Pipes and Beards

A few months ago, a question on a page I follow on FaceBook asked why do a lot of pipe smokers have beards? There were various answers and conversations bantered about. I noticed that a good part of the members of the local pipe club I am active with, have beards or some sort of facial hair.

I have been thinking about this and decided to express my own reasoning.

A beard will pick up scents from the environment, mine does all the time, but I don't go smelling it looking for any lingering aroma from smoking my pipe (that is just weird in my opinion). In fact I wash my beard daily (sometimes more than that) so that it does not have any residual odors, aside from the fragrance of my Castile soap.

Beards are associated with manliness and I guess pipe smoking is too. So I guess smoking a pipe and having facial hair is an increased sign of pure manhood in some odd equation. But again, I do not have or do either to be more of a man.

Beards and pipes are on a resurgence with the 'hipster' movement, but then again, I do not consider myself a 'hipster.' There is the Tolkienians (spelling?) and the wizard thing, but still not my thing. The swarthy sea captain would be the next stereotype, maybe an distant imagine for me, but I don't own a boat (but it is in my Irish roots).

I guess the reasoning that fits closest to me would be the intellectual (psuedo or not) connection. You know, the bearded professor type that smokes a pipe. When asked a question, it is relaxing to take a sip from the pipe, clench it in your teeth, and lightly stroke the beard before answering. Usually nothing profound because I am not that good, but at least I can pretend it is going to be a worthy thought out response.

So, why do others have a beard and enjoy a pipe at the same time? I don't know, why don't you ask them, I sure they will have an answer.

Milestones and Updates

It has been a while since I have done a milestones post, so here is a short synopsis of the stats of this blog and of course what is going on with the facial hair...

• 200+ posts, 4500+ views in 3+ years
• I recently trimmed over an inch off the beard, while I can still wax into a handlebar, I rarely do currently.

That is it for now.

Today's Gun Culture

I am not going into a huge rant here on the 2nd Amendment, but just want to point out the issue that many hardcore alt-righters have with gun control.

As I write this, there is a man loose in this country that has written a 160 page manifesto against the government and then robbed a gun store in Wisconsin. Does the manifesto bother me...no, not really. Does the robbing of the gun store bother me...a little, but as a society we have not figured out how to stop crime so this will continue to happen.

My big issue (and the true crime here) is that the store that was robbed, does not have an accurate inventory of what was taken. He took a dozen guns (which were inventoried), a bullet proof vest and helmet (why are these available) and possibly (POSSIBLY) some suppressors...the suppressors were not inventoried and they (authorities and store owners) are not even sure how many were taken...seriously?

Why?

If you want to own a gun, go get a license and registration, and own a gun. If you want to own a "bad-ass" gun, go get the extra license, registration, and own a "bad-ass" gun. It is not rocket science, it is public safety.

Gun control to me is having a thorough vetting process, a working registry, and sensible laws. That is all, if you want to play with bad-ass guns, go through the proper channels. If you want a gun that is not going to wake the neighbors when you shoot your spouse in a heated argument, go through the proper channels. If you need a gun that holds 20-rounds of ammunition for sport shooting (hunting), because you are that bad a shot, go through the proper channels. If you need a weapon that shoots numerous rounds per millisecond (because you don't like taking viagra), go through the proper channels.

Have a wonderful day and safeties on people.