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.

In the penultimate installment of my ultimate series, Better Know a Beard, we meet our final participant from south of the Mason-Dixon Line, where the men are manly and the women will hurt me so I'll just shut up now.

Jim Van Verth wears many hats:¹ he is an author, a podcaster,² a software engineer, a husband, a father, and a beard-sporter.

Jim's podcast, The Vintage Gamer, is an exploration of the games of years-gone-by; an aural Wayback Machine of sorts, which whisks us back to a yesteryear when dice had just six sides and a person proclaiming they had wood for sheep was locked up on the spot.

Jim's book, Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, is a rollicking tale of romance on the high seas, where every buckle is swashed and nary a bodice goes unripped. Or it may be a presentation of "the core mathematics necessary for sophisticated 3D graphics and interactive physical simulations".³

Jim lives in North Caroline with his wife, their daughter, and a little brown dog.⁴

¹This may well be a lie, as I've never seen Mr. Van Verth wear even one hat.

²A rarity in these parts.

³I get the two confused.

⁴That sound vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

In part 1010 of my 1100-part series, Better Know a Beard, we meet a podcaster and web developer who—

Wait, didn't I profile Chris Miller in the previous installment? Oh, this is another web developer who has appeared on multiple podcasts. Right. Got it. Where was I?

The first thing one ought to know about David Moore is that he does not regularly sport a beard.¹ The second thing one ought to know is that David is the co-host of The Game Master Show, which is billed as "the best RPG podcast with glowing teddy bears". David also maintains a blog, Virtual Thoughts from eRoom-D, which is largely concerned with web development and game design.²

David may or may not have had something to do with the cancellation of Firefly, but he almost certainly was involved with After Serenity a roleplaying game campaign set in the same universe as Joss Whedon's ill-fated television series.³

David lives in Illinois with his wife, children and dirigible.

¹His wife won't let him.

²I know what you're thinking: there's a Venn diagram waiting to happen.

³No, the other one.

In part eleventy-three thousillion of my twelve-part series, Better Know a Beard, we meet a man who moved back to Cleveland. Alas, there is neither enough time in the month nor are there enough letters in the alphabet to fully explore the psychological peculiarities that would compel a man to do such a thing.

Chris Miller is many things: husband, father, codeshaman, coffee snob, Mac owner, overlord, podcaster and reformed LARPer. He is also a thinking man, and occasionally his thoughts can not be contained within the boundaries of his own mind. When Chris releases his thoughts, he does so at Unquiet Desperation, where a sufficiently curious and resourceful person might also find episodes of a podcast by the same name.

Chris may well be the most co-dependent (or perhaps cooperative) man alive. He has co-hosted no less than four podcasts and co-founded Podiobooks.com, where can be found more than 360 free audiobooks.

Oh, those co-podcasts?

1. The Round Table from The House of the Harping Monkey, a discussion of mythology as it relates to popular culture in general and roleplaying games in particular. Co-hosted with Mick Bradley and Kris Johnson.
2. Shadowdance, an exploration of alternate spirituality. Co-hosted with Michelle Belanger.
3. The NaNoMonkeys, featuring tips and tricks for participants of National Novel Writing Month. Co-hosted with P.G. Holyfield, Mur Lafferty and Kris Johnson.
4. The Secret Lair, the adventures of two thirty-something midwestern geeks in their quest for tri-county domination. Co-hosted with Kris Johnson.

Chris lives near Cleveland with his wife, three children, and MacBook.

In part eight of my twelve-part series, Better Know a Beard, we meet a contender who sets herself apart from the rest in two ways:

1. She does not possess a Y-chromosome.
2. She is arguably better at not growing a beard than any other participant in How Not to Grow a Beard Month.

Mur Lafferty is responsible for approximately 22.7% of all content currently available on the Internet.¹ Most of this content is available at The Murverse, but here are a few that ought to be singled out:

• I Should Be Writing is a podcast "for wannabe writers, by a wannabe writer", though Mur could hardly be called a "wannabe" anymore. Her superhero novel, Playing For Keeps, was published in 2008.
• Heaven is a free, multi-season audiobook that begins with the death of two friends, Kate and Daniel, and follows them through the afterlife.
• What happens with a company that provides zombies as temporary employees merges with a local web company? Find out in The Takeover.
• Geek Fu Action Grip is, alas, on indefinite hiatus, but that shouldn't stop you from listening to Mur's geeky essays.

Mur lives in North Carolina² with her husband, daughter and little brown dog.

¹Very approximately.

²If you're keeping count, that's three beards (or not beards) from North Carolina. So far.

Uh...yeah. The less said about this guy the better. Moving on...

Welcome to part six of my twelve-part series, Better Know a Beard, where we get to know a little more about the people who are having various degrees of success growing crackling virility hedges this month.

Adam Johnson hails from the frozen northern wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula,¹ where he was probably raised by wolves, moose and the elusive (yet deadly) ice tortoise.

Unlike the majority of How Not to Grow a Beard Month contestants, Adam does not busy himself with blogging or podcasting, for he is altogether engaged in pursuits of an entirely manly nature. There is little time to worry about post tags and MP3 attachments when there are trees to be felled, when there is lumber to be jacked, when there are transmissions to be rebuilt, when there are muzzles to be loaded, when there is snow to be...mobiled.

As evidenced by the photo on the right,² Adam's manly pursuits generate more than enough masculine hormones to facilitate the growth a proper beard; a beard that just might have to kick your sorry butt if you don't straighten up your act.

¹Superior to the Lower Peninsula in every respect.

²Taken on the set of the upcoming film, ZZ Top: The Early Years, in which Adam is the stunt double for the actor who portrays the young Billy Gibbons.

As the end of the month approaches and I race to complete the twelve-part series that sheds some light on the faces behind the beards, it is nigh-inevitable that a certain amount of fact-checking will be neglected. Please do keep that in mind when reading this latest installment of Better Know a Beard.

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: Michael Harrison is not a PC. Oh, there may be some passing resemblance between Michael's unbearded face and that of John Hodgman,¹ but we are reasonably certain that they are not one and the same face. Sure, they've both got a certain cherubic quality, and they both wear thick-rimmed glasses, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: John Hodgman is genetically incapable of growing a beard.²

Not only is Michael capable of beard growth, he is also a contributor to Wired magazine's GeekDad blog, which suggests that he is:

1. A geek.
2. A dad.

Does Michael Harrison reside in North Carolina? In fact, he may. Does he have a wife who, in turn, has at least one arm? There is evidence to suggest that this, also, is true. Does he engage in the ancient and arcane art of "web analytics"? I do not believe he would deny it. What more is there to know about Michael Harrison? Alas, recently-adopted Internet Stalking legislature has limited my ability to adequately answer this question.

¹He's the PC in the "I'm a Mac...and I'm a PC" ads. Try to keep up, okay?

²It's true. You read it on the Internet. Just now.

If you're writing a twelve-part series of posts intended to better acquaint readers with the people behind the beards (as I am), it helps to know a bit about those people so you don't have to, well, make stuff up. But never mind that, it's time for the next installment of Better Know a Beard.

Jeff Greiner is not of this Earth. Oh, sure, he lives here now, but he was originally—

Wait a minute. Is he living here now? I don't even know. He claims to be somewhere in "North Carolina", but that sounds like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. He could be updating via tight-beam sub-etha wave transmitter, for crying out loud. The guy could be anywhere within twelve parsecs of Earth, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Or on. Or near.¹

Jeff claims to be some sort of teacher. Is he teaching human children unspeakable geometries? Perhaps he is teaching adolescent alieninjas² how to blend in with the native people of Raleigh or Durham or Winston-Salem;³ pretty much anywhere but Lumberton—the last thing you want to do is convince anyone you're native to Lumberton.

Jeff is also ostensibly the host of The Tome Show, a podcast featuring "Dungeons and Dragons News, Reviews and Interviews". I have never heard anyone interview a dragon before, but I seem to remember that talking dragons sound an awful lot like Sean Connery, so that would be pretty cool.

The last thing you should know about Jeff is that he started this whole business with a soul patch dangling from his lower lip.⁴ So he's probably also a beat poet.

¹Sneeze into the crook of your elbow, if nothing else. I don't want your blasted swine flu.

²Yes, alien ninjas.

³Winston-Salem Blending Tip #1: Always have a cigarette dangling from your mouth.

⁴I'm pretty sure it was intentional, but maybe he just failed his "Shave Entire Beard Off" roll.

Welcome to the third installment of my twelve-part series, Better Know a Beard.

Gaston "The Bearded Goose" Gosselin is an Ohio-based web developer who has, over the years, acquired a rather extensive collection of board, card and role-playing games. To ensure that he will always have someone nearby with which to play these games, The Usually-Bearded Goose has also, over the years, acquired a rather extensive collection of offspring,¹ which he refers to has his gaggle of goslings.²

In those rare moments when he is not actively expanding one collection or another, Gaston blogs at The Bearded Goose, which features game, book, movie and television reviews.

¹"Acquired" is, perhaps, not the appropriate verb.

²None of the gaggle is, as yet, bearded.