I left Los Angeles at 11pm on Saturday night and landed in Sydney, Australia at 8am on Monday - just perfect for the work day. And by Tuesday 10am I was flying to Tokyo. 10 hours of flying and here I am in Tokyo getting ready for the Wednesday work day.

Jupiterimages is thriving in Australia. We have several international offices dedicated to sales and Australia is growing the fastest. We have a terrific team in Sydney and it was exciting to see their enthusiasm. I doubt any competitor that we have in Australia is doing as well as we are?

It is interesting to read about the attempted sale of Getty Images from afar. It appears that Getty wants to sell, but that no buyer is willing to pay what Getty desires. This reminds of the art auction market when a painting is placed at auction and does not sell. The painting is then tarnished - sometimes forever. And by the way, did Jonathan Klein move to New York City at a cost of $1 million to make a sale of the company? The answer is probably yes. What an expensive exercise!

For those who have never been to Japan let me tell you that mobile phones from most countries do not work in Japan. This is a real pain and actually amazing in the age of the Net. So here I am with my BlackBerry and no email and no telephone. It is a very odd feeling indeed!

Another interesting travel fact is that Australia is one of the few places I been to that does not sell the International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times nor the Asian Wall Street Journal. Not having these newspapers on the road is right up there with not having a working BlackBerry. For the first time I have become an avid reader of the New York Times online. I must say that I am very impressed with Nytimes.com. It is really well thought out and of course very complete.