November 17, 2004
Happy Birthday Katsuki
First, if your name is Katsuki Tsuji, Please look hard at the gentleman next to me in the photographs. Remember him?
Now that that is out of the way, please continue.
Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Katsuki!
For the rest of you non-Katsuki people, the guy to my right in those photographs is Tomohisa Nara. You know how they say there are six degrees of seperation between everyone on earth? Neither of us knew it when we first met, but we were "connected" via a mutual friend named Katsuki. Nara worked with him at Pentax a few years ago before Katsuki left go intern in the Japanese embassy in Washington D.C. Katsuki is a good friend of mine who came to Nebraska to study english a few years ago.
Nara won the Silver Medal for hours worked at Pentax in March-- his Overtime equaled his regular work hours. A 40 hour work week is normal, but he was working 80 hour weeks. 320 hours a Month! You can do that when you bring your sleeping bag to work. That is Ganbaru no koto.
We (Atusko, Nara and I ) met in Hibiya and ate at a kaitenzushi resturant located right under the yamanote line. After that we went to an english pub and while everyone else was a grown-up with their gunniess I had three glasses of coke. Nara brought with him his beautiful titanium M6. Nara, if you are reading this here is a link to a page with information on those Leica leather wrap cases.
The lovely lady in the above photographs is Mrs. Atusko Hirota, a young photographer who has had a book of her work published. Before we met last night she went to Yodobashi camera to get some supplies for printing some photos, which reminds me, I need to pick up some paper and negative sleeves when I go to shinjuku tonight...