Last week was a very long week... Today's configuration: Leica M Monochrom, Summicron 50mm f/2.0 and Summicron 28mm f/2.0, Yellow Filter.

Shopping over the weekend...

Taxi #275

Shooting around Jiyugaoka...

You are welcome for my money...

Ho Ho Ho? Wait! It is only early November...

A few more examples of the excessive use of cones in Japan...

What exactly is he protecting the side of the lift from? or us from? I wonder if someone once saw that the right side was open on his lift and left their dolly there...

No parking...and that means you punk!

Mutual lack of interest...

That's a lot of love...

2,850 Yen to be exact...

Tuesday I needed to take a quick flight to Las Vegas for a meeting...sadly only the check in was Business Class. One of the benefits of having 1,200,000 miles flown on Star Alliance.

Business Class check in at Narita Airport

ありがとう！　Thank You!

I stayed at the Encore. I love Steve Wynn's story. As part of our meeting we had Tony Robbins come and talk to us. It was my second time to listen to him in just a few months. This was in a much more intimate setting of just a few hundred people. His messages are very powerful.

Out my hotel window...

After a short trip it was time to head back to Tokyo...

I was traveling back with my coworker and friend Michael and we had a horrible airline check-in experience. Check his blog as he will be writing about it. I am sure he will do a better job than me writing about it but let me give it a try. After using the airlines very sophisticated self check in system we had two seriously complicated problems we needed help with. #1 I needed a second bag tag and #2 Michael needed to enter his frequent flyer number. I assumed, wrongly, that this is a fairly common task that airline check-in staff need to deal with.

Here is how the scene unfolded:

We went to line #1 and waited for about 8-10 minutes. When we got to the front of the line we explain are very complicated requests. The nice woman said she wasn't trained yet and asked that we go to the other line.

We went to line #2 and waited for another 10-12 minutes. When we got to the front of the line the man working the counter decided to move and work another station.

We wait for another 4 or 5 minutes and finally asked someone what was going on. He said sorry he couldn't help us but if we went to the other line they should be able to help us.

We went to line #3 and waited for another 8-10 minutes. When we finally got to the front of the line we again explained our very complicated situation. I got my second bag tag but then the women said that one of my bags was over by a few pounds and I needed to pay $100. Before I got a chance to respond she already helped Michael enter his number. We were moving fast even if it was going to cost me $100. Then there was the most pathetic example of customer service I have witnessed in a long time.

Airline Check-In Lady: "Why don't you have a bag tag on your bag?"

Michael: "I don't know, they asked me to come to this line but didn't give me my tag?"

Airline Check-In Lady: "Please go back to line #1 and get it"

Michael: "I just stood in three lines, are you really going to make me do that again?"

note: there is a long line again

Airline Check-In Lady: "Yes I am..."

Michael: "Can't you just take the 5 steps and pick it up for me?"

Airline Check-In Lady: "That's not my job"

Michael: "Are you kidding me?"

note: I probably didn't help the situation as I laughed out loud. It was an involuntary reaction.

Long story short I didn't need to pay my extra baggage fee.

Airlines never learn... make sure to watch the United Breaks Guitars videos if you haven't already.

Michael is Canadian. Strange breed. I wanted to capture his anger...you know for documention purposes. This is as angry as he could get. You can see his happiness coming through...I guess they don't have much to get angry about as a people.