While she rang in the big 3-0 on December 2nd, Britney Spears was doted with a belated bash in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Friday night (December 9).
The Hold It Against Me singer was presented with a celebratory cake while tweeting during the island soiree, Having an amazing time at my end of tour / belated bday party!
Sports smorgasbord, while wondering whatever happened to former Albany High track standout Leandra Tate:
Bob Estes saved his best for the final day of the PGA Qualifying School to secure his PGA Tour card for next year, a five-under par 67 to finish in a tie for eighth place. Only those who finished in the top 25 and ties earned exempt status for the coming golf tour.
He was eight-under par for the final 36 holes and finished at 13-under par for the sixth round. After the first few rounds he was near the cutoff, but he got away from that with the strong finish
That final round included six birdies and a bogey, including chipping in from off the green on No. 16, for his final bird and that was named the shot of the day. His round tied for the second lowest round of the day.
Bob had finished No. 135 this past year on the money list, missing earning his card by 10 spots, which would have gotten him in a lot of tournaments, but now he can choose where he wants to enter. Congratulations Bob.
Party poopers
A couple of celebrations were costly to two high school athletes last week and you wonder if officials are being tougher on the calls. I can agree if a player pulls out a cellphone and makes a call, or does a dance or runs to midfield and spins the ball you flag him.
Aledos great running back Johnathan Gray, after running 75 yards for a touchdown was flagged with a celebration penalty. Then in the third quarter, he scored on a 33-yard run, but was flagged for taunting during the run when he high-stepped the run and was ejected, according to a story in the Fort Worth newspaper. The flag erased the touchdown which would have been his 60th of the season, one more than the record he set last year, but it didnt hurt the team because Aledo beat Stephenville, 33-0.
The other celebration penalty was more costly. A Cathedral High school quarterback scored what would have given his team the winning score in the Massachusetts Class 4A state championship game, won by Blue Hills, 16-14.
The player raised his arm briefly during the final 10 yards as time was running out, but the officials flagged him for celebrating, then took the score and victory away. The school was hoping to get a ruling from the state association whether or not it could challenge the penalty.
If raising one arm for a few strides is excessive celebration, then what about the player who gestures after making a tackle or a sack not penalized? If it is fair or one, it should be for all.
Special tribute
Remember last year when a Michigan high school basketball player hit a last-second shot to win the game, then collapsed to the floor and died in the hospital with cardiac arrest due to an enlarged heart?
Well, the team opened this season with a win and also paid a tribute to the fallen athlete who had helped his team finish the year undefeated.
The coach, with players arm-in-arm circling him (including the athletes younger brother), and the school superintendent spoke briefly in the ceremony. The school will honor the young man with a special game and will sell red T-shirts with proceeds going to charity, then in February, he will be inducted into the schools hall of fame.
On schedule
A source from Texas Aamp;M recently leaked the Aggies Southeastern Conference schedule, and the home slate is tough with Florida, Alabama, LSU and Arkansas, while on the road, they will play an easier time against Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Auburn and Missouri.
To get bowl eligible (six wins) Aamp;M may have to get games with cupcakes.
Play it again
Texas coach Mack Brown has been quoted as being in favor of using instant replay on certain penalties. He feels if on an offensive and defensive pass interference, the officials dont see it or they are arguing over it, then turn it over the replay man in the booth.
There are times it is hard to see the helmet-to-helmet tackle like the one Longhorns safety Kenny Vacarro was called on against Missouri and on the next play, the Tigers scored a touchdown and went on to win the game .
End of quote
It aint nothin till I call it. — former major League umpire Bill Klem.
Ochoa won two majors and 27 titles on the LPGA Tour in her eight-year career. She was the No. 1 golfer for three years before she retired in 2010.
The 30-year-old Ochoa has discounted returning to play full-time on the LPGA Tour, but has said shed like to play one or two tournaments a year. She hosts the LPGA Tours annual Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara.
FOUNDERS CUP UNVEILS ENHANCEMENTS: The RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, an event that focused on the celebration of the LPGAs past, present and future in 2011, will return to Phoenix in 2012 boasting a variety of improvements, LPGA Tour officials have announced. The Founders Cup, which will always remember and respect the 13 women who started the LPGA in 1950, also will feature a special tribute to LPGA pioneers who had a major role in creating the organizations in history.
Also new for 2012, the event will expand to a four-day, 72-hole format, to be played March 15-18 at Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix. And where the players participated for no prize money last year, the event now features a purse of $1.5 million as well as the promise of $500,000 to the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf Program, which focuses on giving young girls the opportunity to learn and enjoy the game. Monies raised from the 2011 tournament funded 40 new Girls Golf sites across the United States and aided 1,500 new participants.
The 2012 event will honor LPGA pioneers Peggy Kirk Bell, Betsy Rawls, Barbara Romack and Mickey Wright. The inaugural event saluted the 13 pioneering women who founded the LPGA in 1950, including Louise Suggs, Marilynn Smith and Shirley Spork, who attended the week-long celebration.
NO SPONSOR IN SPRINGFIELD: The LPGA Tour event in Springfield, Ill., long known as the State Farm Classic, has been canceled after organizers failed to find a new sponsor.
Tournament Executive Director Kate Peters said Friday that the board decided late Thursday to end the event after 36 years. State Farm withdrew as the event title sponsor in February.
Peters said the board had tried to land a new sponsor and had been working with the LPGA. Top-ranked Yani Tseng won the tournament in June.
State Farm considered backing out of the tournament in 2009 but the LPGA and tournament organizers convinced the Bloomington-based insurer to stay on.
The Brockton Garden Club decked the halls, rooms and yard at the former Packard Estate on Prospect Street for visitors to tour Friday and Saturday.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — During a normal eight-hour shift on the Las Vegas Strip, Michael Denicoli usually sells enough helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon and Sin City to fill two or three choppers. But since a crash killed five people this week and made international headlines, tourists who walk by his booth are skipping the splurge of a few hundred dollars for a birds eye view of the Hoover Dam and other sites.
I have advertisements of helicopters, and they look at it like as if it says: The plague, Denicoli said as he worked at an Adventures International stand on the Strip across from the CityCenter casino complex at the start of a busy tourist weekend. It went from being slow to being beyond slow.
Denicoli said he removed countertop brochures for Sundance Helicopters — the company that operated the helicopter that crashed Wednesday evening in a remote canyon some 12 miles (19 kilometers) east of Las Vegas — not wanting potential customers to link the operator to the stand. But few, if any, among hundreds of tourists who pass the stand during any given hour are stopping.
Sundance and other helicopter operators have tried to move forward from the crash with normal flight schedules as passengers with tickets have called to ask about safety. Meanwhile, those whove taken rides before have been openly thinking about whether theyd do so again as they post pictures of their excursions on Facebook and Twitter.
It was beautiful, but it was pretty frightening at some points, said Liz Beltran, 23, of Norwalk, Connecticut, who posed for a picture at the bottom of the Grand Canyon after taking a $500 helicopter tour nearly a year ago.
I really loved it and I told all my friends to do it, but definitely now after this, I dont think Im going to be recommending it too much anymore, she said.
Federal investigators were still piecing together what happened in the crash that killed 31-year-old pilot Landon Nield, a Kansas couple celebrating their wedding anniversary and another couple from New Delhi, India. The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to issue a preliminary report on the crash in two weeks, and the Federal Aviation Administration hasnt kept Sundance from flying again.
Sundance resumed normal operations on Friday after voluntarily suspending them on Thursday, and planned to give refunds if customers asked for them, spokeswoman Sabrina LiPiccolo said in an email.
LoPiccolo said it was too early to tell whether Sundance has had cancellations or slower bookings since the accident. She said Sundance employees, if asked about the crash, say that it was a Sundance helicopter but share few details because of the investigation.
Aerial sightseeing is big business in Las Vegas, with four operators at McCarran International Airport averaging more than 1,500 passengers per day combined so far this year at ticket prices often starting above $200 each. The flights let tourists see some of the regions most iconic sites from vantage points they couldnt get from the ground.
Many tourists, especially international visitors, arent necessarily in Las Vegas because they want to glue themselves to a blackjack table or a slot machine. Couples often board the flights for romantic excursions, as do tourists looking to fulfill a list of top American destinations they want to see in their lifetime.
Nigel Turner, owner of Heli USA Airways, which runs tours out of McCarran, said hes had no cancellations but has spent lots of time since the crash reassuring customers that his flights are safe.
I was on the phone at 3 oclock this morning talking to my big accounts in Europe, just reassuring them about safety, Turner said, noting that 60 percent of his business comes from international travelers. Theyre our partners, and theyve got to trust us, and they do.
Turner said companies offering helicopter tours — a $120 million-a-year business at McCarran alone — have to understand that safety is the key to their reputation, and individual mishaps are almost certain to be amplified more than fatal car crashes or other deadly accidents.
There are hundreds of similar companies nationwide, offering aerial tours of places like Mount Rushmore, New York City and the Gulf of Mexico.
Its a very big industry and a very professional industry, said Turner, who said he was in the process of investing $28 million in seven new helicopters to add to his fleet.
Fifteen, 20 years ago we did have cowboys then, Turner said. Thats when the crashes happened. Now, its a very regulated industry by the owners. These people who own these companies are not playing chump change here.
Mike Brennan, a 22-year-old New Yorker who took a Grand Canyon helicopter tour with his brother three years ago, said the crash wouldnt make him hesitate to fly in helicopters again, because he thinks people who fly understand there are inherent risks before taking off.
Its sort of similar to going to an amusement park, Brennan said. Theres always like a danger where things happen on those rides occasionally. But its like you hear about it but you dont ever think itll happen to you.
Beltran said she thinks operators and those selling tours need to do a better job explaining to customers that riding in a helicopter isnt like flying aboard a typical airline.
You definitely have to have a strong stomach, and the thing is they dont really tell you that, she said. They tell you its going to be a really cool experience — it might be a little scary — but they dont really tell you exactly what it feels like to ride in a helicopter with these winds and the type of environment that youre going to experience up in the air.
Denicoli said he thinks business will bounce back in a few weeks as people forget about the crash, new sets of tourists arrive in Las Vegas and thousands of helicopter flights run in and out of Sin City without incident. If the crash doesnt unearth evidence of more widespread problems in the industry, he thinks many observers will treat it like a bad car accident.
I see more car accidents in front of my business, he said.
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Oskar Garcia can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/oskargarcia .
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Associated Press writer Ken Ritter and AP photojournalist Julie Jacobson contributed to this report.
Naples, FL PGA Champion Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele under 62 on Saturday to take the second-round lead of the Franklin Templeton Shootout.
Bradley and Steele, first-round co-leaders, finished at 19-under 125 and are shot clear at the Gold Course at Tiburon Golf Club.
Bradley and Steele shared Fridays lead with the Champions Tour pair of Mark Calcavecchia and Nick Price. Those two teams will be in Sundays final group again. Calcavecchia and Price overcame a bad start with a nine-under 63 and are second at minus-18.
Bradley and Steele, both rookies, combined for three wins on the PGA Tour this year. Bradleys biggest victory came at the PGA Championship, where Steele was the third-round leader.
Calcavecchia and Price both won on the Champions Tour this season. Theyve combined for two British Open titles and had fun playing with their much younger peers on Saturday.
Its enjoyable playing with those two kids, Calcavecchia said in a televised interview. Ive always enjoyed coming to play. This is fun. Were in the last group tomorrow.
Rory Sabbatini and Jhonattan Vegas fired Saturdays lowest round, a 12-under 60, and are third at minus-17.
Saturdays format was better ball. Sundays scramble is a format that always yields low scores.
Well have Steeley (Steele) hit his drive down the middle and Ill swing as hard as I can, Bradley said on TV.
Bradley and Steele caught fire right before the turn with three straight birdies from the eighth. Bradley birdied 13 and 14 to get the team to 17-under par.
Steele made a nice par save at the 15th, then Bradley drained an eight-footer for birdie at 16. Steele two-putted the par-five 17th for his sides final birdie.
It was a lot of fun, Bradley said.
Jerry Kelly and Steve Stricker paired for a seven-under 65 and are tied for fifth with Kenny Perry and Scott Stallings (62) at 15-under 129.
Charles Howell III and Justin Leonard (62), Anthony Kim and Webb Simpson (63) and Sean OHair and Jason Dufner (64) are tied for seventh at 14-under par.
Tournament host Greg Norman and his partner Scott McCarron shot a 10-under 62 and share 10th with Chad Campbell and Chris DiMarco, who managed a nine-under 63. The two teams came in at minus-13.
Stewart Cink and Bo Van Pelt carded a 10-under 62 and are last at 12-under par.
NOTES: Ian Poulter and Dustin Johnson won last year, but neither are in the field this week…Stricker and Kelly captured the title in 2009.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – An annual event in Fort Wayne is taking place Saturday that allows under privilege families a day of excitement and joy.
The event, Santa on Tour, is an opportunity for under privileged families and kids to see Santa, get a gift, have story time and take a trolley ride around downtown. The MLK Club is scheduled to host the free Christmas party for children ages 2 through 12 from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm at the Renaissance Pointe YMCA.
Saturday was the final day of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Prague, and the requisite eight players returned to the felt to play down to a champion. What looked like a short day turned into a bit of a long one, but in the end, Martin Finger was the man left standing alone with all the chips in play, the Shamballa bracelet, and the shiny EPT trophy.
The first order of business on Day 5 was to knock out the last 31 minutes of the previous level left over from the night before. During those opening orbits, Mads Wissing was sent to the rail as the first elimination of the day. Wissing was very short on chips entering the final table, and he made a late-position shove with . He couldnt sneak the raise through. Guillem Usero woke up with right next door, and Wissing could not catch up on the board. He was sent off in eighth place with a consolation prize of EUR66,700.
Andreas Wiese lost most of his stack in the second level of the day after losing a race against Usero. Wiese was unable to fully recover after his run in with Usero. After doubling his short stack once, Wiese got his money in with against Martin Fingers with a chance at another double. It didnt go well for him, though, and the dealer ran out a board to eliminate the Wiese in seventh place (EUR90,000).
When the table was reduced to six, Ari BodogAri Engel was riding the shortest stack, and he was the next to fall. Like Wiese before him, Engel did manage one crucial double before dropping down to zero just a few minutes later. It was that was responsible for his demise, and Fingers was never in trouble on the board. Engel, whos made more than $2.5 million online, notched his largest live cash (EUR125,000) in his first EPT event.
Denys Drobyna made it through the next break before being relieved of his last 15 big blinds. The ace-rags were going around for the short stacks, and looked plenty good enough for Drobyna to go with. Unfortunately for him, David Boyaciyan woke up with right next to him, and Drobyna never had a chance. The board ran , and Drobyna was forced to settle for EUR160,000 and a fifth-place finish.
Usero had an up-and-down day, but he was mostly trending in the right direction until his elimination in fourth place. He had been stagnant around 20 big blinds when he pushed in with . Ace-rag strikes again. Finger woke up with . Usero managed to find a flush draw on a suited flop, but the turn and river bricked to seal his fate. Fourth place was worth EUR205,000, though, the first career six-figure score for the 21-year-old.
Frances Nicolas Levi might have been the odds-on favorite heading into the day with his second-place stack. During the first partial level of the day, though, Levi was crippled in a massive cooler against David Boyaciyan. On a flop, the two men got it all-in with more than a third of the chips in play. Levi had flopped bottom two with , but he was drawing practically dead when Boyaciyan snapped him off with .
Levis stack was reduced by about two-thirds, and he did well to keep his head above water until three-handed play. Thats as far as his run went. He shoved with on his final hand, and he even managed to hit a pair on the flop. Fingers had a ton of outs, however, and the on the turn was enough to send Levi on his way with a EUR270,000 consolation prize.
That left Finger and Boyaciyan heads up for the trophy, and the latter was facing more than a 2:1 chip deficit. They decided to chop it up with Finger taking EUR620,000 and Boyaciyan EUR535,000, and they left the remaining EUR100,000 on the table for the champ. Usually a chop tends to hasten the conclusion of a tournament, but that was not the case for the two finalists.
Boyaciyan chipped away at his opponent with methodical timing, and Finger began to struggle to win pots. After hours of battling, the Boyaciyan actually pipped into the chip lead, but his advantage lasted only a few hands. In one of the biggest hands of the day, Finger made a big shove on the turn to fold his opponent and regain a commanding chip lead, and the war was over just as short time later.
On the last hand, Boyaciyan got his money in with pocket tens flipping against , and a pair of cowboys on the flop put the trophy in Fingers hand. Its the third victory for the Germans in this eighth season of the EPT, and its Martin Finger that theyre toasting to tonight.
2011 EPT Prague Results
JOPLIN, Mo.
Adapting to change has been a theme in the months following the May 22 tornado, but a holiday tour of downtown buildings illustrates that adaptation is nothing new for the residents of Joplin.
The tour on Saturday was sponsored by the Downtown Joplin Alliance as part of the annual DickensFest celebration, which also included Victorian-themed entertainment in the historic Murphysburg neighborhood.
Nathan Jones, youth pastor for Central Christian Center, said he is often in awe of the beauty of the old Fox Theater, which now serves as the churchs worship center.
I just love this building, Jones said as he looked around the ornate theater with its Spanish style architecture. Sometimes, I catch myself just standing here staring at it.
Jones also said the beauty of the theater at 415 S. Main St., its artistic styling and Baroque decor help to lift the congregations thoughts to something bigger than themselves.
It gives us the ability to have cultural gravity, he said. Its such a blessing that we could have a place like this.
The Fox was originally a hardware store that sold supplies to Joplins miners, but in 1930 the Midland Theater Co. of Kansas City bought the building and hired Chicago architect LP Larsen to transform it into a luxurious theater.
Jones said modern buildings lack the richness of their historic predecessors.
Our (modern) culture doesnt allow for it. Were too concerned with economy and efficiency, he said. If we wanted to build a new building like this, theres no way we could afford to do it.
Trisha Patton, executive director of the Downtown Joplin Alliance, said Saturdays Historic Holiday Tour was intended to serve a dual purpose: inform people of the history within the walls of many downtown buildings, and showcase the versatility of the older buildings and what developers have done to make them functional.
Visitors on the tour were greeted at more than a dozen stops by people who explained the history and modern use of each building.
Jeff Neal purchased the Columbia building in 2004 and began renovating it in 2005. The building, at 418-420 Main St., was built in 1893 as a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus historic voyage. But it had been empty for many years and fell into disrepair. It was slated to be torn down and converted into a parking lot.
A lot of history would have been lost if the building was destroyed. Among other things, the building housed the Justice of the Peace office in Joplin from 1937 to 1945.
Neal said the Joplin Genealogical Society estimates 7,000 couples climbed the buildings creaky wooden stairs to get married there. He said modern buildings cant match the quality of construction seen in historic buildings.
I dont care who builds your strip mall, it only has a life span of about 20 years, he said. A renovated building will last 100 years because the quality of construction is unsurpassed.
Joplin also has seen many downtown buildings resurrected as apartments and lofts. Patton says the historic tendency toward ornamentation is what makes many lofts appealing. Newer apartments often dont have the large windows, decorative trim and hardwood floors that refurbished buildings offer.
Tonights event
DickensFest continues from 6 to 8:30 pm tonight on Moffet Avenue between Third and Fourth Streets. Admission is free, but donations of coats and toys for children will be accepted. A performance by The American Magic Lantern Theater will be at 6 pm at First United Methodist Church, 501 W. Fourth St.
6. From Civil Lines, get on an auto-rickshaw and head south brushing past Old Delhi and down Vivekananda Road to reach one of New Delhi’s most famous landmarks: Connaught Place. From here, you can walk.
7. Few shops remain from the days Connaught Place was first completed. One of them is Wenger’s, a popular bakery and a good place to stop for a quick bite to eat.
8. From Connaught Place walk southward on Janpath, a tree-lined avenue where many colonial-era bungalows and buildings can still be seen. They include Western Court and The Imperial, a hotel completed in the 1930s. No Raj tour of Delhi is complete if you haven’t had tea at the Imperial.
9. Stroll to India Gate, a war memorial designed by Lutyens, and one of New Delhi’s most famous landmarks. There you’ll see a suspiciously empty gazebo: it used to house the statue of King George V before it was moved out of sight to Coronation Park.
10. From India Gate head to Rajpath. Formerly King’s Way, it is now independent India’s foremost ceremonial avenue. Rajpath leads to the government buildings on Raisina Hill, a vista that was central to Lutyens’s original design.
11. Walk uphill to Rashtrapathi Bhavan, or Government House, the jewel in the crown of New Delhi. This is the finest example of Lutyens’s architectural vision, inspired by European and Indian styles. Intended to house the British Viceroy and his administration, the monumental red and cream sandstone building is now the official residence of the President of India. (Note: Rashtrapathi Bhavan is not open to the public. Visits can be arranged in advance through the President’s Office)
12. Rashtrapathi Bhavan’s impressive Mughal Gardens, also designed by Lutyens, are open to the public in blooming season, between February and March.