Antique Row's Last Shop

One does not simply walk into Antique Row's last remaining antique store, in North Park, without receiving an appropriate history on a purchase.

Last summer, I stopped by Zac's Attic and bought a couple demitasse spoons. Last week, when I made espresso, I noticed that I didn't have the proper cups to serve it in.

As I drove past Zac's Attic, I stopped in and immediately saw a fine looking set of espresso cups. When I brought them to the counter, the proprietor who's owned the business for 40 years, Dave McPeeters, told me about the century old cups.

The items I bought were from the Palace Hotel, in San Francisco, complete with the hotel's logo on the Buffalo China cups. The Palace Hotel is know for where opera tenor, Enrico Caruso, performed as Don Jose, in Carmen, the night before 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which gutted the hotel.

Today, the hotel houses the opulent Palm Court Restaurant, which looks like a palace; it's also know for its Pied Piper Bar with its tiled floor and historic artwork behind the bar.

And, now, I get to sip espresso, with anisette, from this little piece of history.

Apple Card Credit Card Signup

I signed up to receive an Apple Card, today. The entire process, from applying, through approval, to receiving the new card in my Apple Wallet took less than ten minutes.

Once I received it in my wallet it was active to use with Apple Pay. I also requested to have the physical titanium card sent to me which should take about a week.

Customer support via text message

I was wondering if the Apple Card had a virtual account number similar to my Citi Mastercard. There was a button to call or text for help which was great. Nothing better than getting customer support via text message – no wait or hold time.

Unfortunately, the Apple Card can only generate one number at a time which can be easily changed by pressing a button. So, at this time, it seems that I can only have a single credit card number active with Apple Card.

Another disappointment was that Apple Card interest rate depends on credit worthiness, somewhere between 12.99% - 23.99%. My FICO score is over 810, so I would have hoped for something lower than 17.99%. But it's been more than a decade or two since I've carried a balance from, month to month, on my credit card. So, this shouldn't be an issue for me.

A nice thing about the Apple Card was that I could tap one button any all of my Apple bills (iCloud, iTunes, etc) were switched to my Apple Card which returns 3% cash, daily. Let's see how it works.