The trip to Alabama was pretty decent, although I probably won’t even do that again anytime soon. I drove pretty much the entire way there in one day (around 12ish hours I think). The wedding was small, but not bad, I wasn’t bored… which seems common at weddings from what I hear? I don’t think I get bored because I’m always trying to take pictures and/or waiting for the next moment I need to capture.

I was pretty happy with the shots I took this time around, I haven’t had a good photo-op in a while. I don’t do well with posed shots; candids are more my thing, and weddings provide ample opportunities for that. Here’re some of my favorites:

This one’s a bit blurry, which makes me sad, cause I really liked the composition with the groom in the background… =(

And… again, the rest are on my flickr.

I also uploaded some pics from Christmas.

I had a lot of thinking time on the drive to Alabama (because Kathy was up all night working on her dress so she was pretty dead on the ride there) and one of the topics my mind fell upon was grace. I think it is somewhat ironic that Christianity means the most to the “bad” people rather than the “good.” For example, if one’s been generally “good” all their life, it’s hard for them to realize the significance of grace. If the worst someone thinks they’ve ever done is told a lie or stolen some candy or cheated on a test or something like that, they don’t realize how awesome and powerful God’s grace is. On the other hand, if someone did something really “bad” (I put these words in quotes because a sin in a sin in God’s eyes and there’s no difference between a “small” sin and a “big” one… they both make us imperfect and unfit/unworthy), so bad that they find it hard to even forgive themselves, grace means so much more to them because they realize just how much they don’t deserve it.

Christianity isn’t for the “do-gooders” – they actually don’t really exist… I would guess that everyone at one point or another has in some form or fashion broken the ten commandments and/or hurt someone, acted selfishly, etc. etc. It’s for the people who are beyond all hope, the people who’ve been so messed up that they don’t feel worth any love or forgiveness. The “trick” is to realize that no matter how “good” of a person you generally think you are, you’re probably pretty wrong. =p Everyone needs grace, everyone’s messed up, no one deserves forgiveness because we all fall short of what God desires. There’s a reason why Jesus went to the outcasts of society, the ones people didn’t think deserved any love/forgiveness… the tax collectors, prostitutes, etc. etc.

I think once you realize that you’ve been given this gift of grace and you don’t deserve it, it makes you want to reach out to others because you can’t keep it to yourself. It means you’ve been given a new chance at life, sorta, and you want to use your new life to serve a purpose that would glorify God, to try to “pay him back” (even though that’s not possible =).

So here’s New Year’s resolution #2: To realize the significance of grace and know that every moment I’m alive is a gift from God I don’t deserve. And then, in turn, not to sit idling and to reach out and show others the love and grace I’ve been given.

I am still alive… and will post something with more substance… later. =)

In the mean time, you can see pics from the wedding over at my flickr.

Well, it’s Christmas Eve and I’m at home chilling with the family. Have a merry Christmas tomorrow, everyone. =) I may be calling some of you up and/or dropping by, so watch out! ;)

In other news, I uploaded pics from when we took Henrique and Tu to a Brazilian restaurant:

More on my flickr.

I wrote an email to God today (well, not really, because I don’t know his email address) and it reminded me of the movie Dear God about people reading the letters people were writing to God and answering their prayers by doing good deeds for them. Anyways, that’s kinda not the point.

I don’t think I pray very well, especially out loud when other people are around. I’ve probably voiced this before, but I’ll do it again anyways. =p I’ve never really written/typed out a prayer before, but I think it really helped because I guess it helps me to think through my thoughts. In a lot of churches I’ve attended in the past, prayers are sometimes really short and sometimes like mini-sermons. I guess mine tend to be on the short side and I find it hard to come up with things to “talk about” I guess (actually, this is probably a common problem with people too, not just with God)… a lot of times, I’m like, “why do I need to tell God this as he probably already knows?” I know that’s not the point. =p

I think prayer can be very powerful and I envy people who seem to be gifted with a strong prayer life. Actually, I guess they probably weren’t “gifted” with it, but they had to work on it and I should do the same. I want a strong prayer life and I want to dialogue with Him more because He’s the only one who I can truly trust to always lead me in the right direction, whether I like it or not. It might be a little early for New Year’s resolutions, but I think that’s the top of my list for ‘07.

I know I post it a lot, but it is a prayer and it is my favorite song…

“Dear Father, I need you,
Your strength my heart to mend.
I want to fly higher,
Every new day again.

Dear God…
Increase.
Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again.
Jesus Christ, light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever.
Freedom means love without condition,
Without a beginning or an end.
Here’s my heart, let it be forever Your’s,
Only You can make every new day seem so new.” - Five Iron Frenzy

So this past semester, my Elements was blessed with two foreign exchange students, Henrique and Tu. These guys are pretty awesome and very cheerful and I’ve very much enjoyed having them in my group to share in our discussions. They’re both headed out of Texas this week, so on Sunday, we went to a Brazilian restaurant to wish them farewell (Henrique is Brazilian, and Tu is Vietnamese – they went to a Vietnamese place before). We decided that we needed to do a Chinese place too, so yesterday, off to Din Ho we went.

We had 11 people show and decided to go with the 10-person meal, but since they had no lobster, we got to substitute four dishes instead (!!!), so we ended up with 11 dishes. Woooot. It was a pretty awesome meal and I think everyone was really super stuffed. It was fun. =)

I don’t know if this seems cheesy, and I don’t think it should, but I’m going to say it anyways… Henrique and Tu, God bless. =)

Yay! Today at work, I entered the office and our office manager greeted me with a brown box and said “this is for you.” I thought it was an LCD at first, but nope, it was my MacBook. Yay! So I spent most of the day setting it up and it’s running smoothly now. Yipeee… time to be more productive. =)

I had a larger, inferior spec’ed, HP laptop that I didn’t even bother taking home (I just left it locked at the desk)… but this MacBook is nice enough for me to carry around with me. I still think I prefer the MacBook Pro’s keyboard though, but it’s nice nonetheless.

Rumor has it a 12” MacBook Pro might be released soon… I might be tempted… the only reason why I’d stick with the larger version is better photo editting though… so I dunno, we’ll see.

In anticipation for tomorrow’s beta release of CS3, I played around with a few pics in Photoshop again on my PC. I’ve been too lazy to transfer pics from my mac to my PC to edit pics in Photoshop with… and also been too impatient to put up with Photoshop running via Rosetta. Anyways, Oink, being the good looking dog he is, was a good subject, so I played with two of his pics.

Man, I miss Photoshop.

Photoshop CS3 beta tomorrow! YAAAAAAAAAY!!!

So I uploaded some pics from the Elements potluck/white elephant thing. Yeah, I seem to be getting sick more frequently this year than usual… dunno what’s up with that. Although, it’s not so bad what I’ve got… just a cough/throat thing mainly… maybe I caught something from Stephanie >=|… haha, j/k. =)

Group shot:

More here.