Beardo Gone-o

Friends,

Today, my wife and I were to go to St. Cloud to celebrate New Years with The Lady Mitch and her friends. We were looking forward to going. At least I was especially eager to go to get my mind of some more bad news that befell my family (not that lizard, something substantial, that I'd rather not talk about here) and to get out of Mankato for a change. So, we get up today, pack an overnight bag, get everything set to go...and then we notice it started to snow. We were thinking it was no real big deal. Hell, the guy on the weather channel said it was actually raining were we lived, and we might get 1 to 3 inches by the end of the day, so we figured the snow we saw falling out the window was a small thing. We get all our gear together, head outside...and...well, that guy on the weather channel's an asshole.

There was already 3 inches outside, at least, and snowing pretty hard too. Not blizzard like, or anything like what Denver's seen, but hard enough to make driving a bit treacherous. We decide to rough it, give the roads a shot and see how bad they are. Well, we nearly get stuck leaving our parking lot, and slip and slide around Mankato town on our way to the gas station. We fill up, and decide let's head back home to reassess the weather situation, thinking maybe this'll pass...hell, the weather guy said only 1 to 3 inches, right? We get home, a new weather channel asshole says we're going to 4 to 8 inches, Blue Earth county was under a winter weather advisory and now they forecasted snow showers until 8 pm...so no real waiting out the storm going to happen. The MN Dot website has the roads in the Blue Earth area as snowy, unsafe things and Emily expresses her apprehension of attempting to drive up there, so I made the phone calls, and St. Cloud trip cancelled. So I'm pissed off at the weather, and the fact that I don't own some kind of hovercraft or snowplow mechanism instead of a Pontiac Grand Am.

To make this New Years Eve even more unpleasant...there's little to no booze in the house. Hooray for that! And, let's not forget that Mankato liquor stores are closed on Sundays. So, no Korbel to celebrate New Years with this year. And I failed to get Emily a birthday card or cake prior to today, and her birthday is tomorrow. Yeah, I already heard about that. I got her a present...I didn't forget her birthday. I just didn't get her a cake or card.

And another reason for my upsetedness? I shaved my beard today. Why? Well, I had to before I went home (I'll be out of Mankato Jan 3 thru Jan 8) and during that time I have to attend to some family business that if I showed up with in a scraggly beard would be disrespectful and I don't want my parents mad at me in an already trying time. So, I went ahead and went clean shaven. Manliness or not, this is not the time for a statement.

So, I present to you now, the de-evolution of my beard. If you have some music playing device near you, I suggest cueing up that "How can I live without you..." song and play it at maximum volume while scrolling through the following images slowly.

Stage One: Au Natural

This is how the beard looked in it's full glory. Not bad. A touch patchy, but that's par for my face-course. A little hobo like, but what's wrong with hobos? Always got a place to go and 30 dimes for wine. Life could be worse.

Stage Two: Sculpted

Neck hair scraped away. Nice obtuse angle along the jawline. But, I did pull a Slingblade face on that side view. Not sure why I did that. Perhaps I was thinking about french fried taters.

Stage Three (A & B): Goatee w/Two Sideburn Lengths

Ah, the goatee. The favored facial hair of the sporting people. My mom said goatees remind her of a cat's ass. As for the sideburns...I was goign to go with chops, but, let's be honest, I don't have the coverage for Elvis chops. The sideburns on the far right is the current sideburn length.

Stage Four: Seth Bullock

Man, I do love Deadwood. I'm jonesing for season 3. I actually think I got the shakes. And, let's be honest...that's one handsome look. And while we are being honest, why didn't anyone ever tell me that my right eye is so much bigger than my left eye? I look like a mutant. All these years, I thought the only face problems I had were the cartoonishly large eyebrows and oily, acned skin...but one doll eye and one elephant eye? I never knew. I've been looking at this face in the mirror for ages, how could have I not have ever noticed. Oh well.

Stage Five: MUSTACHE COMETH!

BOOM! Damn, look at that smile. Look at it! That's a happy man, friends. A happy man with a mustache. Fuckin' A.


Stage Six: Shogun

I own a book about samurais, and I'm a fan of samurais. All that honor, armor, and chopping ability. In that samurai book it says that they should always carry a toothpick with them and that they should live as if they are already dead, so they can honor their master without guilt or fear. Anyways, there's my shogun-samurai-stereotypicalasianwiseman-mustache. Want some movie reference? Check out Batman Begins...that one Asian fella who was the figurehead boss of Liam Neeson...that guy has a mustache like this. Ya'll like it? It's not bad.

Stage Seven: Neutered

Damn.

I now make a resolution to return to the facially haired and soon. All I need is time.

VIVA EL MUSTACHE!