C-Mac and Steve's excellent Cupertino adventure

I absolutely love the Company Store in Cupertino. Was there about a year ago and it was a great experience. While you can't buy the merchandise online, it's probably for the best - it makes taking the trip to the Mothership even more special (and plus you can brag that you're the only one at work/school with an Apple mug!). They have everything you can think of - mugs, shirts, hats, baby clothes, luggage tags, pads/notebooks, watches, keychains, pens, mousepads, badge holders, etc. It's way too easy to drop $200+ in there...

I enjoyed the story, but I have to agree with the earlier post that C-Mac is ridiculously cute. Sorry to objectify, but she can write AND is easy on the eyes - major points awarded.

TK

lame. absolutely lame. lamest of the lame. lame lame lame lame lame. been there. its so much more awesome than that. the holy grail is 1000000 times better than you just described. you should feel like absolute sad tourists. clearly you don't belong. sad really. maybe try again? this is fail. and im not an ass, ive just been there. fail yourmaclife and tuaw, fail. clearly you didnt get to go in, did you. fail fail fail.

C-Mac is hot! Man, geek girls are cuter every year! That's just awesome.

It's even more fun when you have family members that are employees at the mothership. Getting to go inside the buildings and the quad and eat in the commissary are fun too. Good food!

The gear is cool and all, but a hottie Mac chick sporting said gear (Christina Warren) is way cooler!

Why does Apple not sell the "gear" you discussed (shirts, mugs, etc.) on their web site? Free advertising, another source of revenue, and plenty of people willing to buy- it's a win-win-win situation that they simply don't tap in to.

No reason to be led around a few square yards by the bumptious. Just hit Google maps and go.

I still remember my first trip to the U.S. and the Valley a few years back.
A colleague/friend and I rented a car and drove around, snapping photos of the "wildlife".
We didn't find Apple until the second day though, despite having driven past the nearest access road a few times -- but then again, that's probably a bit because driving in the US is so different from driving over here. Sadly, the entire campus was closed that day.

We were ushered away from a MS campus, Apple appeared empty, there were a few people at the googleplex. Lockheed Martin had barred security gates, preventing us from slipping in there.

Intel had some nice signs saying it was illegal to take pictures there.
Naturally, we couldn't resist.

All in al, I believe we managed to hit roughly 60 companies while driving around, stopping for food, drinks and what not -- everything with accompanying touristy pictures ;-)

The houses around 1IL though.
YIKES.

I didn't even know this existed. Now I know what I must do.