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So, it's finally here.  Time for my first post.  You may be asking yourself, "why the hell am I here, why am I reading this?"  To be fair, that's an excellent question (or two), I have no idea why you'd want to read this or view any of the images I'll be posting here.  That being said, if you're still reading, I'll explain and give a bit of the backstory on why this is even happening.

So I've got this enormous beard (pictured below somewhere)...wait, it's not even that enormous but it's sizable and it's evident that I put in a lot of time to get to this point.  Invariably anyone who meets me or sees my beard for the first time asks two questions, in this order:

1. How long did it take you to grow that out?

2. Do you condition it?

Now, my usual response to question one is "I'm not quite sure, I wasn't paying attention to the date the last time I shaved.  Maybe 10 or so months?" (keep in mind it's December as of this writing, so that would put it sometime in February).  I honestly am not sure.  Question two is a bit of a mystery to me.  Do any men use conditioner for anything?  I don't believe we do, so I'm always puzzled by this question.  I do, however, shampoo it for what it's worth.  So that's the first reason for starting this thingy, keep myself and others apprised of my beard growing endeavors on a (hopefully) daily basis for the year.

Reason number two is quite simple (if not a bit odd).  Some friends of mine, obviously taken by my beard growing prowess, have challenged me to a dual....of sorts.  I have one friend (whom I used to work with) and another (whom I am roommates with) that thought it would be awesome to have a beard growing competition.  The reasoning behind this baffles me.  One is somewhat like the wolf-man, he will easily win this competition if solely based on output.  The other friend, well, he's been growing his beard for roughly as long as I have and he looks almost exactly like Kyle Orton of the Chicago Bears.  So clearly, he would win if there is a pity vote.  This leaves me somewhere in the middle with a wicked beard and no prospects of winning.

Anyways, I obliged to the friendly competition and even went above and beyond and said I'd take daily pictures and post them to the interwebs (I am in the biz and all).  Since the inception of this competition numerous other acquaintances have expressed interest in competing, but I don't know officially whether anyone else is or not.  That in mind, you may occasionally get pictures of the competition as well as my own.  So now that you've read this entire ridiculous post, I offer you this, my last day as a bearded man before I shave it all off tomorrow morning (hopefully the hangover isn't too bad and I don't cut the hell outta my face):