@Tom E. hence, the "I think I'm insane" title....  Thank you for the positive comments and again honest opinion. I like it too.

As a side story, I got head-hunted and did a skype interview with the recruiter. My profile on Skype had a full beard and my CV was 5 year old clean shaven.  I did the Skype video interview with full beard, big stache, and he laughed and commented that "he wondered which version he would interview".  He asked that I get a "CV Beard Pic" that he could include with his notes to the contracting company, just so I wouldn't shock them.  Stepping ahead 2 weeks was the time that I did the corporate trim and stache hack.  Face to face interview with the company.  Some beard discussion since there were variations of Phes throughout the CV-clean/CV-big beardnstache/in-person trimmed, but mostly business.  Got another call-back, so they will get circle-beard-Phes on the upcoming visit.

The moral of this story (to me) is that---within reason---I can have whatever I want in my face and still stay professional.  I have a bit of a concern about going back to a bigger stache since it was the behavioral aspect that led me to a trim rather than the look. But following the beard-and-food (stache and food) discussions on the board give me confidence that I can probably find a happy place with a bigger stache.