Archive for the ‘Other’ Category

“Mom! Phineas and Ferb are going on a live tour!” Join the Danville Tri-State Area Gang for a high-energy ride through their wildest invention yet in Disney’s Phineas and Ferb: The Best LIVE Tour Ever! The beloved characters from Disney Channel’s animated series embark on a bold escape from the television screen to a live action adventure – right in your hometown! This brand new live stage production performs at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown on October 29, 2011 at 1pm and 4pm. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 4^th at 10am.

Produced by Feld Entertainment, Disney’s Phineas and Ferb: The Best LIVE Tour Ever! brings Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Isabella, Baljeet, Buford and friends to the stage as they make the most of the last day of summer by building an invention bigger, better and more amazing than ever. And, before you can wonder, “Hey, Where’s Perry?” the beloved pet platypus shifts to his secret double life as Agent P to foil another one of Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s evil plans.  Musical madness abounds in an escapade so awesome that even Candace can’t help but join the hilarious hijinks.  It’s the ultimate end to summer vacation, so seize the day ‘cause Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it all!

Tickets are available at Ticketmaster , at  the Covelli Centre Box Office or by calling 1-800-745-3000. To find out more about Disney’s Phineas and Ferb: The Best LIVE Tour Ever!, go to the Phineas And Ferb Live Disney Page, or visit us on Facebook and YouTube.

By far, the best commercial ever made, just kept hearing, “All we need is one pin Rodney”, in my head, had to let the readers enjoy it again!

Just over a month ago, the Professional Bull Riders Tour made a stop at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown.  Not being real skilled with the finer points of this sport, I went with hopes of landing a few good photos and maybe learning something.  Both things happened and then some.  Don’t get me wrong, I would rather watch the Penguins or Cavs on a Saturday night in April, but gained respect for the people who risk their lives when they mount these bulls to see how long they can hang on.

Before the event started, I was chatting with Walt Vrabel who works security for many events at the center.  Vrabel informed me that he knew one of the young men who would compete, Adam Geteman.  Vrabel had Geteman as a high school student at Jackson Milton.  He sung the praises of Geteman and how polite and well-mannered he was.  My ignorance would have me believing that I would be the outsider, the outcast in the eyes of a bunch of Southern drawl-speaking folks who abused the English language every chance they got.  I was as wrong as could be.  Geteman was a very pleasant individual and vivid competitor.  I asked him questions, things he said had never been asked by anyone before, and he responded humbly and honestly.  Bull riding may not be your thing, but to see inside the angled drape of an Amish household would fascinate readers too.  Here is what Geteman had to say:

Paneech:  Adam, tell me how you get involved with something like this.

Geteman:  It is something I have always wanted to try.  A buddy of mine that I met out line dancing said he did it.  So I went and trained with him, and the next week, I went through and did it.  He broke his arm and has not done it since, and I have been doing it ever since.

Paneech:  Do you travel all year with this group, or is it a certain amount of time, like a season?

Geteman:  It’s pretty much all year around, every weekend.  Personally, I only participate in the events that take place in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.  It’s nice doing this so close to home, I have a ton of family and friends who came to see me.

Paneech:  Explain the scoring and the system, I have no idea what you are trying to accomplish other than being on a bull for as long as you can.

Geteman:  The scoring is based on two parts.  Half is how you ride, and the other half is the bull.  The bull is scored on how fast it turns in circles and how high he jumps and kicks.  Riders get scored on posture and how well you control the bull.  You get one ride, and then the Top 10 get put back through for a championship round.  If you win, you get money.  Some places hold a series, and if you win that you can earn a belt buckle.  Everyone is after the buckle.

Paneech:  How long can you see yourself doing something like this?

Geteman:  I’m getting married in June, so I will try to stick with it for as long as I can.  It started out as just an adrenaline rush, and being an adrenaline junkie, I am bent on getting better.  The longer you do this the better it gets. 

Paneech:  Have you become friends with the other riders?

Geteman:  Oh yeah, you see a lot of the same faces every weekend.  Before you know it, you are going out to the bars with them and hanging out.  I will be 24 in a week and have been doing this for three years, so I have grown up around some of these guys.  We watch together and talk about our rides and the bulls.

Paneech:  Tell me about injuries.  What have you taken, what’s the worst you have seen someone else go through?

Geteman:  I have been lucky, for me the worst thing I have gotten was a few scrapes and cuts.  I have seen a bunch of people break bones.  Unfortunately, I even saw one kid break his neck.

Paneech:  Give me the percentage of people who compete that also chew snuff.

Geteman:  (laughs)  I don’t think I know anybody who doesn’t chew here.  I chew Beech Nut right now.  It’s a mixed batch, but most of the guys chew Copenhagen.  That seems to be the cowboy thing, I gave it up for Lent, so I am using the pouch stuff for now.  Going back to chewing is like falling in love all over again and my fiance got used to me not chewing, so I am trying to ease her back into it. 

As I approached the Covelli Centre to check out the bull riding event, I saw a whole demographic of people who probably do not head into town much.  The men were wearing cowboy hats and boots, the women were wearing flannels, and anyone not wearing blue jeans stood out like dandelions in a well-manicured yard. 

Not sure what to expect, I headed in and first noticed that the usually pleasant-scented venue smelled like the Canfield Fair, where people pet a pig on their way to grab a sausage sandwich.

Over the course of the next few hours, I gained admiration for the men who were courageous enough to mount bulls, I learned how someone wins, and I talked with several polite people with the PBR who saw past my ignorance of their craft with a pleasant and insightful demeanor.

The crowd of close to 3,000 was larger than I thought it would be.  Robbie Hodges (above) served as the announcer/comedian in his self-proclaimed title of barrel clown.  Hodges had one of those hands-free Janet Jackson headsets on and was very active.  Hodges main job is to serve as the space filler between rides by telling jokes, dancing, jumping around, and basically doing whatever it takes to keep the audience going.

Jimmy Brownlee, of Cocoa, FL, tours with the PBR and serves as a judge.  I asked him to explain how and what the participants win.  “We mark the rides on a scale of 1-25 on the animal and 1-25 on the ride.  You have to ride at least eight seconds to get a score.  We also look at the degree of difficulty on the bull with bucking, kicking, and spinning.  The guys can win money and a prestigious belt buckle if they are crowned the winner.”

OK, so far so good.  The guy on the horse in the above photo has the responsibility of roping a bull once the rider has been thrown.  He was pretty accurate from the distances he was heaving the lasso and I only saw him miss once all night.  Once the bull is roped successfully, it is led back to the storage cages behind the start chutes.

Once the rider is mounted in the start chute, the gate is pulled open and the bull basically starts a very unpredictable series of movements.  Many of the riders were thrown into the air and have no choice but to take the hard landing.  The way a ride ends, good or bad, is by being thrown from the bull, so the poor guy who only lasted three seconds and the rider who can survive for ten seconds realize the same fate in the end, and knowing how to fall and dodge is a key to lasting in the sport.

Besides Hodges, there are two other clowns who try to get the attention of the bull after the rider has been tossed.  In my opinion, these two guys had the riskiest job in the building.  They had to deal with every bull on every ride. 

How fast would you move? 

All-in-all, the crowd seemed pleased and enjoyed the efforts that the PBR Show brought to Youngstown.  If you ever get a chance to take your family to something different than a movie and dinner, throw this event on the list, you will not be disappointed.  Kasy Hays was crowned the winner of the ‘final round of ten’.  Afterwards, an autograph table was set up in the concourse where fans lined up to meet their favorite PBR personalities.

There are several area fundraisers to benefit Luke Holko.  Luke remains at Akron Childrens Hospital and I am working on getting an update on his condition.  If you have a fundraiser or a promotion for this cause, please leave a comment and I will update the schedule.  Continued prayers are with Luke.

Tuesday, September 15.  The Mahoning Valley Scrappers have announced that they will donate $2 from every ticket sold to the NYPL Championship games to the Luke Holko Fund.  If there is a game 3 on Wednesday, the $2 donation on every ticket will remain in place.  Game 1 is set for Tuesday at Eastwood Field.

Friday, September 18. Spaghetti Dinner to benefit Luke at The Wet Spot, 1875 Elm Road, Warren.  330-372-5263.   Dinner includes spaghetti, meatballs, salad, and bread & butter.  The donation is $5 and carryout and delivery are available. 

Sunday, September 27.  A spaghetti dinner will be held at Odonald’s Irish Pub in Niles.  The event will be held from 2-7 PM and the donation is $8 with all proceeds going toward Luke’s recovery.  For more information or directions, call 330-349-4500.

Saturday, October 10.  Golf outing at Bronzewood Golf Course.  Contact Robert to volunteer, enter a team, or donate.  Robert’s e-mail address is Bobbckwardisbob@aol.com .  Here is the official website for the golf outing:  http://www.teeingupforluke.com/

Ongoing.  You can donate at any area Cortland Banks branch where a fund for Luke Holko has been set up.  Cortland Banks are located conveniently throughout Mahoning and Trumbull Counties.  Here is a Cortland Banks address for people like Roberto who commented from Texas and want to donate:

Cortland Bank

Lucas Holko Fund

2935 Elm Road NE

Warren, OH  44483

What a horrible weekend for the nationally covered Ohio sports teams!  It’s football season, but they are still playing baseball.  Didn’t matter which level, didn’t matter which sport, all that matters is that my home state, in a 24-hour span, was 0-5 against teams from other states.

The fun started Saturday night when Ohio State hosted USC.  I excitedly watched the Buckeyes dominate the trenches, field position, and play the Tressel ‘three yards and a cloud of dust’  brand of football.  That worked, for three-and-a-half quarters.  Pete Carroll found a way to call a 90+ yard drive to doom the Buckeyes as they went on to lose 18-15.

Sunday, a whole new grouping of ways to lose at various sports came into play.

The Cleveland Indians managed to get only two hits in losing to the Kansas City Royals.  They also gave up seven runs in losing 7-0 to a team with a winning percentage of under .400 at the time. 

The Cincinnati Reds were a little better in losing to the Cubs.  They managed to score a couple of runs, but the Cubbies managed to score five. 

The Cincinnati Bengals probably gave the home loyalists the biggest stomach ache.  A deflected pass lands right into the hands of a Denver receiver who has absolutely no one around him because two Bengals defensive backs and a linebacker had fallen like dominoes.  Brandon Stokley = Hero.  Knock the ball down… DOWN… not up.  12-7 Broncos.

The Cleveland Browns played with purpose for a half.  They basically took away Adrian Peterson and dared Brett Favre to beat them.  A few coaching adjustments at halftime solved the problem and Peterson ran like a deer in a vacant field.  Vikings 34-20.

Remedy?  Musical coaches.  Let’s put Mangini in a Reds uniform.  He can develop a wildcat bunt or something.  He has that chubby baseball look anyway.  Jim Tressel can go coach the Indians.  What would be the odds of him playing the lines with a one run lead to take away extra-base hits?  Eric Wedge would look good in the Bengals stuff.  He is used to dealing with injury-prone lefties who can’t throw anyway.  Marvin Lewis can go to Ohio State.  And by default, Dusty Baker would coach the Browns.

0-5. 

After doing some research, I have come up with what I feel is a list of the five most superstitious athletes of all-time.  I am sure there are many more, and I welcome you to add them to this list by commenting.  The five athletes I have chosen particularly fascinated me through the years by being repetitive to a fault.

1. Turk Wendell  – Perhaps the dictionary definition of a superstitious athlete.  Wendell, as seen above, would never step on a baseline going to or coming from the mound.  He wouldn’t just step over the line, as many do, he hopped like a fourth grader propelling himself to maximum heights.  Maybe his vertical distance meant he was far from the baseline as well.  This wasn’t it.  After he set records for hopping baselines, he would head to the dugout to brush his teeth EVERY INNING.  I looked at almost two hundred websites, but none that mention the dental hygiene obsession mention whether or not Wendell did this on days he didn’t pitch.
2. Wade Boggs – Boggs would eat chicken every day before a game.  I’m not sure if he retreated and ate steak on off days, and perhaps the “other white meat” all Winter, but on a summer day when the Red Sox were playing, Boggs was doing the poultry ritual.  Boggs also wrote the word “Chai” in the dirt before every at-bat.  Chai is a Hebrew word meaning “living”.
3. Peyton Manning – Manning has a ritual that is less perplexing.  Before every game, both home and away, Manning has to read a program from cover-to-cover.
4. Brian Urlacher – Urlacher eats exactly two chocolate chip cookies before every game.  Not one or three cookies depending on hunger levels, but exactly two cookies.  Must have gotten bamboozled by The Count and Cookie Monster as a kid, but only as a tandem.
5. Michael Jordan – Wore his North Carolina shorts under his Bulls uniform shorts every game.

Bonus: Curtis Martin – Dating back to his days at Pittsburgh and through his entire NFL career, Martin always read Psalm 91.

I know we, as humans, develop rituals which can sometimes defy logic.  However, the above listed athletes have not tried to function without the routines they adapted as “their own”.  Publicity stunt or obsessive-compulsive?  In all of the above listed instances, I would call it obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Linus Van Pelt always had his blanket and got lightheaded and dizzy when seperated from it.  The above listed blankets fascinate me.

It all started in December when Ethan Jaynes and I were introduced online by a mutual friend.  Ethan was a hustler who likes video clips and does great stuff over at NESW Sports.  I was taught so many things about what people want to see, the importance of building up a regular reader base, and most importantly treating my peers with respect. 

Soon after, Paneech.com was born.  This, again, is mostly in part to Ethan Jaynes.  I began doing link posts and making friends with as many bloggers as I could to help get my stuff out there. 

I noticed that there was so much less stress in writing my own stuff because I didn’t have to care what anyone else thought.  The views expressed on Paneech.com are mine and I didn’t have to try to write a certain way or do things the way that the site does.  Ethan was pretty easy to get along with and very supportive, so it reduced the stress.

Yesterday, I did a piece for The Hoopdoctors on the Cavs and Hawks series.  It was a cool spot and I was honored to contribute to a blog that specialized in one sport, respected my views enough to ask for a contribution, and got some exposure.

Earlier this year, I accepted a position with Fansided blogs to run an Indians Website called Deep Left Field, which I really enjoyed doing.  Unfortunately, keeping up with my own column is overwhelming at times and I recently had to step away from it.  Again, Adam and Zach Best at Fansided were great people to work with.  I had the green light to write whatever I wanted and prospered from that opportunity.  If I had more time, I would still be doing that everyday, but for now all I can do is contribute from time-to-time.

I am currently filling in for Isaac at The World Of Isaac.  Isaac was also very cool in giving me the go ahead to do whatever I see fit.  I am trying very hard to make the posts look like other posts on the website so someone visiting doesn’t notice that my pal is in Hawaii eating a pig and singing Tiny Bubbles.  I am nervous, as anyone would be, about posting things elsewhere sometimes.  Call it human instinct. 

Bottom line to me is that if something is timely and well-written people will read, hype, and comment on it.  I have learned much from those above listed sites and thank them a thousand times over for putting their confidence in me. 

Anyone who visits this page regularly knows I am new to this.  Sports blogging is frustrating at times because there is no deadline to be first.  It’s a race to have the best information or video to convey exactly how you feel about something.

I have been fortunate to make a few friends by doing this.  One of those people is Matt Clapp, the top guy over at Sharapova’s Thigh.  We have never spoke to each other or met in person.  We have however helped each other, exposing readers to each othes sites through linking.

The post that Matt wrote last night was tough to read because it was very emotional.  I want to share that post with all of those who take a moment to read it.  Click on the link below.

Remembering The Best Friend I Ever Had – Matt Clapp

The first weekend in April has always been my favorite time of the year.  Any sports fan has plenty to pay attention to.  Living in a true seasonal climate, it also means the end of snow and cold, as the mercury rises and the barometer falls.  Look at all that is happening in the upcoming week:

• Major League Baseball kicks off a new season this Sunday night.  Those few months we have no baseball just suck to me.  Anyone reading this is probably in a fantasy league and shares my sentiments.
• NCAA Final Four and Finals come to a dramatic end within the week.  It’s been a great season for college basketball and the entire country is engrossed in this years tournament.  There are four pretty good teams left, so it will be interesting to say how it plays out.
• NBA regular season ends April 15.  As a Cavs fan, I wished it ended sooner to ensure home court right through the finals.  There are still unclaimed playoff spots and a bunch of shuffling for seeds to take place, so the drama will captivate fans as the season winds down.
• NHL regular season ends April 12.  Same as basketball, many teams still have a chance to make the playoffs or improve their seeding with the few remaining games.
• The Masters starts next week.  Any casual golf fan will be curious to see if Tiger can keep the momentum from his victory last weekend.  This is always another one of those “Spring is officially here” events that is not hard to watch on a warm Sunday evening.
• Wrestlemania XXV is Sunday.  Maybe not technically a sport, but rather “sports entertainment” as Vince McMahon has called it.  Regardless of whether you like it or not, the PPV buy rate is astronomical every year and this year might even break some records.

Don’t forget the NFL draft is not far away either!  I just love April!