Air Show

"Pictures of the Past ... Lest we Forget," an exhibit of paintings, pastels, photography, pen-and-ink drawings, poetry and song highlighting Harford County heritage, opened this month at Rockfield Manor in Bel Air and will remain on display through Sept. 22. The exhibit, a collaboration between the Harford Artists Association and the Rockfield Foundation, features the work of more than 28 county artists. The show comprises about 80 paintings and photographs focusing on the theme of presenting scenes of historic Harford: old mills, schools, churches and rural scenes, ranging across the county from Jarrettsville to Joppatowne, and from Bel Air to Havre de Grace.

Sunbathers need only open their eyes to enjoy this year's Labor Day festivities at Ocean City. The biggest performances of the last summer holiday weekend will be played out in the skies over the ocean as a collection of stunt planes perform aerobatic air shows for visitors Saturday and next Sunday.Seven historic planes will put on an act filled with rolls and loops and precision flying, and 15 parachutists will form patterns in the sky as they aim for a tiny 100- by 100-foot clearing on the beach near Caroline Street.

This game pits the Chargers' outstanding pass offense against the Jets' smothering pass defense. A matchup to watch is Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis on 6-foot-5 Vincent Jackson, who is six inches taller. The Jets still are upset about what they consider a snub: The Packers' Charles Woodson winning defensive player of the year over Revis. The size difference shouldn't make a big difference for Revis, considering the job he did on big men such as Andre Johnson, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss.

Notre Dame had too many weapons in a provocative pitch-and-catch offense, and Navy had too few answers. The result was a torrent of big pass plays for the Fighting Irish yesterday, most of them directed at wide receiver Rhema McKnight or tight end John Carlson. On a blustery day at M&T Bank Stadium, Irish quarterback Brady Quinn - likely the first pick in the next NFL draft - threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-14 walkover against Navy. McKnight had a pair of touchdowns (33 and 6 yards)

One of the terrifically dramatic subplots of the NFL draft is the now-famous "Green Room." That's where the NFL invites the five or six college players most likely to be taken high in the first round to gather and wait for their names to be called so each can stride to the podium, smile for TV and hold his new team's jersey across his chest. There's lots of genuine jubilation as the players selected earliest in the draft can virtually start counting the cash, and sometimes there's a heartwarming moment - Maryland tight end Vernon Davis, for instance, bursting into joyful tears when the San Francisco 49ers made him the No. 6 overall pick two years ago. But more recently, the Green Room has also been a torture chamber for some high-profile players who unexpectedly waited and waited, hour after hour, for their turn, like the short, pudgy kid in a schoolyard game of pickup football.

When Navy linebacker Ram Vela took a flying leap over a Notre Dame blocking back with less than a minute to go in regulation of Navy's 46-44, triple overtime victory last Saturday, he became a YouTube star and a role model for an NFL linebacker. It isn't what he planned. "I just wanted to make the play," Vela said. "I had missed a sack [by inches] earlier in the game. I felt like I'd let the whole team down. I thought I had lost the game for us and the weight of the world was on my shoulders."

LE BOURGET, France - The talk at the Paris Air Show this week was not just of the latest in aerial technology, but of business, as states from Alabama to Washington showed up, often in splashy ways, to sell themselves to foreign companies and investors. Some of the efforts were quite sophisticated. The Alabama delegation had a roster of events in Paris and a colorful booth at the airfield with the theme that Alabama was super pour le developpement economique. The state's promotional literature prominently noted that Alabama was discovered in 1702 by the French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.

Don't be alarmed if you hear bombs going off in Westminster this weekend.Air Force pilots will be at the Jack B. Poage Airshow, setting off false bombs and making simulated napalm runs at Carroll County Regional Airport.Demonstrations by the Air Force's A-10 Thunderbolt II Firepower Demo Team will be the highlight of the two-day show, expected to attract more than 15,000 people."It'll look and sound like the aircraft are firing something off, but it's completely safe," said David Schultz, air show coordinator.

The Blue Angels and their lean F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets are in town today -- as if anyone in greater Annapolis could miss them. Between yesterday morning's flyover maneuvers low over the city and the afternoon practice for today's air show, the Navy's precision fighter jet team drew a crowd at various points around the city on the second day of Naval Academy Commissioning Week. At first, the crowds that gathered on the Naval Academy grounds along the Severn River yesterday afternoon found a placid spot where it was quiet enough to hear the church bells.