Your Prostate Can Thank Me Later

If you've followed the blog for a while, you know we have some issues with our facial hair. We also have issues with our prostates. This makes a deep run into Movember (or even no-shave November for the uncultured among you) a forgone conclusion. John recently gave his status, so I thought I'd catch you up on my progress.

November 1 - It's the final countdown. 

Much like every month, I just let my beard grow until I start looking like a hobo (I do have a job after all, and the missus doesn't exactly have a drifter fantasy). Then I get a haircut, trim my beard all the way down, and start the vicious cycle all over. For this year's Movember I decided to have a little fun and actually cut down to an honest-to-goodness mustache.

Went with the goatee in between. 

About this time I realized I had a lot more neck/chins than the last time I fully shaved. The last time I went all skin-faced, my current wife and then girlfriend said, basically, that if I ever did that again I'd be staying in a motel until it grew back. So this time I decided to leave some handlebars.

You know, tastefully.

And just for the weekend.

Because - based on the wife's reaction - the next time I try this, I'll be staying in a motel until it grows back.

For all of your trucking needs.

C'mon people, let's not waste this disturbing opportunity. Get out there and sign up for info, donate to the cause, and encourage your doctor to go ahead and drop a digit to save your life.

Movember Update

Where is this mustache taking me?

Great news everyone. I have a mustache. Not just some barely-there, fly by night, wispy hair thing. Its a fuzzy caterpillar below my nose. And I've noticed two things carrying it around with me. People will stare and people will ask questions. So far my favorite question has come from my boss. She was gone for the first week of growth and when I walked into her office, she said "Now this (pointing to her upper lip)... Is this on purpose?"

Now most self-conscious people would take this as an insult... However, I took that opportunity to explain to her the whole Movember movement, about how men's health isn't just a magazine, and why the cause is important to me. Since then, I've had similar questions and it felt great to explain why I'm doing this have chosen to look like Tom Selleck.

So now that we are fully engaged in the month, I'm gonna do something I've never done to the blog audience, sign up online and make yourself aware of some of the issues that face today's man. You can join my "sub-team" under the mothership of the Midwest Mustache Alliance (more on them later). If you want to donate money, great. Please do, but just signing up means a lot. It means you care enough about men's health issues and want to do something about it.

Now, as mentioned before, go check out the boys over at the Midwest Mustache Alliance. they've teamed up with a couple of organizations that are offering some Movember goodness.

Moustaches and Men's Health

It's Fall, there is a nip in the air, the leaves are changing, and urinating outdoors isn't as easy to do with gloves on. One way men acclimate to the plummeting temperatures is growing out a beard to cut the bite of the air. Well, to those men (and to the closely shorn too) I ask that you maybe you reconsider your faces for the Month of November and go all MOvember on it.

What is Movember? Its a month to raise awareness for Men's Issues.

Specifically:
Living with and Beyond Cancer
Men living with prostate or testicular cancer have the care needed to be physically and mentally well.

Staying Mentally Healthy, Living with and Beyond Mental Illness
    •   Men are mentally healthy and take action to remain well
    •   When men experience mental illness they take action early
    •   Men are not treated differently when they experience a mental illness

Men's Health Research
We will fund innovative research that builds powerful, collaborative teams that accelerate:
    •   Improved clinical tests and treatments for prostate and testicular cancer
    •   Improved physical and mental health outcomes for men

Its also an opportunity to grow a sweet lip sweater.

So, with that I (John of the SFA) am pledging to be on board with the MOvember movement. And furthermore, the SFA is teaming up with the Midwest Moustache Alliance to help spread the word here in the heartland of America.

So, in the next few days & weeks, we'll be doing some cool stuff. We hope you can follow along, get yourself educated about your junk, and possibly grow out the whiskers under your nose. We'll ask for your money later.