Balloon

Mayor Sheila Dixon joined officials from Pimilico Race Course yesterday to announce the calendar of events leading up to the Preakness on May 17 - including the annual parade in downtown Baltimore and several live concerts. "We attract not only people from all over the country to come here but also residents of Baltimore," Dixon said at the Maryland Jockey Club. "People come to the city, and they realize how wonderful our city is." The Crawdaddies will play at Belevedere Square starting at 6 p.m. Friday.

Julio Valcarcel III built a self-propelled machine, a remote-controlled robot and a wooden catapult for competitions yesterday at the Maryland State Science Olympiad at the Johns Hopkins University. He is 13. In an event dubbed "The Scrambler," the Thurmont Middle School eighth-grader and his seventh-grade teammate Morgan Smith launched the self-propelled device from a ramp toward a wall 9 meters away. It had to start and stop on its own, without cracking a raw egg attached to the contraption's nose (hence the name of the event)

1. Any commercial that references The Godfather has got to rate high. The Audi spot goes to a mansion's bedroom with a man waking up to pull back the blankets and find sheets covered in oil and the torn-off grill of a car. He unleashes a blood-curdling scream. Not sure I'm buying an Audi because of it, but entertaining. 2. Feel that beat of "What Is Love." Look at the bobblehead dolls, then the people's heads bobbing as they start to doze off. Until they drink Diet Pepsi Max. Then everyone is in the old Saturday Night Live sketch, bobbing along energetically to the Haddaway hit. SNL alum Chris Kattan shows up at the end to tell everybody to stop it. 3. Peanuts, get your peanuts.

There's nothing like a housing slump to challenge the notion that buying a house is smarter than renting. Even in a rising market, there are times when shelling out monthly rent can make more sense than a mortgage payment. Add the anxiety generated by a down market, and all bets are off. "When you live in a house whose value goes down over the short term and you have a small down payment, then you can get stuck," noted Holden Lewis, who follows mortgage issues for Bankrate.com. At the very least, you could end up paying more to own than you would to rent.

CHICAGO -- Helium is the talk of the party balloon industry these days, and it is not a discussion being carried out in high-pitched giggles. The second most plentiful element in the universe is suddenly in short supply on this planet, and that means soaring prices for a lot of things, balloons included. "Some customers have told me they're just not going to sell balloons anymore because they can't get helium," said Chicago party wholesaler Lee Brody. "Everybody's scrambling." As raw materials crises go, the helium shortage clearly takes a back seat to the global oil crunch.

The momentum that the Orioles built over the past two nights started to fade with each Daniel Cabrera pitch in the first two innings yesterday, setting an ominous tone on the final day of a hugely successful homestand. When Cabrera wasn't walking New York Yankees, he was giving up searing line drives. When he wasn't throwing his pitches high, wide or in the dirt, he was placing them right over the plate, an open-ended invitation for the Yankees to break from their slump. Cabrera eventually righted himself, but his early control problems extended to the Orioles' bullpen, which allowed the Yankees to pull away for a 10-6 victory before an announced 47,936 at Camden Yards, the third consecutive sellout.

Interested in hot-air balloons? Head to the 25th annual QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. The three-day event is all about ballooning, with up to 125 different balloons taking to the air. There is also an aerial thrill show, featuring a motorcycle and a trapeze and live music. Popular New Jersey-based band Blues Traveler will be performing Saturday night. The festival runs Friday-July 29 at Solberg Airport, 37 Thor Solberg Road, Whitehouse Station, N.J. Festival hours are 1 p.m.-10 p.m. Friday, 6 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m.-8 p.m. July 29. Adult tickets are $17 in advance and $25 at the gate.

Hot-air balloon pilot Michael Gerred often witnesses the anxiety of first-time passengers. The 51-year-old Bel Air resident understands the nerves. But for him, the basic balloon ride is a simple pleasure. What's difficult, even nerve-wracking, is maneuvering a balloon close enough to grab an envelope resting on a pole sticking up 20 feet from the ground. "It gets the adrenaline going," Gerred said of the stunt, called the "convergent navigation task exercise." "It's a great feeling to know that what you've done worked, when it could have just as easily failed."

Plans for a prominent site on the eastern edge of downtown, in the heart of the city's entertainment district, have substantively shrunk since they were announced two years ago, according to Baltimore's economic development agency. Developer David Cordish intends to build only half as much as he formerly envisioned on land once home to a helium balloon ride that closed after a harrowing incident in 2004. Cordish had promised Baltimore Development Corp. that at the foot of a 250-unit high-rise of condominiums and apartments, he would build a Lucky Strike Lanes, an upscale bowling "lounge" - part of a network with 16 locations nationwide including Washington.

The Preakness Balloon Fest at Turf Valley Resort barely lifted off this week. Wednesday night's balloon glow was canceled because of rain and wind. Yesterday morning's balloon launch went on as scheduled, but because of wind conditions the balloons were inflated but never took off. The Balloon Fest, an official Preakness event that was part of the celebration leading up to tomorrow's horse race, was scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m., with hot-air balloons available for short tethered rides or walk-throughs.