I am very happy to present to you, my first UFW with my Holiday Neck Beard. I am so glad to be able to see the wrinkles in my chin/cheeks, that used to be hidden in my beard. Although I admit I could have tried harder…. I am very excited about the possibilities for next week. I am really enjoying this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone… Our Holiday Neck Beards were just as glorious as ever. My friend Chris came out last night and cut his with us on thanksgiving eve, but I don’t have any of the photos yet… it was a great time. I just get warm fuzzy feelings every time I see my self in a mirror. Matt won the shoot out this year.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!!!! GOBBLE GOBBLE!! Well it looks like persistence has paid off this week. Thanks for everyone’s constant support. I think this is the best ugly yet. I can’t wait until tomorrow and the Holiday NeckBeard season to kick off officially. My preparation and dedication have been a long time coming and I can’t wait to see some glorious results.

My inspiration this week comes from my sister-in-law, Erica, and tequila shots.

Photographer: Katlyn Grubb

The end is near… I just bought my ticket to Las Vegas for my friends bachelor party in May. It brings back many good memories from the last trip.

Today was a good day, with crappy weather. Great dinner, venison tacos and Guinness.

I check my blog stats fairly regularly because I’m a super dork… however I find it interesting to see what people are searching for to find my blog.

I am always proud that people look to me for mustache advice. Sadly I feel that I am failing my readers by not providing the one thing that gets searched for so often. “Do women like mustaches.” Well the answer, of course, is yes women like mustaches… of course you have to look like Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck,  Sam Elliot, or Jesse Hughes… but the good news is that women do like mustaches. On the other hand if your mustache makes you look like a pedophile, this is a bad thing, women do not like pedophiles… and from my experience only crazy women like mustaches… or my mustache… but that is just my limited experience… it could just be that all women are crazy… or all women like mustaches like crazy… and they do not like khaki cargo pants… grow a mustache, stay away from khaki cargo pants, stay safe… and like my friend Alex says, “kissing a man without a mustache is like eating a boiled egg without salt.”… although I don’t know if he has ever kissed a man with or without a mustache or eaten a boiled egg without salt, and I’m not going to ask him… do as you will, it is a f*$#ed up world anyway and people have done much worse than grown mustaches… it’s not like it is a tattoo, although I have heard of people getting mustache tattoos, I wouldn’t advise that, be a man grow your own mustache. The man makes the mustache, not the other way around…

Nothing would get done… here it is again… barely making it…. In know what you are thinking… “can’t this guy take anything seriously?”

Yesterday was Taco Tuesday… I liked Taco Tuesday… today was sunny and beautiful… but no tacos… oh, well.

Everett turned seventy-three on a cloudless Saturday in October. He was sitting in his recliner while his wife watched television. He lowered the footrest and walked to the fridge, picked up the half empty carton of milk, shook it slightly, then placed it back on the shelf. He then went to the closet and put on a light jacket. As an afterthought he grabbed the dog leash.

“Honey, I’m gonna run to the store for some milk.”

“Okay, are you going to take Skippy?”

“Yeah. Come on Skip.” The little Chihuahua raced across the room.

When he opened the door it smelled like October. He could not put his finger on why, but it was more than just the wood smoke that hung in the air. It was actually warmer than he expected and he probably could have done without the jacket. When he opened the door to the minivan Skippy struggled to climb in. He used to have German Shepherds, back when he had a truck. At least it wasn’t a Shih Tzu.

When he put the van in drive it made the handicap placard swing on the rear view mirror. He had gotten it for his wife, so she wouldn’t have to walk so far. It was nice not having to find a parking space, but he never used it when his wife wasn’t with him.

He passed the store and just kept driving. He drove down by the beach. He used to take the kids here to fly kites, of course not to in October. Today would have been a good day for it though, if the grandkids lived closer.

He turned down a side street, and then to a down a street that said “Dead End.” There were a couple mobiles on the corner and a half finished house at the top of the hill, but the rest was just empty lots with faded green sewer pipe stubbed up at each one. Unfinished projects were an all too common sight recently.

“Well Skippy, this looks like your kind of place.” As he started up the hill near the end of the cul-de-sac a voice shouted, “Slow the fuck down… stop, stop, Stop!.”

Startled, Everett did as he was told. It made sense when a small dog, that he hadn’t seen, trotted from the front of the van to the half finished house. Two kids in their mid twenties were there. One was knee deep in a ditch with a pick in his hand. The other was on the porch still shouting, “What the fuck are you doing? There is no need to drive like that.”

Everett couldn’t help but think that if his kids had talked like that to anyone…

He stepped on the gas, screeching the tires and then slammed on the brakes narrowly missing the construction workers truck and sending Skippy to the floorboards under the dash. He quickly undid his seatbelt and opened his door. Just as he started to step out, the door was slammed against his leg. The ditch digger was standing there, “Don’t fucking get out. What the fuck are you, going to do?”

Then the shouter was there too, “What? You’re going to fight us? You are the one who was driving like an asshole.”

Everett tried to push against the door, but he couldn’t get enough leverage with his leg pinched, and two grown men holding it from the other side. They were poking their fingers through the half open window to emphasize their point. He could feel that he was sweating under his jacket and Skippy was jumping against his right arm, oblivious to the gravity of the situation.

Finally Everett spoke, “I wouldn’t have hit your dog; I love dogs.” He could feel his voice crack at the end.

The shouter, calmer now, said, “Well we do too… why are you getting all bent out of shape?”

“Well, you yelled at me.” He hadn’t even thought of it, until the words came out of his mouth. He hadn’t been in a fight in over twenty years.

The shouter chuckled uneasily, “well I’m sorry, but you scared the shit out of me. You just don’t need to be driving that fast; there are kids and dogs and everything else on this street.”

“Well… okay, fine.” Everett said, putting the van in reverse. He slowly drove down the street, with his heart still pounding in his chest. He didn’t see any kids, or any sign of kids for that matter.

He made his way through the winding side streets of houses until he reached the store, then drove right back to his house.

Anna was in the kitchen making lunch when he arrived. He could smell the cake in the oven. He handed her a bouquet of grocery store flowers and put his six pack of Budweiser in the fridge minus the one in his other hand.

“I thought you were going to get milk,” she said.

“Meh. There’s about a quart left, we should probably finish it first.”

Everett went and sat in his recliner and Skippy jumped in his lap. He picked up the remote, turned on the news channel, and opened his beer.

I am really tired… but we had a pumpkin carving day… getting ready for Halloween… It was a nice impromptu BBQ… anyway, I have never really been that into pumpkin carving, but I am happy with this years results.
This was mine….

… and everyone else’s…. well not everyone… but the ones that are left…

In other news… Reagan is eating food… well mushy rice cereal stuff… oh and she is continually getting cuter every day….