Spamboy

Hey, kids. Once again, I apologize for the radio silence. Our guinea pig Nilla passed away a week ago, and we’ve had to scramble to get the household–and ourselves–back in order in the days since. Don’t fret — we’re doing OK, although it sucks to lose a pet that you loved.

I thought it would be nice to share Nilla’s cuteness with you and the world. So when you get a chance, please visit the memorial page I put together, featuring some her “greatest hits” from the photo and video world. Under each photo and video, you can leave a comment, which I know my wife will love. Thanks, and I hope to get back to writing less-heavy stuff soon.

At WordCamp Dallas, I learned some new strategies for promoting readership on my blog. Beginning with this post, I’ll highlight how I have applied some of those lessons to Spamboy.com.

One of the first things I implemented was the Subscribe to Comments plugin by Mark Jaquith. On posts where comments are enabled — such as this one — you’ll see a checkbox below the main comment field:

By marking this field before submitting your comment, you will be notified of all future comments through messages sent to your email address.

Once subscribed, you can manage your settings in one of two places:

• Navigate to any post to which you have subscribed, then click the “Manage Subscriptions” link
• Or, click the Manage link in any of the notification emails you receive

Thanks to this plugin, you can easily keep up with activity on my website. I hope it proves to be a useful feature.

Thanks to Daynah, a GeekBrief.tv fan, I’ve discovered my plan to remain fairly anonymous was dealt a blow. She let me know that during Wordcamp Dallas, I was captured on video asking a question of Cali and Neal about their upcoming road trip. The video proves two things: the fact I was photograph proves once and for all that I am not a vampire, and that my voice sounds as bad on video as it does in real life.

Zoom ahead to 27:22 in the video to catch me — but do watch the whole thing, as it was an inspiring presentation. It helped to get me get out of the creative ruts I was in just prior to WordCamp.

Thanks to John Pozadzides for documenting this event.

Sometime later, my mother was performing her weekly chore of mowing the lawn with her John Deere. Zigzagging around in the summer heat, one hand occupied with the steering wheel, the other with a cold beer, she would draw straight, regular swaths across our rolling pastures. Earlier that week, Susan and Ed had decided to expand their menagerie through their purchase of a German Sheppard named Casey. It’s been said that animals resemble their owners, and Casey was no exception — the dog was quite dense.

Casey disregarded her owner and ran over to our property to bark at our horses and spread chaos. Ed clambered over the fence to retrieve his dog. He’d chase after the disobedient hound, but every time he came close to rounding her up my mother would pilot her riding mower between the two of them. Ed would get held up in traffic, Casey would pull farther away, and mom would reward herself with a chug.

This spectacle went on for nearly half an hour before Susan felt the need to help. She walked to the fence and prepared to climb it over to our side. Mother cranked the steering wheel, sped towards the fence, parked on the other side from Susan, stood high in the saddle, and sternly said, “Don’t you dare set foot on my property!”

Susan blanched and began, “How dare you take that tone with–”

Mother cut her off. “Don’t you lecture me! I’m a realtor and I know my rights. Set one foot over that fence and I’m calling the cops.” With great timing, my father stepped outside. Although he was some distance away, he witnessed these two women staring down one another. Susan turned to gaze towards my father, who returned the gesture by grinning, then demonstratively dialing the police on his cell phone. She climbed down from the fence and walked back to her house, and not for one second did she take her angry glare off my mother.

Somewhere down the line, my parents became visionaries by embracing Texas Hold ‘Em and hosting gambling night every Friday evening. All of our close friends would come over to play, drink, and smoke the night away. One night, a police cruiser drove up to the house. Two officers, a younger patrolman and his older partner, asked to speak to my mother.

Since our town was small enough that everyone knew just about everyone, we recognized the two. The younger cop also knew my mother and said to her in a friendly country drawl, “We’re reeeeeally sorry that we have to be here tonight, ma’am.” The officers were there because of the goat. It seems that Susan and Ed had grown tired of the goat trespassing upon their green pastures, and they had called the cops on us! Before the night was through, my mother was issued a citation for “animal at large,” one of the more obscure laws on the books.

And so began…The Goat Wars.

Everything was loaded in my truck Kilgore. I returned to my vacant apartment to perform one last survey and ensure that I didn’t forget anything before hitting the road to Austin, my next in a long string of hometowns. Just as I thought, nothing remained — except for my time capsule.

A petty cash box purchased from Office Depot, I had spent the past several years collecting the flotsam I intended to bury the day I finally moved out of Bruce Hall for good. Each item represented both my current time and place in the world:

• One of my laminated ID cards from the North Texas Premiere Soccer League, within which my team The Mama’s Boys competed
• The operating manual to my first computer, a Intel 386SX with added math co-processor
• Various photographs of family and friends, all of which I hoped I would remember
• A VHS video cassette featuring a Kenmore advertising campaign, a separate contribution from my ex-girlfriend and fellow creative Margo
• Tassles from both my high school and college graduation mortarboards
• A small tin of Spam, my calling card
• A black spiral-bound journal filled with sentiments from cover-to-cover

One by one, I added the items to the box, never pausing to consider their symbolism. After all, I had stared at these trinkets for over a thousand days, ever since I decided to create a time capsule on April 9, 1997, the day that the population of Bruce Hall buried a time capsule in commemoration of its 50th anniversary. With so much time cohabitating with such trinkets, they held no more intrigue. However, the last item in the list forced me to pause and ponder its contents.

In my hands was the black journal, whose insides I never once saw. For the past three years, I carried the journal everywhere I went, asking everyone I met to write whatever they wanted inside. I promised them I would not read the journal until I opened my time capsule a quarter of a century later. Contributors were not bound by my self-imposed trust, and in fact I encouraged them to read it. Sometimes, the journal would disappear for days, as my friends took the time to read it cover-to-cover. On occasion, I would hear a report that some daring things had been written inside. I know that some of the authors were girls I liked at the time, and for years I wondered if they used my journal to confess any romantic sentiments.

My mind returned to the present and the journal before me. Right before I was to hide the book for decades, I was tempted one final time to sneak a peek. Doing so would spoil the wonderful treasure I created and the joy I would feel when rediscovering it,. This chance to preserve a slice of my youth was too precious. With a grin, inside the box went the book. I gently closed the lid, turned the lock, and slipped the tiny key into my pocket, where it sits to this day mingling with my other keys.

Nearby was a stack of white vinyl stickers, each adorned with the green University of North Texas logo. Leftover as spirit giveaways from years of attending student housing conferences, I peeled the backing off each and adhered them to the outside of the time capsule, layering them like shingles on a roof. Soon enough, the entire box was uniform in outward appearance and quite well-sealed against the elements. The only feature exposed was the clear plastic window behind which I slipped the following note:

Ahoy, fellow spelunker!

This is my time capsule that was buried during the ancient 20th century. It is intended to remain closed until April 9, 2022, twenty-file years after I first began to amass its contents. Please do not remove or open this time capsule, as I plan to return that Spring day to retrieve my belongings. So if you are reading this, please put it back where you found it — and consider yourself invited to that day’s opening festivities. I look forward to meeting you then.

As ever,

Matthew

My time capsule was complete. Now came time to secret it deep within the bowels of Bruce.

Because I had already turned in the master key, the prime regalia of my recently-vacated job as hall director, I orrowed the submaster key from the key box downstairs. It would prove good enough to get me where I needed to go. Soon enough, I was on my hands and knees, crawling in dark passages, hiding my treasure in a dark, dank location known only to myself and Jim, in case I am personally unable to return 22 years from now.

I emerged from the expedition with caked dust on my shoulders and the musty smell lingering within my nostrils. It was a melancholy scent, as the fact I could smell it meant all of my work, my purpose, at Bruce Hall was now complete. It was time to leave Denton behind, and along with it the bittersweet memories of the past year spent trying to ride things out.

I returned to the key box both the submaster and my apartment key. Then I headed out the back door, hopped in Kilgore, and drove away to my new life.