Growing up, I was a metal head. It was always my dream to have long hair. Since I attended Catholic school, with a rather strict dress code, long hair was not an option for me. I tried a couple of times, with little success, to grow my hair out.

During my senior year of high school, knowing that I would soon be into college and free of dress codes, I decided to grow my hair out. By the time I started OSU, I had a pretty good start.

My hair grew pretty quickly, but unfortunately gravity never took over so my hair literally grew out. In the spring of my freshman year of college I participated in the OSU Renaissance Festival. I appeared on the cover of the Dispatch's Weekender. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to identify me in the photo. Click to embiggen.

Shortly after that photo was taken I got my hair cut short, and have kept it relatively short ever since. Every six months or so I'll think "I wonder what I would look like with long hair" and try for a couple months to grow my hair out. Every time the same thing happens, much to my disappointment: I realize how silly I look and grumblingly visit my barber.

Interestingly, the same thing happens with my (lack of) beard. I've always wanted to grow a big Grizzly Adams beard, so that I could shave off the chin and have handsome mutton chops connected to a mustache (yes, I want to look like Lemmy from Motörhead!). Alas, I can go months without shaving and most people can't even see that I'm working on a beard.