new thread
Getting grayer! (That's the kind of progress old longhairs get.)
Photo was taken today.
Hi Bill,
This is a wonderful pic of you and your awesome hair and beard! There's nothing wrong with that gray! You wear it well and I wish my hair would look that color! As long as we're making progress, all's well! Thanks for posting and please be well my friend! You're looking great!
Ted
Aren't we all? .... lookin good Bill! You are an inspiration!
All the best!
The Spaf Man
Great hair. And great beard! I cannot grow a full beard to save my life. I can manage a Van Dyke as it's called, but a Grizzly Adams beard is not in my genetic cards.
At 41 I see more and more grey as well. I used to dye it Black No. 1. That is a black hair dye available only to pros and is blacker than black itself. About as black one would discover at the heart of a singularity. But these days I just let the grey do as it wishes :-)
You must mean "pro" as in pro baseball player. Brian Wilson (above) had a beard like that when he pitched for the Giants. Fans would wear fake pitch black beards and carry signs to the ballpark reading "Fear the Beard!"
That expression is so "techie"! Thank goodness times have changed, and we now gaze into the stars instead of staring into the ground. When I was a kid in a mining town in the Ozarks, the expression was "Blacker'n a (epithet for an African person) in a coal mine!
Bill
That is one pretty black beard he had! Yes, that is most probably the infamous Black No. 1. Type O Negative has a song called Black No. 1 about a goth girl who wants to go out cuz it's raining and blowing, but she can't because her roots are showing. So she is told to dye 'em black. With Black No. 1!
I had to stop using it because at parties it would start to suck in all other colors and small household pets due to the strong gravitational force it emitted.
I actually went the other extreme and for a few months went 100% blonde! I do have some photos, but it was during the awkward phase of growth so I look a bit unkempt and maybe a tad goofy.
I liked the blonde, but with as much hair that I have now it would be a major hassle to keep up, and I fear all that stripping would just fry it into oblivion at some point!
And yes, as a society we have progressed an awful lot, but sadly degenerated in some others! Example, here in WA state, we legalized gay marriage and medicinal MJ, but then fiddled with the booze laws and made my favorite vodka now available at all grocery stores, but now it's $6-$8 bucks more expensive than before!!!!
Hi Bill,
As always your hair and beard look awesome in gray or any color I would admit :)I'm sure I have grays too but right now they are covered in henna but in a way I'd be interested how gray mine would be in say 10 years from now.Guess the only way I'll find out would be to stop the henna and let the natural grow out.Right now I'm lovin' the red still so have to see what the future holds;)BTW that room looks a tad familiar.Cheers
Mârk
Oh, stop the henna treatments, and you'll learn your natural color right away! And you'll look like those Channel 7 news anchor ladies who look like they have a new disease which I call part rot.
Yeah, that room is where I'm sitting right now. And that messy pile of papers are on Larry's desk, not mine. He noticed them when he saw I posted the pic.
Bill
Hey Bill,
Well maybe someday I will tire of the henna but at the moment I still have fun doing the treatments and enjoying the vibrant color I get from them :) I believe its been over two years now that I've been using the henna which requires touch ups every 8 or 9 weeks to keep it all fresh otherwise you start seeing the natural color showing in the new growth.If I were to go back to natural my decision would be to slowly let it grow out or dye my hair a sorta dirty blonde so its less noticeable.Here is a pic of my hair before the henna.Cheers
Mârk
Here is a pic of my hair before the henna.Cheers
Still looks damn good. Traja!
(Oh, that won't work with hair....)
Bill
you look like the wise sage that you are...
I'd listen to you...
Onward (check)
Downward (check)
Grayer (in progress)
Looking great, buddy!
- Oren
Hi Bill
Nice photo. Shows you diligently logged in to MLHH on a hair review assessment. I have the same TV too. An older SONY now, a beast of glass and weight but very reliable. Should last a long time. Thanks for sharing your office/ living room.
Don
The front of my living room
Funny! I was thinking the same thing!
Ted
The tuner's not the best. We live 3/4 mile from Sutro and we can see the tower outside our window, but the TV needs a good antenna to get much.
My husband Larry is a TV freak and he has about a dozen HDTV receivers of various vintage. One thing we've found is that the age of the tuner when it comes to digital reception is everything. Original cost means little. The technology to pull clear digital signals out of the ether has rapidly advanced in the last fifteen years that HDTV has been out. We got that TV right at the turn of the century. It was the biggest HDTV ever made with a 16x9 aspect ratio and a picture tube (rather than a flat screen). Sony had been known for the color quality of its picture tubes for many years, and the quality on that set did not disappoint!
The TV weighs about 200 pounds. It will never leave the floor it is on. It's now in the room we call "the radio room" which is now more of a "computer room" since the Internet has replaced ham radio as our communications hobby. We slid it in here from the living room when we got a flat screen for there.
Bill
Thanks Bill.
When TV broadcasts from the Bay area converted to digital, we couldn't receive any broadcasts with the TV. So we hooked it up to a cable basic plan. I didn't know the technology of digital reception got better. We have an HMDI TV five years old in Humboldt Co that picks up stations in Eureka 15 miles away. No cable bill. I didn't know that the range can exceed 70 miles now which is what I need for the north bay area.
Thanks for the technology update to look for a digital TV with a high range capability. Combined with Internet TV, I should be able to drop the Comcast bill. I've been learning Internet TV with a newer Apple 15" laptop with the retina screen, which is very clear for TV. I can take hair pictures with the tablet, then these automatically transfer to i cloud, then automatically copy to the Apple computer from the i cloud. My TV picture posted here was taken with the tablet, which automatically transferred to the computer from the cloud for me to post.
Don
The Eureka area is tough. You did well with 15 miles! You must have had a straight shot at the towers of the stations you wanted. The North Bay can also be dicey, because there are a lot of hills up there. If you are in a high spot, or you have a path that is mostly over the bay or other flatlands, you can do quite well up that way. We get stations from Santa Rosa and we are at 310 feet. Sutro is at about 900 feet, and they have a similar shot, which is across mostly flat areas at the midpoint between SF and Santa Rosa. Of course, if you have a large nearby hill looming in the south, you may have trouble getting stations down here.
Who will you use for Internet if you drop Comcast? Or do you use someone like Sonic.net now? We switched from AT&T DSL earlier this year to Comcast, and Comcast in comparison screams. Sonic.net is still piggybacked on top of AT&T here, so it's not an option yet, otherwise we would have gone with them. We don't use Comcast for TV. Dish Network is what Larry likes the best. Their pink kangaroo that jumps over all the prime time commercials is a very nice touch.
There are forums like MLHH for TV viewers. These forums are populated by two groups of people. One group is very transient. It is people who want help getting their antenna systems set up and then they go merrily along their way. The other group is guys who are really into the technology and enjoy helping others. There are lots of ham radio operators and TV engineers in this group. My husband Larry is in that second group. He is a retired engineer from ABC-TV. He worked for Channel 7.
The TV engineers use the forums for technical feedback from viewers, as well as helping viewers out, so the info flows both ways. The TV stations are all competitors in their advertising and programming endeavors, but the engineers are all friends, and they all know each other. The other visitors to the forums seldom know who the engineers are. I remember one time a viewer was having trouble getting a San Jose station, and one of the forum members worked with him to get his reception. Larry said to me, "He didn't know it, but the guy helping him out was the Chief Engineer of the station he was having trouble getting."
The forums are also a way to find someone to install your antenna system if you aren't able to. We used to do our own antenna work until we got too old to have the strength for that. Larry spent a couple of grand to get a really good system here, and he can receive stuff from the North Bay, the South Bay, and Sacramento. To just get stations mostly in one direction plus really strong local ones, you'd likely need much less, and a few hundred bucks would cover it. You need to get the right antenna and also install it such that the wind won't blow it down. Most ham radio operators know how to do this. Most other people don't.
Those forums are linked on Larry's broadcasting pages, but he'd surely direct you to the right one if you don't readily find it. He could probably help you himself with info, but using a forum might bring you in contact with people in your town who would understand the local challenges and may even come over and look at your situation if you need that and ask for help. You can contact Larry through a link on that broadcasting page I mentioned, if you want to. I'll mention we talked.
Over the air TV is great. And you can't beat the price! But you need an appropriate antenna system for where you live, or it will drive you nuts.
Good luck!
Bill
Thanks Bill,
Great to learn that you can receive stations from Santa Rosa. With a newer TV and advanced receiver. I also disconnected ATT DSL switching to both Comcast internet ($30.00 per month) and basic TV ($20.00 per month). The Comcast internet speed is 4 MPS, enough to run internet TV. I still have the radio shack antenna on the roof. Need to try a better receiver with this.
I have a Wifi set up in the living room to run laptops and a tablet without wires. This operates very well. I'm now using my laptop huddled in front of my wood stove on a freezing night again.
At the Apple Store training this morning, I'm learning a video telephone set-up called FaceTime which is like Skype. Can phone by e-mail seeing each other on the computer screen. This runs free on the internet. Can amount to a free phone.
There is free internet using Wifi connections at cafe's, restaurants. Some cities are entirely Wifi (like Singapore). So there should be free TV, internet and phone. Takes some figuring out. Thanks for the help.
Don
Our latest toy is the $35 Chromecast dongle. Plugged into our 52 inch flat screen TV, we can watch anything on the TV that is on the Internet, because it puts your Chrome browser window right on the TV. The Internet really comes to life when it is that big! For example, guys' progress pics on MLHH are life-sized.
I told Larry it was like "Web TV" all over again. Remember Web TV? A friend of mine in the '90s built the first prototype board for it, and I first saw it when he was showing it off at a party at his house. Microsoft then bought Web TV and he made a good chunk of change. Of course, back then TV monitors were small and their resolution was crap, while computer monitors were better, so Web TV never really caught on. Now TVs are huge and have great resolution, so it's like Web TV came before its time and flopped.
Bill
Interestingly I now recall that I had discovered your web site that chronicles your travels with Bill years ago.
I am the sort who has an odd fascination with borders, time zones and extreme points of geography. So looking for people who share this interest I found your travels site.
And now I find you here. Small Internet world we have here eh?
On the subject of Border Field St Park, that you called the world's ugliest State Park, well it just got uglier and they pretty much took away any reason at all to visit it.
When I went there you could go all the way down to the beach and if the tide was low enough you could wade out and straddle the end of the fence that runs into the sea. Also the two or three final sections were not capped so one could easily slip through the bars to the other side. I met and spoke with a bunch of fascinating people. Most Mexican, but there were a few Californians and a German family that was vacationing on the Mexico side.
From what I saw on the Internet the Gov'mt has built up an elaborate series of barriers that prevent anyone on the USA side to approach the fence at the beach end. No more impromptu cultural exchanges to be had. Although I was warned that if I was mugged by a Mexican who slipped over then ran back, the USA police/Border Patrol could do nothing as the criminal has escaped across an international frontier. Nothing of the sort happened to me, and I mourn for the loss of how it was :-(
Actually I meant to type "...your travels with LARRY years ago."
But my fingers were not paying attention to my mind at that moment!
Yeah, it can be! I have a bit of that same fascination, as you noted.
I remember talking to a Mexican family through the fence, the day we were there. They said the park used to be considered a neighborhood park and was played in by the town's children. Then they came and built the fence through, and it was like Berlin. Sad.
It was really hot that day, and we were miles from any store on the U.S. side. I thought about giving them a couple of bucks to go buy us two cold Cokes at a nearby store and tossing them over the fence to us, but I feared that may piss the nearby Border Patrol police off. They were staring at us from a truck in the parking lot, about 200 feet away. Very creepy.
Bill
Grey is pretty awesome as well, Bill! :)
Whiter I'd say! Looks fantastic. You wear it well Bill!
peace,
jonalbear
Is it getting grayer as in lighter? I notice that your beard hair is lighter than your scalp hair.
Chris
Yes, my hair is actually more white than gray in places now. Interestingly, I noticed in the shower this morning that my mane is quite dark when it is wet, but my beard isn't. Although my mane hairs are thinner than my beard hairs, my mane hairs must have some residual dark melanin deep within them not seen when they are dry, and when the strands are wet, the water lets the innards come through, sort of like the "wet T-shirt" effect.
My driver's license still says my hair is black. If I lift up the hairs at the base of the back of my neck, the hairs there are indeed still black, but no one usually notices that because hairs rooted higher up that are not black lie over them.
The picture above is from 1990, at a time when my hair was shorter so no hair was overlaying other hair. You can see it is all black. Notice that it is also much curlier than it is now. Also note that gray hair was just beginning to appear in my beard.
So I don't know what to say when asked my hair color. "Mutt" doesn't really fly, so I just average it all out and say "gray".
Bill
Thanks Bill. I love the photo...Alaska Highway, very cool.
Chris
Thanks for posting this pic Bill! I love seeing photos of our members when they were younger! You are looking awesome in this pic my friend!
Ted
Innate longhairs certainly don't subscribe to the societal rule some like to tout that long hair is only for the young. I hope to rock a gray long mane myself eventually.
Directions:
1. Stay away from alcohol.
2. Stay away from scissors.
You will get there!
(Willie Nelson broke both of those rules, and look what happened to his mane!)
Bill
and I would most definitely blame the alcohol and NOT the pot in Willie's case!
....Lookin' good my friend.
With extreme prejudice, I think gray, white, "salt & pepper" hair is more attractive and interesting than a solid color.
Thanks for Sharing
Walter
What an amazing beard!! Thank you for sharing
Thanks for all your comments!
Bill