Greetings Friends and Family. I have been neglecting my blog lately. Just been too distracted by other things since I got back from Vanuatu.
I meant to post this yesterday. But the earthquake that hit Taiwan yesterday did a number on the trans-Pacific Internet traffic. In case you did not year, a major quake damaged some of the fiberoptic cables that carry most of the Internet traffic across the Pacific to places like Australia, where I am. So I have had a hard time getting to Google and Blogger.
An update on my health. All good news. I was given a clean bill of health by the doctor when I got back. No cancer. He suspected some kidney damage. But an MRI scan showed them to be in good shape. And I feel good. So all is well.
The main reason I have neglected my blog is because of a new mistress in my life.... my digital SLR camera. I've been spending a lot of time teaching myself how to use it. And how to use Photoshop for post-processing. There is a lot to learn. I've been enjoying it tremendously.
So for Christmas, I bought myself two things. First, I bought a good lens for my camera. I found a company in Hong Kong that can sell me the lens I want for about half of what it goes for here in Australia. I got myself the Canon 18-35mm f/2.8L lens. That won't mean much to those of you who don't know much about cameras. But in English, it is a lens with Canon's best optics, and it is very fast and accurate.
It turns out there are a handful of photography nuts at work who have been working for years in their hobby. They have managed to acquire a lot of good equipment over the years. And they have been nice enough to let me borrow some too. A friend had the lens that I just bought. I was so impressed with that it could do that I decided it was worth it for myself.
I've been checking out the pawn shops too, looking for gear that people are dumping cheap. So far, no luck. Almost all of the gear is for older film cameras. However, I did score one day and found a top-quality Manfrotto tripod for about a third of the normal price. So I grabbed it. It works very, very well.
On the post-processing side, I've been teaching myself Photoshop CS2. But it turns out that my old laptop just can't keep up with the new demands I've placed on it. I was planning to upgrade this year anyways, so I just went ahead and did that.
But rather than get another true and trusted Dell Latitude, I decided to take the plunge and go with an Apple Mac. I bought a MacBook Pro laptop with the new Intel Core 2 DUO processor. What convinced me to switch was the fact that I can boot WindowsXP on the Mac now that they went to Intel in late 2006. So all of my software and expertise will not go to waste.
I plan to use the Apple OS-X for photo-processing and use the WindowsXP for my professional work, such as application development. Plus, I have a steep learning curve for me since I've never touched a Mac before.
I've decided that I will write up a log of my experience as a Windows guru learning my Mac. I've had it for 24 hours now. To be honest, I've found it to be frustrating to get things done that I consider to be simple (on Windows). I won't bore you with the technical details on this post. But I've decided to plow ahead and learn how to get around this obstacles.
IBM has renewed my contract for 2007. So no big changes to report. All is well. I'm just trying to perfect my new hobby. Man, I am such a geek.
I've cut back on reading news. I find it all just so depressing. All of the news from the Middle East is bad, and getting worse. The people there seem to hellbent on dragging themselves into a 15th century dark ages of ignorance, intolerance, and violence. I'm sick of them all. Any sympathy and compassion I had for their suffering has gone. They can all go around killing each other for all I care anymore. So until they actually do something postive for mankind, then screw them. I ain't giving them any more of my precious time.
I hope you all have a great New Years! I will!
Love
Ron
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