My boys know that whenever I begin a sentence with “Back in ‘my day…’” they are about to be launched into a memory from mom’s Big Book of Remembrance where there is no yawning allowed. However, this memory from my past is both true and important (aren’t they all?) for keeping them safe. You see, when I was a child, my parents thought nothing of letting me and my six siblings disappear deep into the neighborhood for hours on end, returning only when absolutely starving or bleeding severely. We played in other people’s houses, we walked many blocks to and from school, rode our bikes clear across town to swim with friends at the river, all this and more with

You wouldn’t normally think that a hearing impaired individual would get into trouble talking in class, but one teenage boy would beg to differ.  Adam, who is 15, received his Cochlear implant at the age of 2 after a bout with meningitis resulting in his being diagnosed deaf.  Adam doesn’t feel that his implant prevents him from being just another kid.  He enjoys talking on his cell phone and says that no one at school makes fun of him and he feels very much a part of his school. When Mardie’s mother was diagnosed with Rubella while she was pregnant, it resulted in her being born with a major hearing impairment.  Although she could not hear, her parents insisted upon

There are oh so many treasures of nature right in our back yard and I experienced one of those very special places with my two young boys just the other day. A warm invitation from a good friend initiated the adventure on this crisp fall morning to the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge, located just a mile north of Puxico, Missouri. With picnic packed and four very excited boys, we arrived at the Visitor Center and checked out wonderful exhibits the educational center had on display. Our favorite was a “preserved” (or less elegantly described by a seven year old as “stuffed”) pair of 10 and 12-point White-tailed deer, their horns locked in a deadly tangle seconds before they both fell

As a republican looking back at the last election and this election, I've wondered how much really changed in this country. I remember four years ago, the bitterness and outrage that was waged against me by family and friends because I "voted red." I woke up on Wednesday morning and felt no anger, no bitterness, but I did wonder how President-elect Obama had won. In looking at an Electoral College Vote study by a professor at the University of Michigan, Mark Newman, it's interesting to see the changes that took place between this week's election and the one from four years ago.

In 2001, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh found himself having difficulty hearing callers on his radio show.  Doctors eventually diagnosed Limbaugh with an auto-immune ear disease, which would leave him virtually deaf.  A Cochlear implant was a great option for Limbaugh and the procedure was performed in December 2001 and after outpatient auditory therapy he returned back to work in January of 2002.   Now seven years after the surgery, Limbaugh booms across the U.S. airwaves without missing a beat.

I joined Rick Carl and Company on Wednesday morning and these are the items we spoke about. Rick allows me to go on his show on KWOC on the first Wednesday of every month at 8:08am to talk about computers, technology and gadgets. GOOGLE POWER SEARCH TIP: Using Google to search as specific web site is easy to do with Google's "site:domainname" command. Add the command to any search string to limit the search, for instance, "tyler hansbrough site:youtube.com" to limit your search just to YouTube.com. Another example would be used to find any references to a local town in a particular newspapers ("Poplar Bluff site:stltoday.com") Edgar Allen Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue published 1841 Rick was