Chicago ? Some people are into cars. Some people dig the ocean. Aziz Inan, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon, loves numbers. Truly, madly, deeply.

“I can relate to them,” Inan said. “Each number has its own personality.”

With this adoration in mind, consider Saturday, Jan. 2, 2010. The day is a palindromic date: 01-02-2010, meaning the number can be read the same way in either direction.

There will be 12 palindromic days this century, he said, and today will be the second. The first was 10-02-2001.