Halloween, Old Man Pinkerton, and the Never Ending Mustache

Halloween was great.  Things really do change.  I remember running door to door on Halloween hoping for a huge candy score, dressing up like a ninja, and actually feeling a bit spooked at the super creepy houses.

Time marches on.

I remember being in college and enjoying the Halloween parties where the booze was handed out as liberally as the sex and women took the opportunity to mix traditional Halloween costumes with their own personal brand of sexy, while my own costumes got more and more ridiculous and elaborate.

Examples:

Luigi, with my friend as Mario (complete with the original Mario music playing from our pockets).

One of three Oompa Loompas complete with a choreographed dance.

Time marches on.

And suddenly it became all about my niece.  Last year it was about her too but more so the block party in the neighborhood and a dabbling of watching the kids collect candy.  But at four years old, she was fully engaged and that meant Uncle Nick was fully engaged too.

Door after door we went up, hand-in-hand to the creepy houses to find what candy might exist on the other side of the door.  Somewhere along the line I invented the story of "Old Man Pinkerton and his house full of dangerous monkeys".

Each house belonged to Old Man Pinkerton.  I would pretend to be too scared to go to the door (in truth I was getting tired) and she would grab my hand and say, "Come on Uncle Nick don't be scared of Mr. Ninkerton."

Ninkerton. Loved it.

How could I say no to this little lady?

About 80,000 doors later (I made her say thank you at each one) and we called it a night.

The end of Halloween means the beginning of November which means the beginning of Movember as well.

To raise awareness for men's health, my mustache will not be shaved for the entire month.

I might end up looking like this fella:

From their website:

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of mustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in the US and around the world. With their Mo's, these men raise vital awareness and funds for men's health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.

Finally, November is also National Novel Writing Month, so each day I will be writing a bit of my novel with the intention of finishing it by the end of the month (unedited of course).  If you are curious about what this is, check em out: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en

I will be updating my blog with my progress as well as whatever other nonsense about which I feel the need to pontificate.