Many people ask me a variety of questions. Some are about programming, some about mountain bikes, some about reptiles.

Some are about something that's bigger than me or any single source file or database dump. It's about a matter that should be at the highest importance to every software developer:

My hair.¹

Yes, my hair. I'm not even going to not brag, I have some pretty awesome hair. If you then factor in the beard…well…I just can't be stopped.

The essentials

• Dreads originally done on January 17, 2003.
• Fifty dreads in total.
• Three of those are a combination of more than one dread.
• Two front dreads started out just being to touch my nose, now reach past my belt.
• It took 3 people (2 working at a time) and 3 movies over the course of 6 hours to put them all in.
• Only natural products from Knotty Boy were used.

The beginning

For the first two months, I waxed them every day with the special dread wax. This is important to keep them all together in the initial stages.

For the first couple years, I slept with a T-shirt pulled over my head, to keep the dreads off of the pillow. Since you cram your hair full of wax putting them in, this gradually comes out through washing and regular wear and tear. Using the T-shirt keeps your pillow clean.

The progress

Since a picture's worth a thousand words:

The future

I intend to keep these for a long, long time. I'd like to get them to my ankles, and then decide what to do. Maybe trim them, or maybe just figure out a new way to wrap them to get them off the ground. I don't know yet, but it'll be a while before they get that long.