Toy Store (for Brian)

During my El tour of Chicago, I stopped off at Chicago and State. Why here? Its right in the middle of the high-end shopping district of Chicago centered around Michigan Avenue. This is the land of Nordstroms, boutiques, luxury high-rise condos, and fancy restaurants. The streets teem with shoppers and tourists all day and most of the night. But most importantly, its the home of one of the largest Apple Stores in the world. Located at Michigan and Huron, this free-standing store is an edifice to all things Apple.

I've always been a fan of Apple computers. My very first computer ever was an Apple //e way back in the eighties. I later bought a performa and wrote my graduate school thesis on it (and played a lot of games). I actually briefly ditched Apple for a home-constructed PC, assembled by my friend A-. This was during the dark days of Apple computers. I literally felt so bad about turning to the dark side, that I bought a few shares of Apple stock to reaffirm my loyalty. As fate would have it, my loyalty has been rewarded over the years by an enormous run-up in the price of Apple stock. Unfortunately, being a poor student at the time, I couldn't afford to buy many shares of AAPL, so I'll have to keep my day job for now. Still, anytime I'm near an Apple store, I have to drop in a see how "my" company is doing.

The Michigan avenue Apple store is ALWAYS packed. These days with the rollout of the iphone, it seems even more crowded than usual. I walked into the store, checked my email on one of the powerbooks, and then wandered over to the iphone table. I've played with the iphone before, at other Apple and AT&T stores, so I wasn't too disappointed that every display model was in the hands of a customer. Its a wonderful device, and I'll probably get one when my current contract expires and the fix some of the version 1.0 bugs.

I left the store happy, except for a gnawing thought in the back of my mind,"I should have bought more AAPL stock in 1998."