IF - Cocoon

Big Bend - Flora and Fauna

The Ocotillo were in bloom.

Big Bend 2010

This past weekend Laura, myself, and Brooke drove to Big Bend National Park.
Our driving route (the 1400 miles of it).

Our campsite up in the Chisos Basis.

Brooke and Laura in front of Santa Elena Canyon.

The scramble up the unofficial version of the Lost Mine Trail.

The Rio Grande from Hwy 170.

Erosion

Some photos of a model I just built for an extracurricular design class I have been taking through my firm. The concept was to take an abandoned condo development in Tempe and convert it to student dormitories that incorporate agricultural gardens.

Brazil or Bust

There are days when working at a large firm really pays off. Yesterday was one of those days. Each year my firm does a travel essay competition. You enter an essay about architecture somewhere in the world that you want to go see and the winner gets an extra five days vacation and $2500 to go see it. And this year I won, which means later this year Laura and I will be going to Brazil.

Some of the trip details:

-I am specifically going to study the works of the great Brazilian modernist Oscar Niemeyer

-we will be flying into and out of Rio

-in addition to Rio we will fly to the capital city of Brasilia

-we will go and see the rainforest (which I have wanted to see since I was a kid) but don’t know exactly where yet

-we are going sometime in Sept or Oct

If you can’t tell through the blog interface, I am wearing a big grin. I feel very blessed that opportunities such as this come up in my life. I will post more details as they come and of course picture of the trip when we get back.

“Not the straight angle that attracts me, nor straight, hard, inflexible angle created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve, the curves that find in the mountains of my country, in the course of its winding rivers, the sea waves, the body of the woman preferred. Curves are done throughout the universe, the universe of Einstein's curved.” – Oscar Niemeyer

IF - Detective

This is what I always imagined would happened if these two ever met.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Thanks for all you do for us, for the support and the love and even the worrying about us. We love you. (If I had baby pictures of you they would be up on this blog, you got lucky I didn’t find any.)

Implosion of Texas Stadium

Texas Stadium's last sunset (taken yesterday).

And the implosion this morning:











you can watch a video of it here: http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978165918