Pair of Personalized Presents

This post wasn't suppose to be written and published for another few weeks, but an unexpected loss moved up the deadline.

The story begins approximately a decade ago... when my best friend mentioned her cousin's daughter was dating a cornerback on the Oregon Ducks.  Now I love football, but I typically follow the Packers and Seahawks more than college football. Everything I know about Oregon Ducks football comes from ESPN highlights or posts over on Cards on Cards (the #1 Ducks fan in the blogosphere).

So I did a little research on the guy and discovered that Ifo Ekpre-Olomu was the top cornerback in college football.  Holy quack.  Ifo officially had my attention and a new fan.  Unfortunately, he suffered an injury getting ready for their Rose Bowl game versus Florida St.

A few months later he was drafted in the 7th round of the NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns.  I remember being super excited to see him play and collect his cards.  I went to Sportlots and bought a bunch of his cards.  The collection was eventually passed on to my friend and her mom.

Fast forward to 2024.  My friend took her mom up to Oregon to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family.  I knew she was going to see Ifo, so I asked her if she could get a few of those cards signed.  I wanted to add one to my binder and give the other one to Kerry.  Unfortunately after all of these years, the cards had been misplaced.  Oh well... that's life.

A month later, Christmas morning rolls around and I start opening up my presents.  The first one under the tree was this signed shirt:

Jen had mentioned that she went to the Columbia store while she was up there, but I had no idea she would be buying me this shirt and having Ifo sign it.  Obviously I was super excited... and figured this was the main present.

But there was one more really cool present:

I was blown away by this custom Funko Pop of the two of us with her dog, Tashi.  Here are a pair of custom cards I purchased from Topps a few years ago of her:

I've written about Jen a few times on the blog, but out of respect for her privacy... I always kept her anonymous.  Today is the exception to the rule.

She did a great job of capturing our appearance and interests with these Pops.  She's a total foodie and loves soccer.  While I love baseball, cargo shorts, and flip flops.  Here's a photo of us to compare our likeness to the figures:

This was taken back in mid-December at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.  It was my first time seeing a play in almost twenty years. The last time I fell asleep watching The King and I.  Hamilton was much more entertaining.

Thank you Jen for these awesome Christmas presents!  Thank you Ifo for taking the time to sign this shirt for me.  And thank you to all of you who took the time to read this post.

Happy New Year and sayonara!