So here I am on my first stop on the "Apple Store + User Group" Road Trip, and not only am I a half hour late, I'm at the wrong Apple Store. Whoops. Actually, there's a good reason for both miscues. The rainstorms on the way down here were torrential enough to turn my three hour drive into a nearly four hour one, so I assessed that it might be best if I saved the Wellington Green Apple Store for the trip home. It's a bit, well, west of my route (actually, it's a bit west of known civilization), so it seemed the logical thing to just bypass it.
But nonetheless, I'm at an Apple Store. Guess I'm a true addict. I realized that the Boca Raton store was precisely on my route as I headed toward the next stop, so I decided to stop by, check my email, and pound out a quick column. As far as my "next stop," I was originally planning to attend tonight's meeting of the NATMAC User Group in Deerfield Beach, but now I'm presenting at the meeting. Strange times indeed. Guess I'd better actually make it to that stop on the tour. Now, if only I could figure out what I'm presenting...
Oh well, no big deal, I've got my PowerBook with me and they've got a projector system. Something will come of it. Speaking of my PowerBook, I'll have you know that this column is in fact being written as I sit here on the couch outside of the Apple Store in the Town Center Mall. Certainly another experience to add to the collection! When I first showed up here, there were three security guards and a police officer standing outside the store, and my first thought was "oh no, they knew I was coming!" But apparently, their presence had more to do with a medical emergency inside the store (hope everyone is OK!) than my attempts to "borrow" a little Apple Store bandwidth for the sake of publishing this column.
You know what's really weird? I don't feel half as out of place, sitting here typing on my PowerBook, as I should. There was a point in time where I would make two to three technology presentations per week (sometimes per day), and yet I now realize that it's been a few months since I've made one. Well, tonight should be fun then. Otherwise it's a slow news day in the Macintosh universe, the only bright spot being a totally wacky rumor about the next-gen iPod having a color screen and some other fantasy stuff. I'll believe it when Steve announces it.
Hey, do I dare venture inside the Apple Store and spend another round of lusting over the iPod mini, while I marvel at its impossibly small size? Nah, I'll save that for tomorrow. The front window of the store has one mini of each color, each atop a sort of translucent white cylindrical pole, and each pole has that mini's respective color streaming up and down the pole, in a sort of light brigade. I wish I had a digital camera, I'd take a picture and post it. I'm half tempted to go inside and ask an employee if I can borrow one of the display cameras for that purpose, but I don't want to push my luck too far. After all, I'm getting a free internet signal already. Plus, I don't have much time today for messing around. Maybe I'll try the camera stunt tomorrow, at the Aventura Store.
In the mean time, I've got to grab some dinner before heading off to the MUG meeting. Here are a few idle thoughts from my trip so far, for you to chew on:
- There's a lady sitting on the couch next to me, and I'm getting a kick out of the fact that she has no idea that I'm writing about her.
- The tourists down here in South Florida are just as retarded as the ones in Central Florida, but it's a whole different kind of retarded. Up in Central Florida, the tourists are there for an average of four days, and despite not fitting into the local scene, they don't care because they're on vacation. Down here in South Florida, the tourists are here for an average of four months, and despite not fitting into the local scene, they don't care because they think they own the place. Both sets of tourists drive equally poorly.
- Traveling three hours south on the Florida Turnpike now costs fourteen dollars. Who are they kidding? The good news is that I get to ante up another fourteen dollars when I head home.
- The bad news: I can't take in a Florida Marlins game while I'm down here, because the Marlins are currently on a road trip. The good news: the Dolphins are holding offseason mini-camp Saturday morning, and I'll be there. The moral of the story: offseason football beats regular-season defending-champion baseball any day. Alright, maybe that's just sour grapes. But hey, admission to the mini-camp is free. Likely because no one would actually pay to attend.
Well, I've got to get going. Tomorrow, I'll let y'all know just how tonight's User Group presentation turns out, and then I'll be heading south to the Aventura Apple Store and then the Gold Coast MUG in Miami. Somewhere between here and there, I'll try and get some sleep. See you tomorrow.
