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? Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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!”. Â 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! Â 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! Â It is a perfect strategy, I think I could be a body double and a body guard all rolled up into one! Â 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!
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