Hello pman555 and welcome to the forums! 
Congratulations on being the first newcomer that I've witnessed that actually do not post a dummy post somewhere in order to post urls in the first post, but rather thinks to reply to the thread with the urls! In my mind, this is evidence that you must be a logical and practical fellow who would fit wonderfully with any Arduino kit.
For me Arduino is actually all of robtillaart's suggestions
Good luck, and keep us posted what you chose and why (someone might be asking themselves the same questions as you)!