End of last week I attended a two day photography workshop taught by a couple of instructors from The Institute of Photographic Studies. These two crazy guys travel around the world taking amazing photos, teaching workshops, and and documenting and helping missionary and charitable efforts in far-flung corners of the globe. Both of them come from very safe, very “sane” backgrounds — straightforward day jobs and whatnot — but at different times they felt called by God to switch gears completely and enter into a far more radical lifestyle. Their names are Will Thornton and Rowan Gillson. I really admire people who throw caution to the wind and pursue their dreams, wherever they may take them.

On a note closer to home, I got a chance to get back into photography for a bit and play with my woefully-neglected Canon Digital Rebel XT 350D. Man, I love that camera! It’s so-o-o-o cool. And another thing: I finally got around to downloading the latest beta of Adobe Lightroom. It’s not without its faults, but overall I’m highly impressed and love using it thus far. BTW, I haven’t used Apple Aperture yet, but unless Lightroom ends up costing the same or more money (I highly doubt it), I don’t feel too interested in switching. Sorry, Apple.

At some point down the road when I have enough decent photos to assemble into something resembling a photo album, I’ll probably set up shop on Flickr. Hope to see ya around!

(Special thanks to Shannon Taylor for setting up the workshop. I had a great time!)

I checked out the new MacBook a few days ago at my local Apple store, and I was quite impressed. I thought the iBook design couldn’t be beat, and I still like my iBook G4 a whole lot, but the MacBook (even with the slightly bigger width) is a small, sleek bundle of power that is really on a whole new level. A next-generation product, no doubt about it. I’ll post soon with some of my observations, especially regarding the strange and unique keyboard design.

Needless to say, I believe Apple will sell millions of them this year. They’re really, really cool!

‘Tis the night before Tuesday, and all through my brain, I’m hoping tomorrow brings joy and not pain!

Ugh. Leaving aside for a moment my horrible poetry skills, I’d like to tell you how excited I am about the new MacBooks that Apple is about to release. It’s not certain tomorrow is the day, but it’s certainly going to be with the next couple of weeks according to just about everyone’s prediction. The reason I’m so excited about this is because the iBook is the coolest little notebook around (I use my iBook G4 constantly and love it to pieces) — except for the fact that it is just too underpowered by today’s standards. Plus the matte (and IMHO dull) white finish and thick, kiddie case are starting to get long in the tooth. The MacBook will likely sport a sleeker, sexier case, and will most certainly boast a dramatically faster architecture. Plus with the prospect of using Windows via dual-booting and virtualization at near-native speeds when it’s time to do some boring office task or play the odd game or two, the whole package makes me salivate. I haven’t been this excited about a new Mac coming out since the Mac mini debuted in January of 2005.

If we’re really, really lucky, we might even see a price drop. Who knows? At any rate, the iBook has had a good, long run, and I love mine dearly — but it’s time for a big change. Apple, don’t fail us now!

This has got to be the coolest and most original blog design I have ever seen. Very, very neat.

theocacao.com

P. S. *sigh* …maybe it’s time for some touch-ups on this blog…getting sick of the color scheme already…