twenty-eight years and a million words
Despite having poured $400 into maintaining my old bike and outfitting myself with new panniers etc, I've now saved $500 by cycling.
With a total of 360 fares saved, I've now not spent $900 on TTC fares. Another $150 in savings and I'll be able to afford a "cost neutral" upgrade.
(I hope that this isn't some form of Enron accounting....)
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.