Jeff Erickson's Family

• My beautiful wife Kim Whittlesey is a geometric group theorist. Kim finished her Ph.D. thesis at Berkeley in 1998 under John Stallings. Kim is a lecturer in the UIUC math department.

• Our daughter Katherine Zoe "Kang Kang" Erickson was born on June 30, 2006. Kang Kang chose her own nickname when she was about a year and a half old; we'll see how long it sticks. She inherited both her mother's sweetness ("Help Mommy time!") and her dad's sense of humor. (Kim: "Can you say 'internal combustion engine'?" Kang Kang: "No! I say 'dog'!") When she sees words on the side of a truck, she says "Ay-bee-sees! Dat spell tuck!" She knows every verse to "The Wheels on the Bus".

  

• My mom Connie Erickson Cook paints and draws portraits for a living. Check out her online portfolio! Her husband Robert Ames Cook is an architectural photographer and silversmith. They recently moved from Caddo Lake to the suburbs of Dallas, Texas.

  

• My dad Jon Erickson and his wife Shirley used to run The Wine Shop of St. Joseph, Missouri, but after several years of watching money fly in and out, but never stay, they shut it down. Dad is a medical physicist; his master's advisor was a student of Robert Oppenheimer.

  Dad used to keep an electric hammer in his office. It looked just like a regular claw hammer, but it had a brass plate with a toggle switch and a red LED on the end of the handle. When anyone asked how it worked, Dad would flip the toggle switch, the LED would light up, and he'd say "There, now it's on." People say this story explains a lot about me.

  

• My sister Tina Erickson is a photographer. Her husband Don Bernier makes documentaries. After seven years in Brooklyn, Tina and Don recently moved back to the San Francisco Bay area. Tina frequently accuses me of breaking things.

• Our dog Nori is a Lab/Shepherd/Husky/Akita/something-or-other mix who likes to chase squirrels and rabbits/bunnies, or as he prefers to call them, "Minions of Satan" and "Senior Minions of Satan".

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- "Zits" (3/30/98) by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Jeff Erickson (jeffe@cs.uiuc.edu) 21 Jun 2008