Dear Friends,

I had a good trip out to Cupertino last week. It was good to see my colleagues from the other largest Apple Specialists and trade notes, and of course, to see the Apple folks that are responsible for our sales channel. We had a long day of meetings of the Apple Reseller Advisory Board and I left early the next morning for Boston and the Celtics game.

I made it into Boston smoothly and the town was full-scale into storm preparations. Grace picked me up, we had great seafood for my birthday dinner, and then a glorious Celtic victory as a nightcap. So not only did my Celtics beat the Lakers on my birthday, but they had a better record at the NBA All-Star break which means Hapy owes me big time for our annual bets. (This year, it is a Celtics hoodie and a piece of memorabilia.)

We got up early to get on the road before the storm and hardly hit any snow all the way back to Vermont. Hapy wasn’t so lucky. He stayed and gave our account review and then ended up being stuck in Chicago over the weekend. Luckily, he knows the town well since he went to Northwestern University in nearby Evanston. For some reason, he kept posting pictures of various beers he was drinking on FaceBook on his trip…

Again, I was very impressed with the beehive of activity on the Apple Campus. I have been there many times over the last few decades, and I have never seen it this busy. Finding parking at 1 Infinite Loop was nearly impossible, and we had to opt for valet parking. I remember driving up in the past and having my pick of parking spots. The MacCafe was also jammed, and one of the Apple execs we were visiting, Mary Philipsek, encouraged us to eat at 11AM or we would never find seats. She was right, of course, and the mass of people busily working was very impressive. The night lights were on as people seemed to work at all hours. Apple’s products and sales numbers may be the most striking to others, but I am impressed with how they have managed their meteoric growth and staff.

Apple dropped the prices of the MacBook Pro with Retina display and made them a little faster, too. We have some stock of the older versions at good savings, so if you do not mind being a tenth of a megaHertz slower and want to save some bucks, this is a great opportunity.

Another great opportunity right now is the AT&T contract for data on a cellular-equipped iPad. If you sign-up for a 2-year contract, we can offer $100 off at the time of purchase. This will reduce your data plan significantly. We have most of the iPad AT&T models in stock. The new 128GB models have not arrived yet, but we expect them next week. (Note that you need to purchase in-store.)

We have quite a few of the Verso premium leather cases for the original iPad left in stock. We are open to anyone’s ideas on what to do with these to clear them out of our inventory. Do you have an idea for a charitable home for these or other idea for us to consider? I don’t want to take these top-grain leather cases to the dump…share your thoughts!