Thank you Beard

Dear Beard,

Hi it’s me your face host. I’m the one that is constantly running fingers through your course strands and dripping hot soup and milk into your roots when we are eating. It is nearly impossible for me to eat spaghetti or pudding without sharing half of it with you, but I know you enjoy it because you seem to have an unquenchable thirst for sloppy liquids. This is good because I’m not sure what I would do without cheerios, and I don’t care for the milk as much as you. I’ve also noticed that you don’t have as much of a taste for solid foods as you do for liquids. I often find rejected pieces of popcorn or bread crumbs that you have decided were not to your liking. I am happy to pick those off of you beard. After all, we do have a symbiotic relationship.

You are so great beard. You hide my drool from people when I roll out of bed half awake in the morning and stumble into public. If it wasn’t for you beard people would know that I lose close to a cup of fluid when I sleep. This eases the worry some would surely have about my level of hydration. Your ability to soak up my slippery saliva and turn it into dried flakes that I can shake out later in the day also prolongs the life of my pillowcases. This means I don’t have to wash my pillowcases as often, which saves water, which helps the environment, which helps the entire planet of Earth. You are helping save planet Earth beard. Earth thanks you beard.

Beard, with you on my face, I can make a scowl with my mouth and nobody notices. I can hold an entire conversation with someone, and regardless of how displeased I am to be chatting with the previously mentioned person, you make me seem friendly and interested. Thank you for helping keep the bottom portion of my face emotionless beard. I only wish my eyebrows were as helpful. They really aren’t earning their keep.
Oh beard, you help me conquer complicated problems. When I really need to think something through I just start stroking you and eventually answers come. At the very least you let me give the illusion of deep and complex thought, which buys me enough time to either forget what I was supposed to be thinking about or create a complex solution for nearly unsolvable quandaries. For example, beard, you somehow held onto the smell of last week’s lunch for days. How you hold it in your curly nest is a mystery that may only be solved with hours of stroking your straggly strands.

Beard, you keep my face warm and protected from the elements. You shield chin from fierce winds and biting cold temperatures. Without you beard I would have to wear a lot more layers on my face which would hurt my burly tough guy image. Oh and beard, I’m sorry that the nose keeps dripping on you, but I’ve noticed your ability to freeze the snot and form snotcicles that only touch the outermost strands of your dense body thus preventing any real damage to be done.
Beard, I just wanted to let you know that you are most bodacious. I often find it curious that I hold you in such high regard, when I more or less ignore all the other hair that grows on my body. I should probably show a little respect to the hair on the knuckles of my toes or the few strands I sometimes wonder about that surround my nipples. Frankly beard I just don’t know that they do anything positive for me. So, although I sometimes think about shaving you off or restyling you into a mere mustache, I won’t do it beard. We have a good thing going and right now we both need each other more than ever. Keep growing beard and stay curly.

Keep that chin up,
Face host guy

Other News:

This is the creepy Thanksgiving greeting displayed on one of the channels that usually shows flight information. If you look closely you will notice that every character in the picture has full facial hair.

The Turkey Trot. My goal was just to not get beat by the person in the banana suit. This picture is about 50 yards before the finish. As you can see I just barely accomplished my goal.

My Erebus trip has been postponed. Instead I went out to Lake Vanda in the Wright Valley to help with camp takeout. This is a picture of heaps of camp crap and some folks leaving on a helicopter in the background.

View of Lake Vanda after we took down all the camp structures.

The poop tent. Inside the yellow scott tent is a box with a 5 gal. bucket inside of it. The bucket holds poop, and poop only...no liquids allowed.

People, crap, and the kitchen tent. Shuffling stuff around and packing up. The camp is actually located on an island in the middle of the frozen lake.

This is a picture of the lake. Crazy pattern in the ice.

Looking back into the fog at Vanda camp while on a hike across the lake.

Vanda camp. The scientists were diving into the lake (under the ice) taking samples and observations in the water. These tents were the science lab tent and the diving tent.

Living quarters at Lake Vanda.