The Buck and Mike Blog

Stephanie Nielson (nickname Nie Nie) writes a popular Mesa, AZ, based blog, Nie Nie Dialogues. Nie Nie and her husband, Christian, were involved in a serious small plane crash on August 16. The pilot, Doug Kinnerd, died in the crash, leaving a wife and four children. Nie Nie and Christian were lucky to survive but are not out of the woods yet. Even if all goes well they will be in the hospital for quite a while and recovering for many months. Their medical bills are astronomical. The couple has four small children, who are currently being cared for by Nie Nie’s older sister, Jane. Jane’s blog is the best source for updates on the family.

An outpouring of love and support for the family has resulted in a stunning group of auctions today, with more than 275 items—and many are truly amazing. Like a signed Maroon5 guitar and concert tickets, weekends at resorts, custom quilt, custom painting, a beautiful chandelier, jewelry, chocolate (!), and much more. Please support the family by bidding today. You can see the list and link to the auctions at http://www.designmom.com/.

Ongoing, please consider donating to help them by clicking below:

I haven’t blogged since December 26th. There’s certainly a lot to blog about but I just haven’t felt like it. I wish I were as good about blogging as Buckley’s daughter Liv, who blogs several times a day and always has fun new things to read.

Things I’ve missed writing about:

I haven’t written about Christmas in our house. (Buckley wrote about Hanukkah so it’s only fair I should have written about Christmas.) Liv, Scott and the kids were with Scott’s family for Christmas, and Buckley’s job had just been cut back, so our Christmas was very, very quiet. We did have one wonderful evening where we went to the home of a member of Buck’s church and sang Christmas carols with other church members. That was lots of fun and may have been the most Christmas-y we felt the whole season. Our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were quiet except for the hurried rustling of paper being peeled from packages.

President Hinckley of the LDS church passed away about two weeks ago. Even at 97, he was still quite vigorous and maintained a wonderfully wry sense of humor. He succumbed to cancer, and he will be missed. Even to a non-Mormon like me, Gordon B. Hinckley was inspiring and uplifting. Thomas S. Monson has been called to be the new president of the church. I’ve read nothing but good things about him so far, and Pres. Monson said he will carry on Pres. Hinckley’s forward-thinking ways, so I have high hopes.

On the mundane side of things, I have an upper respiratory virus. That’s what the doctor called it, mainly because I had gotten my flu shot so it shouldn’t be the flu. But I’ve read that there’s a nationwide outbreak of a strain of the flu that wasn’t included in the vaccine I got, so it’s possible I really do have the flu. As I told my dad earlier today, it feels like there’s a cinderblock on my chest. I’ll be glad when this is gone.

That’s it for now. I’ll try to do a better job of blogging. But I’ll never be as good as Liv — I’m just not that prolific.

I’m not really good at writing short and sweet, but I’ll give it a go. Buck and I have been traveling a lot lately, together and separately. I spent a long weekend with my mom and dad in Florida. Two weeks later, Buck and I spent a long weekend with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids in Provo, Utah. Two weeks after that, last weekend, we spent the weekend visiting Buck’s mom, sister, niece, nephew and other family members in Colorado. We finally had time to do some laundry tonight, for the first time in at least three weeks. Oy! Coming posts will talk about visiting our wonderful families, about the Jewish High Holy Days, which I celebrated in DC and in Durango, Colorado, and other stuff. Set a spell. Take your shoes off.

We’ve been too busy to blog since we’ve been home. I’ll write a lot more about Costa Rica soon, but I wanted to say “Thanks” to Terry for his hospitality at Angel Valley Farm B&B, and a brief hello and “Pura Vida” to the many wonderful people we met in Costa Rica, especially Carlos from the capital city of San Jose. Here are a few pics of Costa Rica:

In case you noticed we were gone, well, we’re back! We’ve been in Costa Rica for ten days and arrived home a couple of hours ago. We’ll be posting our trip reports and pics in the coming days. Also, my 50th birthday is Sunday, and I’ll tell you how it feels to hit the big Five-Oh from a Mike Kessler point of view when the day arrives.

The magnolias are in bloom in Washington. The magnolia blossoms that grow most frequently here look like tulips, so most people call them “tulip trees.” I took a quick walk at lunchtime yesterday, and saw the tulip trees in the park in front of the building where I work, then walked over to Farragut Square, down to the White House and back to work. What a beautiful day!

“Several inscriptions traditionally found on the face of circulating coins have been moved to the edge [of the newly issued one dollar coin], making these coins unique among U.S. circulating coins. They are ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ ‘In God We Trust,’ the year of minting, and the mint mark.” Click on “Edge Lettering” and turn the coin around with the control to see the edge.

I have been thinking lately of a few of my favorite people and why they are so important in my life. One of them is Seattle artist Marjorie Masel.

I first met Marjorie in 1987 when I was working at Gibbs Smith, Publisher, and a book proposal for Marjorie’s The Boxers Project crossed my desk. I was immediately struck with her playfulness coupled with her ability to capture the essence of people in her photographs. We published the book the following year and have remained friends since then.

Marjorie is one of my heroes because I admire her imagination and creativity. Her imagination gives her power to envision things that do not exist, and her creativity shows her power to make those things real. It is this dual power that I find so attractive.
» Read the rest of this entry »

Since our blog has been getting a lot of hits from people wondering about PRK and laser vision correction, I thought I’d do an update.

Tomorrow it will be seven months from PRK surgery. I can now drive just fine without glasses. (Since I had monovision, I got glasses to correct the vision in the eye that didn’t have surgery. I almost always forget to carry the glasses with me, though, and if I remember them at all it’s when I get home. Driving is a breeze.) Foreign film subtitles are easy to read now. » Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it’s been a long time between posts for me! I started a few (and they were good, real good), but just couldn’t finish. Spending time in Florida was pretty close to death. OK that’s an exageration, but not having friends or many activities did affect my mental health. Still, with the love of my family I pulled through! And really, let’s face it, no one over 40 should live with their parents…especially in a small two bedroom flat, on a sofa bed with springs that you can feel. » Read the rest of this entry »

I finished reading “The Year of Magical Thinking” last night. I’d put off reading the last three chapters of Joan Didion’s brilliant book for weeks. Finally, I knew I had to do it, I had to read to the end. » Read the rest of this entry »

On July 27, I had PRK laser eye surgery performed on my left eye. Since my right eye was already naturally fine for reading, the surgery in my left eye gave me monovision. » Read the rest of this entry »