Fascination with animals

A cheetah on the S-28 at Lower Sabie, Kruger National Park (South Africa): Credit: Mukul2u

I have always had a fascination with animals.  As a small kid everyone thought I would do something with animals when I grew up.  I read as much as I could.  I had subscriptions to Zoo Books and other publications in order to learn all that I could about animals.  As you may be able to tell from the image for this post, my favourite animal was the Cheetah.   It is still a dream of mine to see one in the wild.

Contrary to what everyone was expecting of me, I didn't go into biology or end up doing anything with animals.  Cellular biology killed that for me so I went to what I was more talented in and became an engineer. Growing up, my second major passion was lego, so it was an obvious choice given that I did well in math and physics.  

As I grew into teenage-hood and then adulthood, university and my career really took the forefront of my focus, and I largely forgot my passion about animals.  It was like that friend you had growing up that you were inseparable from, but suddenly circumstances made you lose touch.  I always remembered my passion for animals, but largely didn't see it as an adult pursuit.  It was more of an artifact of my childhood to reminisce about.