I too will recommend the Digital Negative.
Now when you are starting is a good time to think about your archive organization. I prefer to organize my images in my own folder structure, then let Lightroom import the photos from that structure and work within it. ("Add" photos without moving them.) Note that any changes to the photos inside your regular folders on your hard drive MUST be done from within Lightroom, so don't go moving or deleting folders or files in the Finder or LR will get confused.
For my personal photos I have a folder for the year, then a folder for each event or assignment inside. I also make use of captions, keywords, and ratings to keep track of photos so I can find things easily. Smart Collections work remarkably well to keep track of images as long as one is consistent about adding information to the files.
Lens Corrections: Lightroom has a pretty good catalog of cameras and lenses. Open the Lens Correction tab, choose the Profile option, and click Enable Profile Correction. LR should automatically choose the right lens. I have this set up as my default when I import photos, so every image has the corrections applied automatically. (Note that Lens Corrections won't work for some lenses, such as those from manufacturers who build the corrections into the raw conversion data, like Panasonic, or from old manual lenses that don't provide any EXIF data to tell LR what they are.)
Good luck and have fun.