My dad was a kind and gentle soul. He died of cancer almost 15 years ago. The type of person to never complain, he didn’t go to the doctor until the pain was too much to ignore. Within two weeks after seeking treatment for “the flu”, cancer took his life.

Some dads aren’t good at being parents, just as some moms aren’t good at being parents. It’s a major responsibility to have children and there are a lot of sacrifices that men and women, who do the job right, will make.

Today is the day to let your dad know you appreciate and love him.

Almost 16 years ago, a woman taking a small kitten to the local animal shelter stopped at my office. As I held the small bundle of fur in the palm of my hand, I stared into the biggest eyes I’d ever seen. I took Bear home with me that day.

Today, June 14, 2007, I had to help Bear get to the Rainbow Bridge.

I miss him terribly.

January of 2006, I decided to try the NutriSystem Diet. It’s simple enough, choose a month’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners from their list of foods and then wait for the boxes to appear at your door. Read more… »

According to an Associated Press article, ditsy heiress Paris Hilton will be spending 45 days in jail starting June 5th. Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled that Hilton, in violation of probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case, will spend the time in jail. Not in work release or furloughs or alternative jail or electronic monitoring instead of jail.

Will she actually go to jail like the common folk she likes to parody in her “Simple Life” television series? Who knows. With so much money and power behind her she’ll probably either buy her way out of actual jail time or turn her time in jail into a new reality program.

Regardless of what happens beginning June 5th, I have no doubt that her reality won’t be the same as the rest of us if we were facing the same sentence.

The murders at Virginia Tech were part of a calculated plan by one crazed gunman wanting to send a message to the people he felt had wronged him and others. His motives became very clear from contents of the package he mailed to NBC’s New York headquarters in the middle of his killing spree. He says he will “die like Jesus Christ” and refers to “martyrs like Eric and Dylan,” thought to be the Columbine killers.

A troubling aspect of this latest massacre, labeled “the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history,” is that it sets a new, higher mark for anyone else seeking to bring notoriety to themselves. It is the new “record to beat.” 

In Cho’s package to NBC he says “I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.” Inspire them to kill? Very troubling are postings on blogs and sites including YouTube and MySpace calling Cho a hero and saying that his actions were justified. How many more massacres will Cho’s inspire? How many more innocent victims will die?

According to a new report by the Food and Drug Administration, a chemical that caused the initial recall of dog and cat food has shown up in a second ingredient prompting more pet foods to be added to the recall list. The complete details are on the FDA website.

According to research sponsored by the Aviation Institute at the University of Nebraska and Wichita State University, more bags are lost, there are fewer on-time flights, and more passengers are being bumped from flights. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the number of complaints have stabilized since 2005.

More bad news is that the airline industry, according to a spokeman for the Airline Transport Association, expects more delays, lost bags, cancellations, and unhappy passengers.

Unfortunately for those of us who need to travel great distances in a fairly short amount of time, there aren’t any other options that will get us from Point A to Point B as quickly as flying, assuming our flight isn’t cancelled or we aren’t bumped due to overbooking.

In Savannah, Georgia, 6-year-old Christopher Michael Barrios, missing for a week, was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a 32-year old convicted child molester and the man’s father while the mother/wife of the men watched. When they were done, they choked Christopher to death, put his body in a trash bag, and dumped him by the side of a road. Read more… »