○ Waking up with the buzz of the alarm clock, and it reads "3:00 am"
○ Waiting for a bus, that is scheduled to arrive at 3:31 am, that never comes
○ Walking an empty street, pitch black, just the street lights, no one around, IN BROOKLYN!!
○ Arrive at the subway station, it is me with my back pack (macbook pro, AJ, Water, bagel, saltines, chocolate chip granola bar (4), iPod, and camping chair), and the rest of the type of people you will find on the subway at 3:45 am
○ 4:30 am barely awake, I find my way to the apple store at 103 prince st, in SOHO
○ I open my chair, and sit down, and wait
○ I am relived to be there, exhausted by the thoughts of sitting here for the next 3.5 hours
○ I am intrigued by the population that has joined me in my dedication or "fanboy" behavior
○ I watch them as they fall in line behind me, only one screams with excitement at just being on line, the rest sneer with exhaustion
○ Opportunists arrive to "sell", "advertise", or "market" their products on a captive audience
○ "Check out my website…..look at my magazine…..use my product….."
○ Apple store employees arrive with water, "would you like one, do you have any questions about the iPhone?......I am not sure you should call AT&T"
○ You see they had no answers, at least to the important questions, the answers were "Call AT&T"
○ My mother calls, intrigued and curious by this type of behavior, "how are you?", "Fine" I say, "I was looking for you on the TV, I didn't see you." she states, "I didn't go to the 5th Avenue Store, I decided to keep it low-key and go to the SOHO store.", "are you talking to people on the line?", "No, everyone is really tired"
○ 8 am, everyone stands up, they are handing out RedBull, I chug it down
○ We walk the line like cattle, exhausted, but excited.
○ Slowly waking up, I walk through the doors of the store, and feel the air conditioning, refreshing and sends a chill down my back
○ The apple store employees are applauding each group as we enter, I blush with embarrassment and the attention
○ I follow my group up the stairs to the area we will be assigned to, and yet another line, huh!?!
○ The lady in front of me starts to chat, "is this your first iPhone?", she has a Blackberry Curve, as I do, she doesn't know if she is going to be approved for an upgrade from AT&T, as she just got one, her boyfriend had planned on paying in cash, that was not happening.
○ Finally I am escorted to my person, Scott from Brooklyn I think he said Sheapshead Bay (Hey Scott!! :))
○ Scott was very nice, I was his first (blushing!!?!)…iPhone of the day
○ We laughed and joked, and worked our way through the process, I had wanted a case but they had a limited collection
○ After 10 or 15 mins, I was cleared on the credit check, credit card had been swiped
○ I said good bye to Scott (had wanted a pic, but forgot), and was escorted again to another escort, who escorted me to my activation apple store employee
○ She was very nice, as we began, I asked could we use my laptop?, but it was deiced to use the store one
○ As we began, my blackberry rings….my wife, "How's it going?", "I need to call you back, we are activating it now, sorry."
○ Back to the task at hand, I try to take some photos with the BB, but it is out of memory
○ She continues, I have to put in my apple id and password, and we are done
○ As I begin walking out of the store, with the "golden" phone, I see a woman standing at the front of the store
○ She is a reporter for Reuters, she wants to ask me a couple of questions (see later for result of interview)
○ I finally walk out into the bright sunny day of NYC, smell the air, and call my wife "Can you hear me now?"
(My first note is that my initial review was lost when Vista crashed on me, Microsoft is always hating on apple)
With the 3G off the battery life is much better
