Hint: I am holding a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ é _ _ in this picture. The fifth character (of nine total) in the ThinkGeek code is the letter that this word begins with.

Observe! A photo taken after the wedding of my dear friend. See that beard? Aside from some tidying up, it survived! Turns out the other groomsmen were all suitably hirsute, and we decided that we should all keep our facial hair for the special day!

Win win!

All the rules of my fun little contest are here.

Hint: I'm not sending out an SOS.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you have found many things to be thankful for. Me? I'm thankful for Oban 14 year single malt and for my brief time with this beard, which will be shorn some time tomorrow.

I'm also thankful that I have a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate code that I'm giving away.

At this point, I've given hints for 4 characters of the gift code. They're in order. To review:

• Check out every remaining beard picture and figure out the code
• Spread the word (Facebook, Twitter, whatever!) and donate, because if I break $500, I'm giving away another gift code to one lucky, random individual who leaves a comment here!

Read all of the rules here

Hint: Come on. This one's easy.

Traveled most of the day. We're up in western Massachusetts for Thanksgiving, then off on Friday to upstate New York for my friend's wedding. And, yes... I still have to shave my beard.

But here's today's hint! It won't be a common theme. Hopefully just a periodic one.

Hint: Each cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each.

So far, no more donations. I guess there are some people out there that hate ThinkGeek and love cancer. Who would've thought?

Nevertheless, I press onward. Tonight, I lose some hair. Namely, that upon my head. Tomorrow or the next day will see the demise of my beard. All for the sake of marital bliss.

But you? You could win a $50 ThinkGeek gift card. Maybe even two $50 ThinkGeek gift cards. All you have to do visit every day, leave comments, and crack the code!

Hint: See code page 437

Wow. This is an all-time low. We're two-thirds of the way through this whole thing and here I am with a grand total of four beard photos? I am full of fail. And I apologize.

It gets worse. I'm in a wedding this weekend. I am, in fact, the best man. Now, I don't think I'd cause a huge amount of strife with the groom (or his bride-to-be) if I showed up to his nuptials looking like Grizzly Adams in a tux. But I'd prefer not to test the friendship. Which means... well... a shave and a haircut.

To attempt in some way to make up for wussing out, I would like to draw as much attention to HoNoToGroABeMo as I can. I'm just a humble country blogger and I don't have a huge amount of draw, but what I do have is a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate code. I think the people who follow me on GeekDad and Twitter and Facebook like themselves some ThinkGeek, and hate themselves some cancer, so... I'm experimenting.

I'm posting every day until the end of the month. And there will be a hint in each daily beard photo that will slowly unveil the gift certificate code.

Clearly, donating money is not required, though it is, of course, immensely appreciated. If you come here every day and check out my beardly progress (or lack thereof), you should be able to figure out the code and use it. Hopefully you can do this before other people snatch it up. But you don't have to donate a single red cent to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in order to win. Although you should.

But when I hit $500 in donations , I will add another $50 gift certificate to the mix. This one will be a random drawing from anyone who leaves a comment on my beard updates. Which means you should start commenting now, just in case. ;)

If I hit $1000... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. But it'll be big. I promise.

In short:

• Visit every day to get each hint
• Leave a comment every day, just in case we hit $500 in donations to the BCRF
• Donate! Because, honestly, that's what this is all about: fighting some cancer and saving some boobies!
• Spread the word so that we hit $500 in donations!

Note: ThinkGeek or HoNoToGroABeMo have nothing to do with this. This is all me. If it's illegal, then it's all my fault.

Itchy!

My neck is starting to itch. And I have a seminar to lead next week. Do I trim myself to look respectable or just make my students deal?

Neckbeard is imminent

Had a blast yesterday with a bunch of friends who descended upon our house and played the hell out of some games: King of Tokyo (which rocks!), Elder Sign (also awesome!), The Resistance, Death Angel, Bang!, and Last Night on Earth. You'd think it would have satisfied my gaming itch, but this weekend, I'm headed to the MACE convention in High Point, NC to chuck more dice. I think I have a problem.

Not much else to report, other than... the plan is in motion. I hope. This should be the week! NO MORE MISSED DAYS!

Ok, ok. I missed two days. I missed TWO DAYS DURING THE FIRST WEEK. I am a pile of fail.

But, listen. I'm going to make it up. I've got almost an entire month to do this. I have an idea, a crazy idea that just. Might. Work.

I will put this idea into effect next week, I think. We'll see whether or not I can rustle up some scratch for this whole charity thing.

My face feels things now that I never knew existed. Like razor burn.

This is strange. I do not like it. It is cold outside and my face is unprotected.

Let it never be said that I do not love the boobies.

GOONGALA!

So I will post my Halloween costume instead. Which hid my scruff quite effectively. This will be the first time I have either shaved completely or have grown anything more than a week's scraggle since last year's competition.

It's on! GOONGALA!