Sunday, May 04, 2008 is the the shopping day for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders and guests. It is called Borsheims Shopping Day which began from 9 am to 4 pm. The excitement began at 9 am with brunch (served until 4 pm). Thousands of multi cultural people from various continents went for shopping at Borsheims. The huge store offers huge selections of fine diamond rings, jewelry gifts, watches, and wedding registry. The price range is from below $100 to couple of millions per item (there are very expensive items for sale such as $10 million flawless ultra-high quality diamond necklace). It was a a very busy day for the store which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The store offers great discounts exclusive to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

Borsheims is located in Regency Court shopping center. In the middle of the mall, several tables and chairs were set up to host two-time U.S. chess champion Patric Wolff and top bridge experts Bob Hamman and Sharon Osberg playing bridge with Berkshire shareholders. There was also magician Norman Beck. At 12:30 pm, people were flocking to this area waiting for Warren Buffett to come and play bridge. At 1:00 pm, Warren showed up and walked out briskly from inside Borsheims to the middle area of shopping center to enter the bridge competition area, sat down and started to play bridge with his guests. People cheered him loudly, took photos and shot videos. He is a superstar there. Warren Buffett played bridge for 45 minutes then left the area to go to nearby Marriott Hotel to have press conference. Then at around 2 pm, Bill Gates, came to Borsheims and then walked to the bridge competition area, sat and started playing with some people. He is just as famous as Warren Buffett there. People greatly cheered his presence. Bill Gates left after playing for approx. 45 minutes. Security guards were all over to protect him from potential intruders.

This annual event is definitely very good economically for a small city like Omaha. I met many local people today, many are from nearby Lincoln, NE, and surely Omaha, NE. These people all totally love and believe Warren Buffett and Charles Munger. Many of them have put their significant savings to Berkshire Hathaway shares just because they believe in both Warren and Charlie;s integrity and ability to allocate capital. For them, Warren and Charlie are their heroes and business gods who have made them rich, in fact very rich. There was a very humble old lady with very regular job whom confessed to me (we happend to sit on the same table) that she got lucky to be able know Warren Buffett and then bought Berkshire shares as her savings (which she stated as almost her entire net worth) long long time ago when it was traded at only $5,000 and has kept it ever since. She is now a millionaire many times over. There are many stories like this.

Throughout the day and night, there was a very busy restaurant named Gorat's steakhouse located at 4917 Center Street, Omaha, NE, not far away from Borsheims location where Berkshire shareholders were mingling and eating great steaks (reservation were required way in advance). Beef is famous in Omaha. I went there with my friends, fellow Berkshire shareholders, at around 7 pm. We got our seats at 8 pm. Mr. Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman were also having dinner with his guests and family members during the same time. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates were there earlier from 6:00 pm to 6:45 pm. The menu was exclusively prepared for Berkshire shareholders. One of the favorite items was Warren Buffett's T-Bone Steak. I promptly ordered this one. It is a great steak. I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Omaha. There were many high-level business persons there. Many are CEOs, CFOs, COOs, big investors, mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers, and very wealthy individuals from Asian, European, Americas as well as Arabs, etc. We all blended together, mingled with each other, shared opinions, laughs, and information. It was a great social night.