In this holiday weekend I, like many of you, am on vacation. Because of this, today’s second post will not be one on the latest firework deaths, violent uprising, or other depressing occurrence. Instead I want to turn the spot light on you, you and the things that are important to you. Regardless of your situation in life, it is a safe guess that money is an important part of it. Because of this, I want to share with you my favorite money articles.

• Free Money Finance’s Ways to Save $5,000
• A post by Stephen T. McClellan on how to clean your portfolio while on vacation.
• Five aspects of your life that can get you fired by Yahoo.
• And finally, The Motely Fool’s budgeting for lazy people.

I hope this list was helpful and I wish you a great holiday weekend.

The Good: You rip a bandage off of a small child and his scream brings tears to your eyes. Imagine doing that every day, except the bandage covers more than 50% of his body. This is the sorrow that burn center nurses must face everyday. Traditionally, these nurses would pull of bandages with nothing more than a radio, a book, or a TV program to distract the wailing child. Now, state of the art technology that utilizes virtual reality. The children who reside in the burn unit don a helmet during bandaging or checking of their wounds and they live out a little virtual reality world. Head to head tests against traditional distraction methods shows that virtual reality works, and lets kids escape the pain, if only for a minute. This is what we should be developing our technology for. Kudos to innovative hospitals.

The Bad: I previously wrote about how infants in the US basically get the short end of the stick, and now I have even more proof. A recent study showed that newborns feel pain. Not only do they feel the pain, but it is more intense and more traumatizing than it is for older children, making pain a dangerous game. The number one source of people who hurt babies is believe it or not, is the neonatal intensive care unit that many infants spend their first hospital days in.

A study on the hospital intensive care unit showed that babies in the unit underwent painful procedures without anesthesia an average of 16 times a day. Things like heel sticks, throat and nasal suctioning, and more are both common and helpful, but cause newborns a great deal of pain and suffering. When you really think about it, it makes sense, painkillers are dangerous for babies, so avoiding them would be good. Sadly though this can hurt the babies to the point that their pain management when they get older can be impaired. So mom-to-be, keep your baby as close to full term as you can so that you don’t also force your newborn to this fate.

Happy Fourth of July everyone! On today, our day of independence, it is customary that we celebrate and make merry. The traditional celebration method is using fireworks, both cities and towns and by individuals. Unfortunately, misuse of fireworks has lead to disfigurements, amputations, and harsh restrictions in almost every state. So I guess the question is, should we really risk life limbs just to watch some flashing lights?

Fireworks in themselves are not evil as some watch groups would have you believe. Fireworks are simply small amounts of gun powder and some fancy minerals to add the colors, and the fact of the matter is that if this was a hundred years ago you and your children would see gun powder as normal and safe, so what is the difference today? Way back when if someone was hurt or scarred by a misfire or by a gun powder explosion it was their fault, not the gun powder’s so why is it different?

Fireworks are like everything else in the world—better in moderation. If you and relations light up 30 thousand fireworks to go off at the same time or if you hold the firework in your hand while you wait for it to explode, of course someone is going to get hurt. If you launch the firework under a tree, an awning, or in a carport, of course something bad is going to happen. If you use fireworks safely and responsibly, you shouldn’t have any problems. Also, if you have small children who can barely hold their bladder, don’t have them hold a firework. Most fireworks have age restrictions for a reason: because it takes a certain amount of skill to operate them. Nothing is more aggravating then hearing someone complain that daughter dearest got hurt by the evil fireworks when they were the ones who gave a four year old a dancing dragon firework. You wouldn’t let your five year old drive your car, so why do you let them play with a firework?

Here is my last note on this fourth of July, please be safe. Use your fireworks, your sparklers, and your crackers, but please do so with caution. Fireworks are awesome, use them, don’t abuse them. See you tomorrow!