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Post by nikonbob on Apr 11, 2008 8:25:32 GMT -5
I filled up the car the other day, putting in over 44 liters and paying $50.00 for the privilege. Then the light bulb glowed dimly and I realized that when I started driving, close to 40 years ago, you could get the same amount for about $5.00. Note to self, stop thinking. Anyone else have one of these flashes lately?
Bob
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 11, 2008 9:08:17 GMT -5
Bob,
Every time I fill up I remember paying 37¢ for an imperial gallon of 160 oz. of gasoline. The price stayed there for a long time. I guess that is why I still remember it. I would like to forget it. It is now $1.128 per litre. There are 4.546 liters per imp. gallon. I am paying $6.255 per imp. galllon. That hurts.
Mickey
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2008 10:18:34 GMT -5
Had a New '67 VW with a 10 gallon tank. You had to be totally out of gas to put in $3 worth. Everything is relevant, however. At the same time our house had a diesel furnace and the diesel cost about 18 cents per gallon. We couldn't afford to fill the 200-gallon tank.
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Post by nikonbob on Apr 11, 2008 11:05:53 GMT -5
Mickey
No fair, you guys at the other end of the province have always had a 10 cent advantage be it in imperial gallons or liters. You never seem to catch up to us in the NW corner of the province.
Wayne
Yeah. compared to what I was making then it was still expensive then. Must get rid of those rose coloured yesterday glasses.
Bob
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 11, 2008 14:55:36 GMT -5
Bob,
Merely an accident of birth. Yesterday I never had to wear glasses of any colour. Today it's bifocals - quite colourless.
Mickey
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SidW
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Post by SidW on Apr 11, 2008 18:40:07 GMT -5
... Every time I fill up I remember paying 37¢ for an imperial gallon of 160 oz. of gasoline ... It is now $1.128 per litre ... I am paying $6.255 per imp. galllon ... Mickey, would you rather pay 37c from the corresponding income, or $6.25 from today's income? I know you'd prefer 37c at today's income, but that's not on offer.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 12, 2008 19:22:04 GMT -5
Truthfully. I would rather pay 37¢ from yesterday's income. I am retired on a fixed income. The oil producers and speculators don't have a fixed income.
I'll get by As long as I Have ... an oil well
Mickey
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Reiska
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Post by Reiska on Apr 13, 2008 3:23:17 GMT -5
Mickey, If somebody would have been asked me unexpectedly, do they use liters or English, Imperial, Standard, US measurements of whatever measurement system in Canada ? My answer would have been English, Imperial,...etc. ( I know, that these are not commensurate terms) I remember years ago we bought motor oil in 4,55 liter canisters. That is an Imperial gallon or is it? I have to pay 8,4217 USD / US Gallon of regular 95 octane. That will make 10,12 USD / imperial gallon and it really hurts. If I reveal, that I also have to tank up myself, I hope that you will pray for me. I wonder why those are still called service stations? Please correct my possible mistakes in conversations. The base is ~1,40 Euro/liter Another retiree with fixed income
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Post by nikonbob on Apr 13, 2008 9:06:36 GMT -5
Reijo
Canada has been officially metric since 1971 but us oldies still think in imperial measure. I still do the conversions to MPG (miles per gallon) to figure my fuel economy or lack there of. Old ways die hard. Your conversion of the cost in imperial gallons is close enough for government work and make me glad I am here not in Europe. Still for those on fixed incomes/pensions and those thinking of pensioning off (me) this kind of inflation is worrying.
Bob
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Post by Randy on Apr 13, 2008 9:15:46 GMT -5
Back in the '60s when I was a teenager, I worked at a gas station, a gas station where you had to wear a uniform, check oil, wash windows, check air pressure in tires, and give away free road maps. When I started working there in 1967 the price of gas was .29 cents a gallon. We used to have Gas Wars with the two stations across the street. It got down to .17 cents a gallon in one Gas War. That's back when we had regular and premium leaded gas. We had unleaded, it was over by the kerosene pump and it was called Naptha, or White Gas.
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Post by olroy2044 on Apr 13, 2008 11:35:21 GMT -5
White gas!! Lantern fuel! ;D
Used to use 100+ octane Chevron White Pump gas in my hot rod. It was the only gas that that beast would run on without pinging or dieseling. 'Course it had 12-1 compression! Cost me 27 cents a gallon! D*** I'm gettin' old! ;D Roy
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 13, 2008 13:26:48 GMT -5
Reijo,
Bob has it right. I, too, must often do a mental or calculator or chart conversion from metric to imperial, especially mpg. and kilos and lbs. and miles and kilometers. My sons are comfortable with both systems and my grandchildren use the metric system.
Despite my difficulties I will admit that metric is by far the best system. Imperial, based on the length of some monarch's nose or finger or forearm or the width of the rumps of two horses or whatever, never did make much sense. In my working days as a title searcher we were forever converting from rods, perches, links, chains, yards, acres, miles to feet and ultimately, in the last few years to meters.
4.55 l = 1 imp. gal. or it is verrry close. My little calculator says 1.0008798 and, frankly, I don't care about the .0008798. Her Imperial Majesty may keep it.
Mickey
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Post by nikonbob on Apr 13, 2008 15:06:56 GMT -5
Mickey
Don't forget sea miles, cables, fathoms, knots and other assorted nautical measures that needed converting. Head spinning it was.
Bob
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Post by aceroadholder on Apr 13, 2008 19:33:31 GMT -5
Well, you could always calculate your fuel economy in firkins per furlong per fortnight. The metric system is not all it's cracked up to be as far as usefulness is concerned. An example would be the present metric unit for pressure, the Pascal. One Pascal is less than 1/100,000 the standard atmospheric pressure. They used to use kg/cm**, but that must have made too much sense for the French. I think the Imperial system makes better sense.. e.g. air conditioning systems rated in tons.
Orlin in SC/USA
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 13, 2008 19:57:54 GMT -5
I grew up using Imperial measures but also got used to using the metric system at work a long time before the UK became fully metricated. I must admit that I find the metric system easier to work with except for using litres per 100 kilometres instead of miles per gallon because they're the other way round - amount per distance instead of distance per amount. And I still get a mental image of a sack of potatoes as a half-hundredweight instead of 25 kilograms. But I have to stop and make a metal calculation into metric pounds and pence when I see a price like £14 17s 9d in an old advert. Despite the apparent oddness of the old liquid measures in pints and gallons, lengths in miles, yards, feet and inches, money in pounds, shillings, pence and farthings and weights in ounces, pounds, stones and hundredweights (which was 112 pounds not 100 pounds) they did marry together surprisingly well in calculations, but not on an electronic calculator. You can't add pounds shillings and pence on a calculator, nor work out how much six and half yards at nine shillings and sevenpence halfpenny a yard comes to, at least not on a modern electronic one though you could on some old-style mechanical calculators and cash tills. Oh yes, I overheard a lovely remark some time ago about driving in France: "Of course, Paris is miles away from Calais. Must be all of 200 kilometres" BTW, anyone bought any cheap one and forty-nine hundredandtwentyeighths of an inch film lately? PeterW
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