Four years ago, I was in a Best Buy at the Westminster Mall in Huntington Beach, buying a Hewlett Packard laptop. Four years later, my laptop had undergone international travel several times, two harddrive meltdowns and a burned-out backlight. Because of the last item on the list, my poor HP was officially declared deceased by the Best Buy Geek Squad on Saturday December 20th. Ok, it’s not dead, but it’s no longer functional. With no monitor capability, my HP must be put out to pasture and unplugged permanently.The nice thing about New Years, which I’ve learned to take advantage of in recent years, is that they do offer people an opportunity to move forward, step outside of their comfort zones and try something new. So, it was with the spirit of 2009 in mind that I found myself in an Apple Store over the Christmas holidays.Apple Stores are weird. They remind me of bookstores….but not. You know how you can go into a bookstore, browse, read, chat with friends, drink coffee and never actually buy a book? That’s the vibe I got from the Mac crowd on December 26. The stores are set up with large tables. On each table, there are several pieces of equipment for customers to play with. There were children’s stations. There were people just browsing on the net. There were Apple geeks.Go figure.I’m always surprised at how easy it is to buy a computer. I’ve bought one online, I’ve bought one at Best Buy and I’ve bought one at the Apple Store now. Salespeople are never as helpful until you actually have decided to make the purchase. Apple Rep 1, who helped me in my pre-hunt for a computer, was very unhelpful. He was all like, “You know Apples are awesome. Yay!”  Whereas Apple Rep 2, who helped me in my I-want-to-buy-a-Mac hunt, was all, “You know Apples are awesome, and I want to make sure you are very comfortable with your purchase.”But in the end, you take a risk in buying any piece of equipment. I remember standing in line with a new TV at the Best Buy when a fellow customer helpfully remarked that he had bought the same TV for a friend; it had broken a week later.And that’s kind of the way with New Years. Who knows what they’ll bring or if your investments will payoff. Much like the economic shakeup of 2008, we can only know so much right?So it is the same with this blog, which is now being written to you all from a Mac. Thank you so much for tuning into the ups and downs of 2008. We hope that you’ll stick around and enjoy the happenings of Los Angeles, as reflected here, during 2009.