IBeNimages and Words

It’s a great chance all of you have heard about Tiger Woods. Since his first appearance in the public, back in 1996 when he first won U.S. Amateur championship, he brought golf to a level of popular sports, just like football and tennis. His charisma and talent draw crowds and admirers from around the world. We can see more and more young kids are going to driving range, just because they (or their father) want them to be the ‘Next Tiger’. He is also one single reason why so much money is  poured into professional golf tour nowadays.

And we haven’t talked about his sporting accomplishment yet.

But the question is, where to start?

Tiger has rewritten almost all golf record books. He is the youngest player ever to win a major tournament. He hold record for the longest streak as No. 1 ranked golfer in the world. He joined other golf legends like Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer who ever won all major tournaments, so called "grand slam" achievement. And all of these achievements were made before he reach age of 30s, regarded as prime age of a golfer.

But he still has one record to break.

He has now collected 12 majors, still 6 less from Jack Nicklaus total.  But Jack won 16 of his majors when he was 30s. Tiger has won 11 before he is 30. Do the math.

I can’t say enough how I admire this guy. Not only because he is the greatest golfer on earth, but also he is such a great person. Although he has enormous  ‘bragging rights’ he never brag himself up in the public how great he is. He is such devoted philantropist, donating million dollars for his Tiger Woods foundation, mostly helping unfortunate kids for improving their education and welfare. And rarely is Tiger being singled out by his fellow golfers, just because how he respects his fellow professionals, despite his stature in golfers’ elite. The late Earl Woods, father of Tiger, who passed away this year once mentioned,  "It is my mission not only to make him a good golfer, but also to make him a great man".

Mission accomplished.

My Other Candidates of Most Defining Athlete in History:

• Pele (Football): Won 3 world cups with Brazil.
• Michael Jordan (Basketball): 6 times NBA world champion with Chicago Bulls
• Michael Schumacher (Formula 1): 7 times world champion, including 5 wins in consecutive years with Ferrari.
• Who is yours?

After exactly 2 years, I  finally can fulfill my Gadget Wishlist. The latest gadget addition come from a long-awaited digital SLR camera. I bought myself a highly-acclaimed Nikon D80 yesterday! It is actually an improvement from my initial wishlist , a D70. But luckily I saved enough money to allow me an upgrade. Nevertheless, it then ranks as most expensive gadgets I owned, explaining why it come last.

Past few weekends, I spent favour bit of time browsing the internet. I’ve been looking for a best value combination of DSLR camera and lens. I read many reviews and product specs. Eventhough I always crave for Nikon (I grew up with this brand), I’ve been toying with Sony Alpha which internal vibration reduction gives it upper edge from its competitors. I’ve been considering Canon EOS 400D as well, with the thought of its collection of great lenses somehow come in cheaper price than Nikon.

Until I stucked with an article in internet of a Nikkor lens which I never realised its existence before: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-200/F3.5-5.6 VR. It is a lens with versatile zoom range and with added vibration reduction technology. It also produced great image quality (of course you can’t compare it with prime–fixed focal length lenses). The reviews over internet say it all. Nikon ethusiasts love it. Photography sites give no less than 4 out of 5 rating. Amazon stated this lens as high-demand item which they currently don’t have on stock.

"Sounds like the lens I’ve always wanted".

Unfortunately it comes with two catches: It is fairly expensive and it is rare to find.

For the first, at least I can reach the deeper side of my pocket, but the latest is more tricky.

On Monday, I called three most renowned photographic stores in Jakarta, and found out they had no such item on stock, and were not sure when they will have it delivered. It is indeed a rare item.

Well, call me lucky or it’s been my destiny, my office colleague and fellow Nikon owner, Andre informed me that a small camera store in ITC Fatmawati has one in stock! Without further due, we called them and booked the lens. We went there yesterday, and I finally ended up with buying Nikon D80 from this store as well, all in cheaper price than that famous store in Kemang!

I haven’t got a chance to try out this camera and lens. But I did try the VR technology with this one shot of Andre in the camera store. It was taken in ISO 200, 1/8 speed, handheld. Looks sharp and good colour saturation (you can see those pimples and textures in Andre’s face hehehe).
Well what I’m trying to say here is  with this great camera and lens, I can envision lots of great pictures ahead! Amen.

So I can finally close the chapter of My Gadget Wishlist.

At least for now.

Because I can easily create another list… Playstation 3, XBox 360, Treo 680, Yamaha Drum kit, Archos AV500, Nintendo DS Lite… *grin*