> > When I met my future wife I was 21, and she wanted me to grow a beard, so > I did. Since then I have occasionally asked coworkers who have complained > about shaving why *they* don't grow beards: the most common answer is "My > wife doesn't want me to." > Moved to COFF ... while bearded UNIX folks do seem to be a common thread, I think we are stretching Warren's patience a tad. So ... I have sort of a different story. I had shaved in off and on during college and in the first few years I was working but had grown it back before grad school. I still was not sure I liked having it, and as I got close to finishing, I mentioned to my officemates at UCB that I'd shave it when Newton (our advisor) signed my thesis as a signal to everyone I was done. So the day I came into the office clean-shaven, Peter Moore looks up and remarked, 'now I know why you wore one.' So, I showed up at Masscomp without it and was quickly ostracized as so many of the SW team had some sort of facial hair, I quickly grew it back. Roll forward 20ish years and my wife egged me into shaving it off one summer weekend. Our then 5-year-old daughter cried -- she wanted her Daddy back. I've had it ever since. That said, 20 years later she and her mother both claim I would look younger if I shaved it. But at this point, I kinda like not having to shave my neck and lower chin every day if I don't want to; so I have ignored them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/coff/attachments/20210118/1b090a74/attachment.htm>
On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 3:17 PM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote: > When I met my future wife I was 21, and she wanted me to grow a beard, so >> I did. Since then I have occasionally asked coworkers who have complained >> about shaving why *they* don't grow beards: the most common answer is "My >> wife doesn't want me to." >> > Moved to COFF ... while bearded UNIX folks do seem to be a common thread, > I think we are stretching Warren's patience a tad. So ... I have sort > of a different story. > > I had shaved in off and on during college and in the first few years I was > working but had grown it back before grad school. I still was not sure I > liked having it, and as I got close to finishing, I mentioned to my > officemates at UCB that I'd shave it when Newton (our advisor) signed my > thesis as a signal to everyone I was done. > > So the day I came into the office clean-shaven, Peter Moore looks up and > remarked, 'now I know why you wore one.' > > So, I showed up at Masscomp without it and was quickly ostracized as so > many of the SW team had some sort of facial hair, I quickly grew it back. > > Roll forward 20ish years and my wife egged me into shaving it off one > summer weekend. Our then 5-year-old daughter cried -- she wanted her > Daddy back. I've had it ever since. > When I was in the Marine Corps I shaved nearly every day (the exceptions were extended leaves back home or occasional extra-long missions in Afghanistan when we were outside the wire). I once tried the permitted-but-frowned-upon "low regulation" haircut and didn't like it. I usually opted for the Navy standard "high regulation" haircut instead of the super-motivated USMC "high and tight", which I always thought looked goofy, and is the haircut they give you right before you graduate from boot camp. When I got out, I luxuriated in not shaving for weeks at a time because I could and, frankly, no one would yell at me. When my kids were born, it became a nuisance I would attend to as time permitted. When my youngest was born, I was in the habit of shaving biweekly, if that. One time I let it grow for a couple of months and then abruptly shaved at night; I remember being nervous that she would not recognize me in the morning, but she saw that I was clean shaven and actually gave me a big smile and seemed rather delighted. I was secretly relieved. That said, 20 years later she and her mother both claim I would look > younger if I shaved it. But at this point, I kinda like not having to > shave my neck and lower chin every day if I don't want to; so I have > ignored them. > I still alternate between clean-shaven and not; mostly I prefer clean-shaven because otherwise I tend to get bumps and generally find it uncomfortable. At one point when I was young I had hair down to my shoulders but honestly, I just can't pull off long hair anymore: I keep a relatively short haircut. I haven't seen the inside of a barber shop since the start of the pandemic, but I've shaved my head multiple times as I'm reasonably certain I can do that without completely messing it up, and I have clippers that will go down to the scalp. It grows back pretty quickly, so I only look like a conehead for a couple of days; as we used to say in the Corps, the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is a week. - Dan C. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/coff/attachments/20210118/2f6e88ad/attachment.htm>
On Monday, 18 January 2021 at 15:16:22 -0500, Clem Cole wrote: > > That said, 20 years later she and her mother both claim I would look > younger if I shaved it. Don't believe them. At linux.conf.au in Dunedin in 2006, Rusty Russell started a fundraiser for the John Lions chair of computer science at UNSW. By way of encouragement, he stated that if there were enough contributions, he would shave off his moustache. A number of us joined in (David Miller, Jeff Waugh and myself, but explicitly not Jon Hall), and he ended up raising $10,000. So the next day we were shaved. I was horrified: suddenly I looked like the old man that I was. The beard had greyed over the years, but it had hidden the change in my face. I let the beard grow again, and haven't seen my chin since. More at http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jan2006.php#27 Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 163 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/coff/attachments/20210119/d3573146/attachment.sig>
On 01/18/21 20:32, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote (in part):
> On Monday, 18 January 2021 at 15:16:22 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
>> That said, 20 years later she and her mother both claim I would look
>> younger if I shaved it.
> Don't believe them.
A colleague of mine has a baby-face. As a grad student, he wore a beard
to make himself look older. Years afterwards, he shaved it off to make
himself look younger.
N.
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021, Clem Cole wrote:
> Roll forward 20ish years and my wife egged me into shaving it off one
> summer weekend. Our then 5-year-old daughter cried -- she wanted her
> Daddy back. I've had it ever since.
When my daughter was about 2 and a half I shaved off a beard I'd had for a
while. She made it clear she was displeased and asked me what happened.
I told her I'd shaved my beard off. She immediately exclaimed "Shave it
back on again!"
Rob