About 14 years ago, a group of High school friends and me decided to bury a "Time Capsule" on an island in the Northern Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA).   It was 1995.   We felt that the world was in front of us and in many ways it was.  The letters we wrote to ourselves contained promises, expectations and hypothesis on what would happen to each other and many other things that seemed important at the time.    Our deepest hopes for the future to come.

Well the 10-year reunion to dig up the Capsule ended up being a 14 year reunion!  When we found the Island everything came back.  The crusty old tree upon which I carved "Capsule Island" still remained visible, though time had clearly left its mark.  And when we dug up that capsule...well I have to admit it was exciting!

The letter was intact, dry and for the most part legible...and the words brought me back to the very day I wrote it.    For the most part the letter was really funny...funny in the sense what I wrote then seems so trivial now.  

One of the things that struck me though was my dedication to the sport even back then.   I spent over half of the letter rambling on about how great it would be to reach the Olympics, wind some major medals in the sport, etc.  In a sense it was a reminder that my love for this sport has always been with me - even at that young age.   I wanted to make sure that when I left the sport of Luge it was for the right reasons because I have seen far too many athletes leave their sports premature and regret it later in life.

Today is June 10^th, which is the 8-month mark until the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.   Just the thought of that is such a motivator that I'm excited to get to the gym today.   I want to make sure that I'm in the best possible shape for this Olympics because it could very well be my last.    I was going through the videos of last season (doing some video editing for the USLA) and I got so teary-eyed watching Erin Hamlin's gold medal performance at the World Championships in Lake Placid.    She broke the streak and became the first female World Champion for the USA and I couldn't help but daydream about how special it would be to be the first Olympic medalist for the USA...

After my group of buddies all dug up the time capsule we buried in 1995, we thought we should keep the tradition going.   So we wrote some new letters to ourselves...not to be opened until 2019.   I'm such a techie that a lot of my letter to myself was really me guessing about what sort of technologies we'll be using in 10 years.   When I wrote the '95 letter, we were all still buying CD's!  Ha...funny to think about that.    Although I'm sure I'll be off on so many things that the next 10 years will bring, I won't be wrong about Luge...and the fact that I'll have given it my all in 2010    -TB