A demanding but lovable furry creature, The Furry will surely be missed.  She is survived by:

• Her predecessor, Patrick (The Mink) (b. 1987, r. 1987-92)
• Her successor, Sam (Evil) (b. 1989, r. 1999-    )
• Chrystopher (Chrys) (b. 1992)
• Rhino (Rhi) (b. 1993)
• Susie (The Demon) (b. 1998)

My mother's genealogy research has intrigued me.  Two of the best sites to explore are:   Familysearch.org and Ancestry.com's World Family Tree  You can also attempt random Internet searches for last names.  As a further interest, I have included the previously unrepresented families of my ancestors.  A note of caution:  DO NOT be overly optimistic.  The closest I could get to myself were my great grandparents.  If you are on the net, you or someone you know almost certainly already knows of it.

Weather where I am.

Below are my cats and dogs.  If you knew them as well as I do, you could tell that their attitudes are reflected by the looks on their faces.  I'll leave you to ponder what these might be.

That's a cat?  Indeed it is!  This is Patrick, my nearly 13 year old cat from the pound.  He weighed only 9 ounces when we got him, but he weighed about 20 pounds when this photo was taken.  Because of his weight problem, he developed diabetes and now weighs about 13 pounds.  We usually call him Mink because of his soft fur.

The cat standing in the plant box is Sam, the smartest and most physically fit of my cats.  He is almost 11 years old.  Notice Mink behind the box.

Here is a photo of the dearly departed Furry.   She lived from March of 1992 to September of 1999.

This is Chrystopher, who was only two weeks younger than Furry.  He does not have Furry's controlling personality and is sort of a nitwit.  He's usually just called Chrys.

This is Rhino, our nearly 7 year old cat who was almost starved to death when we got him.  He's now overweight and fairly happy.  He and Sam get along real well.

Here's Michael, our nearly 13 year old dog.  He is very smart and rather friendly.  He was our first dog.

Here's Jake, our nearly 7 year old dog.  He has more energy than is useful at all.  He is very friendly, but to the point of being annoying.

Our new cat Susie is about a year old.  I did not have a picture of her when I edited the page.  She is very cute but somewhat scatterbrained.

• 1168--Death of the antipope Paschal III who was set on the throne by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa against the recognized soveriegn pontiff Pope Alexander III.   Paschal, Frederick's puppet, had locked himself in a stronghold next to St. Peter's for protection and died there on this date.
• 1620--The first child to be born aboard the Mayflower is Peregrine White, son of William and Susanna White.
• 1761--Birth of Francisco Castiglioni in Cingoli, Italy. He would go on to become a priest and cardinal and on April 5, 1829 be elected the 253rd successor of Peter taking the name Pope Pius VIII.
• 1787--Birth of Sir Samuel Cunard, shipowner born in Nova Scotia who came to Britain in 1838 and, together with two partners, established what became the Cunard Line in 1839.  Their first ship, the Britannia, set sail the following year taking 14 days and 8 hours to cross the Atlantic.
• 1789--New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
• 1798--The American schooner the Retaliation is taken by the French off the coast of Guadeloupe.
• 1805--The first performance of Beethoven's "Fidelio" took place in Vienna.
• 1817--Florida Seminoles are attacked by settlers retaliating for Indian raids, setting off the First Seminole War.
• 1818--Simón Bolívar declared Venezuela independent from Spain.
• 1820--The American whaler Essex, which hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, is attacked by a sperm whale near the western coast of South America.   Upon sinking, it becomes the first American ship to be sunk by a whale.
• 1861--Julia Ward Howe writes the five stanzas of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", using the stirring march rhythm of John Brown's Body she had heard earlier that day.
• 1866--Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball’s first commissioner, birthday.
• 1866--Ten members of the First Congregational Society of Washington, D.C. gathered in the home of Deacon Henry Brewster for a missionary meeting.  While there, they resolved to establish a seminary for the training of African-American preachers.  This would become Howard University.
• 1866--Pierre Lallemont of Paris, France patents the rotary crank bicycle.
• 1889--Astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble born.
• 1890--Pope Leo XIII issues his 36th encyclical Catholicae Ecclesiae dealing with slavery in the missions in declaring it totally against God's Holy Will.
• 1900--Chester Gould, the cartoonist who created Dick Tracy, is born.
• 1906--Charles Stewart Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce formed Rolls-Royce.  This day in 1931, the company bought up Bentley Motors.
• 1908--Birth of (Alfred) Alistair Cooke, British-born US-based broadcaster and journalist who began his famous commentaries, "Letters from America", in 1938.  He also presented the television series "Alistair Cooke's America" (1973) which was followed up with a best-selling book.
• 1910--Francisco I. Madero calls for an uprising against the Mexican government of Porfirio Diaz, sparking the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
• 1914--Pictures became a requirement for people requesting passports from the United States Department of State.
• 1914--Fashion Designer Emilio Pucci born (as Marchese deBarsento).
• 1919--The first municipal airport in the United States opens in Tucson, Arizona.
• 1920--President Woodrow Wilson wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his work trying for the ratification of the League of Nations.
• 1925--Robert Francis Kennedy, younger brother of the 35th President, John F. Kennedy, is born in Brookline, Massachusetts.  He became the Attorney-General (1961-4), then as Senator for New York, announced his intention to stand for president in 1968, but was assassinated that year.
• 1929--Leo Reisman and his Orchestra record "Happy Days are Here Again" for Victor Records.
• 1929--Salvador Dalí's first one-man show was held in Paris.
• 1932--Actor Richard Dawson born.
• 1939--Comedian Dick Smothers born.
• 1944--The lights of Piccadilly Circus and the Strand were switched back on after five years of blackout.
• 1945--The Nuremberg War Crimes trial of Nazis including Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop and Streicher began in Nuremberg, Germany.  It lasted 218 days.
• 1946--Musician Duane Allman born.
• 1947--Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II, married Lt Philip Mountbatten RN in Westminster Abbey.  The BBC made the first telerecording of the event, which was broadcast in the US 32 hours later.
• 1947--The first presentation of "Meet the Press" aired on NBC-TV.
• 1947--Pope Pius XII releases his 12th encyclical Mediator Dei on the sacred liturgy.
• 1947--Musician Joe Walsh born.
• 1951--Snowdonia in Wales was designated a National Park.
• 1956--Actress Bo Derek born (as Cathleen Collins).
• 1959--Top US DJ Alan Freed refused to deny being involved in a big payola scandal and was sacked from both television and radio programs.
• 1960--The famed actor of the silver screen, Clark Gable, died at the age of 59.
• 1962--The United States lifts their naval blockade of Cuba.
• 1965--Simon & Garfunkel release "Sounds Of Silence".
• 1968--Ming-Na Wen is born.
• 1969--Native Americans from more than 20 tribes take control of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.
• 1970--The ten-shilling note (50p) was officially withdrawn by the Bank of England.
• 1979--Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, was stripped of his knighthood after admitting to being a spy for Russia, thereby exposed as the Fourth Man in the Burgess, Maclean and Philby spy scandal.
• 1980--Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's widow, goes on trial for treason in China.
• 1984--British Telecom shares went on sale and were oversubscribed several times over.
• 1984--Nearly 36 years after the first McDonald's hamburger was sold, the 50 billionth burger was made by President of McDonald's, Edward Rensi, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.
• 1984--Michael Jackson becomes the 1,793th celebrity to have a star unvieled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 1985--Don (Donnie Ballgame) Mattingly is named AL MVP.
• 1999--Alabama football team beats Auburn 28-17, the first ever Alabama win in Auburn.