I discovered rather late in life that I love numbers. I think finding trends in a data set is very cool. I guess I have to blame Sunapee High School for not letting me realize this until well after I finished my entire formal education. Okay, I'll be more kind on the department as perhaps I just wasn't ready to realize my own potential. I would not say that a 'progress at your own rate' system was very effective with getting me stoked about learning mathematics.
I thought I'd include some numbers today anyway. My 1996 truck has 80890 miles on the odometer. You can see by the low mileage on my Ford Ranger that I don't need to drive much. There are several reasons for this. First, I don't work much. I still find it a bit ironic most people spend so much on personal transportation just so they can get to work and park it there! A daily commute really wracks up the miles. Working less, really saves a lot of wear and tear. Secondly, I live in a place where it's easier to take transit to get to downtown Vancouver than to drive. I'd rather save the time, money, and the headache by taking a SkyTrain whenever there's something to do in Vancouver.
For those reasons, I have a fourteen years old pickup truck with a wee bit less than 81,000 miles on it. I am thinking of this as I just had the oil changed this morning. This was the twenty-seventh time I've done that. You see, I change religiously when it gets to around 3,000 miles. Car manufacturers say that you can go 8,000 or more but then, of course, they'd just as soon sell you a new vehicle every few years.
I thought I'd plot out the dates and mileage of all these changes. I suppose I could have entered them into Excel and made a good graph or chart. Yet, oh well, I don't like math that much.
Date - Mileage - Location (if away)
Dec 15, 1996 - 2914
Jul 12, 1997 - 5363
Nov 27, 1997 - 8679
Jul 02, 1998 - 12220
Nov 20, 1998 - 14500
Aug 31, 1999 - 17559
Apr 29, 2000 - 21193
Jul 25, 2000 - 24372 - Terrace, BC
Dec 02, 2000 - 27046
Apr 30, 2001 - 28850
Jun 19, 2001 - 32945 - Thunder Bay, ON
Jul 04. 2001 - 36071 - Sydney, NS
Jul 17 2001 - 39173 - Thunder Bay, ON
Oct 20, 2001 - 42074
Jun 04, 2002 - 45034
Dec 18, 2002 - 47918
May 01, 2003 - 51400
Nov 30, 2003 - 54037
Apr 26, 2004 - 57050
Mar 17, 2005 - 59965
Jan 20, 2006 - 63015
Oct 31, 2006 - 65966
Jul 30, 2007 - 68830
May 21, 2008 - 72028
Feb 20, 2009 - 75057
Nov 17, 2009 - 77949
Sep 02, 2010 - 80890
I waxed my well-maintained beast this summer.