Keep growing.  Today marks the sixteenth anniversary of all about beards, the longest-running beard site on the web.  If all about beards has encouraged you to grow your beard, helped you to improve your beard, improved your view of beards, or had any other positive impact on you, please share by leaving a comment here or sending an email.  Thank you to all of the site’s friends for your support over the years.

The happiness for the new beard year did not even last one week for me.  My little sister was taken from us unexpectedly — suddenly and without warning.  The loss has been too difficult to bear.  Understandably, updates to beards.org ground to a halt.  Normally, I would see when the gallery views counter hits another million.  This time, I did not.  I figure, however, that it was most likely on January 9th.

Right now, I cannot feel any optimism for 2012.  But I have to carry on.  The sixteenth anniversary of “all about beards” is only days away now.  In my sister’s honor, somehow, I will do everything I can to make it the best year yet for beards.org and to surpass that each year that follows.

At approximately 5:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time on October 7th, the beards.org gallery views counter hit eighteen million!  It’s a worthy milestone.  Now, let’s get more visitors to beards.org and hit nineteen and twenty million in record time!

So which was the eighteen-millionth photo viewed in the gallery?  Well, the true number of gallery views is unknown and is actually higher than the current count at any given moment.  The number got rolled back a bit after a server hard disc failure some years ago.  Also, the number only reflects gallery views since the current gallery system was implemented on the site on January 26, 2006.  Also, when photos get deleted, their views are subtracted from the count.

The eighteen-millionth photo viewed is largely ceremonial, because the true number is larger and unknowable.  Yet it does provide a meaningful milestone since the seventeen million mark was reached.  We hit eighteen million views not long after today’s update of the beards of the world gallery.  So I was here to see the ceremonial eighteen-millionth winner:

Holder of the title of the eighteen-millionth gallery photo viewed is Justin.  He appears to be viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.  Click on his photo to see the larger version.  Congratulations, Justin!

Thanks, everyone, for your continued interest in beards and beards.org!

Oops!  The gallery views counter hit seventeen million…sometime.  It was about a week ago.  I missed it.  Oh, well.  Here’s a little belated commemoration of the momentous occasion!  Photo above is another preview shot from Scott’s beards.org photo shoot.  His beard feature will appear one of these days…soon, I hope!  Stay tuned.  Oh, and thanks, everyone, for all your interest in all about beards!

The hits just keep on coming here at beards.org.  On the afternoon (US Pacific Time) of March 25th, 2011, the gallery views counter rolled over to sixteen million!  We hit fifteen million back on January 2nd, 2011.  The counting only began back on January 26th, 2006.  So the real number is unknown but much higher.

I wasn’t here to see which was the sixteen millionth photo.  So I selected one of Andy’s photos to illustrate this post.

Thanks for your interest in “all about beards”!

On January 17th, 1996, all about beards made its humble debut on the worldwide web.  The little web site had embarked on its mission of promoting beards around the globe.  Today, all about beards is growing stronger all the time and remains the world’s longest-running beard web site.  On all about beards’ fifteenth anniversary, I’d like to thank all of the site’s friends, contributors, supporters, cheerleaders, and of course, beard growers for making all about beards such a success.  Keep growing.

We are starting off the new year with a great milestone.  The beards.org gallery views counter just hit fifteen million!  The ceremonial fifteenth millionth photo was that of Josef of Germany.  The counter rolled over to fifteen million at 9:28 PM Pacific Standard Time on January 2nd, 2011.  We hit fourteen million back on October 11th, 2010.

Josef was one of the first to show off his beard in our beards of the world gallery.  If you haven’t already, please join him in the gallery by submitting your entry today!  To view Josef’s photo, click on the image above.

Thanks for your interest in “all about beards”!

Hey!  Once more, we’ve got another million views on the gallery counter!  I wasn’t at the computer at the time to witness the turnover to 14,000,000 views, so I don’t know which image was the fourteen millionth.  So to illustrate this post, I’ve included another shot of Brian that appeared in his latest album update.

Thanks again to all of the friends and visitors to beards.org for your interest in the bearded cause.  Keep growing!

We’ve done it again!  We’ve got another million views on the gallery counter!  The thirteen-million milestone was reached sometime on the morning of July 4th, 2010.

We hit our previous milestone of twelve million gallery views back on March 31st, 2010.  Remember, however, that the gallery counter started at zero on January 26, 2006.  So we have had thirteen million views of photos in the gallery since January 26, 2006.

The number is a fun milestone to track, although the actual number of views is even larger.  Sadly, when some images leave the gallery, their view counts get subtracted.  That can whack off thousands from the counter at a time.  Also, when Salvatore’s beard videos were hosted in the main gallery, the overall view count was boosted substantially.  When I pulled the videos from the gallery (because they were using up all of the site’s monthly data transfer allowance), the overall count shrank some more, as well.  If all of the subtractions were added back, the true number would be quite a bit higher.

Regardless, each additional million makes for a good occasion to stop and reflect for a moment and express thanks to all of beards.org’s loyal fans, friends, and visitors.  It’s also a great time to thank and salute each and every bearded man who has joined the gallery.

I wasn’t at the computer when the counter hit thirteen million.  So this post is illustrated with a previously-unpublished photo of  Christopher.

Happy Birthday, USA!  And best wishes to all friends of beards.org around the world!

The number of views of photos in the beard gallery hit twelve million sometime just before noon Pacific Daylight Time on March 31st, 2010!  We hit eleven million views less than three months earlier on January 6, 2010.  The counter started at zero on January 26, 2006.  So the twelve million number represents only the number of views since January 26, 2006.  Thanks to all of our loyal fans, friends, and visitors, the site continues to grow.  We are experiencing some growing pains, but they are welcome.  They are a sign of great things yet to come.

I wasn’t at the computer when the counter rolled over to twelve million.  So this post is illustrated with a previously-unpublished photo of Tomas.