Just me, doing numbers-geeking

[hrj]

Ok, ok, so I freely admit that I trend data reflexively, even in my spare time for fun. One of the things I've been doing for the last several years is that when the gas & electric bill gets paid, I note down the individual gas and electric charges for the month in a spreadsheet. (And then graph the trend on a 12-month chart with the years and charge types color-coded.) As it happens, I have one month's bill that corresponds to the month after I started going to my new gym and before I turned on the heater pilot for the winter. The former is relevant because it means that I do my showering at the gym rather than at home. It appears that during a typical non-winter month, fully one third of my gas consumption was going to heating my shower water. Mind you, this isn't as massive a consumption as one might think, given that the bulk of the remainder is running the laundry (with a smaller amount for cooking). But ... amusingly ... it gives me a tangible number to discount against the monthly gym membership. In contrast, during the coldest winter month, gas consumption is 3-4 times that of a typical summer month. Ok, back to writing out bills.