Let me say to begin with. I did not invite the open forum for this attack. A member of FlyerTalk did and there's one rule I have.....don't, and I repeat don't, piss on my employees. I hope that is perfectly clear.

Now, HungryTraveler, since you appear to be the absolute saint of IT. Let's get a few things straight. Just because someone doesn't always answer a post doesn't mean they aren't working on the problem, especially since that same problem may be posted several times in several places by several people. Some people on this board understand it's easier to not make a public sensation of their 'grave concerns' and simply post an email directly to the admin, which allows us to spend the time directly on the problem rather than paying lip service and time checking the boards. Your assertation is that no one on this tech staff has ever done anything and no one has ever been served from posting or communicating with this organization. I'll let the constituency answer that since I'm sure you would agree I would be bias with my answer. You run an IT department. Answer me this, IT man - Is that IT department wholly staffed by volunteers who have other jobs to do within the organization? It just may surprise you to know that all the tech guys have projects assigned to them that are important to the nature of my real business - publishing and information for profit so that i can give back to appreciative frequent flyers, like some of those on FlyerTalk, a free and volunteer staffed asset like FlyerTalk. Similar to those who would criticize some of the moderators. They are putting in their time for FREE, and yet anyone who benefits from this wants to complain? Ah, the masters of the universe speak loudly.

Since you are very concerned that this board isn't anything that represents your high level of expectations, then I'll be looking for no additional posts from you. Or, you can simply email me and ask that you and your posts be deleted from the database of FlyerTalk. That way when you return to your castle in the IT sky, no one will know that you've actually rubbed elbows with the rest of us way down here.

Again, you made it public and you made it an attack on people doing the best they can do - dealing with software they did not develop, software that has its limits at times, trying to get answers back from no less than five other IT departments of the companies whose services we use, technology such as bandwidth which they and even the software doesn't control and caveats from any Web farm arrangement. But I happen to really, really like them (my employees) and will accept a one week 'time-out' as per the TOS of FlyerTalk for responding in a personal matter to this. I am wrong and am sorry.

I'll be back one week from today, but in the meanwhile, I know that every day the tech guys are paying attention to something on FlyerTalk. I just wish we could afford someone like you HungryTraveler, that apparently has never ever had unexplained downtime and that posts every three minutes an update on the situation. I'm sure you are very proud of a perfect IT department, Bill Gates could use you as could eBay, AOL and others who have from time to time, had the same types of problems we deal with daily. BTW, AOL took two days, not three minutes to answer my last tech question of them, and they are god awful rich with money.

You wanted an answer, you got it. Good day and I'll see you all in one week's time. I apologize and will certainly not risk strike two in the future - but please, don't attack any of the volunteers (tech or moderator) who work to make this a better board, especially if all you've done is hold your hand out....