Duck Fans:

If you haven’t already seen it, take a look at the letter from an Oregon student to USC true-freshman QB Matt Barkley published on the Bleacher Report:

“Dear Matt,

Wow! What a year for you so far! Rarely do we see true freshman quarterbacks such as yourself play so majestically, especially under pressure.

We love the fact that you are a 19-year-old kid from California making national news on the gridiron. Way to represent the West Coast, kid!

We have been watching you for quite some time now. Your first performance (vs. San Jose State) didn’t particularly wow us, even though you went 15-of-19 with 233 yards and one touchdown. We all pointed out that it was against San Jose State, and that Pete Carroll himself could have put up those numbers.

The big thing we were all waiting for was your first away game, which was at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio, no less. We all wanted you to fail miserably and prove to the nation that you were just a fluke, and that the University of Southern California would be garbage in the Pac-10 this year.

Boy, were we wrong!

Not only did you keep your poise, but you came out the victor over Ohio State and the hated Terrelle Pryor and really proved your worth nationally as well.

You wholeheartedly earned your respect and dismissed any notion of you being a 19-year-old media darling who was getting attention just because of the team you play for. Once again, congratulations.

As we monitored your progress (we know you would have beaten the Washington Huskies had you been healthy), the excitement started building within us, and we marked the date of your visit on our calendar.

We are so glad that you have continued to play at a stellar level, because we want your status as a top-tier quarterback to still be intact when you pay us a visit. We want you to believe that you are truly a great quarterback, and that nothing can stop you. We want this confidence.

Then, of course, we want to obliterate this aforementioned confidence on Halloween night.

Playing at home in Southern California is no doubt a comfortable, safe atmosphere. Playing at the Horseshoe might have gotten a little noisy, but you have proven that just a little noise won’t rattle you.

After you beat our neighbors last week, we just wanted to give you a little warning: When someone beats up on our little brother, then, as big brothers, we have no choice but to retaliate and show you that only we are allowed to pummel our lesser siblings.

Be warned.

Also, we would like to direct you to the words of Adrian Peterson. He has witnessed great success in the NFL; he survived his trip to visit us, and we wish you the same success in the future.

“It was like some sort of crazy torture in the movies. How do people do that so long without taking a breath? I think my ears are still ringing.”

Mr. Peterson lived to tell about his visit and is now the best running back in the NFL; we want you to survive your visit as well and become a good quarterback. After all, we don’t want to kill you.

We just want to make sure our team comes out on top this year. We believe that a small sacrifice will be needed. Your eardrums are what we are after—and we will stop at nothing to get them.

When you burn a timeout after your very first huddle, just remember that there is no shame in doing that. It happens to all first-time quarterbacks when they visit us; they just aren’t used to having to communicate with their motions.

After Oct. 31, we wish you the best of luck in the future. We know you can make it big, and we apologize in advance if your visit creates any chronic long-term health effects, mentally or physically.

Just wanted to say one final thing though: Whatever happens this Saturday, it’s nothing personal. If anything, take it all as a sign of respect.

We know you are just 19, and hey, if you really do want to get your revenge, you should still be around to visit again for your junior season. We’ll be waiting.

Once again, no hard feelings, Matt. We just really want that Rose Bowl this year.

Love,

The University of Oregon

P.S. Nice hair.”

Gotta love it. Let’s see some good football on Halloween. GO DUCKS!

Dear Friendly Neighbors,

Please shut up.

I never realized how much I would miss living on the top floor of an apartment building until I was sandwiched in between the two of you.

Grizzly man downstairs, your music is atrocious. And you play it way, WAY too loud. Things in my room shake at all hours of the day, and I find it so very hard to sleep when you’re blasting the bass at 2 a.m. I know that stomping on the floor may not be the most mature way to handle the situation, but neither is cranking the volume on your amp to play a few guitar notes that make my ears bleed in response. Also, I can hear everything you say when you talk on the phone. Everything. And your ring tone? Change it, because I’m about to blow a gasket if I ever have to wake up to that damn melody at 7 a.m. again. Seriously… between the loud music late at night and the early-morning phone calls, when on Earth do you find time to sleep?! And please tell your roommates to keep it down too. While I’m forced to deal with your screamo rock music, my roomies have to put up with techno rave and Jay-Z. Not to say that some of it isn’t good music– we just wish you could all agree on one genre to annoy us with.

And all you “WOO girls” upstairs? It sounds like you’re forever dragging bodies around and dropping giant stacks of textbooks from three feet in the air. You cannot possibly need to rearrange your furniture as often as it seems you do, and especially not at 7 a.m. –I should introduce you to the guy below me so you can go perform your awful wake-up calls on some other unsuspecting tenant. I saw you drag that giant stereo system in to your apartment last week too, and let me tell you– better keep it at a reasonable decibel or we’re going to have some serious trouble. And could you please (PLEASE!) take off the high heels once in a while? Let me remind you, we have wood floors. All that clammering around you do is ear-splitting down here. And I know “it’s only 12:30 on a Thursday night,” but that’s exactly my point (Take that as a warning that I can hear all of YOUR conversations too!). While I like to unwind with a few drinks on the occasional Thirsty Thursday, it drives me crazy when you throw dance parties and keggers (SERIOUSLY?) in your shoebox-sized apartment. Last week it sounded like you were having some kind of race in circles on your hands and knees. The point is, one of my roommates works at 6:30 a.m. and another one has class at 8 on Fridays. While “it’s only 12:30″ for you and your pals, it’s sometimes bedtime for me and mine. Please consider.

In closing, while I’m sure you’re all wonderful people, I like to think we are too. But with all your yammering and music blasting and dance party throwing, we tend to get a little ugly. Plus, we are really tired of stomping our feet and using our broomstick Friends-style to warn you. Help us out and keep it down!

Sincerely,

Your Loving Quad-Mate

P.S. How did you even fit enough people to drink a keg in that apartment? It sure looked like all your guests were enjoying their MIPs when my roommate and I came home the other night to a stairwell streamline of cops and drunk girls.

With the first day of fall classes…

…comes the first sign of Eugene’s impending rainy season. I’ve witnessed a wonderfully warm and sunny end to the fading days of summer, only to be met with rain coats, slick streets and tire spray on my way to sociology class across 18th Ave this afternoon.

Summer is over, fall classes have officially begun, and it’s back to the grind both in school and on the blog.

Now for the burning question: What’s new? I’ve been completely absent from the blogosphere since mid-June and boy, a lot has changed…

–I got a job. I worked. I quit.

–My car broke down on the side of the freeway. I towed my car four times. I sold my car.

–My old car made its way down from Seattle. I found out that a parking spot at my new apartment costs $600. My old car made its way back up to Seattle.

–I took one class. Then another, and another. I earned one A. Then another, and another.

–I drove down to the Bay Area with Greg, twice. I rooted for the Giants, twice. I saw the Golden Bears win and saw the Golden Bears lose. I baked cookies with Julia, played with Ted, got my nails done with CZ, met the Leigh buddies.

–I went home for two weeks. I worked, Greg visited. I saw Mom and Dad and hugged both lots. I went to the Seattle Art Museum, dined at Palisade, visited the Fremont Troll, saw Will Smith live on ESPN at the high school football game down the road, watched Mayweather’s fight.

–I spent loads of time in Eugene. I became a bookworm, learned the basics of golf, discovered multiple ways to drive Greg crazy driving a golf cart, saw Inglourious Basterds, found out how to make sweet rice, celebrated far too many mundane weeknights, avoided full-fledged grocery shopping for months.

–I moved across Eugene into a lovely shoebox-sized apartment across the street from campus. I lived a lonely life without roommates all summer. I cheered up when the roommates came back in September.

And now here I am– spending quality time with the roomies, starting fall classes, dreading Info Hell, spiting the boyfriend because he gets to avoid that class, and blogging up a storm on WordPress.

Change is imminent, and I’m determined to finally keep up with the blog this term. Check back soon!

Happy Dad’s Day!

Mom and Dad,

From the Bug breakdown to the FAFSA fiasco, it’s your help that’s gotten me through. From the Dean’s List to the scholarship awards, it’s your support that’s gotten me through. From the occasional homesick days in Eugene to the rockin’ reunions in Keizer and Seattle, it’s your love that’s gotten me through.

While today’s a day to celebrate Dad, I feel the need to thank you both for all that you’ve done this year. Next weekend is the big move to apartment number two, and once again, it’ll be the two of you (and the Flitter Fam) that will be here to help me settle into my third year of college and see me through once more.

So thank you, Mom and Dad, for everything you do for me. You’ve always been here to help me learn and watch me grow, and it’s your guidance and support that continually makes me a stronger, better person.

And Happy Father’s Day Daddio! I wish I could have been home to spend the day with you, but I’ll see you both in five short days! I can’t wait to see you, and I love you both so much.

Love Always,
Emmy Jane

For those of you who aren’t Mom or Dad— Well, Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and dads-to-be out there! Please enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon, and be sure to check out my own Dad’s brand-spankin’-new blog that will soon document all of his strange and obscure travel adventures as a constant “road warrior”. Though it has taken us quite awhile, my sister and I have had quite an adventure of our own as we’ve constructed his new blog, and I’m happy to report that I am very pleased with the result. So if you’ve got a few minutes to spare, check out Travels with Smee — and check back often!

Geico and Mrs. Butterworth

Leave it to Geico to spin a fresh twist on an aging campaign with attention-grabbing voiceovers, collaborative advertising and an unusual interaction between on-screen visuals and textual graphics.

It’s a few months old, but I still find it equally as entertaining as the first time I saw it. Call me silly, but I think this is great:

“Yes we can!”

My favorite picture (photo cred: Pete Souza) from the Official White House Photostream on Flickr:

Very cute and motivating. It really puts Obama into perspective and brings him down to Earth as a “normal” person with “normal” interactions. I think it’s always important to remember that, to some extent, that’s exactly what he is.

The caption reads: “President Barack Obama cheers on a young child as she rolls her egg toward the finish line Monday, April 13, 2009, during the White House Easter Egg Roll.”

Another video that really makes you think…

Here’s a post I’ve been meaning to publish for a very long time, embedding the 2008 version of Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod’s Did You Know? video. It’s old news for some, but I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that haven’t seen this — and they should!!

My latest Etsy fav:

YAVAglass

Check it out — beverage glasses made from recycled beer and soda bottles. Not a difficult craft to make if you’ve got the equipment, but I don’t! I think they’re way cute and very unique. A great gift idea for a beer connoisseur, college student… maybe a mother of lip-stained Kool-Aid drinkers.

As for my all-time favorite Etsy find?

2cheekymonkeys

They’re a Eugene-based team of two ladies (often found at the Saturday Market) that recycle children’s books into bound blank books to be used as diaries, idea books, coloring pages or whatever else your heart desires. They unbind the existing book, add blank pages, and rebind the books with either a plastic spiral or a fabric spine. But the really crafty part? All (or some– for the longer books) of the original storybook pages are kept intact within the new book. They also take requests for certain books, so you can make a truly thoughtful and unique book. I stumbled across the 2cheekymonkeys booth at Eugene’s Holiday Market in December 2008, and promptly purchased Dr. Seuss’ Oh the Places You’ll Go. It was later wrapped and placed under the Christmas Tree for my 2-year-old niece!

It may seem like it’s about my sister…

My sister and I are five and a half years apart. On the same night that she graduated from the sixth grade, I stood on the third bleacher step in the undercover area of Christa McAuliffe Elementary School, singing my six-year-old heart out at my kindergarten graduation ceremony. My parents literally had to run back and forth between our celebrations, frantically attempting to capture each milestone on camera.

The year that she graduated from high school, I followed in her footsteps and graduated from Mr. Weibel’s sixth grade class.

Lean on me, when you’re not strong. I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on.

I spent my eleventh grade year completing AP Studio Art projects, pouring over Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and learning all about filters, levels and layers in an Adobe Photoshop class. At the same time, she was living in Minnesota, getting married and picking out baby names.

Age isn’t the only thing that has helped define us as individuals throughout the years. We are so different in so many, many aspects, but I simply wouldn’t have it any other way. Our relationship has always been one of the most treasured bonds in my life. She has given me someone to look up to and something to aspire to.

And while we have our differences, we also have those sisterly, clairvoyant moments. Take, for instance, our blogs. I blogged on March 9; she blogged on March 10. Then, as we both seem to do on occasion, we both fell off the face of the Earth for two weeks. I began my draft of this post on March 26 (hence, the backlogged date) — the same day she wrote her next blog post. And what was it about? Sucking at blogging.

(And after that, we both neglected to post for another five weeks. Twitter followers will find that I also misplaced my brain over there for a few weeks [months?] too.)

It may seem like it’s about my sister, but I also started this post with the attempt of conveying (yet again) about how awful I’ve been at blogging recently. Here it is — May 1 — and I’m publishing the first post I’ve written in nearly two months AND backlogging it to make it look as if I’ve actually been blogging intermittently within this Grand Canyon of a time lapse.

All kinds of apologies to those of you who glance this direction from time to time. Promising more frequent (and more interesting!) posts to come.

And, of course, check out Kirimi’s blog for little tidbits of my baby niece (whose not such a baby anymore) and “10 Weird Things I Found in My Junk Drawer” (coming soon).

OneHeartStudio

Looking for a good gift idea or a crafty keepsake?

Check out Seattle native Caitlin Dundon at One Heart Studio. Products include painted wooden boxes, frames, mirrors, prints and posters that can be personalized with bright colors and calligraphic custom quotes.

A few years ago, I made my sister a custom frame with sibling-themed quotes and periwinkle paint with a sparkly gold overlay. Now I’m seeing OneHeartStudio stuff everywhere — primarily in Northwest-based Fireworks Galleries. Dundon has sold to all kinds of hotshots including Oprah Winfrey, Elton John, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kenny Loggins, Sheryl Crow, Howard Schultz and Bruce Nordstrom.

To make it that big with keepsake crafts in the pre-Etsy era?
Truly admirable. I love this stuff.