My seatmate from Charlotte to here was a young woman who sells pharmaceuticals and dates a pilot with an apartment on Waikiki. She was returning to Florida from a (free) trip to Hawaii.

I’m in a worn Holiday Inn across a pond from the Coconut Tiki Bar and near a Hooters. It’s tempting to wander over to the Tiki place (or a nearby Irish pub) to watch the Super  Bowl, but I’ll probably watch it from my bed. Tomorrow I begin five days of fundraising classes, and I don’t want to be worn out ahead of time.

Plus I might shave my beard.

I guess this marks a renewal of my blog. What the heck.

But off-topic responses will go unposted.

You may recall that initially I did not respond to people who wrote in. Andrew encouraged me to, as a way of building an "online community."

Well, it took too much time. And we got off track. And I wrote a lot of meaningless stuff. So, even though our numbers were admirable, I wasn’t having any fun.

One rule of retirement is: You don’t have to do anything that’s not fun.

Even if you unretire, as I will do on Monday.

So stayed tuned if you’re interested. This is a floating experiment, subject to my whims. And it’s free. That right there is a good reason not to continue it.

If Glennon plays and the line doesn’t block, Tech loses. If it blocks, the weather will hamper the passing, where he excels, and emphasize running.

Branden Ore is not the old Branden Ore, and nobody is saying why. To date, he has provided no ground game.

Kenny Lewis has shown some flashes, but has played too little to develop a rhythm.

That said, BC has played an easy schedule.

Tech’s defense again is superb, though it has some injured guys.

Hope I’m wrong. But the media, especially the local media, tend to under-emphasize the downside, perhaps because Frank Beamer, like any coach, emphasizes the negatives for obvious reasons.

I would love to see Glennon continue where he left off last week. It may happen.

I would like to think Ore will make a meaningful contribution. I strongly doubt that he will. But I expect he will get most of the carries anyway.

I expect the Tech defense to be tough, and if this prediction pans out, I expect the crowd to be frustrated.

I would love to be wrong about this. Which is why I don’t gamble (plus, it’s illegal).

That boundary defined the topography of the unfolding disaster. Two of the four counties — San Bernardino and Riverside — burning most fiercely this week are among the fastest-growing in the United States, bedroom communities that push what ecologists call the "urban/wildland interface."

The move into the hills is for homes that are more affordable, but they are also more vulnerable. An inventory by University of Wisconsin researchers found that about two-thirds of new building in Southern California over the past decade was on land susceptible to wildfires, said Mike Davis, a historian at the University of California at Irvine and author of a social history of Los Angeles.

"It gives you some parameters for understanding the current situation," Davis said. "Another way to look at it is you simply drive out the San Gorgonio Pass, where the winds blow over 50 mph over a hundred days a year and you have new houses standing next to 50-year-old chaparral.

"You might as well be building next to leaking gasoline cans."

That’s at www.washingtonpost.com. Some amazing stuff in that piece.

I pay him in 15-minute increments, the same as I do Andrew, so he won’t stay long.

If I didn’t have this darn possible cold that might be coming on, I wouldn’t miss the occasion for anything. Nor do I ever lie.

Any idea how many people will be there? I assume six, max. No fair bringing anybody who hasn’t read the blog. There will be a quiz.

I’ll be sure and tell my substitute that.

I have planned meticulously: Life jackets, dry sack with all manner of necessary items, running lights should the sky turn dark, new boat battery, bottled water, gasoline obtained on the way, jacket, sweatshirt, hat and so on.

Out toward Hollins, left on Reservoir Road, tingling with the excitement as we approach one of the valley’s least-known joys — an afternoon in a little boat on the waters of the cove, savoring the fall foliage on the wooded slopes and ridges that surround us.

Down to the entrance, and the thrilling sight of an empty parking lot. No other boaters are there on this partly cloudy Monday.

Only then do we discover the reason: The lake is down 12 feet owing to a lack of rain. This puts its shoreline well past the floating docks and boat ramps that we’d launch from.

Somehow, I overlooked that detail.

That’s what six weeks of random behavior can do to you.

The fellow in charge tells us that those who can carry their boats from the parking lot to the water may launch at their own risk. Typically, this means kayaks, canoes or jonboats with two people to carry them.

My jonboat is 14 feet long, wide of beam, and equipped with a 9.9 horsepower outboard motor that weighs 90 pounds. Carrying it is out of the question. That’s why I bought the  motor — so I wouldn’t have to carry it.

My crew and I sigh. We discuss taking a cruise next week, starting at the Hardy Road boat ramp on Smith Mountain Lake.

Then we notice that it still is a beautiful day. We pay a buck apiece, and we go for a hike.

If you  want to know more about the organization, go to www.chiprv.com, or Google  the keywords. Everything is explained on the site.

I received an e-mail, since deleted, stating that I’ve essentially already abandoned this blog. Certainly there was a drop-off in activity yesterday, but I’ve just been tired owing to my having had some overdue fun.

It would be nice to know how many people plan to be at Coda on Wednesday. That way, I could decide whether to show up myself or send a sub (as with the Hokie Bird, three different people play my role depending on the situation).

Do we have a time yet?

Otherwise, I’m still tired and possibly coming down with a cold. I’m trying to remember where I was when somebody sneezed in the past 72 hours. I didn’t wander far.

Feel free to participate in this thing.

In a continuing effort to show the Roanoke Times how to appeal to its desired demographic of mothers with children at home,

I’ve copped this Hannah Montana story from The Baltimore Sun to demonstrate how getting tickets to big concerts has become much more difficult than it used to be.

The Sun has additional stories related to ticket sales for the Montana concert. You can read them at www.baltimoresun.com.

I read The Sun online every day, just to see what’s happening where I grew up.

By coincidence, two nights ago a friend and I watched the video of the PBS documentary about Stax Records in Memphis during the 1960s and 1970s.

Stax was to Motown what jalapeno peppers are to a sweet wine — hot and rough versus silky smooth.

As a teen-ager I loved to listen to Baltimore’s black deejays like Kelson "Chop Chop" Fisher, Paul "Fat Daddy" Johnson, Diamond Jim Sears and the inimitable Hot  Rod Hulbert’s Rocketship Show.

Big soul shows came to Baltimore back then. A kid from our neighborhood named Bobby Curran took me to my first one, using the pass to the Baltimore Civic Center that belonged to his father, a longtime city councilman.

That first show featured 25 acts, including Stax stars Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, plus lesser stars like Garnett Mims, Mitty Collier and Howard Tate.

Later, on my own, I bought tickets to see all of the top Motown, Atlantic and Stax acts, including Otis Redding two more times.

Just by showing up at the box office downtown after school during the first several days after the tickets went on sale, I could get seats in the first five rows and sometimes in the first row.

The soul crowd was a walk-up crowd. But when the lights went down and the music started the play, all 12,000 seats were filled.

And that place rocked.

Nowadays, as the story below shows, just getting tickets to a concert can be a problem, no matter what price you’re willing to pay.

Things change. Bobby Curran is now a longtime Baltimore city councilman, as his father was. His brother was the Maryland Attorney General for years and years, and his niece is married to former Baltimore Mayor and current Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Otis Redding died in a plane crash 40 nearly years ago, and the magic of that time died a year later, when Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis, the home of Stax Records.

Suddenly, blacks and whites didn’t mingle joyfully at soul shows any more. America has never been the same.

In any case, here is the latest installment in the saga of Hannah Montana.

MONTANA FANS CRY "SCALP"

Federal judge bars computer programs that enable brokers to buy up tickets before the public

By Sam Sessa and Joe Burris | Sun reporters

October 16, 2007

First, Karen McVearry spent $30 to join the Hannah Montana fan club and buy presale concert tickets for her 9-year-old daughter Maddie.
Too late - they had sold out.
The 36-year-old Catonsville mom tried again the day the tickets went on sale to the public. As Maddie played soccer, McVearry stood on the sidelines, a cell phone in each hand, calling Ticketmaster, while a friend also called and tried ordering online.

Still too late. The Jan. 8 Hannah Montana show at 1st Mariner Arena sold out in minutes.
Now, people are looking online for tickets originally priced at roughly $65 that are reaching $2,500 - and Ticketmaster is crying foul.
Yesterday, a federal judge in Los Angeles ordered Pennsylvania-based RMG Technologies Inc. to cease producing and distributing computer programs that Ticketmaster alleges allow brokers to digitally cut in line, buy thousands of tickets and resell them for exorbitant prices. These practices shut out customers hoping to buy tickets to high-demand events such as the Hannah Montana tour, Ticketmaster claims.
"We will not allow others to illegally divert tickets away from fans," Ticketmaster Chief Executive Sean Moriarty said in a statement.
The injunction comes as Arkansas, Missouri and Pennsylvania already have launched state investigations into online broker sites.
Fans and parents have been incensed at the difficulty of scoring tickets for the 54-city "Best of Both Worlds Tour," which launches Thursday in St. Louis. Based on the popular Disney Channel show Hannah Montana, it stars 14-year-old Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart, a run-of-the-mill teen by day and a renowned pop performer called Hannah Montana at night. The show has been among basic cable’s top-rated shows and has resulted in two albums that sold a combined 4.4 million copies in the United States - setting the stage for high ticket demand.
James Kinstle was infuriated at the prices scalpers have been charging for a kids’ show. The day tickets went on sale last month, he spent several hours online trying to buy tickets for himself and his 8-year-old daughter Ruby.
"The biggest frustration to me is that Disney made this concert affordable and the scalpers have made it unaffordable," said Kinstle, the artistic director for the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. "I would have paid the price for two front-row tickets at what Disney was going to charge. Now I can’t even get back row seats for that price."
Kinstle said Montana is one of the few teenage role models in the music world. When he told Ruby she wouldn’t be able to go to the show, she was disappointed but understood.
"This is the first time she’s ever asked to go to anything like this," he said. "I tried to explain it to her, and I think she was the one who used the word ridiculous."
Some industry officials dispute Ticketmaster’s allegation that scalpers play such a powerful role in the ticket marketplace. Scalpers’ presence is undeniable but not overly influential, said Sean Pate, public relations director for StubHub, a San Francisco-based company that acts as a marketplace for buying and selling tickets.
"On occasion, some people have sophisticated software," he said. "But for the most part, you’re talking about a very small number of tickets available, maybe 10,000, with about 100,000 people trying to buy them. You’re going to get a crush of people looking to buy."
The demand for Hannah Montana tickets caught many in the industry off guard, but such demand is not unusual for popular events, Pate said.
"The insinuation that there’s funny business going on is unfounded," he said. "This is typical of the dynamics you see when Bruce Springsteen or Madonna or the Rolling Stones or Van Halen tickets go on sale. It’s just that with Hannah Montana, you’re seeing a whole new demographic."
That tween-age audience fueled similar demand last year for the Cheetah Girls, which outsold the Rolling Stones and Barbra Streisand in the resale ticket market, according to the TicketNow Entertainment Index.
In Baltimore, Hannah Montana fans were willing to sacrifice large measures of time and money for tickets. Some camped out in front of 1st Mariner Arena nights before tickets went on sale. The concert’s promoter provided the arena’s box office with a pool of tickets in advance - which rarely happens, said Frank Remesch, the arena’s general manager.
"They looked out for the people on the street," Remesch said. "If you’re nostalgic at all and you remember how it used to be, it’s kind of neat to see that someone that sits out there overnight can get access to the tickets."
At a 150th anniversary gala last weekend for St. Augustine School in Elkridge, a basket with two tickets to Hannah Montana and some other souvenir items was offered in a silent auction. It sold for nearly $1,600.
McVearry refuses to pay such large sums for Hannah Montana tickets. Instead, she said, she’ll re-create the concert experience at home.
"All my daughter’s friends and their parents tried, and none were able to get tickets," McVearry said. "We’ll probably end up having our own mini-concert here at home - rent a DVD or something."

She can’t remember what paper it was in. I check my usual sites — Balto. Sun, WPost — and find nothing.

I go on Google and find other stories but not THE story.

So I leave. My boat and I go over to Advance Auto for a battery check. Battery is very low, boat hasn’t been used all summer and soon the weather will rule out using it till next year.

I buy a new battery. Guy installs it. I watch.

While watching, my mind rolls to this blog. I contemplate whether to continue it, then my mind — which, as Jimmy Dale Gilmore said, has a mind of its own — touches on the Roanoke Times, and then Norfolk, the corporate headquarter$, and the next thing I know I’m in the driveway looking at my boat when I remember that I read the original story my friend wanted on the Website of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

I go inside, go to the Pilot’s Website and for a mere $1.95 order a copy of the story. I copy and paste it in an e-mail and and send it to my friend.

Here’s the weird part. If this had been a workday, and I had only so much time to get the battery, would I have been relaxed enough to make the connection between the Norfolk headquarter$ of Landmark Communication$ and the story I sent my friend, or would my anxiety prevent that train of thought from happening?

I doubt that I would have come up with the thought. Which reminds me of something …

Just kidding.

I got some new statistics on the readership of this blog. It looks pretty high. All I’m doing is goofing around. I spent 36 years working hard and not goofing around in an effort to find and keep readers, and now I goof around and people read the stuff.

The big question is: Why do I find it so hard to give this thing up and become just another Joe, a person with a job, a house, kids within reach and an ordinary life? Why don’t I just ride into the sunset, greet the sunrise of my new job and forget there ever was a Cuppa Joe? I mean, like, big whoop. I never even liked being known. Why is this so hard?

Joan, you need not answer. We’ve been all through this, which is a big reason why we don’t speak.

"About that time, I got a call from a breast cancer survivor who had called a couple of weeks ago. I returned her call, then she was out of town & this was the first time we could catch up.

"She was a single mom who had had to qualify for the indigent program at the Regional Cancer Center (which I imagine is a pretty humiliating experience). Her friends had gotten together to raise some money to help her cover her outstanding costs & then, out of the blue, a friend of hers died of lung cancer & the family asked for donations to her as a memorial to their mother.

" She was thinking that she wanted to donate what she thought was some leftover money (about $2,000) to us. Turns out, she had just received a $900 bill  … & while we were talking, she opened another $600 bill which she did not understand.

"She wanted to give back. [She thought] She was through with treatment …

"I told her that I knew that it was much harder to receive than to give but that maybe she might want to wait until a later time to take that step. I suggested that she look into the most recent bills & decide whether or not she might need the leftover money. There will be time in the future to give back.

"After that call, I cried for about an hour. How petty are my problems compared to hers & how fortunate am I to work with people like her. Perspective, just in the nick of time.

"I think you are going to find that you have moments like these in your new job that will make you thankful to be doing something worthwhile."

Life never stops giving us opportunities to appreciate what we have, does it?