I've taken Dan up on his Annual Report Contest this year. Luckily I'm just dorky enough to keep track of a few data sets of interest to me. I was also lucky to have a snow day today- otherwise these would probably not be complete. If they're a little hard to read click on them to view the full sized image.
UPDATE: I added a few of my observations/reflections in the comments. Check 'em out.
There you have it: 2008 in four slides. Feel free to make any inferences about my year from any of the data above. It'd be interesting to hear how clearly (or not) the data communicates aspects of the year. I'll point out a few things I found interesting in the comments in a couple days. Also, feel free to critique the design and such. I can take it.
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Image Credits:
State Theater by william_couch (background for Movies)
This Pump has CLEARLY been on fire in the past by Jym Ferrier (background for Gasoline)
Nice. Like the washout background images. I like your running chart with map better than Feltron's bar graph. Awesome work, that fits together nicely.
[...] my year. This year my slides โ hastily done โ donโt tell a coherent story. Claire Thompson Ben Wildeboer Luckily Iโm just dorky enough to keep track of a few data sets of interest to me. I was also [...]
I forgot to comment earlier. I was glad someone had the indepth mileage slides. I particularly like the distance drawn out on the running slide.
@mizmercer: Not too shabby for just using PowerPoint, huh? ๐ Thanks for the compliments. The running slide is probably my favorite as well, though as time goes on I'm finding my eyes more drawn to the movies slide.
@Sarah: I'm not sure why I started keeping track of all my running mileage. I don't really use it for anything. I guess it just satisfies that urge to know how many States I've run across by the end of the year. The driving mileage I keep track of for maintenance purposes, though I think I find it more fascinating as a way to track the price I've paid for gas over time.
A couple observations I have about these charts:
Running: In a typical year my mileage increases slowly from January to May then explodes in June, July, and August. This year I moved from Michigan to Connecticut at the end of June while finishing up a couple grad classes. My lack of mileage reflects that busy period. I've mentally committed to training for a marathon in 2009, so it'll be interesting to compare 2008 stats to 2009. There'll be a Annual Report III competition, right?
Photographs: I think this slide reflects the move from MI to CT pretty clearly as well. Lots of picture points around CT illustrate some exploration of the new area. It also highlights vacations: A week in Isle Royale National Park, a long weekend in NH and ME, as well as several day trips/weekend visits to NYC. I can also pick out where my family lives pretty clearly, though I know where to look.
Movies: Not sure if there are any real strong trends here. I guess I can see the time we had free HBO & Showtime for two weeks after hooking up our cable in CT reflected the Movie TV slice. I've been trying to watch more "classic" films, so the earlier decades are larger than they may have been in other years. I'm somewhat shocked by the poor representation from the '90s and the total lack of anything from the '70s.
Gasoline: I really like the graph of gasoline prices over the year, and in retrospect I wish I had added another graph showing mileage driven on a week to week basis. I think that would've highlighted the driving trips between CT & MI and the vacations where we didn't drive much at all.
[...] [link to his report] [...]