<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_001.jpg" width="510" />

Here I am ... in the car... on the way ... to The APPLE store!

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_002.jpg" width="510" />

Only the crappy traffic could hold me back!

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_003.jpg" width="510" />

A line that was fairly long... I got there to the line about 6:10.  The store opened at 6:00... not quite an iPhone line or a people camping out for a PS3 last year....

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_004.jpg" width="510" />

The people at the beginning of the line...

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_005.jpg" width="510" />

There was one Apple employee outside the store giving out t-shirts... I knew that they were giving t-shirts to the first 500 through the door... he said he had only 2 left... What?  Turns out this is a different shirt, but I had my picture made... I look scruffy, but I don't care :)

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_006.jpg" width="510" />

Leaving, I saw this wonderful parking job, so I snapped a picture... just so dad-gum awesome!

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_007.jpg" width="510" />

So, now I am home with my copy of OS X Leopard (or 10.5) and my second free t-shirt... go Apple!

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_008.jpg" width="510" />

Just showing the back of the box...

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/leopard_009.jpg" width="510" />

Scruffy me and  in my new shirt and my copy of Leopard...

Well, this is where the fun ended, at least installing on my MacMini... apparently, there is some sort of an issue with the "upgrade" path... which most users will use... it installed fine... took about 45 minutes... not too shabby and then it reboots to Apple's own.. blue screen of waiting... and waiting and... after going to the Apple Discussion boards... this apparently is not an isolated incident.  There were some solutions... the one that ended up working is using the "archive and install" option... Worked beautifully... but I should never have had to goto a Discussion board to install this... (ahem, so Windoze like... sad to say)... but after going through the "archive and install" option... my MacMini went from this (Tiger):

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/Mini_Tiger.jpg" width="510" />

To this (Leopard):

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/Mini_Leopard.jpg" width="510" />

While doing this, I was doing a full complete backup of my laptop... it is the machine with all of my pictures and movies and documents... so I backed it up... and did a "Erase and Install" or otherwise known as a clean install on my laptop... FLAWLESS.  After install, it pulled all of my data, users, applications, settings... everything from my backup drive into Leopard and am up and running 100% within 2 hours... Now, that doesn't happen with a fresh install of Windows... so bite me, MS.  I used to have to spend hours re-installing applications and re-doing all of my settings...

So my MacBook went from this (Tiger):

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/macbook_tiger.jpg" width="510" />

to this (Leopard):

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/macbook_leopard.jpg" width="510" />

From the desktop, there are only a couple of visual cues that suggest one version from the other... the dock (at the bottom) is now "3D" and it looks really cool and has a mirror affect when open windows are  near it... and the menu bar is somewhat translucent... so you can see part of your background image underneath the menu bar.  For those who don't use Macs... the menu bar stays there all of the time and is contextual according to the open application...

Anyway, so I had one painful install and one painless install... Apple is NOT perfect but better than Microsoft in many respects.  I do not hate MS but I don't see myself buying another Windows machine until mine just quits working... but this Dell is solid and it will probably work well for a few more years since I barely use it!

That was my adventures... hope you guys enjoyed the picture show and I didn't bore you with details but I am very happy with the upgrade so far...