Yesterday, in a moment of absentmindedness, I unleashed my beard trimmer on the right side of my face without the blade guard on, shredding that part of the beard, giving it the look of a crop circle gone horribly wrong.  I had no choice but to shave away both sides of the beard so they could grow out again evenly.  It left me, though, I suddenly realized, with a rough approximation of Nathan Bedford Forrest's beard during his time of military service to the Confederacy, which is not unpleasing to me.  It has made me feel reckless and ruthless, terrible in battle.