RubberDuckMuseum.com

Wow,

So here’s a huge recap of the month entitled ‘Blessed By God’.  First off, we sold our house.  Yes, actually sold it in a slow market in roughly three months.  (as Craig Ferguson would say, ” I KNOWWWW!!”)  Then, I sold my car.  Yes, the same one posted long ago with the odometer reading 177,777.7, except I had just 200k on it and could no longer put money into it.  Consequently, I’ve lost roughly 20-25 pounds riding my bike to and from work.

And then, the big deal.  I interviewed for a job in town and totally nailed it.  Got called for the second interview and nailed that.  Then about 5 hours later told I need to come in and sign the paperwork the next day for a 20% increase in pay!  So, in a week I will be loading up the ducks and moving about 8 blocks north and working as a Data Analyst for Sun Healthcare.  It will be nice to a) get out of contract work and b) actually be able to pay down all the other mistakes and stupid tax.

So here I am in rental that’s bigger than the house I was chained to, biking to work, rocking the suburbs, praising the God that made me and saved me.  There’s a few people I will miss, but I look forward to the new opportunities.  Ducks are packed and no looking back!

…and when the carts are fully mature, they fall to the ground for the denizens of Wal-Mart to push and fill with victuals and technological flotsam.

Gotta love it.

After 7 years of constant standing in place, and even a few of those years involving squeezing and squeaking, the first duck is in serious trouble.

Yes, it seems the rubber has become hard and brittle over time to where the feet have cracked and has rendered him silent.

Frankly, I don’t have any idea as to how to preserve him.  Perhaps a bell jar display case.  But the damage has already been done.

I would take any comments and ideas on how best to keep him from further deterioration.  If you have any ideas or if you want to drop 10 cents in the donation can, feel free.  How can you not want to help this face?

I tried to write a post about work, but I couldn’t subject you to my own woes.  In fact, I was going to term this post “Breathe!”, as work really gets intense as the quarter ends, but it’s the following gulf of emptiness after the tough work that gnaws at the very fiber of my being.

NOM NOM NOM!

Sorry.  Let’s talk about church!  Back on the 13th I performed “Rivers of Babylon” for service, the first time I’ve ever played guitar and sung in front of an audience.  My next special music performance will be “If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven” on the 10th and I am already practicing for it, so this performance should be a lot better.  Please pray for me, as I can use all the help I can get.

My friend, Scott Sucher (located over in the blogroll), just had an article published that changes 200 years of gem history.  His “hobby” is making exact replicas of unique diamonds and gems for museum pieces and exhibits.  This is what happens when a passion just takes off!  The article is very technical, but the general concepts conveyed through the accompanying photos just comes off as intriguing.  Get the whole story right here.

Update: Oops, my bad.  The link to the article isn’t the full article, and gives you an option to purchase the magazine.  Still, kudos to Scott for being published and literally changing diamond history.

Every once in a while my imagination runs away with me (alright, more often than that to tell the truth).  Anyway, there was a Krispy Kreme next to work here that closed down due to the great Atkins Revolution of the “early aughts”.  I always wanted to open up either a recording studio/record store (calling it Doughnut Shoppe Records) or a small workout studio (calling it Lunch Hour Fitness).  And someone else got to it and it became:

*sigh* What are ya gonna do?  Hope it’s tasty.

I’m going to do some crazy stuff regarding this year’s release of the iphone in conjunction with Leo and twitlive.tv. I figure if I run over to the local apple store and take some video with my phone I can go back home and upload it to Leo while he does his 24 hour marathon of coverage.  I’ll copy what I can here so you, my loyal patrons, can see how it goes.

Annnnd so I tried and did not get any play from Leo, so here are the videos I took from the Albuquerque Apple Store and the Westside Albuquerque AT&T store.

Albuquerque Apple Store iPhone line @ 5pm 7/10/08

Westside Albuquerque AT&T store iPhone line @ 9:30pm, 7/10/08

Now Leo or Dane can come get em!

Update: Brian told me the video won’t play and it looks like the format my phone takes is different than what it says.  Here are ones you can really watch

iPhone line - Albuquerque Apple Store - 5pm -7/10/08

note in this first one I keep calling it the new iPod at first…I was so nervous (sad little man)

iPhone line - Albuquerque Westside AT&T store - 9:30pm - 7/10/08

try those on for size.

As I’ve previously addressed, I am going to try and move to make this site more financially sound, and in doing so, I have come across someone that I think deserves support.  Dan Miller has written many books including 48 Days to the Work You Love and No More Mondays, which talk about doing something really rewarding when it comes to work.  So I signed up to be an affiliate to sell his 48 days book.  You’ll see it in the right hand strip towards the bottom, and if you feel sometimes that there is no hope in your worklife, consider reading a terrific inspiration like Dan.