iPad Launch – My Adventure (video)

6:00am The fresh morning air, the discomfort of sitting on a folding chair for hours, the red bull running thorough my veins, that tired but really excited feeling like a child staying up for Christmas. Thats how I felt the morning of the iPad release.

Standing in line with people who share the same excitement as you might be the second best part of being crazy enough to camp out for a gadget. You end up talking about the device for hours and what you want to do with it. The excitement just keeps building.

For this Apple release I decided to take my chances and not camp out for two/three days like I intended. This was not normal procedure for me but since this time I now have a son and wife at home I had to take the more grown up approach. I woke everyone up at 4am to head to the mall.

7:00am As the sun started to rise. mall security let us inside to line up in front of the Apple store. You can hear the employees hard at work as they had been through the night. One of the Store managers even got a hotel for the night since he lived over an hour away. He wanted to be clean and refreshed.

The Apple Staff came out to greet us early adaptors and looked refreshed and excited. They passed out Smart Water to people in line and set up a table with refreshments.

8:59am “Michael your going to be the first person to own an iPad, Let me introduce you to your specialist” I think I peed a little.

9:00am Did a handshake with my specialist for the cameras and we both ran into the store jumping up and down(no really we both jumped up and down) I also believe my wife was behind me but I did not check.

We zipped around the store grabbing the iPads and a hand full of accessories my specialist was up all night and wired off energy drinks you can tell because he dropped everything he picked up(not the iPads)

9:04am Approved “Everyone listen up, Mike Niles just bought the first iPad” everyone stopped what they were doing and clapped and cheered us on, My specialist posed with us(my wife was still behind me) and we took a few snap shots. He then walked us out of the store as again everyone clapped and cheered as I held the first two purchased iPads.

9:06am We did a little talking to reports and I un-boxed one of my units for them to take their first peek at an iPad. Onlookers peeking over each other to see the iPad for the first time up close.

9:15am The walk to the parking lot was a long one, the ride home was even longer. I could hardly contain myself on the drive home, Singing and yelling and bouncing up and down. I don’t think anyone was ever this excited over a PC product ever!

9:30am Made it home with out crashing the car into a tree and ran to my MacBook Pro to plug in the iPad. It’s been magic ever since.

Sometimes it’s not just the product but the excitement and adventure that comes along with it. I have never been dissappointed by an Apple release and this time around was one for the books.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me, I won’t be doing a formal review of the iPad since the internet will be saturated with 14 and 15 year olds doing them for me.

Thanks to Apple for the fun, and WPTV, PalmBeach Post, & Pete Martson for the Videos and Pictures.