Statistics Galore: 2011 Year in Review

Happy New Year! As an obsessive stat-keeper, the end of the year is always a very exciting time. I have TONS of year-ending stats to unload on you. You might want to grab a cup of coffee before you begin.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I keep all of these stats for my own enjoyment, blog or no blog. But even if only one other person gives a crap, if I've got them I might as well publish them, right?

In case you're only interested in a few of these topics, here are some "jump" links:

Nights By County: Final numbers for 2011, which was spent mostly at home...by our standards.
County Visitation: Marla is a county-munching machine!
Car Mileage: How many miles did I put on my car in 2011? Not enough.
Gasoline Statistics: Speaking of car mileage, my car doesn't get the fuel mileage it used to.
Restaurant Serving Times: Nothing new to report here, really.
Bicycling Statistics: It's getting harder to find time to ride, and to bike to work.
North Carolina ZZ/AA License Plates: At last, the game is complete!
More complete stats in "By The Numbers"

Nights By County: Every night since January 1, 2006, I've recorded the county in which I spent the night. This used to be a far more interesting stat when I was back in college, but now, every year, it's basically the same: 320 to 340 nights at home, 5 to 10 in Duval County, FL (Jacksonville), 5 to 10 in Lucas County, OH (Toledo), plus a few more scattered throughout the country depending on where we vacation. This year was no exception, except without a huge one- or two-week road trip. Here are my year-ending totals:

Durham NC - 341
Lucas OH - 6
Duval FL - 5
Howard MD - 4
Monroe NY - 4
Mecklenburg NC - 1
Wake NC - 1
Orangeburg SC - 1
Monroe TN - 1
Nottoway VA - 1

For four years straight, we went on a big long road trip somewhere (Nova Scotia in 2007, Northern Ontario/Manitoba in 2008, US 50 cross-country in 2009, Alaska in 2010). In 2011, we had a kid, so no road trip this year. My only multi-night road trips were to see family, or to go curling. ("The Dykes" was in Monroe County, NY, and for "The Kayser" we stayed in Howard County, MD.)

I overnighted in 10 different counties in 2011, the lowest number since 2006 (also 10). By comparison, in 2010, I overnighted in 24 different counties. I spent 337 nights at home in 2011. (Four of the Durham County nights were spent in Duke Hospital, before and after giving birth to Marla.) That's the most number of nights I've spent in one place in any year since, well, at least 1999.

From 2007 onward, the cumulative totals for Duval and Lucas counties are 42 and 48, respectively. That's an average of 18 nights per year spent visiting our families, an average that will probably go down over the next few years due to the "Marla factor".

Finally, here is Marla's Nights By County for the portion of 2011 that she was alive for:
Durham NC - 146
Lucas OH - 6
Duval FL - 4
Monroe TN - 1

County Visitation: This is something I wished I had kept on an annual basis, like this, but it's kind of too late now. How many new counties did I visit in 2011? I could probably figure it out if I tried, but...nah.

All I know is that thanks to the "scenic route" we took to Toledo last weekend, my lifetime total is now over 1,400 (1,403, or 44.7%). It's getting harder and harder to keep adding counties, of course, so 50% might still be a few years off. Among states that are relatively close to home, I think Tennessee and Kentucky offer the greatest opportunity.

But while it's too late to start tracking my counties visited on an annual basis, it's not too late to do the same for Marla! But rather than track her counties visited based on calendar years, I'm doing to do it based on her age, so that the years will reset on her birthday (July 28) rather than on January 1. "Year 1" still has another 6 months and 25 days to go. And what a "year 1" it will be. Marla has already been to 111 counties in 9 states, including 38 counties in Ohio alone. That's what will happen when you drive to/from Toledo four times (two round trips), and take a different route all four times. We're not trying to take Marla to as many counties as possible, it's just a side effect of being along for the ride while her daddy does the same for himself.

Car Mileage: I feel like I've been driving my car a lot lately, and my odometer is now less than 1,000 miles away from 75,000. Yet, the 15,314 miles I put on my car in 2011 is the 2nd lowest annual total in the last seven years. So despite all those 60-mile round trips to curling and kickball, two round-trips to Toledo, and that drive to Rochester, I still had a fairly pedestrian annual mileage total. We put even fewer miles on Amber's car in 2011, around 13,000 (unofficially).

Why do I sound so disappointed? Because it's a dream of mine to drive a car all the way from nearly 0 miles all the way up to 200,000. With my 2008 Honda Civic, that's not going to happen. We've already decided that before we have a second child (2015 or 2016?), I'm going to get a bigger vehicle. So even though we're going to make an effort to put more miles on my car than Amber's car over the next four years, I doubt we'll be able to get it up to 200,000 before it's time for a new one. We'd like to keep Amber's car longer than that, but we'll also be taking it on fewer road trips over the next few years as a result, so the quest for 200,000 isn't looking good for Amber's car, either.

If you want to run up your car odometer, I can think of two reliable ways to do it, all of which I have experience with. 1) Live at least 20 miles away from your job. A long work commute is the #1 way to run up your car odometer. 2) Date a girl who lives at least 500 miles away, and go see her at least once a month. From the summer of 2006 through the summer of 2007, I lived 20 miles from work, and Amber was still at Penn State, so I would put over 2,000 miles on my car every single month. Some months, I would put over 3,000 miles on my car. Those days are over. Given the price of gas, it's just as well, I suppose. In 2011, November was the only month in which I put more than 2,000 miles on my car.

Gasoline Statistics: I've noticed something with the gas mileage log I keep, and have kept since 2008. My car doesn't get the gas mileage it used to. From June 2008 through February 2011, my car averaged 38.3 miles per gallon. From February 2011 until now, my car has averaged 36.0 miles per gallon.

What's the difference? Do cars just get less efficient as they get older? Are the tires I bought after we returned from Alaska more "grippy" and therefore less efficient? (Yes, I do keep the tires inflated.) It's not just the short work commute and even shorter drive to day care; my road trip mileage is also lower than it used to be. Regardless of the cause, 36.0 miles per gallon is still pretty good, so I don't see any reason to be concerned.

Restaurant Serving Times: Recall that a few months ago, I thought that the company Christmas lunch stood an excellent chance of being the slowest restaurant of 2011. Well, that didn't work out. And, all of the restaurants we visited over the holidays in Jacksonville and Toledo were pretty average. This means Applebee's of Knightdale, NC, held on to claim the "honor" of slowest of 2011 with its time of 29:43 back on March 31. And Ideal Hot Dog of Toledo, OH, finished the year as the fastest of 2011, but I knew that number (3:39, the second-fastest ever) was going to stand up.

Bicycling Statistics: One pleasant side effect of my Bicycling Trip to Alaska is a weekly log of bicycling miles. How did I do in 2011 compared to last year? (The trip isn't done yet, by the way. Yes, I made it to Alaska weeks ago, but the trip ends several hundred miles after the border.)

Average weekly bicycling miles: 35.9 miles/week in 2010, 40.6 miles/week in 2011. Hooray! Progress! I've taken a step back in recent weeks, however. In the last quarter of 2010, I averaged 38.0 miles/week, compared to 34.3 miles/week in the last quarter of 2011. Sure, the "Marla factor" makes for a convenient excuse, but...no excuses! 34.3 miles/week is still a pretty good average, but I can do better. And after the eating binge I went on over the holidays, I need to. (Disclaimer: don't mistake this for a "New Year's Resolution". I don't do those.)

North Carolina ZZ/AA License Plate Game: And, lastly...let's wrap this up, finally. I spotted an AAS- license plate on I-40 yesterday, which means that after 14 months, I have now spotted a North Carolina license plate representing all 21 ZZ-, and all 21 AA-, letter combinations. Really? That took barely over a year? It feels like this game has been going on for, like, three years.

With that, let's move on to my next two license plate quests:
- It's January, and that means it's time for a new color of North Carolina registration stickers! What color are North Carolina's 2013 registration stickers? (Don't tell me. It's more fun if it's a surprise.)
- I might need another license plate game to keep myself occupied. I've already done Florida counties and Ohio counties. How about counties from some other state? Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana are all somewhat nearby states that put counties on their license plates. Any would keep me pretty busy for a while. Indiana might be the most fun because they put a county number AND a county name on their plates. Regardless, it'll be a while on that one...I need a break.