A light walk through downtown turned into an urban exploration.  Some streets became alleys and some alleys became homes.  Then came the realization that no space goes wasted here.  

         Arnulfo
THE DESTRUCTION OF BEAUTY or THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION 
      Behold the fall of a giant, like David, one could say El Paso defeated Goliath.  This is no recent story, Asarco, a copper smelting company based off Tucson Arizona, that brought much economic fruition to El Paso in a time of  silver and copper mining, was officially shut down in 2009 due its large amounts of pollution.    Despite the various negative environmental effects that Asarco did have in El Paso ( Which Grupo Mexico is paying to clean up in 19 different state super funds ) there is one positive thing that I know of.  This image you see here is of the Asarco smoke Stack, an El Paso icon that was built with a complete functional purpose but holds much more significance for the people of El Paso.  I do not want to compare The Asarco smoke Stack to the tower of the Americas in San Antonio or the Needle in Seattle, but if there was any hope of finding an El Paso vertical icon I could see no other structure fit for the job.  It is sad to see the Asarco smoke stack go due to our location on the Rio Grande Rift, a minimal but very existent earthquake zone.  What if? is the question, or who? Who would invest in reinforcing the Smoke stack that has damaged so much of our air and wasted our lands to smelt a precious metal.  The Asarco Smoke Stack was a signature to El Paso and I would let it sit there next to the star on the mountain despite its destructive use on my home town. 
EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE

            The digital age has arrived and consumed many forms of art.  Me of all people can appreciate the capabilities that working digitally has brought to my work, and I can honestly say that it has completely changed my definition of art.  We have moved past the days of the tangible and the physical and have developed the limits of our imaginations.  Our imagination can now fill in the gap between holding a magazine and pretending to, while flipping through the digital pages of  an ipad .  All this brings up a good point, and despite all the benefits that we have been able to accomplish with the transition of a tangible era to a digital one, there are giant gaps that digital work will never fill, one being photography.
            The digital image has been miss-used, we no longer take pictures to capture moments, we take pictures because we can.  The value of the work that it takes to go from camera to negative to film has been lost at the touch of a button.  I won’t argue about the depth of clarity or the resolution achieved with a digital camera because film is indefinitely better when done right.  Film photography stops time, translates light through a lens, bringing clarity to objects our bare eyes could not capture.   It can be the case though, that every once in a while you can capture a moment, a look, even with a digital camera.  The quality of the image is secondary to the memories created, or the girl in a picture that maybe you will never meet. 
     ADAPTATION  
       Looking into the past we can see that the human has taken advantage of his environment to survive.  Adaptation has allowed this two legged mammal to resolve civilization into a science. The question herein lies in our own ability to harness that capability. Has our own advancement began to contradict the very principles that allowed us to survive to begin with?  We are capable of creating cities in deserts where we could have only dreamed of once.  But does the fact that we can build a city in the middle of nowhere give us the right to do so. Is it a marvel of our time to waste energy and create cities in the same fashion that we can demolish and construct a building.  As a futurist I look to the horizon with dreams of new lands to conquer, but there has to be a better way.

                  How is it that we have lived with the human body since the primate became a neanderthal and the cave man became a man, that we still, to this day, not know how to read our very own body.  How is it that our body gives us signs about falling down on a simple sickness like a cold through a sneeze but we can’t seem to read a sign from the sickness of a disease like cancer.  How is my body not responsive…. or how am I not realizing that my body is telling me something is going wrong.  How can we begin to understand our bodies, how it works, what it expects, what it needs.  Our body not only works as a physical aspect of our body, but it relies and affects our mind.  Dreams come from a late night meal that was not digested right, sickness has a way of projecting itself  in a similar way.  We just need to understand when our body is telling us there is something wrong.  We, the human, are so ignorant when it comes to taking the time to understand how our own body works.  We rely on a person, a so called doctor to tell us that we have eaten too many french fries in our life time and that he will now have to tear our chest apart to retract the cholesterol in our bodies, and save our lives from our own destruction.  Save you and me from the big macs and whoppers that we have been eating since we could ever afford a meal. 

                    The saying that you are what you eat is no understatement.  Your body is the most precious tool you own, take care of it.

       Arnulfo

The very fascinating thing about this city is the very source of its destruction
I call this one the reversed Duchamp
Finals are creeping up, papers are beginning to get longer, floor plans are getting more detailed and 3d models are corrupting on me.  It’s just that time of the year, cant say Im too stressed quite yet.I think I can deal with pressure fairly well due to the high paced jobs as a bartender and server that I have had.  Lets hit the ground running, jam some hard beats and get to work, best of luck to you all in finals, may the wisdom be with you. 

   stay hungry
The lion has stood as a symbol for royalty and leadership, it is interesting to see the lion here as more of a tamed dog, at the feet of his owner.  The beauty of this fountain lies not in the statues but in the vegetation that has consumed it, I feel it has not stood up against the test of time but in a way allowed time to have its way with it.  This fountain in Venice has aged well, more than a patina, it has grown moss.  Time dresses forms in different manner, and this has got to be one of my favorite ways of deterioration.  
Some ideas manifest themselves in forms we would have never expected.  Some ideas get lost in translation, and some never manifest all.  Bringing an idea to life is bringing something to this world that sometimes is only a variation of something else, but its in the manipulation of hundreds, thousands, of ideas that you can finally call one your own.  Nothing is original, nothing exists without a link to an already existing idea, but do not give up.  Hard work, exploration and imagination will give fruition to an abyss of a mind.  
A memory is composed of strong emotions, feelings, smells, a touch, a smile. Sometimes the simplest things can trigger an array of memories, some may make you smile, some may make you cry, in the end they have made you who you are today.  Make memories now that you can cherish in the future.  Take a picture today so that one day you trigger this memory, a memory of the day you began to collect memories.  
Feeling the rath of the sea crashing onto me made me realize that I am but a human at the mercy of the Gods.  Aren’t we all, simple humans, trying to get the upper hand on Nature, live longer, faster, but what happens when we no longer abide to the rules of nature? We have become so synthesized as a society, we have changed life, changed the meaning of life.  Life no longer means to live, it means preparing yourself, educate your mind, and walk out into the world to become someone.  I walk out in December, and am very excited.
Just keep moving forward till  the road gets better