I've been getting logged out of Gmail a lot, & twice lately I've had the "Sorry, your account has been disabled" error when I try to login (& yes the email's correct). They then promise me 24 hours without email! (Screams in horror.)

But when I follow the instructions and click the mail.google.com link they give, it goes straight to my inbox, without asking for my password or anything. Weird.

It's happened twice recently and am hoping that next time it won't get disabled and stay that way. Have added yet another alternative email address, and updated my security question to something I can't possibly get wrong (but still very very obscure for anyone who isn't me).
And need to back up my email.

The Sara Lee cake has more than 10% sugar! I guess they thought they were making a cheesecake. I went for a bread with "only" 3% sugar - that would already be on the sweet side in Australia. This bread has it in the form of corn syrup (Americans really are the corn people) but I'm more concerned with the total sugar.

This no longer shocks me, but I was stunned when I first found in a Boston supermarket that I couldn't find a wholewheat bread without corn syrup.

But one thing I like - it's much easier to find peanut butter without crap here. Just roasted peanuts and salt. And that (unlike the versions with extra crap) goes well in savory form as well - bread, peanut butter and freshly ground black pepper or chilli flakes. Optional dried oregano or mixed herbs. Mmmm.


*Yep, confirmed in this nutritional info on Australian supermarket breads - are several below 2% sugar, including some of my favorite breads. I'm pretty sure it would be similar in pretty much any Western country outside of North America.

In Denver - and i have a ticket to see Obama speak at the big event tomorrow!  

I didn't realize I was going to be here for the Democratic National Convention until last week. This is a trip for connecting with people in sustainability and development, about Appropedia, and I've been meeting great people so far.  

A few things strike me about America:

• Americans are friendly, which I really like. I'd heard this, but it particularly struck me after Europe. (I'd also heard that Australians are friendly, but didn't appreciate that till Europe.) An interesting thing to watch is how easily people make eye contact with you. Americans (in Boston anyway) do it more easily than Europeans
  
• Americans are more patient than I expected. The pedestrian crossings in Boston - "crosswalks" - are different to what I'm used to, not to mention that the most basic part of my brain still believe that cars drive on the left, so I've got it wrong a few times. Now, I might have expected them to lean out the window and shout abuse, possibly wave a gun. But no - I've even had an SUV stop and wave this poor confused foreigner across the road, when there was no crossing of any kind. (i had a similar thing in Iceland, actually.)
• The light switches go the opposite way to what I'm used to (i.e. up is on, in America). It's just seems odd that I never knew.
• Is there anything you can't put corn syrup in? At the supermarket, I looked for wholemeal bread - "whole wheat" which I admit is more logical, and couldn't find one that didn't have corn syrup! I prefer my bread without sugar of any kind. But another time I found "Yoga bread" which has sunflower seeds and cranberries in it; and it's easier to find unadulterated peanut butter than it is in Australia (the only acceptable additive is salt, in my view).
  

All of this is based on a very limited experience of Europe (a few places in the Netherlands, London, and Iceland) and America (Boston, and one day in Denver... Ontario isn't America, but it fits the pattern for everything except the corn syrup).

I swam in Lake Ontario today. Good time of year for it - while the water is in liquid form.

Beautiful spot here in Kingston. It's good meeting Joshua Pearce (who teaches at Queens University) face-to-face at last, and talking about sustainability, appropriate technology and all that, and ways to get collaboration happening in a much bigger way. And tinkering with his clever piece of solar water disinfection equipment - but I'm not allowed to share details of his specific design, just yet.

I mentioned to an Indonesian friend by email that I was going to Ontario - she said watch out, maybe there's lots of onta (camels) there :-).

Any perspectives appreciated! If a wealthy Westerner has a tooth extracted, they can have a replacement screwed into the jaw to replace the lost tooth. I'm told it costs thousands of dollars, but at least they have that option. What happens to a poor person, who can't afford thousands of dollars to have this done?

I imagine the remaining teeth spread out to fill the gap. If a molar is removed, the rest of the teeth would shift around and things would become asymmetrical - less of an issue for aesthetics if it's on the lower jaw, but a big issue if it's on the lower jaw. I also imagine there'd be bigger gaps between all of the teeth - worse for getting food caught, but at least it would be easier to floss.

I'm facing this question for myself, for a lower jaw molar that lost its crown, and needs to leave. Spending thousands, severely interrupting my travel, and going through all the dental work are all things I really don't want. And it seems silly that I spend thousands on this when there are others in the world who can't afford the life-saving treatment they need for AIDS or whatever, at a fraction of the cost.

But I need to have a better idea of what the consequences are before I make the decision - so your collective wisdom would be appreciated. Exactly how bad is it to just remove a tooth and leave nothing in its place?

Then there's the question of when to extract. I want to go to Burning Man, and I'm concerned about being in a remote place with a freshly extracted tooth. But it's probably better than this slight, constant pressure in my jaw, and plenty of mouthwash might help manage things.