Here it is at last: the final installment of my twelve-part series, Better Know a Beard. And finally we come to the man who turned the utter silliness of How Not to Grow a Beard Month into something worthwhile and—dare I say it?—noble.

Bob Voegerl is eleven feet tall,¹ and every inch a nerd. Or geek. Or possibly both. When, in my very first installment of Better Know a Beard, I speak of Wesley Clifford's "extremely talented friends", Bob tops the list. He provided the voices for several characters on Planet Retcon Radio² and co-hosts the Volcanicast podcast.³

Bob speaks entirely in haiku. Almost. Okay, that's a slight embellishment; perhaps even a downright fabrication, if not just a damn lie. However, it is absolutely true that there are many, many haiku⁴ to be found at Bob's blog, The Cynical Optimist. Seriously. Haiku. Nerd.

But Bob isn't just a casual nerd. Oh, no. He's also a professional nerd. I'm not sure exactly what it is Bob does for a living, but I can tell you that it is incredibly nerdy and, in the words of the now-defunct Barenaked Ladies, "it involves the Internet".

Last year, Bob decided that How Not to Grow a Beard Month needed a home on the Intertubes, so he purchased HoNoToGroABeMo.org and built the first version of this site, giving nine rather dubious beards a public forum in which to display their growth throughout the month of November. This year, after his mother lost a brief but intense battle with cancer, Bob added Beards4Boobs to the site, thus turning our foolish pursuit into something that we can be proud of when we pick up our razors again tomorrow morning.

Let's see: 50,000 words written for NaNoWriMo and over $2,500 raised for breast cancer research. I think it is safe to say that Bob has kicked November's ass.

Bob lives in Ohio with his wife, fish, cats, and LEGO TIE Interceptor.

¹Plus or minus 4'7".

²Check out the short story "The Hoff" for a fine example.

³I believe that Bob holds the distinction of Most Consecutive Episodes Hosted for Volcanicast.

⁴Yes, the plural of haiku is haiku. I looked it up.