Dear Friends,

It is snowing again today but nothing like the big dump we had on Monday. There was just under 3 feet of snow that came down at my house on Monday and we finally had a winner of the snow contest at Waitsfield headquarters. Jim Overman won the contest to predict when we would have over a foot of snow in 24 hours. Snow this time of the year is an annoyance but we know it will soon melt. With Daylight Savings time happening on Sunday morning, there is going to be some spring fever happening here but we have one of our famous shoulder seasons to get through first – mud season. We have had two thaws so far and the mud was horrible on Prickly Mountain.

My mother passed away last week and I had to turn around and come back from Jamaica as soon as we got there, so it was the shortest Jamaican vacation in history. My sister and daughter were at her side when she passed and she did awaken when I called from Jamaica so I was able to tell her that I loved her. My mom taught me early about work. For my teenage years she was a single mom with three kids and worked two jobs to support the family while finding time to volunteer and stay active in the community. She was a strong woman and a stubborn woman. Hapy was also very close to his grandmother and during Hapy’s college days in Evanston at Northwestern University, my mom would be a haven for him and his friends and my mom was a Northwestern employee for over 20 years and lived right near campus.

My mom always wanted the latest technology and had an iPad and MacBook and those in the Waitsfield office would frequently overhear me or Hapy giving technical support. My mom wanted an iPad so badly that she had her doctor write a prescription to me saying she needed it to “keep her mind strong” but he did not have to worry because until the end my mom was interested in what was going on in the world and we would talk politics and world events whenever we talked to each other. I’ve got a new best friend now, too, as mom’s Papillion, Max, will join Hammer and FanTail in our menagerie (or should I call that a pack?)

There was a lot of new and interesting news from Apple this week. I like the new upgraded software for the Apple TV that now allows you to stream major league baseball and NBA games if you pay the reasonable subscription rates. Personal hotspots are now a reality with iOS 4.3 on the AT&T network and the excitement is building for the release of the iPad 2 later today. We will have some iPad 2 for demo purposes at each store and more inventory will arrive daily. Also, if you are on a budget we have some stock of the original iPad starting at just $399!