We left on Wednesday and headed for Milwaukee. Once we got there and into our hotel we went right to Miller Stadium for the Twins/Brewers game. At the Stadium we ate at a TGI Friday's before starting the climb to the nose bleeds. The seats were on the 4th floor but still pretty awesome. We even got to see the retractable roof close because it started raining. Twins lost and a drunk Brewers fan started to mess with me since I was wearing my twins jersey. It wasn't long before a fellow Twins fan walked over and asked what the record between the Twins and Brewers was. "I think 13 and 5... So shut the fuck up" he said to the Brewers fan before he looked at me and said, "figured I'd help you out" and then walked away.... I laughed. When we left we ended up driving by the mall to see if the line for the iPhone was already started... and it was... about 10 or so in line. But that was it for day one.
Day two was designated by me as "iPhone Day." I started it out by waking up at 4:30 in the A.M. Gretchen drove me to the Mayfair mall so I could wait in line, but there was no line to be found.
I saw a few people walking into the mall door so I followed and figured they were going in to get in line. I walked in, right behind another younger guy and followed as he went into one of those small hallways where the bathrooms usually are. He then walked through some doors that weren't labeled. I saw a security guard talking to someone about the iphone release so i stood by and listened. Then when he was threw, I asked where the drinking fountains were, he said up stairs, so I asked what the quickest way to the Apple store was and he said right threw those doors. He pointed at the same doors that the guy I followed in went threw... I thought it looked like it was for employees only and just before I walked in, a woman said, "are you an employee?" To which I replied, "no". Once the security guard heard that he got excited and told me that I couldn't be in there.
As he walked me to the door he said that they broke up the line that was formed last night and told everyone that they couldn't line up until 6am. Once I made it back outside and into the parking lot I saw a group of people standing around... these were the people I was looking for. They, also, explained that they weren't supposed to line up until 6am but one guy suggested that we make a line FOR the line we couldn't start till 6.
We made the line and a security guard told us we couldn't be there so he moved the line to the front of the building... where they ORIGINALLY said we couldn't be.... So there we waited until about 6am when a couple Apple employees came out and brought us into the mall to wait in two more lines... A line for people who pre ordered the phone and a line for the regular walk ins. I was one of the only people who had a pre order when we were standing out the in parking lot and people asked me why I pre ordered it and came to the store. Well, this was why. I was second in the pre order line. It was awesome.
At 7am when they started letting people in, they walked about ten people from each line over to the store where they had black curtains up blocking the windows. Shortly after we lined up they dropped the curtains and the doors opened up all smooth and slow like. So awesome. All the Apple employees were standing in two lines clapping and holding their hands out for high fives... so I, and everyone else walked threw the line of people and at the end they told us that the people we just passed were the people who were going to get us the phones...
Some employees were walking right up to people and helping them, and some were standing around kind of looking for someone to help... I ran up to one of those people and said, "Hey, are you going to help me get an iPhone?" "Yes I am," he said... we set it up right there and BOOM... I had my new iphone.
In and out of the store in about 15 minutes after waiting in line for two hours and 45 minutes.
When I got back to the hotel we headed to chicago. Stopped at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then finished the trip to the hotel. We took the shuttle from there to the O'Hare airport where we took the blue line into downtown Chicago.
We walked to the Navy Pier and then Gretchen and her parents went to Millennium park while I went to visit my friend from college, Chad. I waited in a Starbucks and drew in my sketchbook until he got off work. Then we huffed it north to Chicago Ave and rode a bus to Rotofugi, Chicago's equivalent of RobotLove.
After an awesome ride with chad, talking about the new iPhones we both have we arrived at Rotofugi and bought a few pieces of urban vinyl. After that we parted ways and I met Gretchen and family back at Michigan Ave. We checked out a couple stores, hit Ghirardelli and walked back to the blue line... worst nap ever.
Today we drove to Ohio.... not much more than that... just drove. Here now, tomorrow Gretchen and I will hit Cleveland while Gary and Bonnie go to a wedding.
I threw together this iphone/ipod wallpaper if anyone is interested.
More updates to come....
OH yeah... in other news, I was in the Honorable Mention Category with my 5 second project, "Shaved Yeti". Check out the full article here
HERE.
