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I received an e-mail tonight telling me that one person was killed and a dozen more wounded at today’s air show in Huntsville, Al. Evidently a storm knocked over several VIP tents, and a five-year-old child was killed when an air conditioner fell on him.

We lived in Huntsville for 28 years, from November of 1978 to November of 2006, so this hit hard. We aren’t sure at this time if we know any of the families involved, but this being an aviation event almost dictates that we do. I had received a generous invitation to attend the air show and enjoy the VIP tent. I was flattered by the invitation, but was unable to make it.

We anxiously await more news.

Change of subject…

It seems that the airlines have finally grasped the idea that continuous losses are not sustainable and that reducing capacity might be the best solution. I wish them well.

I’d give them one other suggestion—make their websites more user friendly. They are absolutely miserable. Last week I spent hours trying to buy one admittedly complicated ticket. Today I did it again.

Gail and I have only one grandchild and he lives in Boston. We had 109,000 miles in Gail’s Delta account and wanted to use them to purchase tickets so that each of us could go roundtrip to BOS for 25,000 miles, leaving us with enough miles to go again later this year. We couldn’t get that done on the website. In spite of the fact that they advertise domestic flights for 25,000 miles per person roundtrip, the lowest cost we could find was 50,000 miles per person.

I gave up twice and tried to get the tickets by telephone for an extra $50 per trip. I got one person I couldn’t understand at all, another person I could almost understand who told me there was no way to get 25,000 mile tickets, and finally, a real live human being in Atlanta who spoke American. Janice solved our problem. True, we had to change to a much less desirable schedule, but we expected that all along. Janice made us happy.

The thing that makes me mad is that it’ll have to be done all over again for the next trip. In the meantime, I hope Delta realizes what a jewel they have in Janice.

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