The Year in Dave Data

2009.  It was a good year.  A year full of stuff.

Fortunately I happen to know exactly what all that stuff was, courtesy of my Spreadsheet Journal, an Excel spreadsheet in which I keep track of pretty much everything I do - everywhere I go, who I'm with, what I'm thinking and for how long I'm doing what I'm doing.  Normally I use this information to recall what I had for dinner throughout the previous month, so I can convince my girlfriend that enough time has passed that we can go get hamburgers and beer again without feeling guilty.  But keeping an ultra-detailed journal has some other benefits as well.

For one, I know the frequency of things I do that I would otherwise only be able to guess at:

I saw 9 movies in theaters this year.  I have a feeling that's below average.  And apparently I didn't see a single movie all summer.  That seems especially abnormal.  But maybe I just don't go for the summer blockbusters these days.  In fact, my taste in movies is probably quite clear - here's what I paid to see this year:

1. Benjamin Button
2. Frost Nixon
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. The Class
5. Star Trek (Almost a summer blockbuster...?)
6. A Serious Man
7. The Invention of Lying
8. Men Who Stare at Goats
9. Invictus

Most Cheesy, But Wonderful:  Invictus
Most Excellent:  Star Trek
Most Overrated:  Slumdog Millionaire
Most Worse:  The Invention of Lying


When I combine the Spreadsheet Journal with my credit card statements, I can figure out patterns that otherwise might be hard to keyword-search in the journal:

That's the number of times I added money to my DC Metro (subway) card.  Perhaps it wasn't just movies that were ignored over the summer - It appears I didn't ride the Metro much, either...

And here's the number of times I bought stuff over the internet:

I know, I know.  I like to shop online.  Do you see the inverse correlation with this graph and the previous two over the summer months?  Clearly I was busy staying home over the summer.  I blame the DC humidity...  And more importantly, the fact that I moved in with my girlfriend on August 1st  (It was my job to buy all the good stuff [electronics] for the new apartment - all online, of course.  Notice the buildup toward the end of the summer...)

Almost as exciting is the number and frequency of haircuts I got this year:

Other than the summer lag (Again!), there's a pretty regular pattern here.  Clearly my hair has not stopped growing.  Or, possibly, I'm just getting the same number of haircuts to make me forget about the receding hairline...

Speaking of which, I took this picture at the beginning of November:

There's a mutiny going on up there.  And I captured the evidence...    On the plus side, Laura and I were in the Bahamas when I snapped this photo (waiting at the airport), so I was especially willing to take the picture and face the [potentially scary] truth about what the top of my head looks like.

Bahamas (Nassau) was a weekend trip for Laura's birthday at the beginning of November.  It's hot as hell there, even then.  Other places visited this year:

- Philadelphia (Twice!)
- New York (...plus Queens!)
- Rome, Florence & Venice, Italy
- Baltimore (Shouldn't really be considered a destination, though, as it's a 40 minute drive...)
- Nassau, Bahamas

I discovered the glory of overseas travel this year.  Italy was my first trip outside of North America.  Lots of fun.

We drank a lot of wine -

And ate a lot of gelato:

That's my "all out of gelato" angry face.

Hopefully 2010 will be even more travelicious.


As for the more common activities of the past year:

That is a lot of eating and drinking - I was a bit surprised when I made these graphs.  Though really, restaurants and bars are what DC is all about.  Or so I believe...     And at least there were more restaurant visits than bar visits, right?  Ah, bite me.

But even more surprising (for those of us who used to call Hard Times Restaurant home):

Only three visits to Hard Times in Alexandria, VA this year.  Inside story:  The friends & I used to go to this restaurant/bar pretty much every Monday - it was the official Man Date Monday hangout, due to the 1/2 price chiliburgers and $2.50 beers that may or may not have been Yuengling (though quite delicious whatever they were).  It was the venue for a total of 27 separate drinking-too-much-on-a-weekday-and-talking-about-man-stuff occasions over the course of 18 months.  Good times.

Though there are somewhat more enticing options these days, since the recent arrival of Beertopia (AKA Churchkey DC)  Oh, so wonderful...

And now for the strangest pattern of all - Shopping trips to Target:

Almost exactly every two months...   What are the odds?  Do all the household items run out at the same time?  And if so, why couldn't I just buy twice as much of them, and cut Target_Visits/year in half?

The answer is, sadly enough, that the shopping cart gets full, so we feel a bit guilty and leave the store instead of getting a second cart.   ...And, also, perhaps the once-every-two-months pattern was obvious for other reasons...

At this point, one might be thinking that I could keep track of lots more (interesting) data.  Well one would be right in thinking that.  Though a lot of it is not designed to be shared - or rather I am specifically forbidden from sharing it with you, by a certain person I happen to be sharing a bed with...  Forbidden, even after I promised to use really, really clever euphemisms!  "Dance Practice" is the first that comes to mind...)

But rest assured, I've got graphs, regression lines and comparative data charts for everything even remotely interesting I've done over the past two years.  And I can tell you some of it:

- Number of sit-ups done in 2009:  10,800

Yes, really - though my New Year's resolution last year was to average 100 per day.  That's about 25,000 short.  But on the plus side, that number is accurate +/- 20 or so.

- Push-ups:  460

They're harder!

- Number of Celebrities I've been within 30 feet of: 4

I'm calling Freakonomics authors Levitt & Dubner celebrities, and the third was Michael Showalter, though I don't know who that is, actually, and I didn't see him.  I was told he was behind me somewhere...  The fourth was that lady on CNN who was reporting on the mall right before inauguration.  How 'bout those for big time celebs, eh??

- Number of times I was on the Real World:  1

Yes, once.  For about 30 seconds.  The scene may or may not have made the cut - we'll find out soon enough, I suppose, as the first episode of the Real World's season filmed in DC premiered tonight (The Real World house was only two blocks from my apartment!)

- Number of Snowpocalypses I experienced:  1

I finally got to jump in the Dupont fountain.

Another achievement that day:  Looked adorable in a snow cap.

- Times I shopped at at Rite-Aid or CVS:  21

- Times I bought food at Safeway:  25

- And at the wonderful store that used to be right next door to my apartment:  45

The store next door, Embassy Market - the most convenient and useful store I've ever known - closed at the end of October so the owner could build a large apartment building instead.  Less good.

- Longest non-stop walk:  9.1 miles

Out to Virginia, on this route (approximately).

- Number of presidential inaugurations that I missed (I had to work!):  1

But at least I got to see the build up...  Besides, it was freezing that day.  But apparently it was quite an event - Here's what the otherwise very green & grassy national mall looked like afterward:

...Yes, that's some kind of dust storm...

And finally:

Number of blogs I update [semi-occasionally] that became famous in Germany:  1

Pokingfood.com, of course.  Watch from about 2:25 in this video (after it loads) for my favorite piece of evidence.  It's Essen Stecken!
The Poking phenomenon then spread to Japan for some time before slowing down.  And of course, all credit for the [fleeting] overseas fame belongs to Internet Hero Ross Nover.  Good man.

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Well, I think that just about covers it.  2009 was a good year.  In fact, this whole decade was pretty great, all things considered.  I went from 17 to 27 years old - My prime, for god's sake!  From high school in Holbrook, Arizona, to college in Tucson, to whatever it is that I'm doing now in Washington, DC.
 
Also this decade, I got to experience all 100 of these most iconic videos of the internet's first real [decent] decade.  That alone makes it a great decade.  And it's def something our grandkids are going to totes be uber jealous of.  That, and our rad vernac!

Some other stuff happened this decade, too, but it's hardly worth mentioning.  You were there too.

So if I make it, by the end of this next decade I'll be 37 - and I'll have 12 full years of data to organize, graph and post to my blog!  Or tweet about, or whatever the hell it is the cool kids will be doing by then.  That will be something to look forward to, my friends.

Until then, enjoy the teens.  Oh, and my prediction for the next decade:  By the middle of 2011, most people will be saying "twenty eleven" rather than "two thousand eleven."  That's right - You read it here first.