I woke up on Friday around 4pm, Ken was already gone to 151 to work on some issues. He and Nick stopped by to pick me up to go to Mongolian for dinner around 8:30pm. Then we all went back to 151 and I played Sims 2 while they tried to figure out the problem all night. At 3pm we took a break and drove around the city and stopped for snacks. We drove by 3 Roger’s Wireless stores, one near the Eaton Center had a line of about 20 people. One at Davisville & Yonge had no line and the one we wanted to go to at Eglinton & Leaside had no line as well. So we got our snacks and went back to 151 till 6:30am.

Back at the Eglinton & Leaside store there was a line of 2 people. Not too bad! It was raining off and on, and 2 people got out of their car and got back in front of the line just after we got there. The guys who were in front of us said they were really the first people. But that was ok. Then the line started to fill in behind us, and the manager of the store arrived and told us that he had 7 16gb phones, 4 in black, 3 in white but that he had plenty of the 8gb phones. By then another guy had gotten out of his car and joined the 3rd guy. They all wanted the black 16gb phone, #5 (the doctor) wasn’t sure if he wanted the white one or not. But Ken said he would take it. So that left 1, maybe 2 more for the people behind us. Right away several people behind us left the line.

We met some great people while stuck there. We were in line at 7am, there were 4 people in front of us and the store didn’t open till 8:30am, so we all chatted about what plans we were gonna get, what news we heard about how many they would have. Once they opened, they let in 8 people who were purchasing iPhones, that was the 4 in front of us, plus some guy who had been waiting in his car who was with the 3rd guy, so that was 5 iPhones, then Ken. At the time we went in, I was going to try to get my phone from Fido because I have a Fido cell phone now and I have 290 “Fido Dollars” so the iPhone would have been free. So Ken was #6, and the lady behind us, Oedile was #7 and Simon, behind her #8.

The first two people were a couple, they had a small pug dog with them too. Turned out that the girl wasn’t eligible because you could only use an upgrade if it’d been a year since your last phone or get a new account. So she left pissed off. But it freed up another 16gb phone so we started talking about who would get it. Simon wanted it but he wasn’t sure if he was eligible for the upgrade or not and they couldn’t check

After about 2 hours, they had finally gotten the first guy at least paid for, and he could have left and come back later once the activation was working again but he stuck around and after another hour it came up briefly and he was able to leave with his phone but he still had to actually unlock it once he got home and he wouldn’t have been able to because the site went back down again. At least he didn’t need to go back to the store and he had a physical phone in his hand to play with. We took a picture with the display iPhone of the first activation to make it out of the door The iPhone really takes nice pictuers, so we asked the manager to send it to us.

The 3rd guy had the same deal. The guy who was with him (who had been sitting in his car the whole time we were lined up outside) was stuck at the trying to pay part so he stuck around awhile but #5 was a doctor so he had to bail and leave before getting anything. We all felt bad for him, but it’s not like the iPhone is going away. If he comes back next week they’ll have more 16gb phones and he probably won’t have to wait for hours like we did.

So that freed up another 16gb phone, so we decided that instead of repeating the process at a Fido store for me, and possibly having to wait another week or two for the 16gb phone (I’d actually put my music on it) that I’d take it here and we’d just have to lose the Fido Dollars. So I took the #9 spot after Simon.

It was like 11am by then and everyone was getting really antsy, the people outside were complaining that it was getting hot, and we were just tired because we’d been at 151 all night. So Nick and I went on a coffee and donut run. The poor staff hadn’t been able to take a break or eat or anything. So we bought them coffee and shared donuts with them.

We kept checking the apple websites and different tech blogs from the iPhone demo display To see if there was any news about what was going on. Europe had their release day 8 hours before us and they had no real issues other than they ran out. Which is to be expected. By noon, the people in PST were just jumping in trying to get theirs so there was no chance that the issues would clear up. At noon, the site came up briefly enough for the manager to at least check on Oedile & Simon’s eligibility for upgrades. Oedile was eligible but Simon was not. So he left, and the manager let 3 more people in.

The #4 guy, David, had to leave because he was going away for the weekend, but he’d already paid so they would just keep it aside for him till he came back.

So with Simon gone, there was 1 more 16gb iPhone available, but it was white. The #10 guy didn’t want it, #11 said he might take it, but he ended up not taking it. #12 guy was actually like #20 because the line outside kept shifting, people kept leaving. So he took the last 16gb phone by the end of the day. He was very very happy and I said he should buy a lottery ticket. He said it was actually for his wife though.

Manager Dan got an email from the head of the company saying that he could have people sign the contracts and set aside the phones they wanted and call them back when the system came back online. So that’s what we did and we finally left at 2pm. Drove Nick to his car at his condo and passed out at home as soon as we got there. Hopefully the system will be fixed tomorrow and we will get a call from Manager Dan but at least we have one set aside for us.

**Update** Today, July 12th, 2008, Saturday. Ken and I went to a bead store grand opening at 9am then got to the Roger’s store at 10am. They opened but the manager’s car had been swiped by another car in his parking lot so he had to stick around and take pictures and stuff so he was running late. Raquel and Ti couldn’t open the stock room that had all the iPhones with the already signed contracts so we had to wait. 2 people were already there when we arrived, one of them was #11 from Friday. So they started to process them, but it took almost 2 hours. Meanwhile, #10 showed up again too. We eventually walked out of the store by 12:30 with both of our iPhones. Ken’s is black 16gb and mine is white 16gb. We drove over to Best Buy to see if they had any cases. They had 4 but nothing spectacular. So we went to FutureShop, they had none at all. So we came home, did the registration on iTunes and starting looking through the App Store. I grabbed the Facebook App, AIM App… Then synched up my contacts and email and such and we drove over to Yorkdale Mall to check what cases the Apple Store had. They only had 4 cases as well but different ones. I picked up a clear clam shell case and Ken picked up a leather “sock” type case with a ratcheting clip. His came with a lot of other pieces like a screen cloth and arm band but he ended up not liking his case at all. The face cover kept sticking to the screen and making strange bubbles. Nick described it as “badly applied window tinting”. I did use the clear plastic faceplate sticker on mine since my case didn’t have any kind of cover.

We’ve been playing with them ever since. I’ve spent a good long time creating my mac address book so I can sync it up because I never used it. I also couldn’t import my old SIM card contacts onto the new SIM card so I had to manually enter in all the phone numbers I had stored. Then I added contact pictures for the Call Display feature. Now I think I’m going to nap, since I was up really early this morning.