SXSW Followup/Death of Beardfest 2KX

OK, so as I write this I'm enjoying a huge black cup of coffee with a donut that looks alot like this:

I haven't had a besprinkled (if it wasn't a word before it is now) donut since forever ago. I feel I've become less adventurous as I age because 10 years ago I would've bolted straight for all this colourful goodness without being forced into it (they were out of sprinkle-less chocolate). In my professional opinion, sprinkles have doubled my enjoyment of this donut.

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Alright, back on track. I'm following up on my Spring Break post where I talked about SXSW. Of my listed goals while I was in Austin I would say I accomplished about two out of the seven things I stated I was gonna do. Austin was experiencing some turrible weather the day I decided to visit. Temperatures in the 40s, lotsa rain, lotsa wind. This weather factored into where I ended up going. I didn't wanna have to wait by myself for very long in that kinda weather so I broke down and met Sara and Ashley (Arlington friends) at the Rachel Ray SXSW party. Before I go any further I wanna say that these two are absolutely adorable humans and made my day so so awesome.

So anyways, I was gonna be seeing the Black Keys/Broken Bells/She & Him. What I ended up seeing was a show by Andrew W.K. (man knows how to party), Dr. Dog (so so good, I accosted the bassist at the end of the show and I think we bonded), Jakob (I swear, my dad's famous, guys) Dylan, and She & Him! Zooey Deschanel was as captivating as ever and M. Ward managed to throw some creeptastic vibes in from the side of the stage.

Long story short, it's not what I planned but I had an absolute blast (thanks SarAshley!).

To close of SXSW here are some pictures courtesy of Sara!

Rachael Ray and Matthew McConaughey

Andrew W.K.

Dr. Dog

M. Ward without creeptastic facial hair

Zooey Deschanel

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As for Beardfest2KX... Towards the end I was getting comments like "Dude, could you be any manlier" and "can I touch it?" but I don't think I'm quite enough of a man to grow a beard yet. It ended up lasting about a week (due to un-forseen formal circumstances) and I'm calling this year a failure. But I have high hopes for 2K11... Very high hopes.

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Additional benefits of sprinkled donuts that I just now realized: if you get lucky you'll end up finding a rogue sprinkle or two in the bottom of your coffee cup.

I just found three.

Beardfest 2KX

Title pretty much says it all.

Ever since I can remember I wanted to grow a beard. And since my freshman year of college I've held annually an event that I like to call "Beardfest". During Beardfest I go as long as I possibly can without shaving to see if I've become enough of a man to grow a beard. Usually it takes 1-2 weeks to know for sure if my facial hair has what it takes to grow a full, beautiful beard.

Beardfest 2K7 was a miserable failure.

Beardfest 2K8 showed more promise but ultimately ended the same as the year before.

Beardfest 2K9 was cut short due to a series of unfortunate circumstances.

That brings us to Beardfest 2KX, which began on Sunday, March 21st. So far things are sparse, to say the least, but it has only been 3 days so far and it's way too early to tell. I'll keep y'all updated as to how things go.

I don't mean to be pessimistic but I don't have real high hopes for 2KX. Maybe it'll happen but probably not. I'm looking forward to 2K11 and 2K12 to be my years of real growth.

I'll leave you with some of my beard inspiration.

Unfortunately I can't find a single photo of Evan Kirkendall's beard but he's also a huge inspiration for me.

Seacrest out.