their God.

Helaman 6:21-23

These secret combinations eventually lead to the destruction of the entire nation. 

We may not want to admit it, but we have secret combinations in our day and age. Groups that work behind the scenes for their own selfish desires. You can see it in the Tobacco industry, in  street gangs, corrupt politicians, drug cartels, just to name a few. 

In one of my classes, we talked about a group of individuals that had their own goals for our nation. Their plan was published in the Guide Magazine on November 1987 by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. It is call The Overhauling Of Straight America. It is a disturbing document about how the Homosexual community can force America to accept them in the space of a few years. They wrote:

"The first order of business is desensitization of the American public concerning gays and gay rights. To desensitize the public is to help it view homosexuality with indifference instead of with keen emotion. Ideally, we would have straights register differences in sexual preference the way they register different tastes for ice cream or sports games: she likes strawberry and I like vanilla; he follows baseball and I follow football. No big deal.

At least in the beginning, we are seeking public desensitization and nothing more. We do not need and cannot expect a full "appreciation" or "understanding" of homosexuality from the average American. You can forget about trying to persuade the masses that homosexuality is a good thing. But if only you can get them to think that it is just another thing, with a shrug of their shoulders, then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won. And to get to shoulder-shrug stage, gays as a class must cease to appear mysterious, alien, loathsome and contrary. A large-scale media campaign will be required in order to change the image of gays in America. And any campaign to accomplish this turnaround should do six things."

Step 1: Talk About Gays And Gayness As Loudly And As Often As Possible.

Step 2: Portray Gays As Victims, Not As Aggressive Challengers.

Step 3: Give Protectors A Just Cause.

Step 4: Make Gays Look Good.

Step 5: Make The Victimizers Look Bad.

Step 6: Solicit Funds: The Buck Stops Here

It is scary to how well their plan has been executed. But we as a nation have the duty to fight this secret combination. I affirm that: "The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity." The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Children need a Mother and a Father. Men and Women offer unique relationships for the child. Children raised by a homosexual couple are depriving that child of those essential relationships. Also, same sex couples a much more likely to be unfaithful and separate than traditional couples. Homosexuality is more often about lust and less about love and commitment. There is a great article from Family Research Council: Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples. I will not be talking about it at this time, however it shows statistical evidence in regards to the effects of same-sex relationships. 

I know that many of you will think that I am closed-minded; you may hate me for what I have written. However, I know what I know. I encourage you to study the literature and find out for yourself.  

I long for the days of Beaver Clever. That is what the Ideal family looks like (some daughters would be nice). But the relationship that family portrayed is what I hope to have with my family.  


For more info about secret combination, visit Waking up to Secret Combinations

My Health Philosophy

            I will be graduating at the end of this semester with a Bachelor of Health Science with an emphasis in Public Health. I am fascinated by the epidemiological side of health care. I am also interested in international health. So… you may ask how I got to be this way. If you have a few minutes I will tell you.

            When I was almost five years old my youngest sister was born extremely premature. The doctors didn't expect her to survive the night. Thankfully, through the hard work of the NICU nurses and our fervent prayers, she made it through night after night. She is now 23 years old and has been in and out the hospital a lot throughout those years. But she is a joyful young lady. I was inspired but the hard work of the many health care professionals that have served us these many years. One of the reasons I wanted to be in health care was to help others like the hospital staff helped my sister.

            However, with all the medical costs both of my parents had to work, and being the oldest boy, it was my responsibility to take care of my sister. During that time I discovered that I enjoyed helping people. I also developed a great love for those with disabilities and I have had the opportunity to help people with disabilities throughout my life.

            I was influenced by the T.V. show M.A.S.H. For several years I wanted to be an army doctor. It sounded exciting. I was also deeply touched by the movie Patch Adams. I loved the idea of treating people instead of treating the disease. This was a principle I focused on when I worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) at a nursing home in my home town. I worked there for a year and half before I went to college. I loved my time there, while some of the other CNAs would rush through their tasks, I would take my time. I would help the residents feel like that small room they lived in was their home. I did my best to care for them, not just treat their illnesses. It was a great time.

            As I attended my classes, I found that I loved topics like nutrition, epidemiology, microbiology and international health. I discovered a more holistic view of health care.

          Prevention is key, we need to help people before they get sick, and sadly most insurance companies don’t pay for preventive medicine. I also realized that physicians in general only cared about their patient’s physical wellness. As long as you are not sick, they do not care about you. Also I started feeling like the cost of health care was extremely overpriced. Much of that could be the fact that most physicians have to take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to become a physician. Therefore, they need to make a lot of money to pay off those loans, and that money comes from their patients. So I decided to work more on the community side of health care. I also desire to do humanitarian aid in developing countries. I am shocked about the simple modern conveniences that we take for granted every day. There are so many people that don’t even have clean water to drink and enough to eat. In general, I want to make the world a better place.

Garden

    We are a thrifty family. We make our own laundry soap and lip balm. I have constructed the majority of our furniture (more on that in future posts). So of course we have a garden this year. The university we are attending has a wonderful student run activities program. One of those programs offers students a 15x15 garden plot of just $10 for the whole year.
    We participated in this program two years ago (2012), however we were inexperienced and I was working 20 hrs/week. We went to Walmart and spent around $60 on plants. Then we dug up our ground and planted everything in nice rows with water ditches in between. Sadly we had late frosts that year, and the more tender plants froze. We tried to weed and care for our plants, but with going to school full-time and working part time I just did not have the energy to spend much time out there. It is also located about a mile from our home, so we can't just go out and weed in our spare time. As the semester wore on our garden got out of control and we gave up. We ended up with a few herbs and a ton of weeds. I was discouraged and felt like I had a black thumb.
    So when my wife asked me if I wanted to have a garden this years I initially said no. However I realized after a bit that she really wanted to have a garden, and I just shattered her dreams of being a gardener. I quickly apologized and purchased the plot. This year (2014) was going to be better. We started doing research. Well... my wonderful wife did most of the research. She learned everything she could about square foot gardening and even enrolled in a Gardening class on campus. Under her watchful care we got fertilizer, peat moss, top soil, and lots of seeds. We prepared our soil, divided the plot into sections with plenty of room in the walk ways.


This is just an example of how Square foot gardening works. It is not what we planted.

    For the first month we would spend 3-4 hours every Saturday weeding and planting. We used plant food every other week. We used dish soap to keep the bugs away. It was a lot work. And just like in the parable of the wheat and the tares, (Matthew 13: 24-30) some weeks we could not tell the difference between the young plants and the weeds. So we just let them grow until they were stronger and distinguishable from the weeds. I got sunburned a few times, but it was worth it. We had a wonderful harvest. We got carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, peas, green beans, onions, lettuce, dill, basil, zucchini, summer squash, spaghetti squash, and pumpkins. All from a 15x15 plot of dirt.

    Sadly many of the plots around us look like ours did in 2012. But we have learned the law of the harvest. We have so much produce. When we get a house, we will make sure to set up a small garden in the back yard. Spending time with dirt can be very soothing, and it will teach our future children important life lessons.

Privacy

I am a Hermit of sorts. I had Facebook for a few years, but I ended up deleting my profile because I was tried of all the drama going around. I never understood the social media like Twitter, Instagram, and Myspace. Why in the world would I want to give a play by play of my life to people I don't know? And why would I want to read about some random friend/co-worker/class mate's life. I do have a pinterest, but that is for organizing my projects and interests. While it seems like the human race no longer has secrets, I like to have my privacy. However, having a world wide community makes it possible for a small town boy like me to reach people around the world. Therefore, my wife and I will begin blogging, "For a better tomorrow". So look out world. Here are my two bits.