"I KNOW THIS NAME..."
The name sounds familiar right? Well, just to let you know... I still have a lot of hair on my head, the muscles are not huge, I did not perform in a lot of movies. But I do carry this nickname though.
Why?
1st time I heard this nickname was from my French travel buddy Adrien in New Zealand in 2010. We were traveling around New Zealand for 6 weeks in winter. Hitchhiking the country, staying in hostels with hot tubs and free soup, hiking a lot of mountains and not top forget party a little bit. In New Zealand there is a pre-mixed drink called 'Diesel'. A canned drink with coke and bourbon whiskey. Because I was drinking this so many times, he start calling me 'Vin Diesel'. Although years later when I visited all my French travel buddies in France, they start calling me 'Vince Ricard' instead of 'Vin Diesel'. Ricard is another drink I like. Don't get me wrong, I am not an alcoholic, I just like sweet stuff :)
2nd time the nick name was used was about 5 years go. I did a lot of running with a group of colleagues. Yes, the time when i still had colleagues :) And every year we took part in a 48 hour run from Paris to Rotterdam (almost 600 km in 48 hours, relay run). I have a good basic condition an d I don't really need training for long distance running. But it seems that when I run, I really get up to speeds ofter 7-8 km. Many people told me that I am like an old diesel train or call me a tank. When I am warm enough, I am quite unstoppable. So also here the name 'Vin Diesel' was used.
3rd time I created the nick name myself. Last year I bought a green van. I live in this van these days. It's a Mercedes Sprinter (and I also like to sprint with running). There was a little Dutch flag on the drivers door when I bought it. Normally racing cars have the name of the driver next to it. Instead of putting my real name there, I created another name. Because this van runs on Diesel and I am the driver, I called the van 'Vin Diesel'.
Maybe one day I will also drive in that classic Ford Mustang...still one of my favorite cars.