Jake,
I actually found this just today. Incredibly helpful - should get you down the road without having to take the dollars out of your pocket.
http://tributary.io/ -- A fast prototyping lounge similar to CodePen to let you test your ideas out. Used by the enjalot fellow.
D3 is difficult on first approach, for sure, but these seem to be the best tutorials out there. Should help get you along the way. The most important thing to understand is the selections and data binding techniques. Also, Mike Bostock is very helpful on Twitter. @mbostock.
Good luck!
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JONATHAN CUTRELL
Senior Interactive Engineer
Whiteboard ∙ [masked]
On Mar 17, 2013, at 3:00 PM, Jake Nelson-Dooley <[address removed]> wrote: