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Unearthing a Time Capsule

I've taken a few unscheduled weeks "off", so it's time to get back in the swing of things. If you don't follow me on Twitter (why don't you follow me!?) or stalk me on Google (okay, don't do that, it's creepy), then you may not be aware of the adventure I had a few weeks ago. This site isn't intended to share these sorts of things, but I'm doing it anyway dern it because it was such an awesome time.

At some point in my childhood, around 1992, I decided that it would be a good idea to bury a time capsule in my parents' back yard. This wasn't a particularly original idea as I had seen it on an episode of MacGyver. Now, Mac was a childhood favorite of mine and emulating him was certainly a hobby. In the show, he and his friends decided to bury a lunch box with keepsakes for 25 years. For whatever reason, I only opted for 20 years, but I did bury an actual metal lunch box. I even wrapped it in appropriate duct tape. As the years passed, I forgot the contents of the container, but I had always remembered that I had buried something I was to dig up sometime in my 30s. Last year I stumbled upon a letter I had written myself that said "Do Not Open Until April 5th, 2012."

Time capsule letter

For some reason, I decided to post this picture to Reddit.com asking for advice. Should I seek out the box after work on Thursday or wait until the weekend? I submitted this at bedtime and when I woke up the next day, I suddenly had about 300 messages in my inbox. I had made the front page of Reddit during the night and the Internet was DEMANDING that I follow up on this. There were so many great comments and a surprisingly small section of them were cynical. It seemed people wanted to believe in the validity of my story, but what they really wanted to know, just as I did, was what was in the box!?

A co-worker volunteered a metal detector and camera to the dig effort and we set up a time a few days later. The entire event was filmed/photographed, and a follow up post was written for the Reddit community. The whole experience was amazing. I have managed to keep myself mostly anonymous on the Internet for the past ~20 years, and for the first time I was posting pictures and even video of myself! The follow up got more great comments and the YouTube video is still getting views. It was a fun week, but also very taxing. I didn't get much else done because I was committed to responding to everyone that commented. Thank you Internet for your brief, yet exciting, moments of interest in my life. I have re-charged and am ready to get back to blogging about my game design.

You can follow the whole event as it originally unfolded at these links:

-- Discuss This Post --

- April 23, 2012

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