Since it's Father's Day I figured I'd take the time to remember all the wonderful memories I have of my Dad.  He died when I was 13 but there's many great things that come to mind that I remember about him.  All of my friends, as well as my brother's, loved him.  I don't think he had an enemy in the world.  I know I hated seeing him upset or angry because it wasn't a frequent occurrence and he was much more fun when he was smiling (which is did often).  I can remember falling asleep to music coming from the basement just about every night.  He was a drummer/musician and he let anybody who needed a place to jam to come into his studio to use any of his equipment.  At the calling hours after his death, there were so many people there to pay respects that the line was just about out the door of the funeral home.  There were plenty of people I didn't even know but it was amazing to see (even if it was a very sad day).  To know that many people loved my dad was something special to learn.  I knew he had many friends and he loved his family, so it was a tiny bit of reassurance when I knew that he wouldn't be with us anymore.  I can remember all the times he'd take us to the beach to swim in Lake Erie or we'd go crayfish hunting in a river close to home with our dog, Thor.  My dad was a goofball.  He loved when he had the chance to do things with us.  He was always excited when he could afford to take us places or buy us something cool for our birthday or Christmas.  Even though he didn't have much money, he managed to make our childhood pretty awesome.  Even after my mom and dad divorced and my mom moved out, I never heard him say anything bad about her.  In fact, he completely ignored the whole "every other weekend" rule the court gave for us to see our mom.  If we wanted to go see her, it was done.  He never thought it was right to keep us from seeing her.  For that, even now I have so much love and respect for him.  I see so many people have such ill feelings toward their ex spouses.  It's nice to look back and not see that in my memory of my dad.    I also recall the last movie that my brother and I saw in the theater with my dad was the movie, The Lion King.  It's little memories like that which keep him alive even after all these years without him.   To this day he's still my hero.
    So make sure you take the time to appreciate your father while you can and cherish those memories if they're no longer living just like I find myself doing on a daily basis.  Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!!

You ever feel like screaming?  I'm sure just about everyone has at one point in their life. Unfortunately, that doesn't go over well when you live with other people (or have neighbors).  Stress seems to permeate into every possible aspect of life anymore.  There's all kinds of suggestions for dealing with it online, or in books.  I wonder why it is there has to be books on it in the first place.  When there's a whole section in bookstores for self help and how to deal with things like stress it says a lot about the culture we live in.