From Twitter 11-01-2010

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

The Bucklins

I'm in tears here at my desk at work.

The Bucklin plane was found, a week after the crash.

There were no survivors.

I've already left a phone message with our instructor. I'm going to go through the past several years of belt test pictures to see if I have any of Nick to offer to the family to have at the memorial service.

Edited to add: The reports are now saying that all four died upon impact. That is a crumb of comfort to the family, I think, that they don't have to feel that they were suffering for days and could have been saved had they been found sooner.

For once a bigot gets called on his words

Heard about this through the It Gets Better blog:

It Gets Better Project Members Help Pressure Bigoted AR School Board Member to Resign

"Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide."

These were the words posted on Facebook by Clint McCance, a school board member in the Midland School District in Independence Country, Arkansas late last week.

Quickly upon learning of McCance's actions, we called on our project's nearly 100,000 Facebook supporters to petition him to resign immediately. And just one day later, live on CNN, Mr. McCance bowed to the pressure.

The things this man said were just unbelievable, PARTICULARLY since he was in a position of authority over children (school board). Anderson Cooper nailed this guy to the WALL. He deserved it. Watch these videos; they're jaw-dropping. Thank heavens the bigot has resigned.

Cooper confronted him by having him face members of one of the families whose child had committed suicide. This video, too, is riveting.

My senior instructor's tribute to Nick Bucklin

This was published at the family's website by our senior instructor Mr. Sidner:

Hello Everyone,

This is a great tragedy and an incredible loss for all of us who knew them. For those who did not get a chance to know Nick, he was an incredibly talented black belt student at our school. Another student described him as someone who kept his “incredible talent balanced with the classiness of a man much older than his years”. I don’t think I can say it any better than that.

Nick first came to me in 2004 at the age of 8 with his older sister Samantha. After a few months of training Nick made up his mind he wanted to be a black belt. The road to black belt was not easy for him. Between all of his other activities it became difficult for Nick to stay motivated with his karate training. He would pop in and out between other sports, always promising to put in the time necessary to achieve his black belt, but then disappearing again for a few months. The problem was he loved to spar. If sparring was the only requirement for black belt he would’ve gotten there much earlier. For months he would only show up to the sparring classes and I would remind him that he needed to get his other classes in if he was serious about making black belt. Then in late 2008 I thought he had quit for good. It had been several months since I had seen him when I came across his membership card and decided to give him a call. After we spoke his interest and motivation seemed to rejuvenate and he started attending all of his classes again on a regular basis. Then it came time for him to start the screening process for his black belt. For those of you who don’t know this is an intensive four month long pre-testing process everyone must go through in order to achieve their black belt. You need to pass three consecutive screenings in order to qualify to take the test. If you fail one, you have to wait until the cycle starts over and begin all over again. Well, Nick took the first one and failed. He was discouraged for a few days, but then was right back in the classroom working hard at what he had to fix in order to pass. It was, however, several months before he was allowed to screen again. As his instructors, we were determined that if he started the process again he would truly be ready to pass, and Nick, demonstrating the qualities we value in our black belts, overcame the adversity of being held back initially and put in the training until he was ready for that next level. And so in December, 2009, after three more months of the dreaded screening process, Nick Bucklin was promoted to 1st degree black belt.

Upon making black belt Nick immediately became interested in taking on a leadership role at the school. He volunteered to take part in a summer internship with some of his fellow black belts to learn how to teach classes. “Learning” isn’t quite the appropriate word in Nick’s case because he seemed to already “Know” how to teach. I was shocked at how much of a natural leader he was. He immediately understood the delicate balance between being stern with kids but at the same time being encouraging and motivating. In short, Nick had “the gift”.

The greatest tragedy for me in all of this is that we will never be able to see how far Nick could’ve gone with his talents and gifts, and he and his family will be terribly missed. However, I don’t want to be selfish in wishing he were back with all of us. It’s always easier to leave then to be left behind. And I know that they are with God now in a place I would not want to pull them back from. There is no suffering… There is no pain… There is only peace.

Marc Gunn's daughter

I've occasionally mentioned Marc Gunn (marcgunn) of the Irish and Celtic Music podcast on this blog. Marc's a tireless promoter of Celtic music and other musicians and an extremely nice guy to boot (he's the guy who recorded my filk 'My Father Was a Werewolf').

His daughter was born on October 27, but she's going to require heart surgery. From his Facebook post:

I told everyone on my podcasts that I would let them know when my daughter was born. So here's the latest.

On October 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm, my daughter Heather Kenzie Gunn came into this world. She weighed 7 lbs 6 ozs and was 19.5 inches long. She's beautiful and it was absolutely magical to hold her in my arms for the first time. [note: see a picture of Heather at that link to the Facebook post up above. She IS really beautiful.]

She looked absolutely perfect when they took her into the nursery to check her APGAR scores. However, they noticed her blood oxygen levels were lower than they should be. The doctors did an echocardiograph and found that Kenzie has heart defect. She was transported to the NICU at the Children's Hospital for better care.

It turns out she has variation of Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia. I'm not good at explaining the specifics, but from what I understand, Kenzie's version is a best case scenario. However, she will still require several surgeries. The first one is this Friday.

In the meantime, my wife and I are spending several hours a day visiting our daughter, holding her, loving her, feeding her, and being the best parents we can be without having her at home, in our arms.

We thank you for all your kindness and concern. And if you get a chance, please do us a wee favor and keep Kenzie in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

Slainte!

Marc Gunn

( Oh, hey, I found a video of him performing 'My Father Was a Werewolf' )