Newtown, CT

As a parent, my heart aches for those that are and will be affected by the senseless and horrific violence that occurred today in Newtown, CT. at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

I won’t lie – I haven’t read a single story about what has occurred.  I read the headlines with the quotes of how many beautiful children have had their lives cut short so tragically and intentionally stayed away.  I have a seriously hard time dealing with things such as this as my mind flashes to the “what ifs:”

• What if it was my child / children?
• What if it wasn’t them but they were the ones who survived?
• What if I something else happens and I never get to hug or hold my little ones again?
• What if, what if, what if…

I don’t have answers to any of those questions, but they will paralyze me if I dwell here too long.  So, I will avoid the news until such time as I will be able to actually sit down and work thru each of these questions – until I can bawl my eyes out from the pain – until I can hug and hold my children in safety once again tonight.

But until then I will pray.  I will pray that these children and their families are comforted by our Savior Jesus Christ today and always.  I will pray that my children come home safe to me once again.  And I will pray for one more chance to do things right for them.

So tonight, hug and hold your little ones and other loved ones a little closer and pray for those who can’t.

Links-R-Us, Vol. 16

Welcome to another Link-Friday.  It’s been a while and some of my links are a little dated but hopefully they’ll bring you some enlightenment or enjoyment.  With that disclaimer in place, here’s this week’s links.

Our first link is bitter-sweet.  I am a huge fan of America’s space program.  I have been EXTREMELY upset ever since President Obama canceled the human space program when he first entered office.  (Granted, he did a little back pedaling and chose to reinstate some of it when the political backlash – Florida’s electoral votes come in pretty handy – seemed to become quite severe.)  I won’t lie:  I was looking forward to President Bush’s plan to return to the moon.  I was way too young to remember the last time we went to the moon and I really was looking forward to us going back while my children were still young enough that it might inspire them and their career path.  But, enough nostalgic ramblings…  Oh, wait…  Everything about this link is a nostalgic rambling.  Anyway, Space Shuttle Discovery was turned over to the National Air and Space Museum this week.  Here’s a link to the blow-by-blow account of the gutting and destruction of Discovery so that she will never be able to fly ever again.  Every time I hear of a beautiful flying machine that is intentionally injured in such a way that it won’t fly again it really hurts my heart – especially when the ship has many years of life left in her.

Links-R-Us, Vol. 14

Once again Link-Friday is upon us.  After the last few months of extremely depressing news, it’s good to be finding things that are uplifting and inspiring to post (despite being so long between posts).  And, on that note, here we go…

The following link talks about how the state of Nevada has just authorized cars to be driverless.  Hmmm…  Driverless cars…  That’s actually one “Science Fiction” item that will be pretty cool to have.  How many of us would love to be able to do something other than watch the road while driving the 700+ miles to get to Aunt Bertha’s house?

Links-R-Us, Vol. 13

Welcome to another Link-Friday.  The type of news that I like to post has been pretty tame as of late so it has taken almost three weeks to come up with my standard five links.  I know that there really has been plenty of news occurring, but all of it has been rather depressing and that’s really not the purpose of Link-Friday in my mind…  My vision for Link-Friday has always been semi-comical and thought provoking without being depressing.  So, on that note, let the clicking of links begin!

The following link is one that is sad, comical and befuddling.  The link is to a story of a 70 year old father that shoots his 50 year old son for singing a Kenny Chesney song.  It’s really confusing and sad that this happened…  But, it really makes me laugh to think that I can empathize with the father due to the son’s selection of music.  Go figure.

Links-R-Us, Vol. 12

Welcome to another Link-Friday.  I recently had an epiphany concerning Link-Friday.  Historically as I have stumbled across articles that I have found interesting I have just copied the link to a holding area and moved on.  Well, this week I tried something totally different.  When I found a link I also wrote the blurb concerning the link at the same time.  When I gathered five links a new Link-Friday post was born.  So, now that I have increased my efficiency, I can honestly say, “What took me so long to think of that?!?”

Everyone who has read my blog knows that I check LifeHacker fairly often for tips and tricks about everything from tech stuff to improving ones household.  With that being said, a link on LifeHacker recently led to the following blog and its’ entry concerning uncluttering your house.  Based on this article I think that I will be adding this blog to my personal follow list.

Links-R-Us, Vol. 11

Welcome once again to Link-Friday!  Today’s selection of links has once again returned to the standard five after last week’s Link-Friday Clearinghouse.  These five links are the last of the links that I have managed to store up over the last little while; and unfortunately I have not come across any more links that have really sparked my interest enough to be included in Link-Friday…  So, this may be one of the last Link-Fridays for a little while.  Keep your eyes open, because you never know when the next Link-Friday post will once again pop up.  And, on that note, here are the links!

Our first link is to a fun video that was on one of the local news outlets.  This link leads us to a man who made a “Star Wars” type video based on him playing music from the Star Wars movies on his cello.  The article that accompanied the video brought up a good point that I wish to repeat – would Darth Vader actually do something that silly?  You be the judge.

Links-R-Us, Vol. 7

Once again Link-Friday is upon us.  It seems like it’s been only a couple of days since the last time that I was blogging a Link-Friday post…  Oh, wait, it was.  Well…  On that note…  Here we go!

Our first link is a video link revisiting something that occurred nearly four decades ago – the D. B. Cooper case.  For those who were too young to be born when this occurred, let me just say that D. B. Cooper hijacked an airplane and demanded $200,000 in ransom money.  He then parachuted out of the plane as it flew him to a new destination.  It’s the only unsolved hijacking case in the United States.  New evidence surfaced a few years ago and this link talks about the potential closing of the case:

Links-R-Us, Vol. 6

Welcome to Link Friday.  Oh, wait…  It’s Tuesday.  Ok, ok…  So I’m trying to compensate for not blogging for over a week and missing my target date for another Link Friday.  You’d think with last Friday being the sixth weekly installment of Link Friday I would have hit the deadline.  I wish I had…  I had planned to…  But, as seems to be the case as of late, life interrupted my blogging hobby.  Who knew?!  So, without digging myself any deeper into this pit of explanation, here’s Link Friday plus four days…

My first link this week is a rather fun one – and it’s also our video link of the week.  This link is to a smartphone and robot that are capable of solving a Rubik’s cube faster than the world champion.  If you want to watch more, after the video is finished there are other, larger cubes that this robot can solve too.  I really never knew that my smartphone had this much potential: