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Film follows quest to visit every Starbucks
Programmer has visited 4,775 locations
 Shannon Guthrie / The State Journali Register file John Winter Smith, right, sits with Jodi Morgan, at a Starbucks in Springfield, Ill., in 2004. Morgan invited Winter Smith to visit Springfield, after they corresponded for six months on the Internet. Winter, a Houston native who was born Rafael Antonio Lozano, said that as of Aug. 8, he had visited 4,775 Starbucks in North America and 213 in other parts of world. He is the subject of a documentary film by Bill Tangeman, that documents Winter's caffeine-powered quest to visit every Starbucks in the world. |
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OMAHA, Neb. - Lawyer Bill Tangeman has a mission: following the caffeine-powered quest of a man to visit every Starbucks in the world.
Tangeman, who was a journalist before going into law, is making a documentary about a computer programmer who goes by the name Winter and set out in 1997 to get a caffeinated drink at every corporate-owned Starbucks store on the planet.
On his Web site (www.starbuckseverywhere.net) Winter, who was born Rafael Antonio Lozano, said that as of Monday, he had visited 4,775 Starbucks in North America and 213 in other parts of world. There are 5,715 corporate-owned Starbucks in the world, according to the Seattle-based company.
Winter said his trek has been satisfactory on many levels, not the least of which is that it has allowed him to be on a nearly constant road trip for eight years.
“Every time I reach a Starbucks I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” Winter said, “when actually I have accomplished nothing.”
Tangeman, 32, wanted to film a documentary for years. When he read an article about Winter last year, he realized he had found his muse.
“I found his story fascinating,” Tangeman said.
29 stores in one day
Tangeman got in touch with Winter and has since spent several days on the road with him, gathering about 40 hours of film for the movie, which will be called, “Starbucking.”
The 33-year-old Winter said he is baffled by the attention his quest has attracted and said that he was “tickled pink that anybody would want to make a movie about my project.”
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“It’s been a lot of fun,” Tangeman said. “I’ve been to 22 states with him.”
On one trip, Tangeman and Winter gave a presentation, including a screening of a “Starbucking” trailer, at the University of California-Santa Barbara. It was on this Southern California tour that Winter set a personal single-day record by visiting 29 Starbucks.
“On the day he hit 29 stores he wasn’t feeling too good,” Tangeman said. “He was a little nauseous.”
Winter has visited Tangeman at his home and even grabbed a cup of coffee from a local shop. But he was deprived of his Starbucks fix: There aren’t any corporate-owned stores in Kearney, 126 miles west of Lincoln.
Tangeman wants to complete “Starbucking” by the end of the year so he can submit it to the Sundance Film Festival. If Sundance doesn’t accept the film, he will try other festivals.
Winter, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., said he and Tangeman will split whatever profits the movie may make.
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