Some Interesting Numbers

Those who know me know I like to have a little punt on the horses and I did so before we went to Lakes Entrance last Saturday, putting bets on each race of each of the Victorian race meetings over Saturday and Sunday. I'm a small bettor, $1 each way usually and/or place bets at good odds and a few 50 cent trifectas.

I knew I wouldn't be able to hear the races as we are out of radio reception down there for the racing station unless I'm in the car and can pick it up on FM, which of course I'm usually not and I'm busy with other things in any case. I have two accounts with on line betting agencies and I enjoy comparing their odds and selecting the best value. It's interesting checking the results in the evening on the mobile phone or when I get back on the the computer.

When we got back late yesterday arvo I checked my balances to find I'd made a very small profit for the weekend but amazingly both balances were exactly the same...$112.46. If I cast my mind back to 1968 and Dr Dino di Battista was teaching me probabilities in mathematics, the raw odds of this sequence of numbers on both accounts matching would be 100,000 to one. Of course there would need to be some adjustment for the fact that the most I ever put in an account is $100 and the balance of both accounts is usually somewhere between $0 and $200, but not always, I got as high as $800 once on one before taking out $500 to pay a medical bill.That is the only time I have made a withdrawal, the traffic is usually all one way with deposits of $50 or $100, but a deposit usually lasts some weeks and gives me some fun watching the balance go up or down till it needs replenishing.

The other interesting numbers were at the petrol pump. I filled up with Premium UL for the Kangoo at Pakenham on the way down and filled up at the same station on the way back yesterday. The cost was $59 even. I had done 550km driving a van loaded with tools and a roof rack and ladder on top and that seems like an amazingly distance for that amount of money. And when you consider that part of that price is GST, and the excise on the wholesale price is 38 cents a litre if I'm right, then the price of the actual fuel produced and refined far away and transported all the way to my tank is minute for the effect in produces for me.

We cut the grass at the Lakes house and had a couple of great walks. The areas around the house and on our walks were teeming with birds. The highlight was scarlet honeyeaters in the callistemons and blue fairy wrens on the ground not four feet from our boots foraging for insects disturbed by our feet. There'd been a big rain the night before, and the Lake Bunga walk was as beautiful as I'd ever seen it.