Notes

Fluoride

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I’ve never lived anywhere fluoride was added to water — be in rural living at my parents house or nowadays in the Town of Bethlehem where they don’t fluoridate the water. But it seems like teeth decay is a really bad thing as you can’t grow new ones, dentures are expensive and costly to get, and dental insurance even when you work for government is quite limited.

It doesn’t seem like fluoridation of water is particularly costly or harmful. Most fluoride in wastewater is pulled out by sewage treatment plants through ordinary treatment. It’s only about 5 lb of fluoride added to the water for a million gallons of water produced. Yet, bad teeth can have a real negative impact on people’s lives, especially with the poor coverage of dental care in current American health system. If we aren’t going to fix dentistry, then we should at least ensure the water most people drinks helps keep their teeth healthy.

What’s next? 🏕️

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This long weekend camping is coming to an end. I thought about tacking on a few extra days but I’ve been gone five days and it’s going to be cloudy with wind and showers like much of the week so far away. Plus I told them I’d be back in the office on Tuesday after Veterans Day and I’ve been ignoring work stuff during my vacation as I’m not remote working.

Southern Zone deer season opens Saturday. This usually isn’t a great next few weeks for camping but I’m thinking on Black Friday after Thanksgiving I’ll head up north to the Adirondacks, most likely the East Branch Scandaga for three nights. Take off that Monday after the holiday weekend. Identify some places to hike, maybe somewheres I haven’t done in recent years.

Then in December it depends a lot on the weather, how much wind and snow we get. I don’t mind the cold but wind can be frigid and snow makes the remote country impossible to drive back to. Maybe I’ll be back to Moscow Hill to camp or Rennselaerville State Forest. Other options include a north country trip – maybe Horseshoe Lake or Jones Pond – depending on how much snow we get. I wouldn’t mind riding some of the sections of the Erie Canal Trailway I’ve missed between Albany and Syracuse – namely the sections between Little Falls and Rome. Some also depends on gas prices, how much time I have remaining to take off before I loose it at the end of the year and any needed repairs when I get my truck inspected.

More rain and wind last night ☔

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That was to be expected and I spend the evening in the truck cap, reading and listening to podcasts.

I set up camp 🏕️ fairly early in Brookfield yesterday, as I didn’t feel like loading and unloading my bike 🚲 to ride and despite ample sunshine 🌞 that wind was roaring away. But after I got camp set up the sun and higher temperatures made it quite nice and I went for a ride down to South Brookfield and started up. Collins Road but turned back after deciding that it was clouding up and I wanted to get back to camp before the rain to make up some chicken soup. 🐔

Today I’ll take down camp and maybe do some riding at Alfred Woodford. 🚲 A lot depends on the weather and the time. ⌚ I want to get home relatively early to unpack and then head out to folks house 👨‍👨‍👦 for Sunday dinner. Tomorrow it’s back to work.