Rails - Jul 2005 - anyone using ENCODE and DECODE in SQL in ActiveRecord?

I keep some sensitive information encoded using MySQL''s ENCODE and
DECODE commands in the database table.

-- example SQL:
SELECT *, DECODE(ccnumblob, ''salthere'') AS ccnum FROM
customers WHERE id=2;
UPDATE customers SET ccnumblob = ENCODE(''4321432143214321'',
''salthere'') WHERE id=2;
INSERT INTO customers (name, ccnumblob) VALUES (''Bob
Dobalina'',
ENCODE(''4321432143214321'', ''salthere''));

How, in that case, would I pass that DECODE and ENCODE commands into
the SQL?   I don''t think a find_by_sql will do it.

Since transforming the encoded data out of that database table will be
essential to ALL CRU(^D) on that table, I was hoping to have it be a
more integrated part of the model itself, instead of used only in
special find_by_sql situations.

Any tips?