no No Shave November

unfortunately, there was only one response to the call for "no shave november" and it was from Steve who sent me an article about this guy.



thanks steve. we all lose to this guy.

i will continue with my no shave november.

pics to follow.

No Shave November Begins

No Shave November: a community art project*

thelongbrake has done some great community art projects over the last couple years. i have thoroughly enjoyed participating and having my eyes tickled by all the images from around the us and the world.

i have now ventured out to do my own.

with a twist.

josh's usually have some great spiritual truth about them. mine won't. well, i guess it does in that God is truth and it is true that men can grow facial hair.

_____________________

the rules

_take a picture of yourself on nov 1 freshly shaven
_email picture to me (nhughes@josiahventure.com)
_don't shave during november
_take a picture dec 1
_email picture to me

additional rules for the ambitious

_choose facial hair type from the pic above
_attempt to immitate
_email pic to me

please feel free to link this, invite friends, or whatever to make this the greatest facial hair display the world (or at least the internet) has ever seen.

RIP: Dreads

Yep, its true, the dreads are gone. After nine months of very little showering and caring way too much about how my hair looked, I decided to send them to the afterlife.

Upon closer inspection, I found zero...that's right, zero, bugs in any of them. I did find a ton of sand and a pencil that I thought I lost in February, but no bugs.

Here is a pictoral tribute to some of the more interesting dreads:

The Seahorse Dread:



The Marriage Dread (where two become one):



The Baby Dread (the smallest of this dysfunctional dread family):



The Perfect Dread (this was the closest one to good):



The ? Dread (seriously, is that dread wearing a tutu? I have no idea what happened to this one):


That was the first time scissors touched my head in over two years. In all honesty, my head is cold. But showers are nicer. You win some, you lose some.

silver box of encouragement

every once in a while i get a care package sent to me here in czech. regardless of its contents i am also super encouraged by the thoughtfulness of such box.

but, just last week i received arguably the best care package in the history of care packages.

there were many things in it but two items stuck out above the rest:

sweet tee


silver box of encouragement


so, this little box is one of the best gifts that i've ever received...my friend cams (she has a human being growing in her stomach right now) contacted my friends and asked them to tell her things that they love about me. she then printed, lamenated, and cut all of these little nuggets and put them in this silver box of encouragement. so that "in discouraging times, homesick times or even happy times, you can read through our favorite things about you and be encouraged! We love and miss you - The Gang"

you guys rock!

the dream is over

i love facial hair.

when i lived in arizona i was always opressed by "the man"...the man being some job that i worked at that regulated what i could grow. the best i could do was sideburns and even those were regulated...they couldn't be too long or too bushy.

well all that has changed on the mission field.

i have been able to experiment and change it up quite often. my little heart has been filled with joy.

one of those heart warming adventures has been my six month old beard.



i've grown quite fond of the "little" guy, but i knew his time was drawing to an end. summer is coming and summer is no place for a beard of this magnitude although two of my friends disagree.





so, tonight the dream ended. i'll be honest in saying that i was more sad than i thought that i'd be. so distraught was i, that i had to take a moment alone with my beard in the bathroom to say some final words to one another. i did most of the talking.

the culprit:



the process:







the outcome:



i'm pretty sure the 'stache is only for 24 hours...

dread update #3: no rubberbands

progress:

took rubberbands out.

hair is more frizzy.

look like a bum.

dread update: one week

Before I get to the pics I have a few things to say about dreads.

1. They are spelled dreads, not dreds.
2. They are a lot more work than I thought they would be.
3. There is an instant community that you join once you have dreads. I've already talked to a couple from Poland on the street.
4. I never thought I'd be walking around Cesky Tesin looking for "shampoo without residue" or "good hair wax".

OK, here are the latest pictures.

the day my parents have been dreding...

I have been wanting dreds for a while now. I mean, really, why else would I have let my hair get so unbelievably long! So, it has finally happened. While at our annual Thanksgiving Gathering, one of my friends, Erin, said she knew how to do them. After hours of talking, getting caught up on The Office, watching football, playing Risk, and with some help from Lucka, I now have dreds.



I've learned a lot about dreds and how they work over the last few days. One thing I found out is that it takes about a month or two before they really start looking good. To stay up to date on "Dred Watch" (waa-konggg), check out this site for regular updates...

Hair Anniversay

I haven't cut my hair for one year!



August, 2005



August, 2006

Nacho Libre

In college, when I had a goatee and wore a cowboy hat, people told me I looked like Tim McGraw. I don't know, maybe it was the chest hair.



At other times in life I've been told I looked like Quentin Tarantino.



But for the last couple years the most often heard reference is to that of Jack Black.

I definitely think I look like him, but what I think seals the deal is the similarities of our personalities. If I ever throw up a rock fist or play air guitar, people see Dewey Finn of School of Rock.



If I get irritated and angry they see the Motorcyclist from Anchorman.



But most recently, as my hair has gotten absurdly shaggy and I had a mustache for a month I am immediately pegged as Nacho Libre.





At our recent US Team training a couple of high schoolers got creative and this is what they threw up on the screen at the end of one of my evening talks.



Uncanny resemblance...I think so.