Here's a gift idea that would appeal to me.

I love sports and outdoors, I do as much as possible. But when it comes to doing sports or outdoors activities in the summer I really feel the heat.

My wife feels the cold. I feel the heat. If it's hot I die. And I must wear a hat in the sun, I don't have as much hair as I'd like and if I don't wear a hat I suffer from sunburn on the top of the head. Not nice, and not healthy these days with skin cancer on the rise. But if I put a hat on on a hot day it makes my body temperature skyrocket.

Here's a simple effective idea for an outdoors man who feels the heat, or for anyone who needs a little cooling down on a hot day.

An evaporative cooling hat. Specifically designed to allow the sun to evaporate water from the hat to keep you cool.

Now I usually wet my hat when I put it on on a hot day, I know it works to keep you cooler, but this hat is specifically designed to do it much better. 3 layers of specially designed fabric. Both hydrophilic (water-attracting) and hydrophobic (water-rejecting) fibers to keep the water away from the top of your head and in the top layer of the hat where it evaporates to best effect, and also in a middle layer to stop the water evaporating too fast.

All up keeping your head up to 30 degrees cooler on a hot day. Read more

There's not a lot of good unique golf gift ideas around.

Golfers are everywhere, including me. Golf is one of the most popular (and hardest, take it from me) sports in the world.

So if your man is a golfer then you might like to get a nice golf gift for him.

Problem is, there aren't a lot of golf gifts around that haven't been done before. I've already written about one that I think is pretty different, personalized golf balls, but most other golf gifts are, well, a bit ho hum. He's probably got one already.

But  I got a comment from someone on one of my articles about their own site offering antique hickory golf clubs for sale. As this seemed a bit different to all the golf stuff that I've seen around I thought I'd check it out, and thought it was a pretty good gift idea.

Hickory Sticks have a fine collection of restored antique wooden shaft golf clubs. They offer them for sale and as a gift idea for an avid golfer I love them. And I suspect that over the years as these old sticks get more and more scarce they may become quite valuable.

A single club is $150 so it isn't a cheap gift for him, but it's a quite unique golf gift idea.

Maybe a good gift idea for a man on fathers day, although of course they make a good gift for a man at any time, so if you're a  little too late for fathers day then some other occasion, like his birthday, would be fine.

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Dads love gifts for fathers day, but sometimes it's hard to know which one.

I've already written about the best gift for fathers, your, or your kids, quality time. But I mentioned then that the gift is a part of that.

Problem is sometimes that dads are hard to buy for. I know, I'm a dad and I know I'm hard to buy for.

That's where gift baskets come in. Anyone who is hard to buy for is a candidate for a great gift basket. You see it makes your selection choices much wider.

Lets say, for example, that dad is a golf lover. But he's played golf for years and has everything he could ever want for golfing (except perhaps for personalized golf balls from you and I've written about those here)

Maybe you can't come up with a great idea for a specific golf product he'd love, but a golf gift basket could do the trick. It's usually just a funny idea filled with golf related things that make him laugh and usually include something good to eat.

That's why I love gift baskets as a great gift for hard to buy for men, and women. They give you options, and that's why the gift basket industry is such a successful industry.

Here's 2 gift baskets that I love, but there's dozens more fathers day gift baskets available.

The first is a wonderful berries gift basket from Giftbaskets.com. Now I have to say that I love it just because of the way it looks. Isn't it hot? Look at those strawberries. Yes they are strawberries, covered with chocolate and sports themed with small basketballs and so on.

Someone has taken some time doing those and they look sweet, and great. I'd love one.

Now of course there's a stack of others at Giftbaskets.com, just search their fathers day gift baskets and you'll find plenty to choose from, everyone is different.

And here's one from Amazon. Yes Amazon. Most people wouldn't think of Amazon as the place to buy gift baskets, or lots of other things. But Amazon is the place, along with eBay, to buy just about everything, including fathers day gift baskets, at great prices.

Again there are others there so have a look at their other gift basket offerings.

If you're stuck for a good idea for fathers day a gift basket is well worth considering.

There are some wonderful gift basket companies around, if you do a search you'll find all sort of specialized gift basket companies. It's a huge industry. Read more

When was the last time you spent some real time with your dad?

We live in a rushed world. Everything has to be done by yesterday. There is never enough time. We are never stopped.

That's ok, but there are times when this all gets in the way of things that may matter more than rushing off to the latest thing.

And it's the same for our kids isn't it? There's the football training, or the piano lessons, or the ballet class, or the ……… You know what I mean there too, I'm sure. It's exactly the same with me. I'm married with a family and we have all those to do and more. And I suppose that's the basis of a fine upbringing for kids. Sometimes

And when it comes to gift giving a gift can be a simple way of opting out of something more meaningful because we don't have enough time.

When was the last time you, or the kids, spent real time with your dad, or they with theirs? Real time. Like all day without an interruption?

It's so easy to grab a gift, give it and the jobs done. Fathers day is satisfied, obligation over.

What would be much harder to give sometimes would be a gift of yourself. For you to say to yourself, and to your dad, "you're more important to me today, so I'm dedicating all of today to you. Lets do whatever you want to do - with me. All day. Telephone off."

Or the kids do that with dad. Just a day for dad and the kids together, no interruptions.

Or maybe you're 40s or 50s and dad is in a retirement home. Take a whole day off and take him out somewhere he'd love to go. Just the two of you.

There's nothing wrong with giving a gift, make that a part of the day. But don't assume that fathers day is satisfied just because you've given a gift. It takes more than that. It takes some of you to make it a real fathers day for him, a fathers day that he'll remember.

And he's much more likely to remember what you two did together than the gift he got. Read more

Fathers day is coming, and if you want to buy him a friendship stone you can do so less 15%.

Just a short one.

I've written about the Friendship Stone before. I like it as a gift for a man or a woman that's quite unique. Very different indeed.

Well it seems that the Friendship Stone is on special for fathers day. It's a nice idea that's a little bit different for dads.

So if you're interested in finding out a little bit more about the Friendship Stone read my article about it here.

And if the idea takes you as a good idea for a fathers day gift for dad then you can buy them at 15% off.

To do so go to the Friendship Stone website. Read more

Does he love swimming and playing with the kids in the pool?

If you're lucky enough to have a pool, and you've got kids, then you've probably noticed that dads love playing in the pool with the kids. Lets face it, men are just big kids at heart anyway.

And if he loves playing in the pool with the kids then a gift for, say, his birthday or fathers day that increases the fun in the pool just has to be a great gift for a father who loves getting wet with the kids.

How about a motorized bumper boat?

In other words a boat that goes under it's own power, that's fun to use like a bumper car, but in the water.

Sounds like something that both dads and the kids would love.

Battery powered, it moves at around 3 mph, so he's not going water skiing with it, (but who water skis in the pool anyway?) But it's fully steerable with it's own steering wheel and is made of tough PVC so it can withstand some rough and tumble with the kids.

It comes with it's own air pump so he can pump it up and then let it down for easy storage. 4 hours use from the batteries, it's a heap of fun for a family man who loves the water and the kids.

Of course the kids will want one too so you need to buy 2. But it's cheaper than I expected, only $99.95, so maybe you could afford 2!

Either way it's a great gift for a dad with a love of water.

Get to Hammacher Schlemmer to get it. When you get to their site just search "bumper boat" in their search bar at the top and there it is.

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