bobafred

This past weekend we attended the 2007 Whiskerino Throwdown in Nashville, Tennessee. In short, it was awesome.

In not short, it was:

Friday night was a Whiskerino art show at a local gallery. We picked up a small painting by hale! ryan! for the man room at home. I can’t wait to hang all the beard art I’ve bought throughout this thing. After that, 50 or so of the beards headed over to a local bar for some additional conversations+drinks. It was really fun to see the reactions of the people that were already at the bar when that many dudes with beards showed up. The looks on their faces were classic and almost worth the four hour drive to Nashville alone!

Saturday day was an entire bowling alley of beards bowling. We were able to get the lanes all to ourselves for 2 hours, which was pretty awesome. Here is all 132 of us, plus whatever additional others were there.

Saturday night was fancy dinner and then a rock show consisting of Codaphonic, Yea Big + Kid Static and The Protomen. Lori and I saw Codaphonic a few weeks ago here in Atlanta, and it’s nice to see that they are consistently excellent live. Band members and Whiskerino participants Cody! and tao jones are also super nice guys. Next up was Yea Big + Kid Static. They pretty much ruled. Their mix of hip hop with high energy and story telling really was awesome to see live. The final band was The Protomen. We only stayed for one of their songs, though, as it was getting late and we had a long drive ahead of us in the morning so all I can really say is that they were loud and face painted. Both of which is ok by me.

Obviously the best part of the weekend was meeting and hanging out with all the participants. Every single person we met was great to talk to. And, that’s what the Whiskerino is really all about. Sure we all grew beards, but the social aspect of it is what we’ll remember most at the end. It really was a great weekend.

So, will I participate in Whiskerino 2009? Right now, I’d say yes. It’ll probably depend on what’s going on at that point, but I’ve had so much fun, that I’d love to do it again.

Many thanks to Mackle and everyone else involved in putting this thing together.

Here are my photos from the weekend.
Here are a bunch more from others.

Tags: beards, bowling, codaphonic, kid static, nashville, protomen, throwdown, Whiskerino, yea big

I’ve been doing this Whiskerino thing for 84 days now. 84 days without shaving is a pretty long time. Originally I had hoped to win a King Beard or two, but I never anticipated the level of creativity that exists in the participants. There really are some great artists on the site. My current goal is simply to upload a photo everyday. So far, I’ve managed to succeed in this quest. Some days I’m not totally into it and you get lameness like this. Other days, however, I’m totally into it. Like yesterday’s Guess The Movie theme.

This is what I had been thinking about doing all day. I kind of talked myself out of it, though, since we don’t have a chainsaw and I wasn’t sure what to use for blood, etc. I came up with another idea, that I liked, but Lori encouraged me to go with the original idea. I’m so glad she did (she’s awesome). This came out great and was so fun to create. Having ketchup all over your face is not that excellent, but it worked, so I’m happy with it.

Tags: cardboard chainsaw, evildead2, free denim shirt, horror, ketchup, movie, themeday, Whiskerino

Stuff:

• Adam visited from Chicago last weekend. We enjoyed food and drinks and bowled and went to the Georgia Aquarium. It was fun. He should move back here.
• Today is day 37 of Whiskerino. I haven’t shaved in 37 days. The moustache is starting to become annoying.
• We decorated the house with lights and junk for Christmas. I was successful in not falling off the ladder or roof. Also, didn’t get electrocuted. I’d like to also mention that I have a minor fear of heights and even though our house isn’t very tall, I was mildly freaked out.
• SDXE launched our first game: Violent Night. It’s fun. I can’t beat level 3. I suck. But, I do get invited to meetings called “Game Meeting” now, so that’s cool.

Today is the first day of the 2007 Whiskerino. And, as such, I have shaved off the beard. Really.

See:

So far Lori loves my boyish good looks and Molly was only mildly freaked out. From here it’s 4 months of beard growing awesomeness. I don’t shave again until after Feb 29, 2008. Should be fun.

To keep up on the action, my Whiskerino profile lives here. There seems to be intermittent problems with the Whiskerino site right now, but I’m sure it’ll be resolved soon. I also created a flickr set which will probably be updated too.

Also, I know Scrivenings is participating — anyone else from Atlanta?