Self-Cleaning Duck Technology

I love this picture of this duck. Caught in motion as he dries his wings after cleaning himself in the water. (You don't know that, obviously, except that I just told you.) It also looks like he could be taking off or landing...who knows... except that I just told you. Anyway, most of today's writing has nothing to do with this duck, has something to do with another duck, but mostly has nothing to do with ducks at all.

I went yesterday for a ride on rollerblades. I wound up far, far away on the other side of the city. I found a nice little canal and sat down for a while with my thoughts, a bit of music, and all the pebbles I could ever possibly want to throw into the water. It was heavenly.

Regarding my thoughts: Basically, I was just being whiney about my opportunities for growth in my life right now. Reminds me of a Barenaked Ladies song: "If you think growing up is tough, you're just not grown up enough." Obviously, I have some growing up to do. I really have a lot of great chances now that I didn't have or would never have seen a couple months ago.

Regarding the music: I listened to William Shatner and Outkast while I was there. I also took the opporunity to listen to no music. All three of these were great. I am a big fan of the "Speakerboxx" album by Outkast, it speaks to my ghetto side. Haha... that's hilarious, considering I'm probably one of the 'whitest' guys you'll ever meet. OK, 'whitest' american you'll meet. Willy S is probably not always the best thing to listen to because his music is really quite depressing, albeit funny. And the silence was fantastic. It really took me farther from the city than I actually was and I really need that sometimes.

Regarding the pebbles: Ducks are stupid. I sat on the bank of this canal and threw pebbles in the water for a long time...probably nearly 2 hours. At least 4 times during these 2 hours, ducks came over to me and tried to eat the rocks as I threw them. The problem was not so much that the ducks thought from a great distance that I was throwing food, the problem was that the same group of ducks came 4 times to try to eat the rocks.

Also, the rocks really got me thinking about being a kid and how my dad taught me to skip rocks and how as a child, he would always take my brothers and I to lakes or creeks or rivers and skip rocks or have rock throwing contests. I think he still owes my brother 10 bucks from the time at a lake in Michigan when Kurt threw the rock further than my dad. Oh was he pissed... I don't think we had any contests after that. The follow-up thought that I had was that I want to make sure I remember to teach my kids how to skip rocks some day. Its an important ability.