Marcella and I went over to the grand opening of the new Apple store at Friendly Center…next to the Williams-Sonoma. We got there about 9 AM after stopping at Starbucks on the way to pick up our morning life-drinks. The line was already started and there were apparently at least a few people who had arrived the previous evening…crazy, it was cold out last night.

Anyway, I think we were about 150 people back in the line. Opening began at about 10 AM. By the time it did open the line was around the block. I heard estimates ranging from just below 400 to over 500 people, and the line probably kept growing after the doors actually opened because even when they did open not everyone was allowed in right away. I’d say we got in the doors at about 10:15 or so.

We were given our boxes with a free t-shirt as we entered and shook hands and congratulated some of the cheering employees and then we took a quick trip through the store looking for a new power brick that matches our MacBooks. We’ve been wanting to have a spare one of those around the house. We received a little assistance from a few of the employees making sure we were getting the right one for our model of MacBooks and then made the purchase and left…clicking a button or too and ogling a cinema display on the way out of the door.

I’m sure the Apple store will become one of our regular destinations when we go shopping at that shopping center in the future, and it is nice to know that we now have a place to go and get advice if we do have problems with our computers at some point.