Real Estate Obsessions... "A normal life is boring." That's the tagline for Starbucks Everywhere, a web site tracking the quest of Winter (he prefers one name), who has set out to visit "every company-owned Starbucks in the world." So far he has visited 4,127 North American, 114 British and 53 Japanese stores (and drunk caffeinated coffee at each).

Hmm. Doesn't this remind you of the Apple Store fanatic, Gary Allen, mentioned in last year's Dispatch, News Flash: Groupies Swarm Apple Store (Dec 16, 2003)? Allen, who publishes ifoAppleStore, "in front of" Apple Store, likes to be the first person in line at the opening of new Apple Stores.

Winter claims that his seven-year quest is not an obsession, but rather a fascination, with Starbucks. With 4,294 stores down, he only has 577 (nationally and internationally) to go. But it won't be easy. Fortune reports that Starbucks opens over 500 company-owned stores around the world every year (an average of 10.2 per week) with "no plans to slow down" ("Seeing the World on Ten Coffees a Day," July 12, 2004).

So what is it about real estate that drives some people a little crazy? Are there people who have visited every Hines office building? Every Trammell Crow warehouse? Every Simon mall? What's the strangest real estate story that you've heard?

--Peter Pike