Introduction
I was sitting at the basketball scorer’s table when the final horn sounded and the game concluded. Suddenly this little 10-year old player, with big round glasses, excitedly runs up to me to tell me something. This is how the conversation went.
The Conversation
The Boy: “You look just like this guy.”
Me: “Who is it?”
The Boy: “David Vonder…”
Me: “Who? Can you spell that? ”
The Boy: “David Vonderhar (sp), all one word I think”.
Me: As I am writing his name down, I ask him: “Who is he?”
The Boy says: “He writes software” and then he runs back to the stands.
Me: “OK. Thanks!”
Who is David Vonderhaar, I Wonder?
I’m a software developer, I think to myself. Maybe he is just mistaking me from my fame of being a Tableau Blogger. After all, I have over 350 Twitter followers! Maybe he got confused. Maybe he thinks I wrote the software that he mentioned to me because he didn’t tell me what it was!
So whenever I have a question, I do a Google search. The first image I see for a guy name David Vonderhaar is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – David Vonderhaar, one of the principal driving forces behind the blockbuster video game “Call of Duty”.
Next, I look at Twitter and I see this (Figure 2):
Figure 2 – David has 428,000 Twitter followers, just ahead of my 350!
So maybe this David fellow is a little bit more popular than me, I thought. That’s OK, I’m just beginning to build my fame and fortune through my Tableau blog. I’ll catch up to him soon…
The Experiment
Next, I decide to see if David really looks like me, or rather, whether I look like him. So I download that picture from Figure 1 to my phone. After the basketball games conclude, I go home and show the picture to my three-year old son and ask him: “Who is this?”. He screams, very enthusiastically: “Daddy!”. OK, maybe we do look a little bit alike.
Two days later, I show the picture to people at work and ask the same question: “Who is this?”. The response is generally “You”, “Definitely You”, or “Someone related to you”. OK. More confirmation, maybe the little basketball player was right.
So I decided to see for myself, whether we look alike. I created a couple of comparison mug shots to see what everyone else was seeing. Figure 3 is a side-by-side comparison and Figure 4 is a pencil sketch.
Figure 3 – David and Me, or Me and David.
Figure 4 – Pencil sketch of David and Me or Me and David.
My Future Job
The reason for the pencil sketch is that I’m going to apply for a job to be David’s body double. I needed the sketch to see that I need to lose a little weight in the face and I need to get glasses that don’t have a top frame.
Unfortunately for David, but fortunately for me, with his fame and fortune of being a creator of Call of Duty, David has received death threats when he makes changes to his software! Can you believe that? Can you believe my good fortune? For that reason, he needs me!
Now I am sure David needs me to be his body double. Since I can program in ten different computer languages and I specialize in creating three-dimensional animations (@3danim8), I have to be the most perfect candidate for the job! I can sit at his desk, and write the code for him while he heads to the beaches to work on that already great tan that he has.
Additionally, since I love the Western US and would like to live there, I might as well apply for that job! Furthermore, I’m a big, strong guy that can handle myself against any of those pre-teenage video game players that might be purporting those death threats. For those reasons, I figure why wouldn’t David hire me?
Maybe I could also be David’s body guard so that when we are together, any potential attackers will not know who to attack! It is a perfect strategy, I think I could be a body double and a body guard all rolled up into one! Maybe then, I could get more than 350 Twitter followers!
Final Thoughts
Obviously I borrowed my title from Dan Folgelberg’s famous album which is called “Twin Sons of Different Mothers” (Figure 4). That album has a great song on it titled “Power of Gold“. Click the link to watch the live video of this song from 1991. Maybe I am chasing a little gold myself with this blog post, but it isn’t every day that you find your twin son from a different mother!
Figure 4 – Danny and Tim look alike, but David and me share more resemblance!
If you like this article and would like to see more of what I write, please subscribe to my blog by taking 5 seconds to enter your email address below. It is free and it motivates me to continue writing, so thanks!
