Some people are star-struck; others, like me, are interested but hardly take an interest and often encounter them. Case in point, on my flight from Newark to LAX, I was seated when two women came into the cabin. I was working on my laptop prior to take-off, so I really was not paying attention to them. They were traveling together in first class but did not have seats together. The flight attendants were negotiating with passengers to see if they would move so the women could sit together. Some said no, they did not want to leave their assigned seating. I was trying to ignore the whole scene as I did not want to move from my aisle seat — I was all settled for the flight. Finally, someone agreed and they were settled. What I was not planning on was loud talking and giggling, but that is exactly what these women were doing. I was sitting on the aisle one row ahead and to the left. I found my concentration to my work suffering and threw them the “annoyed look” a few times. Later, one of them got up to use the bathroom and, on her return, I looked up and thought she looked a little like Kate Winslet. I brushed this thought aside as I had a great deal of work to do — preparing accounting records and updating and cleaning a donation list for our charity, Pencils for Kids. The woman again went up to the bathroom, and this time I took a good look at her — it was indeed Kate Winslet, on my flight with her noisy assistant! Soon the entire first-class cabin was aware, and the flight attendants were ushering her to the front for a few pictures. When we were landing, I was going to say hello, but a smelly man stepped between us and the moment was lost. Later on during my trip to LA, I dined at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Gene Simmons was there. I had met him before, several years ago, at the old Plaza Hotel. I was having lunch there with the old general manager and marketing director, Tom Civitano. Tom knew Gene and called him over to say hello. When we were chatting with our clients over lunch, a loud guy came into the restaurant and said hello to his guests. I joked that I thought the guy was going to fall on our table, and we realized it was Tom Arnold. No Roseanne though — thank God! It was fun in Los Angeles with all the celeb sightings — spottings that Kimberly Krol (our resident star-watcher) would just go gaga over! On the return Continental flight, there were no celebs that I knew of, but we were traveling at 720 mph with a 110 mph tail wind. For those of you who are not up to speed, the speed of sound is 740-760 mph. We were moving as fast as the Boeing 757 can go, and we made it back to Newark 45 minutes before schedule. That is what I call jet setting! -Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO