Michael Milne, whom I wrote about here, is still in need of money for his liver transplant. is an update from December 8:

Both Mick and Randall have come out of surgery, and the doctors have said that everything went well. Randall will recover in the hospital for about a week, and Mick will be in ICU isolation for two weeks, and then recovery in the hospital for another two weeks or so.

Thank you again, to everyone for all of your support! Your donations of time, money and prayers have made a difference!

We are elated that things have gone well, and we are still making the effort to raise the money needed to pay for all of the medical bills.

Please pass on the news, and the necessity for more donations. We have reached the 15 million mark - which is amazing - thank you so much!!

We still need more in order to reach the quoted 40 - 50 million won out of pocket expenses. Mick will not be able to work for the time he is recovering, please help him and his family out!

The account information is at both links above, and there's now a PayPal account ().

In contrast to the situation with Matt Robinson, to whom I got money to right away, I've only just now been able to get my own donation out to Michael Milne (this being the end of the semester I have almost no cash available here in the US and the person who manages my money in Korea was unable to do this until just this week), and I'm hoping my fellow procrastinators might do the same.

On a not-completely-but-mostly-unrelated note, I want to share a nice story about Delta Airlines. "M," whom I've mentioned here and there at this blog, had to fly to Japan yesterday because her aunt suffering from endometrial cancer had taken a turn for the worse. "M" already had a ticket to fly out to Osaka next Thursday, but she decided to forgo finals and be by her aunt. Even before we could change the flight to the  following day (this past Friday), she got news that her aunt had already passed. Needless to say, "M" was distraught, and I called Delta Airlines while she packed.

I explained the situation and the kind woman at Delta told me there was a seat available the following day but it would be $268 to change her departure. That was better than what the discount ticket agent had told her, that she could cancel the entire ticket for a $300 fee, after which she would buy another ticket (which was surprisingly cheap on kayak.com). We told the Delta agent that the $268 fee was acceptable and we waited for her to process it.

While we waited we were on hold, but the agent eventually came back. She asked for "M's" aunt's name and hospital, which I provided. More waiting, but when she came back she said she found a way that the entire change could be done for a fee of just $13.

Very cool of Delta Airlines to do that. It helped make a difficult situation a little bit less so, and that agent (and the airline) deserves some kudos and our thanks for that.

... Sphere: Related Content