5 People keep asking me about
6 [the beard thing](http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22838/1090/)... Here's
7 my take on what happened and why.
9 Just before I left for [LCA 2009](http://lca2009.linux.org.au), my
10 wife offered to send along one of the
11 [limited edition prints](http://karenskollage.blogspot.com/2008/11/copies-of-waterfall-photo-for-sale.html)
13 [award-winning waterfall photograph](http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/natures_best_2008/gallery/waterfall.html). She knew from prior years that the LCA
14 organizers often host an auction or raffle to raise money for some worthy
15 charity at the conference banquet. Since the photo was taken at
16 [Milford Sound](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Sound) on the way
17 to last year's [LCA in Melbourne](http://lca2008.linux.org.au/),
18 there was a connection between the photo and LCA. We had no idea what
19 this year's charity might be, nor did we anticipate that her photo
20 would become the centerpiece of the evening's fund-raising activities.
22 The charity selected this year was an organization that is trying to
23 [save the Tasmanian Devil](http://www.tassiedevil.com.au/) from
24 extinction. Professor Hamish McCallum, the chief scientist with the
25 program, gave a talk after dinner and before the auction began.
26 The native population is suffering from a fatal facial tumor disease that
27 results in horrible lesions, and is likely to kill off all the Devils within
28 a decade or three. My family and I all have a strong love of nature, and
29 Karen and I had the pleasure of touring Tasmania after
30 [LCA 2003 in Perth](http://www.linux.org.au/conf/2003/), so this seemed like
31 a great charity to raise money for with her photo.
33 As often happens at LCA, the auction and related fund-raising activities
34 got complicated. This year, the photo alone was bid up to $2500 (which was
35 very cool!), before people started offering things for higher bids. For years,
36 going maybe as far back as Perth, I've been cajoled about shaving my beard
37 if the bidding hit some level, and have always said no. This year, someone
38 offered $5000 if I would shave my beard, and again I said no. Much later,
39 after more cajoling and many counter offers, when the bids and various
40 matching offers had us approaching $20,000 in total donation to the charity,
41 I relented and announced that if we hit a total of $25,000 going to the
42 charity I would consent to a shave. The resulting frenzy, including
43 the suggestion that if it went high enough
44 [Linus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds) should do the
45 shaving, and the formation of a [bidding consortium](http://www.flickr.com/photos/varrqnuht/3214594907/) that kept raising more
46 money and bidding against itself, was completely unexpected! Others have
47 tried to capture [details of the insanity](http://zarfmouse.livejournal.com/291848.html),
48 but the bottom line is that by the end of the evening, the total had blown
49 *way* past anything we could have imagined, and by the end of the conference
50 the total going to the charity was on the order of $40,000!
52 Why did I agree to let Linus shave my beard? To be honest, I'm not entirely
53 certain. I only had one beer that evening, so I can't blame intoxication. The
54 fact that it would yield a worthy charity something over 10 times what my
55 wife's photo alone had drawn as a maximum bid seemed significant to me. In
56 hindsight, I also think I was at least a little bit curious to see what
57 my face looked like after having a beard since sometime around September
58 of 1982! In any case, I made the offer, insane amounts of money were raised,
59 and on the last day of the conference, over the lunch hour, Linus took
60 trimmers in hand and removed my beard in front of an audience.
62 The reactions have been completely overwhelming. A local TV station
63 and a local newspaper in Hobart were both there and ran stories. The ripple
64 of mentions in the blogosphere was and is just astounding. There's even a
66 [Shaving Bdale](http://andrew.secretlab.com.au/lca2009/ShavingBdale.html)
67 game created overnight by the "Mad Scientists" at
68 [Secret Lab](http://secretlab.com.au)! And from all over the globe, people
69 I do and don't know have been sending emails and finding me on IRC to plead
70 with me to grow my beard again! Right after the shave, my good friend
71 [Keith Packard](http://keithp.com) said "Bdale, grow it back!". Before
72 I left Hobart, my wife emailed saying she and the kids hoped I wasn't
73 waiting until I got home to start. Joey Hess blogged
74 [a hairy tale](http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/a_hairy_tale/) about
75 how I'd scarred the minds of young Debian developers. The leader of
76 [Debian-RS](http://www.debian-rs.org/) sent word by email that the group
77 all hoped I would re-grow my beard. And on and on and on... I'm really not
78 used to being the center of so much attention!
80 Being suddenly without beard felt weird in lots of silly little ways. I
81 was hyper-sensitive to drafts. The feel of cold beverages hitting my upper
82 lip was downright strange. And I kept wanting to scratch what wasn't there!
83 After making faces at myself in the mirror for a while, I decided I really
84 wasn't happy, and do prefer being bearded. So I haven't shaved since Saturday
85 morning in Hobart, and am pretty scruffy looking. My wife said today that
86 I'm "already starting to look like Bdale again".
88 At the current growth rate, I have high hopes of having at least some facial
89 dignity back by the time I
90 [speak at FOSDEM](http://fosdem.org/2009/schedule/events/debian). And no,
91 I won't be shaving my beard off again any time soon...
projects / web / gag.com / blob