Thanks again for the kind words, guys.

mr. sftd, I'm here quite a bit, but I've never posted much on any of the forums I've joined. I commented on this fact on post #21 of this thread. It's hard for me to express my thoughts through text. I spend too much time thinking about how the message should be composed... as a matter of fact, I've been working on these last few sentences for about 5 minutes.

Barba, That's it... that's all I get? Hmm... I was expecting a sack of midgets and a bucket of coke.

smedsted, I've actually been thinking about you. You had a fantastic big beard when I joined here and I remember before you went to the solo stache you did a really nice trim job on the beard. I remember you said that the trim job lasted several days as you cut a little by little while reassessing the state of the beard. I've been taking the same approach. Thank you.

lifesnotfair, It's hard to say... I just let the stache do what it wants most of the time. It's usually not so blended into the beard. I had just combed it along with the entire beard before the picture. The angle of the photo might be throwing things off, too. For certain things like band gigs, customer meetings and beard board update pics I'll try and pull it together.

mywifehatesmybeard, anxiety? Yes. Way, way earlier in this thread I posted about feeling the need to trim but being afraid to do it. Those feelings came and went many times along the way. It was just too much this time... I had been looking down at a dicked up beard every day for weeks if not months and I just couldn't shake the urge to fix it. So, late Saturday night, scissors in hand, I walked into the bathroom just to see how it felt to cut a couple split ends. I'd had about 8 cans of beer by this point and had planned on doing the trim when completely sober.  I found one from way underneath, pulled it out and cut it off. It felt good and my beard looked no different than it did before I cut it so I just kept on going. The moustache trim was a bit more difficult, but I think it benefited the most from this trim. Scissors or clippers? Scissors. Snip and leave? Snip the bad stuff, leave the good stuff. Shape? It is what it is and what it was and what it will be. Mirror or look down? Both, but mostly look down for the splits and mostly mirror for the long guys.

Patrick Beard, lucky you, indeed. No splits, eh? Unbelievable. I must be doing something wrong. I thought it was the dry WI winter, but you're in arid freaking AZ, right? I'd bet the majority of my whiskers were split. I'm still finding more everyday. Care to share some of your secrets?

My bucket's got a hole in it.