Camping in a tent with a pair of family friends, Jose Miguel Garcia got a jump of more than 36 hours on other Black Friday shoppers lined up outside Best Buy in Bowling Green.

And there was still one person in front of him.

Garcia, Luis Rivas and Mike Gomes, all of Bowling Green, set up a tent with blankets, a propane heater and enough supplies to carry them through two nights in anticipation of the electronics retailer opening at 5 a.m. today for the first bargains of the holiday season.

“I’ve been coming out here the past four years,” Garcia said. “I’ve been first (in line) every year except this year, when someone decided to beat me.”

Garcia and his group arrived in front of Best Buy around 3 p.m. Wednesday, he said, and had spent the time since then whiling away the hours any way they could.

“We’ve tried to grab a little nap here and there, my buddies and me are just trying to kill time, playing football,” Garcia said.

When a cold front blew through the city, dropping rain for much of Thursday that eventually turned into a dusting of snow overnight, Garcia offered his tent to others waiting in a line that would go on to stretch to the entrance of neighboring Office Depot.

Garcia said his wife and her friends were embarking on their own Black Friday shopping spree at Walmart as he waited for Best Buy to open.

He planned to buy a laptop computer, a desktop computer and a TV and Nintendo Wii console.

“I’ll spend $3,000 just here alone,” Garcia said.

While Garcia had a warm tent to retreat to, Amy Young and her husband, Kalen, both of Bowling Green, had little to protect them from the elements beyond their coats, blankets and the canopy at the entrance to Target, where they were the first in line for Black Friday.

“This has become a holiday tradition. We’ve done it every year since we’ve been married,” said Amy Young, who has been married to Kalen for eight years.

The couple arrived in front of the store off Campbell Lane at 4:45 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Amy Young said.

They planned to buy a flat-screen TV to give to a family member for Christmas.

Kalen stood outside the doors to the store around 2 a.m. today as Amy sat on the concrete, bundled up amid a pair of coffee cups and a fast-food bag.

“Cappuccino is your friend,” Amy said about how to adjust to the interruption in the regular sleep schedule brought on by Black Friday.

Although they planned for the cold weather, the Youngs forgot to bring their chairs to make the wait less uncomfortable.

Target opened at 4 a.m. today, an hour earlier than previous years.

Other businesses, such as Kmart, Sears, Old Navy and Gander Mountain, were open Thursday, with separate sales happening for that day only.

Holiday bargains at Walmart began being offered at midnight on Thanksgiving.

According to The NPD Group, which tracks consumer and retail information and trends, revenues for the week of Black Friday in 2009 totaled about $2.7 billion, down 1.2 percent from 2008. Computers and TVs were the leading products sold in the opening blitz of holiday sales last year, during a season marked by what The NPD Group called “aggressive price cutting.”

Deloris Bach of Caneyville was one of the last people to get in line outside Target before the store opened.

Bach planned to buy a digital camera while her daughter shopped elsewhere in Bowling Green.

“I was not going to do this. I told the people at work I wasn’t going to do this,” said Bach, who works at The Medical Center and was out in the predawn hours for Black Friday for only the second time ever.

Bach’s daughter persuaded her to make the trip to Bowling Green, however, and, operating on about two hours of sleep, took her place in a line outside Target that stretched well past neighboring Lowes.