well, birthday number 42 recently passed, and i got some wonderful gifts from fellow deviants. as you may have noticed, i have a new id, avatar, stamp, and css design (still a bug or two to work out there). they are all thanks to , who made them as part of the "design a deviant" contest. she didn't win, but i love my new stuff!!! from my friend i got this wonderful fractal


thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes my way!
in other personal news, my youngest daughter will be graduating from high school at the end of the month. she will be pursuing a degree in music when she goes to college in the fall. my oldest daughter found out recently that she will be the new music director for the radio station at her college. i'm so proud of both of them!

zoo news
there have been a lot of things going on at the st. louis zoo, both positive and negative. on the sad side, our last polar bear died. she was 23, so she lived a long time, but i will surely miss her. we also lost cinder, the hairless chimpanzee. she was easily my favorite, although she did freak some people out. on the plus side, we have a very cute baby camel. also, we have a new lion! he still doesn't come all the way out into the yard, but he is a good looking brute.
while i am on the subject of the zoo, be sure to check out . he's a friend that i met while shooting at the zoo and he has recently joined dA. like me, he spends most of his time with the big cats and has great work in his gallery.

time for the parade of favorites!





in the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should