The story behind this duckie just takes my breath away.  The father of one of my old high school flock (Marty Suspenders) stopped into the Duck U Bookstore a couple of weeks ago.  I was surprised, as I hadn't seen him in years, but he just stopped in to chat.  Very cool catching up with him, but when he mentioned he was going to Germany, I asked him to beg, steal or borrow a duckie from that European country.  Now, I ask anybody who's going overseas (heck, a trip of any duration) to look for rubber duckies from their destination, but only once has there ever been a result.  In my dreams, right?  I've gotten the distinct impression that rubber duckies just aren't all that common in most countries of the world.

Anyway, Suspenders the Elder walked back into the store on Monday with the above duckie and a world of smiles.  He and the friends he was visiting were on the Metro, on their way to go dancing in Berlin (for some reason, I never picture people in Berlin dancing), when at a stop he saw this kiosk selling, amongst other fripperies and geegaws, the Berlin duckie!  Of course he picked it up for lil' ol' me, and off they went with Mr S trying to explain about the weird friend of his son...

What he didn't realize, he told me, is that the duckie had already fallen out of his jacket pocket and gotten lost in the crowd, which must have been sheer torture for the Berlin duckie.  Imagine being told you're going to America to hang out with 400+ rubber duckies, and then have that dream taken away from you... yeesh!  But, surprisingly enough, Mr S found the duckie in the Metro station on the way back.  Dramatic tale of duckie rescue!  Then it made the long flight back to Duckford and into my wings and a happy introduction to the rest of the flock here at Pond Central.

That's it, that's the whole story.  Pretty darn cool, huh?

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A couple of years ago, I was at the Duck U Bookstore when one of our history professors came in.  At the time, we had a small area set aside on the counter for "Staff Picks", books that those of us who worked at the Bookstore had read and recommended.  My two picks that month were World War Z, which I had just finished reading, and Shattered Sword, the 2005 book that turned a lot of what was known about the Battle of Midway on its collective head.

Knowing that the professor in question taught a class on WWII, I suggested Shattered Sword to him, and thus began a close to 45 minute dialogue on Midway and the Pacific War in general (it was summertime, during a stretch where we might go the entire day and see maybe three customers).  When we were finished and the prof had purchased both of my "Staff Picks", one of my co-workers looked at me with something akin to stunned disbelief.  "He's a history professor, how were you able to to talk to him like that about his specialty?", for indeed, his specialty was the Pacific War and Korea (where he himself served). 

I thought for a second and replied "I read a lot."  Her reaction, again, was stunned disbelief.  "History books?  You read history books for fun?"

Well, yeah.  I do.

I'd like to write a little bit about some of the books on Midway that I've in my collection, if I may indulge myself a bit... and, seeing how it's my blog, I think I can.

more...

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One year ago today, the woman readers of The Pond knew as Momzerduck, and I knew as Mom, passed away.  I'd love to say something deep and meaningful right now, but find that I'm just... numb.  It's taken me close to a hour just to type this short statement.

I guess I'm coping with her loss.  I can't remember the last time I broke down, and I no longer run away whenever I smell hand sanitizer.  I no longer expect my cellphone to ring at 7pm. 

I miss her so very much.

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Today was the first home game of the season for the Duck U Ducks, and we had a great turnout!

Unfortunately, the good guys lost to the bad guys, 31-21, but from all reports it was a lot closer than the score indicates. 

But I was there way before anybody showed up, so as to get Duck U Bookstore signs up, so people knew we were going to be open.  It's amazing just how different a football field feels when there's nobody around and the weather is... marginal.

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1 That ducky sure has a flat bottom.  Definitely not a tight-end...

Posted by: Siergen at September 11, 2010 08:16 PM (jNqwY)

2 Wide receiver then?

Posted by: Tony von Krag at September 11, 2010 09:14 PM (VGXAE)

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Anybody out there ever have a hernia repaired?  Someone I know has a bad one, and is going to have a surgery scheduled soon.  I'd like to know more about the procedure, but not the usual wiki stuff...

Thanks in advance!

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It's been a while since I last did a re-install of Windows, and I was noticing some slowdown in the Chiyo-chan for whatever reason; it wasn't from any virus or spyware that I could detect.  I suspect it might have been because of the whole problem with the external hard drive a month or two ago.  Whatever, it's not like I had anything to do tonight, and with a NASCAR race on, I could watch that while I reinstalled Windows.  Pure genius!  I'd be done before the race was over!

Yeah, not so much.  The race lasted four hours.  By the time Tony Stewart won, I was still downloading updates... the last two times I did this sort of thing, it only took three hours total to have everything done.  As I post this, I've still got a few apps to install, and it's almost seven hours later.  Ugh.

We'll return to regular blogginationing on Monday.

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While I am working on the post that Siergen won for identifying the HMS Unicorn last time around... he selected a topic I know next to nothing about... here's another possibility for someone to win their very own post on a topic of their choosing!  Name this ship:

Winner gets a post on a topic of their own choosing... hopefully not one as difficult as Siergen's, but pretty much anything is free game!

I'm hoping this one is difficult... if it's not, you guys are even more obsessive than I am!

UPDATE: Okay, maybe it was still "easy."  Only took about four hours for Pete Z to come up with the Wakamiya, a seaplane carrier of the IJN.

She's best known as the ship that launched the world's first naval-launched air raids (against German targets in Tsingtao) on September 5th, 1914... 96 years ago today.  In a way, this humble 8000 ton vessel with its four seaplanes and canvas-and-metal hangars is the direct predecessor of today's 104000 ton, 85 plane Nimitz-class carriers.

Funny how these things happen, isn't it?

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1 I think I found it, but since you're still slaving over my last topic  , I won't post a guess in this contest unless no one gets it by Tuesday night.

Posted by: Siergen at September 04, 2010 09:29 PM (WLKpA)

2 Wakamiya.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 04, 2010 09:56 PM (9KseV)

3 My guess may have been derived from the same set of blueprints (it was laid down a few years after this ship), but yours looks like an exact match, while mine had several differences.

Posted by: Siergen at September 04, 2010 10:36 PM (WLKpA)

4 Pete wins... name your topic, Pete!

Posted by: Wonderduck at September 05, 2010 12:29 AM (blg68)

5 My guess derives from typing "seaplane carrier" into Google and then looking at pictures. It only took 10 minutes, but only after I wasted hours trying to match hull design to various IDs and even AKs. I thought it was one of the conversions, I forgot what they were called.

Please post the wrap-up of Rocket Girls that you teased a bit over 3 years ago (thought about asking Oh Edo Rocket, but I doubt you watched that).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 05, 2010 08:35 AM (9KseV)

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Well, the bad tooth has been removed, and this one was a different experience altogether.  The nitrous didn't make me feel sick to my stomach this time, which was a pleasant bonus.  The tooth didn't come out quite as readily as the last one, which wasn't nice.  Turns out that it had two roots, where the first one (the mirror image tooth of today's) only had one... and one of the roots off broke when the Doc did the deed.  No fault on him, he's very good.  Heck, my dentist sends his children to him for oral surgery.  Eat where the truck drivers eat, go to the oral surgeon your dentist uses.

And hey, he's got this print hanging in the extraction room:

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