As some of you may know, I used to live in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which is, essentially, a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska.  Yesterday, a man went into the Von Maur store at Westroads Mall, in Omaha, and shot thirteen people, killing eight, before killing himself.  Most of those killed were employees of Von Maur.

Although I never worked at Westroads, and rarely shopped there, and though I moved to Colorado six years ago, I'm stunned.  Or perhaps, I should say, I'm personally stunned.  This isn't just a horrible tragedy, this is a horrible tragedy that happened somewhere I've been.

Which is, of course, a reminder of how shallow we humans are.  Why should it matter if a sensless killing takes place somewhere we've been or not?  It doesn't, of course, but it does bring it home more than a senseless killing somewhere unfamiliar.

Why anyone would want to kill total strangers in a department store, I don't know.  I'm not sure anyone but a mass killer could answer that.  He left a suicide not saying this would make him famous, and, sadly, it will.  But to want to be famous for killing retail employees and Christmas shoppers is, again, something I can't fathom.

My heart goes out to the families of those killed, to the people who were injured, and to all the people who work at that Von Maur store and at Westroads in general.  I don't know if I would have the courage to return to work at a place where my coworkers had been gunned down.  I imagine some of them won't.

I don't know what else to say.