The end of Movember

At my place of work, we were encouraged to participate in Movember.  Movember is a movement in which men are asked to start on November 1 clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the rest of the month in order to call attention to men's health issues.  I'd never grown a moustache before.  At the end of 30 days we were to take pictures of ourselves and there would be a contest to determine whose moustache was king.


This is the spiffy moustache advertising Movember at the Movember website.

December 1st I promptly shaved my moustache.  Tricia was happy.  I was shooting for a handlebar moustache or the stylish one like shown above, but I fell woefully short.  My 30 day moustache made me look like a villain or perhaps someone you'd see in a mug shot.  I'll get back to Movember in a moment, but first...

Friday night the boys and I watched an old movie that was made in 1984 when I was a senior in high school.  I remember going to the movies to see it.  The name of the movie was "Red Dawn."  If you haven't seen it, I'll give you a quick plot summary.  A group of high school students are sitting in a high school history class when parachutes start dropping out of the sky.  They gather by the window to watch as uniformed soldiers hit the ground with AK-47's.  The teacher goes out to confront the soldiers and is promptly shot along with a number of students.  The soldiers are Russians, Cubans, and other communists who are taking over the United States by force in the midst of the Cold War.  The protagonists escape in a four wheel drive pickup truck, load up on supplies and survival gear and head for the mountains.  A couple of the boys had been taught by their dad how to survive  off the land and this skill pays great dividends!  Throughout the rest of the movie, the boys launch raids on the heavily armed and superior trained communists and use the element of surprise and knowledge of the territory to ultimately defeat the insurgent communists. 

Okay, so the movie was pretty far fetched - a lot far fetched.  But one thing that I could take from the movie is that it is always a good idea to be prepared.  Look at recent events with Super storm Sandy, with the people in New Orleans during Katrina, wildfires in Colorado, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc.  FEMA and other government agencies have been set up to take care of people in the event of disasters.  You know what?  They can't.  They can't possibly take care of everyone in every situation.  We need to take steps to take care of ourselves.  We are responsible for our families.  We are called to help our neighbors in such times.  We need to make a plan and take steps to become a little more self-reliant.  I'd like to talk a bit about this in the next few entries.  This should always be balanced against our ultimate reliance on God.  If we ever think that we are the masters of our own destiny, we have fallen to the sin of pride.

Now from seriousness to foolishness, back to Movember and the tie in to Red Dawn...  My aunt and uncle had taken a trip to Russia a number of years ago and returned with some unique Russian caps as souvenirs for the boys.  After watching the movie, I took a few pictures with my hideous moustache, the cool Russian caps, and a decidedly villainous look.  


That's scary

Here's another where "Ivan" has the evil eye. 

From Russia with Love



Where are the Wolverines?



Hat Head

So with the help of some clippers and encouragement of my family, on the first day of December, I said farewell to Movember.


The 'Stache is gone