A bit of a bummer to start today's show, Gary Allen, the guy behind the website IFO Apple Store, has died.

The Washington Post at a write-up on Allen.

Quoting that, Alan, a retired EMS dispatcher, travelled around the world obsessively and

expensively to be among the first in-line at the company's new stores.

He attended more than 140 openings collecting all sorts of trivia.

He could even tell you where Apple store tables are made.

Utah. He stopped by the factory once to say thanks.

Now I had the pleasure of interviewing Alan a little under two years ago.

He didn't mean to start IFO Apple Store.

He didn't even seek out his first Apple Store opening.

It was a son and a few of his son's friends who wanted to

go to the opening of Apple's 8th or 9th store, the one they opened in Palo Alto.

He then attended a few other store openings in the Bay Area where he lived, meeting some of the same people, gathering stories until finally it was his son again who said,

you should really start a website.

And over the course of the next 13 years Alan became the acknowledged

authority on Apple retail quoted by all sorts of sites and sources from the tech

press to the Financial Press.

And he was followed by Apple's own retail employees.

He drove from Berkeley, California to Tyson's Corner Mall in Virginia in 2011

for the 10th anniversary of the opening of that store,

Apple's first retail store in the world.

According to the Washington Post piece,

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