Thursday, December 07, 2006

Statistical Daydream

My thoughts about Heaven fall primarily into one of two categories, transcendant moments of inspiration that leave me panting with anticipation and escapist flights of fancy that are utterly worthless beyond their ability to entertain me for hours. One such recurring daydream revolves around a tiny book that I would like to receive upon my arrival. I would love to be handed a book outlining all my personal records, a Guinness Book of Jeremy's Achievements. Not because I'm narcistic, but because I am fascinated with statistics, and anything that can be quantified, measured or compared. My brother Jared and I once kept a notebook filled with hole by hole stats on our weekly trips to Lava Links, the local putt putt course near our dorm in Minnesota. I am thankful that I have only known about Excel Spreadsheets for the past four years, rather than my whole life, as it has helped limit the damage. Seriously, give me an Excel Spreadsheet and any form of data and I turn into Rainman. My apologies to anyone negatively affected by my quest for stats.
So, back to the topic at hand, there are things I want to know about human life in general and my life in specific that I think you would also enjoy finding out about yourself. For example, in the category of Food, wouldn't it be interesting to see how many pounds of meat you have consumed in your life and then compare it side by side with people from other countries, decades, and milleniums?

So here are but a few of the categories of interest:

Sports
  • Lifetime batting average (every time you have ever swung a bat at a ball)
  • Lifetime shooting percentage (every time you have ever tossed a ball towards a hoop or a piece of paper at a waste basket.
  • How many miles you have swum / biked / run / walked and how far that would take you. Example; you swam 40 miles total in your life, enough to swim the Strait of Dover and back.
  • Total vertical gain while hiking
Food
  • A pie chart showing what percentage each food group represented in your total intake
  • How many gallons of water consumed, single day record, weekly record, monthly record, etc..
  • What was the longest you went without food
  • What food did you eat the most of.
Misc.
  • What song did you listen to the most times in your life
  • What were the top 10 words you used in your life (non articles and prepositions)
  • How many times did you say "I love you" vs. the average for your gender and similar lifespan
  • What bible verse did you read the most times. Percentage breakdown per book
  • How many words did you say / read / hear in your life
  • Miles driven / flown Records for most of either in one sitting
  • Did the same coin or dollar ever pass through your pocket more than once
  • Percentage of negative thoughts vs. positive thoughts, definitively answering once and for all whether you were a pessimist or an optimist.
Body
  • Volume of sweat
  • Longest sleep
  • Largest 24 hour disparity between intake and outflow
  • Longest duration of urinary outflow, single event (sounds gross but you know there have been times where you felt like it just went on and on and you mumbled to yourself as you flushed, "that had to be a record." Well, wouldn't it be nice to know if it was or not?
Okay, I have fully exposed myself as a geek, but I know this will resonate with someone, somewhere.

2 comments:

sarah said...

i'm not as into stats as you are, but i must admit it would be interesting to know some of those things that you mentioned. what i would be fascinated to see is a video tape of all my dreams!

John said...

Busted. I'm one of those geeks as well. Everything you mentioned, I would want to know. You missed one important stat - how many words/pages did I read in my lifetime. How long in total cumulative hours of my life did that consume? Thanks. Now I'll be wanting a book too. I sure hope this dream comes true. And I agree with Sarah, I want my own DVD collection.