Floyd Has Candy

My cat just had candy for the first time! (Without me knowing, of course)
I woke up this morning early, and heard a little crunching. I got up and followed the sound, and sure enough, there he was, chomping away at a mint! I took the mint away and told him not to eat them anymore... (Mints aren't specified in cat encyclopedias, and I don't want to take any chances) He seems to have understood, so that made me feel better, but why would any cat eat a mint?!

I hope he never does it again... who knows what else he ate?

The RMS Lusitania

The Lusitania was the first of the three liners Lusitania, Mauritania, and Aquitania. While her two sisters had a long, successful career, the Lusitania was the one of them to be lonely on the ocean floor, sunken by a single German torpedo on May 7, 1915. As you can plainly see in the picture, the ship listed sharply to the starboard (right) side. Because of this, the port (left) side lifeboats could not be launched. Only a handful of starboard lifeboats were launched in the quick 18 minutes of sinking. One of the largest controversies about the sinking is how a 727' ship could sink so quickly. Perhaps the answer lies in the cargo hold, where there were many explosives secretly being shipped from New York to Britain. Unfortunately for the people on board, the torpedo hit right where the explosives were. Below is a diagram that shows where the British believed a second torpedo had struck. As we are certain today, there was no second torpedo.




Here is one of my personal favorite pictures of the sinking. It was painted by Ken Marshall.
Most people do not know this, but the Lusitania was much faster than the Titanic, a famous steam liner that is well known for her size, and being "unsinkable," though she sank on her first voyage. The Titanic reached a speed of 21 knots. The Lusitania 25 knots. The speed was of great significance at that time, since travel was out of necessity, not leisure, like today.

Below is a map of where the wreck is.


I am planning a dive to the wreck, since the ship is in 295' of water. It will be a while, but when I have finished my dive, I will include some pictures, and maybe even a video of the wreck.






Extra: My cat loves my Lusitania Model! He likes to just stare at it, he sleeps by it, and he sticks his head between the 3rd and 4th funnels! Cute!

My Cat Today

My cat is a healthy individual who lives a happy life with his family. His name is Floyd, and he is three years old today, March 2, 2008. He has a very beautiful fur style and color,(like a Turkish Van) and I consider him the "King of Cats." He leads a neighborhood colony of cats, even though he is fixed. I must say, this surprised me myself! I then realized that the reason other cats follow along with him is because he gets all of the food, so if they listen to him, he might give them some... (he's outside in the day, and still has food with him.) There is a feral kitten that I can never touch, and another feral cat that happens to be it's mother. That's just a few, the entire neighborhood of cats lives under my cat's command. I must admit, I will worry that he isn't strong enough to lead the entire neighborhood, but he does great! Fortunately, there aren't any wild animals in the neighborhood. There is one cat in particular that I worry about... most of the neighborhood refers to him as "Blackie." Blackie is a fearsome cat that often fights other neighborhood cats, and actually killed one of my cats once. None of the neighbors admit ownership, and this cat isn't fixed, and nobody has been able to touch him for seven years, according to the neighbors. I usually am afraid that this cat would kill another one of my cats, but it isn't something to worry about now that I keep my cats in much more, and I am usually keeping an eye on them when they're out, just for safety. Floyd is smart, he will not go near that cat. He cares for the feral kitten so much, it just makes me cry when I see him. I just worry about him, he's my cat!