Dear Friends,

It has been a see-saw spring as far as the temperatures go. Last night, I was able to get my 1970 Norton out on the road for a ride after work because the temps were in the high 70s. This morning it was in the low 30s. Nevertheless, the trees have buds and Grace hauled all the deck furniture out so we can pretend it is spring.

It is only one week until our Grand Opening of the Rutland, Vermont store. Things have really come together well for the store and we look forward to opening the store for business in Vermont’s 2nd largest city!

Apple released their much anticipated 2nd Quarter financials this week and I will review the numbers below, but to paraphrase the words of Mark Twain, rumors of Apple’s death “have been greatly exaggerated.” Apple announced an increased dividend for their shareholders, as well as committing $100 billion to buy back their stock, saying the Apple Board of Directors thought that was the best investment for the company.

A lot of noise has been made by Tim Cook’s comments that Apple has some great products for the fall and early 2014. Many have read into that to mean that there won’t be any products between now and then. I don’t buy that — I expect we will see some new revisions and products before the fall, and that the bigger “game-changing” products will be ready for the holiday season. If you want to ask Tim Cook yourself, there is a charity auction for coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple Headquarters. You have to have too much money to bid though; however, there must be some value at Apple if having coffee with the CEO is worth $560,000 as of today!* You can have coffee with me for free anytime!

*Note that at the time of Don’s writing, the bid was at $180,000 — less than 12 hours ago — and may be much different by the time you receive this!