Carlton "Buddy" Howorth's pet peeve was "wasting time" according to his yearbook from Cohasset High School.

"He was in a hurry," said John MacLeman, a friend and former colleague. "He wanted to get it all in. You could tell he was just soaking it up, every minute he spent with you."

Perhaps that stemmed from his abounding enthusiasm for the things he loved. And there were a lot of things he loved.

"He talked in absolutes," MacLeman said. At restaurants, Howorth would tell the waitress, "This is the best hamburger I've ever had."

He loved bacon and eggs. He loved fishing, skiing, football and hockey. He loved his two black Labradors. He loved his girlfriend, Donna Reis.

"He put me on a pedestal," she said. Howorth, a cancer survivor, also loved his daughter Elizabeth, now 3.

"He adored her, she adored him," his father, Carlton Howorth II, told The Providence Journal. "She was his life."

The younger Howorth, 39, of Norton, Mass., was a child of the '80s. He loved heavy-metal music and computers.