Better Know A Citizen - kg2005
Posted by Andrew on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 10:00 am
Name: Erik Dikken
SBG Moniker: kg2005
Hometown: Renville, MN
Town I Currently Live In: Brookings, SD
Profession: Computer Science student, Software Quality Assurance student at Daktronics, Inc
Bats: With a 9-iron
Throws: Picture Johnny Damon
Positions: 2B, CF
Greatest Career Achievement in Baseball/Softball/T-ball: Last year in softball I had a .700 OBP. Nevermind my OPS was .800. Yeah, I was one of THOSE guys. Wait, does beating up on my friends at Wii baseball count?
Hobbies: Reading, golfing, Halo-ing, playing poker
What are you known for around the WGOM? Sporadic commenting, winning The Big Deal
If you could have a nice, polite dinner with any 3 people - dead or alive - who and why? SBG, ubelmann, and Ron Gardenhire. The "nice, polite" part might not last very long. I believe the conversation would be fantastic though, and everybody might learn something. Another variation of that would be Ken Tremendous, Billy Beane, and Joe Morgan.
If you could pick any 3 people - again, dead or alive - to go out and party (or if you're not the party type, go for martini's or whatever it is you do) who and why? I don't party, and I'm not exactly sure whatever it is I do. However, I pick Kevin Garnett, Johan Santana, and Aaron Gleeman. Cuz really, who wouldn't have a good time with those three?
Sports Allegiances: Twins, Kevin Garnett, Timberwolves, and much to my dismay, the Vikings.
Favorite Books: Harry Potter, The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Lord of the Rings... cuz anything that's worth reading is worth reading for a long time.
Favorite Music: Yellowcard, Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects, and stuff like that. Yes, I have too many friends who are college-aged girls.
Favorite Baseball Movie: Field of Dreams
Favorite Non-baseball Movie: Transformers, but that changes every time I see a new awesome movie in theaters
Favorite Food & Drink: Pizza and Mt. Dew
Favorite TV Show(s): Family Guy, The Simpsons, The Colbert Report, anything sports related
Favorite Twins Player, historically: Francisco Liriano ("Have you ever watched him throw a slider? It was like the first time I heard the Beatles!")
Favorite Twins Player, currently: Michael Cuddyer
Best Twins Memory: September 2006
Favorite Sport to Play: Anything that anybody will play with me.
Favorite Sport to Watch: Baseball
If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d live in: Ack, is it wrong to say Minnesota?
If I was commissioner for a day, I’d: Take a day of vacation. Maybe watch some baseball.
If I had Terry Ryan’s job for a day, I’d:
- Not quit.
- Sign Johan to a 6 year extension, sign Morneau to an extension, sign Hunter a "thank you, but we can't afford you" card.
Favorite Ballpark: The Metrodome. I don't want to get rained on while watching baseball, sue me.
Favorite blogs: The WGOM, Gleeman, FJM, SethSpeaks
What's your favorite type of Mt. Dew- original, Code Red, Gamer formula, AMP, other? Code Red is disgusting, I've never heard of the Gamer formula, I like Amp, but I'm not much into energy drinks. I'll take the original.
What is your most effective weapon in Halo? Most effective? It's hard (but not impossible) to be ineffective with a rocket launcher. My favorite weapon is probably the shotgun, especially when people don't notice you until it's too late.
How did your Big Deal prize turn out? Truthfully, I've only gotten the chance to watch one game. Of course once the 2007 season ends and I don't have baseball to watch every day they'll probably be more appealing. Maybe I'll put the DVDs in while the World Series is going on, just pretend the Twins are playing. Gee, Morneau and Hunter are there, but I don't recognize the rest of the Twins at all...
Who would you rather have for a family - The Griffins or The Simpsons? While I find the Griffins to be more entertaining, I believe the Simpsons would scare me less. I do enjoy donuts.
It's maptastic after the jump...
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If you are college, you can never have too many friends that are college girls.
What the boss says. Still, you don't have to listen to their whiny music.
My belief is that you can listen to it and even tell them you really like it. But, with the guys, you should tell a different story, even if you have to lie.
You mean, you didn't really like the Bay City Rollers??
Dude, I was NOT in college when the Bay City Rollers were out. I was about 10. Different rule set.
oh, sorry. Loverboy??
Ouch! That's hitting too close to home.
Lamont Cranston?
I was going to rip on him for this music...until he explained himself.
You guys could rip me for it, but rest assured that I already get ripped plenty for it. I could have listed some other kind of music, but I wouldn't know what to say. Linkin Park is one of my favorites.
Heh. The SoDak resident pining away for Minnesota. Heh.
Well really, whats not to like about Minnesota? You've got lakes... and... that one mall, and...
Paul Bunyan... and ...
lutherans, and...
jucy lucys, and ...
potholes, and...
hotdish, and...
midwest farmer's daughters, and...
Was anybody else in Model UN? All the ",and" 's are reminding me a lot of the committee meetings.
Hey, one of my coworkers is from Renville.
I probably know your coworker.
And if I don't know this person personally, I know someone who does. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you work with one of my cousins.
I'm not going to list his name, but he went to St. John's for his undergrad and UW-La Crosse for his Masters in the very recent past. Sound like anybody you know?
Not off the top of my head, but I could probably figure it out.
Oh, and his last name is the same as a NHL team (and Pac10 team that is similar to the animal falling in your avatar) except without the "i" in the middle.
Yes! That's who I thought it was. He went to my church.
If he went to St. John's, he can't be all bad...
Have you seen Transformers on the I-max? Spendy but tre cool.
Actually I hate to tell you but that my 14 year old daughter and her friends have the same musical tastes as you.
mebbe I should schedule some Hannah Montana for kg???
I pride myself on being able to say I've never heard one of her songs.
Meh, don't care. I can't stand country, rap is too... rap, and hard rock makes my ears hurt. I take whats left.
And no, I haven't seen it on IMax. I bet it rocks.
I'd like to take this time to talk about my job. I work at Daktronics, a "sign and digital display" company. If you look at most scoreboards you'll find "DAKTRONICS" written on it. I have the coolest college job ever, I'm a software tester for Sports Software. The developers here write software for scoring and statistics then connect them to the scoreboards. So I have a desk and a computer with two monitors. One usually has some random program that I'm testing on it, the other a random website, usually the WGOM. So not only do I get to play with sports statistics software all day, I get to surf the web at my leisure too.
... and you won the Big Deal?!
*shakes head enviously in general direction of S. Dakota*
A friend of mine was an engineer at DAKTRONICS about 15 years ago and he really liked it there. My brother lives in Brookings.
kg, sounds great. My friend works at Microsoft as an audio engineer and his job for awhile was to play new video games on the XBox and try to find audio glitches.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like too bad of a job either. I could probably get used to it.
Cool. In college, I worked at a consulting company owned by Frank K's son. We redid the Dak web site. Since that time I suspect they've went with someone else to do their site - or they are doing it internally. Anyway, I visited Dak a few times and talked with them a lot.
I also have a couple friends who worked at Dak in college.
Oh, and my unsolicited advice? As a computer science guy, don't take a corporate IT job straight out of college. I'm not going to go so far as to encourage you to stay away from Dak, but in any case think very, very hard about getting into the startup culture while you have (I assume) low costs and low commitments. I made a very big mistake joining the corporate IT world. Now I'm climbing uphill. Enjoying it, but still climbing up hill.
Just start reading a lot of Paul Graham. Seriously, read it all, bottom to top.
The Dak web site has been overhauled at least twice since I started working there - 6 months ago. I think Hintz consulting is doing a lot of work on it now. Thanks for the advice though, I'll be sure to read the article.
Hey, kg, I can relate to your music picks...because they're some of my daughter's favorites. Throw in Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, etc. etc. I do love her expresions when she, for instance, is listening to Gwen Stefani's Talk Talk, and I play the original. Don't know how many times I've got her on other recent covers.
I have to say, seeing Fransisco Liriano in the "historical Twin" caught me off guard. And I have no problems with "God's Country" as your favorite place to live, or the Metrodome as favorite ballpark. When you drive >4 hrs to see a game, it's nice to know it will be played. Esp. if you get a seat facing the diamond.
Be sure to let the rest of us Citizens sign that thank you card too, btw.
When you drive >4 hrs to see a game, it’s nice to know it will be played.
I agree that this is one of the only redeeming qualities of the Dome, as DeMo is 3.5-4 hr from Minneapolis.
Just because I listen to one or two of the same bands as your daughter doesn't mean we have all the same tastes. I, for instance, couldn't tell the difference between Gwen Stefani and Hannah Montana. I know that I'm in a different age group than most of you, but I didn't realize that every one of you had teenage daughters.
My Twins fandom runs back about 5 or 6 years now, so as far as the historical thing goes I don't have much to choose from. I could have picked Doug Mientkiewicz, but when you look at it like that, the Liriano pick doesn't seem so weird. I couldn't exactly pick him as the current Twin (well, I could have) but I've gotten the most enjoyment as a fan out of watching him pitch.
I just like the atmosphere of the Metrodome. Maybe it's because I have nothing to compare it to, but fresh air is overrated. I like controlled environments. 70 degrees and "sunny".
My daughter is only five months old and she listens to classical music. And lullabies.
like Enter Sandman???
Yep, if the Metrodome had better seating and sight lines, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Maybe as a player, I'd find more things to take issue with, but I could live with dome ball.
And I wasn't implying that you had the same musical tastes as my daughter, just that there was some overlap there.
btw, check out Jack Chalker's Well of Souls series of books sometime - it should fall within your reading likes, and they're pretty entertaining.
And a roof that wasn't the same color as the ball.
Rhu_Ru, do you get a share of Chalker's residuals?
I've been meaning to follow your advice on that one. thanks for the reminder
Hey, Well of Souls is a great series that doesn't get much publicity, so I try recommend it to anyone who may like it. Same goes for Master & Commander series.
If you have have a young kid(s) that you read to at night, I recommend a pulp SF classic Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet -- 10 space cadets piloting nuclear bomb-propelled thorium asteroid into Earth orbit, while dodging rival government factions. Great fun.
kg - don't feel so bad, one of my favorite songs is Stefani's "Sweet Escape".
I assure you that I don't feel at all bad about my taste in music. I still don't see what Gwen Stefani has to do with me though.
I like Stefani's Luxurious - Egyptian cotton and such.
Andrew, you inspired me to go out and find the Mt. Dew Gamer Fuel. While it wasn't as bad as Code Red, the original is still the best.
I can't decide whether I should try Gamer or not. The description sounds horrible to me, and I like Code Red (I don't think I'd like it *all* the time, but I don't drink pop all the time).
It can't hurt to try it. I figured that "Hey, if it sucks I'm only out a dollar". I'm not going to lie, having Master Chief on the bottle was pretty awesome.
I fear that NBB is having a difficult time editing his kg/SBG/ubes/gardy dinner theater down to NC-17 language....
It's gotta be rrrrruff.
Kg2005: “Well, thanks, everyone for joining me for a bite at Bar Abilene. Tableside guac, everyone?” (Wanting to keep things civil): “So, er, how about we talk about gardening?”
Ubelmann: “A guy I know has this garden. A lot of the older plants are overgrown and not producing. Yet he focuses on pruning the younger plants that have not yet had time to develop. Strange, huh?”
Gardenhire: (spits out a sunflower shell, adusts his Sobakawa pillow): “Dunno. Mebbe he just needs to go to his local hardware store.”
Stick: “Reminds me of this garden’er who has a fixation with the poor-performing plants in his middle in-field without a lot of talent. Yeah, garden like that can get awful scruffy. Scru-fi. Scroo-fi.”
Gardenhire: "Some kinda fixation, there, boyo?"
Stick: "No, you do."
Kg2005 (interrupts): “Er, do you have a dog, Gardy?”
Gardenhire: “I used to like to train dogs, now I’m just an old one. Heh! Get it?“
(The group hears dry, old man laughter from the table nearby. Gordo waves).
Stick: “That reminded me of a guy that manages a dog kennel. He struggles with developing younger dogs, particularly, er, spaniels. He keeps them on an incredibly short leash, which makes it hard for them to relax and adjust.”
Kg2005: “How ‘bout we switch the topic to music? Gardy, do you like classical music?”
Gardenhire: “Carol and I went to a concert last year, and it was O.K. ‘cept this tall guy in front of me was blocking the view. I got in his face and ended up getting tossed out of the concert. Music was O.K. tho.”
Ubelmann: “Y’know, as a conductor, sometimes you don't need a gazillion dollar budget, you just need to exploit your orchestra's strengths and minimize their weaknesses.”
Stick: “I am reminded of a certain conductor who seems to have a problem adjusting his plan when things do all go exactly right. He gets indecisive.”
Ubelmann: “Funny, that reminds me of a certain conductor who is obsessed with musicians who remind the conductor of himself. This fixation keeps one prospect in particular in a rather odd holding pattern, and has helped the orchestra to employ a rangeless, er, flutist in the ongoing quest for worst defensive efficiency ever. But, hey, gotta love that leadership.”
Gardenhire: “I’m not a big music guy, personally.”
Kg2005: “Gardy, you like any other sports?”
Gardenhire: “Used to play table tennis in college.”
Ubelmann (mid-drink, snorts milk out of his nostrils): “Perfect! Yet another ridiculous use of small ball! “
Gleeman (busing tables nearby): “Hiyo!!”
Hiyo, indeed!
Need to collect all of these in a coffee-table book. With a forward by Alan Smithee.
Now that is funny. Alan Smithee it is.
Shouldn't have read that in the Library.
That's fantastic.