The Kevlar Beard

My friend, Dallas came over on Monday night with Zack Gildenzoph. I went to high school with both of these guys and it was truly a blast chatting with them. I see Zack on a fairly regular basis, and Dallas about once every 2 years or so it seems. I really felt encouraged and invigorated in our conversation. We simply sat around and talked about our dreams, aspirations, goals, etc. etc. I think this kind of thing needs to happen more often. It seems like we get too caught up in our day to day lives sometimes. It’s nice to take a step back and look at the big picture, the major goals, the desires in your heart that you want to see completed.

As a background, Dallas has a really interesting story. He was doing a study abroad program in Australia in 2004. He took a trip up to Thailand. On his second day of the trip, disaster struck. He stuck his head out the window of the train he was on that was traveling ~60 miles per hour. A branch hit the back of his head, crushing his skull. When he fell forward, the front side of his face was broken as well. He was in the middle of a tiny village, and was unable to get professional help for 2 days. He was in a coma for 2 weeks while be treated in Bankok. The recovery to be able to even move him from Thailand was supposed to take 4 months. Withing 30-45 days he was on a plane back to central Wisconsin. After a ton of therapy and hard work, he is now a successful 20 something with 2 degrees and has traveled the world. It was really inspiring to be around Dallas and pick his mind.

I am amazed at what the human body is capable of overcoming.