No...I didn't win the lottery. No, I didn't get promoted to Vice President. No, my kids didn't cure cancer.
BIGGER!
You see, I have certain heroes in life. Heroes that, to me, are the epitome of manhood. Heroes that, with very little effort, are able to make people all over the world say, "Damn...there goes a real man."
These heroes are:
My homie, Andy Palmer
My Cousin-In-Law Gary (he's the one on the right)
And Commander William T. Riker
Gary formed his own highly successful marketing business that thrives in Seattle today. Totally manly...but, whatever.
And, Riker...how many times has he saved the universe Still...this is not what impresses me.
No...clearly, my admiration for these men is due to one thing.
THEIR DAMN SEXY BEARDS!!!
By now, you may be wondering, why is today so special? Well, I will tell you.
For many years, approximately 40 now, I have tried to grow a beard. Tried in college, tried as a young adult, tried as an old adult. I could grow mean sideburns and I could manage an ok chin strap. But, there were way too many patches. I looked like a 16 year old...with bags under his eyes and grey in his beard. But, I kept trying. Lord knows why.
In late 2017, I decided to try out a goatee. It looked dumb, but it was full, so I ran with it. The people at work were nice and humored me. Kim told me she "didn't hate it." But, she totally hated it. A few dudes at work have nice beards. In my envy, I have told them so on a few occasions. One of them told me, you should grow a full beard! I was like, I can't! He said, do it anyway!
So, once again, I tried growing a beard. I'm not sure what's different this round. But, something happened today that made me acknowledge that today, FINALLY, I officially have a beard!
I was chatting with a couple new teammates (I recently joined a new team at Google) about new seating arrangements. All 3 dudes, all 3 joining this new team and will soon be sitting together. One dude has an amazing beard. One dude is totally clean shaven. The last dude is me.
Says bearded dude to unbearded dude, "Dude...you're gonna need to grow a beard if you're gonna sit with us."
Did you see it! Did you see what happened there? Unprovoked, unbeckoned, a person who doesn't know me that well, who is not familiar with my unbearded face implies that because he, a well bearded man, and myself will be in this seating pod, the clean shaven person must grow a beard to join us!!! I HAVE A BEARD!!!
Kim still hates it. But, I'm gonna ride this for a bit. Maybe I'll go build a house.
