Los Angeles in transit
Coming in to immigration we passed the door to T4 immigration. I thought about heading over there to hopefully get smaller queues, but decided not to in case it slowed things down. In any event T4 is further away from the terminal my next flight departs from than TBIT.
Immigration wasn't too busy - waited 10 minutes. I was almost out of immigration when I realised the officer hadn't stamped my passport. I mentioned it and the officer grabbed the passport back to stamp it - thankfully choosing an already fairly full page.
Customs was surprised I had so little luggage and for a moment I though I might be directed to secondary. I was let through. A short walk to T2 where there was a huge queue for pre security boarding pass check. The priority lane is useless at T2 as it funnels to the same BP checkers and you then have the same queues at security upstairs. Queues were long but moving fairly quickly and it only took 20 minutes after entering T2 to reach the lounge.
My passport was checked and boarding pass reissued, as is customary for Air NZ flights to NZ. I was surprised not to be given the onward boarding pass but when I requested it I was able to get it as well.
After all that there wasn't long until boarding. Luckily there was a free shower to freshen up. Afterwards just enough time for a quick drink and send a couple of messages before heading down to the gate. I dallied and missed the escort to the gate (which isn't for finding the gate but rather to force a way through the throngs to enable quick boarding).