Week Eight: October 25th-31st

Pre-Week: With a lag in voting, and many suggestions requiring a stronger base from which to build, I elected to vote in the "Back to Home Base" this week. Perhaps this will allow for some of the more creative beards I know you all have lurking in your imaginations. Perhaps a beard and 'burn combo..." Get those votes in by 4 PM on Sunday, October 31st!

Week in Review: Perhaps due to the fifteen-minutes-of-fame attention span of so many these days, and let's face it, with the advent of technology to entertain us all day, every day, we can hardly think for ourselves anymore, I received very few votes on this week's entry. There I go, growing a base to allow for many options and I get nearly shut out at the polls. That'll show me.

No, I chalk it up to the ferocity of this look and how intimidated all followers must be. Fear kept them all away. What if I vote and he doesn't like it? I mean, this guy looks serious AND ferocious...serocious, if you will. Yeah, that's probably it.

Week Seven: October 18th-October 24th

Pre-Week: Brought to use this week by my friend and coworker, Amy, who sent a last-minute vote via text message...The Jafar. Again, though not fully-furred enough to pull off the full-on Jafar (his has a lengthy collection of strands dangling from his lower chin--oh, the evil-look of that dastardly concoction) I thought a little creativity was in order. A thin collection around the mouth-tight oval descending from nostrils to upper lip, it circles around the mouth, I cheated the wiry strands from the chin by tracing out a wavy path down over the chin-fall to my neck. Some of my students are already calling it The River."

Get this week's vote in by Sunday, October 24th at 4:oo PM. It's never too late too tell my face what to do! (Well, until it is....)

Week Six: October 11th to 17th

Pre-Week: I would have preferred to spot this one up from the chin-post coming out of a fuller hair-face week, but the adoring Beard Blog-crowd wants what it wants. The Snidely Whiplash is brought to you courtesy of a convincing campaign from Emily, with whom I work at the Zoo during the Summer. She resubmitted this request a number of times and it came up as this week's winner. I hardly do it justice, with a thin crop of cheek fur, but it was due.

To be next week's winner, you too can submit your vote: either e-mail me or post a comment here by Sunday, October 17th at 4:oo PM. Who knows where this chin may take me next....

Week In Review: Maybe due to the light coloration of this number, there were not many comments. Some of my students noticed the "check-marks" on the sides of my face, while others wondered aloud why I went with just a mustache this time. One, wise beyond his years stated it simply, "Look, don't you know, he changes his look every week? That's his thing." Too true, young learner, too true.

Week Five: October 4th to 10th

Pre Week: In another hotly contested race (mostly between our friend Laura and my wife, Laura--and yes, they are two different people) the former won out with the Evil Twin Chris in honor of the coming month of pseudo-evil. The early returns on this look are favorable for me, even if this particular facial coif was universally-abhorred. Last night, heading off to bed post-shower, Laura (this one would the wife-Laura) told me, "Yeah, that look doesn't really do it for you." Still working on what that means.

My students, always good for a quip or quote brought about a joyous Monday morning meeting when their banter about my change began. I will save you the witty exchanges, but suffice it to say it ended with one girl saying, "EW! Fix your face tonight, make it go away!" A former student, back to visit from high school took a look and said, "Oh my God, I just noticed your face," to which I replied, "I know, pretty awesome, huh?" As if to show all the progress since the glory days in my classroom, she fought back, "Yeah, that wasn't the word I would use to describe it...." All signs point to a good week.

Get your votes in: this week's deadline is Sunday, October 10th at 4 PM.

Week in Review: I would have been hard-pressed to come up with a more universally-loathed look on my own, so kudos to you, Laura. The girl in my class who said, "Ew, make it go away," was among the nicer things I heard about the look all week. One of my friends who, strangely, also happens to be a colleague at my school, asked me if I was auditioning looks for Halloween, and if I was planning to go as a creeper.

I didn't meet anyone who actually liked the look, so I count that as an instant classic--a hit in the offing. Each day, the kids asked when I would fix it, and did daily status checks as the "shadow" filled in around it. By the time my daughters and I attended a school-sponsored bowling event on Saturday (an event I had, yet again, NOT planned for when carving this 'stache) most of it was back to a pseudo-Indy Jones scruff look, with only a few darker patches on the chin and upper lips. Even my daughters were calling for the Chinstrap again, and that was not exactly the most popular look either.

Week Four: The Modified Fu

Pre-Week: This week's winner, submitted by Burt (my college roommate during Freshman year at Providence) is the Modified Fu-Manchu. OK, so technically, Burt wanted the traditional Fu, but I took the liberty to exercise my creative facial rights, thinking ahead to the malleability of options this look might spawn. The stout handlebars and the thick center stripe...think about what you could have me do for week 5. Voting opens now, and carries forth until Sunday, October 3rd, at 4 PM.

Week In Review: Other than the odd comment about how I shaved again, or questions about my recent haircut--you'd be amazed at how much a little facial hair change throws people off--there was very little bluster about this week. Perhaps it is still too early in the going, or the Fu Manchu, even in this modified state is not enough to incite crowd rioting over changes in jaw looks. So sad. American Chopper I was not....

Week Three: The Shaggy

Pre-Week: I now present this week's winner...The Shaggy!

I briefly considered amending this beard to make it the Sleazy Shaggy (just mustache and thick central-chin patch) or Shaggy, the Later Years (patchy in general, possibly with some scorch marks in it from "various adventures."


But, in order to remain true to the spirit of Beard Democracy, I felt justified in keeping with the suggestion submitted by Laura (whose husband Chuck submitted the Week One winner--the first husband and wife team to score in this facial hair lottery--kudos!) This one already has the kids talking, but that will wait for another day.

Get in on the action, and the exciting, edge-of-your razor voting. You can create the next facial design as long as you submit your comment on this blog site, or e-mail me by Sunday, September 26th at 4 PM. Happy Bearding!

Week in Review: Well, the kids in my class enjoyed the "pointiness" of this beard model, though are likely too young to even recognize it as a Shaggy-inspired chin-coif. (They were all born after 2002, after all....) They also wondered, often, why I left that patch in the middle so much longer than the rest. Once they saw me fingering it and twisting it whenever listening or thinking, I think they figured that one out.

The manly scruff by the end of the week came in handy as I was once again cast in the role of evil king and old dragon, at the mercy of our daughters in our weekend reprisal of "swording." I have to enjoy that they take almost anything we do and turn it into a verb. Of course, I comply by buying them a couple of foam swords in the dollar section, maybe just to hear them continue with their swording rituals. Maybe I should be sacred that, while our older daughter plays somewhat nicely, lightly stabbing my heart and slashing at my arms to chop them off, our younger daughter attacks with a ferocity befitting her Scottish ancestry. I half expect her to whip up her makeshift kilt and taunt me before heading into battle. She orders me to the couch and then tells me to fight, only to charge through my defense and hack at my neck and face. No amount of poking with my lowly cardboard dagger is enough to ward off her onslaught. She is merciless, as she swipes at my eyes and head, slices at my neck and happily announces that she has chopped my head off. Score one for imagination, I suppose.

Week Two: Eight Ball, Corner Pockets

Pre-Week: Hardly a splurge of voting--yes, even beard-dom has its fifteen minutes, especially now in Mayfly attention span society--but the strongest of the entries this week came from within my own household. Most people assume I do these things against my wife's wishes--perhaps this speaks to my nature as a person who does things to rile people, antagonize people, or otherwise go against their wishes for me--but I can assure you that Laura is just as much a part of this scheme as I am. Many of the things I have done over the years, especially things involving hair and facial hair, have come after hilarious discussions with her. So, this week's entry comes straight from her cranium to my jawline: Eight Ball (chin circle, or as close as I could get it) and Corner Pockets (jawline beneath ears, semi-triangular in shape.) I give her credit for building from last week's design and having a vision even I did not have.

Now it's your turn: sculpt my face, or at least my facial hair. Use this week as your base and think ahead to a normal week's growth. Next week, you could attain beard infamy! Voting closes on Sunday, September 19th at 4 PM.

Week In Review: For whatever reason, my current crop of students are remarkably observant about all things facial hair. Maybe it is because they are always looking up at it, framing my face, from under my chin, and things of that nature. But now we seem to start each week with an update about their weekends, and their updated musings on my beard.

One girl likes to begin by pointing out the changes since our last (Monday) meeting, though she provides almost daily commentary on the ever-changing status of the beard. I sincerely hope she does not think this will get her in my good graces. This week, I couldn't even get in my usual post-weekend inquiry, "How was everyone's weekend?" Upon inhaling to ask that, as everyone settled into spots near the front of the room, she looked, sighed and said, "...AND you shaved!" in that Michael Buffer style that squared-circle pundits have come to love and lament as a sign of the commercialization of their gym-bound sport.

Luckily, my sport--that of extreme facial hair growth and change--is never out of style because, much like the mullet, it was never really in style. It is all a matter of what you are willing to strap on your chin and jaw and flaunt around town for the week.

Of course, unlike the lone girl who chronicles my beard adventures nearly as well as I do, there are others who have little to no idea it is going on. One boy noticed on Wednesday, as he said, "Hey, that's cool how you have like those little patches on the sides...it's like you have the chin, and then you have the sideburns." Yet another fit well into the "no idea" category, as I scanned the crowd many a day and saw him with BOTH of his nostrils filled with fingers (up to the bridge) simultaneously. Now that is talent to which we can all aspire.