I bet that shopping with dad is different than shopping with mom.

When I recently flew out to the Tempe-Phoenix area to help my daughter, Courtney, start her second year as a business communications major at Arizona State University, the stores we shopped at were more along the lines of Office Depot than The Gap.

Not that she minded - I'd already helped her pack up her car to drive back to the Grand Canyon State's Phoenix-Tempe area, where the campus is located, after she'd spent the summer working in my Burbank real estate office, RE/MAX In Action.

She's just moved into an apartment with roommates who are also business communications majors, so I went out there just to help her get settled after her little brother, Tyler, helped her with the heavy moving.

It was strictly dad-and-daughter time - we went to Office Depot and Target for school supplies, and then to Michael's to buy things to help decorate the apartment.

Nancy and I miss Courtney while she's away at school, but the three of us still chat often. Sure, we're used to having her home everyday and saying, "Good morning, how are you doing, honey?" as a matter of course.

We talk by phone a lot, but sometimes even that's difficult for our busy schedules. So she started sending me little text messages and now we're into text messaging. She's pulled me into the next generation!