Posted July 28th 2010

The 157th Ohio State Fair kicks off today Wednesday, July 28th and will run through Sunday, August 8th. BabyFace, George Duke, David Sanborn, Heart and many more are on the concert line-up!  There are many, many more events also.  Just added this year is the Mixed Martial Arts Competition. There is are over (300) exhibitors for your shopping pleasures! Heyyyyy check it out yourself at the OHIO STATE FAIR website!  Here’s your link: OHIO STATE FAIR WEBSITE

For the full concert line-up click here:

OHIO STATE FAIR CONCERT LINE-UP

OHIO STATE FAIR FACTS

COLUMBUS – The 157th Ohio State Fair is nearly here. This year’s event offers new attractions, agricultural exhibits, sports competitions, great Fair food and a variety of shopping opportunities you won’t want to miss.

Dates:  July 28 – Aug. 8, 2010

Hours of Operation

Fair admission gates open:  9 am – 10 pm, except Aug. 8 (9 a.m. – 8 p.m.)

Commercial exhibit buildings:  10 am – 9 pm

Youth Center:  8 am – 8 pm

Janis Center:  9 am – 7 pm

Other exhibit buildings:  9 am – 9 pm

Gate Admission Prices

Adults (13 – 59):  $10

Youth (5 – 12):  $8

Senior (60+):  $8

Children under five:  Free

Mountain Dew Midway

Sunday – Thursday:  10 am – 11 pm

Friday and Saturday:  10 am – midnight

Rides

$1 coupons Special ride-all-day wristbands are available for $22.

Kiddie – 1 coupon

Super Kiddie – 2 coupons

Spectacular – 2 coupons

Super Spectacular – 3 coupons

Discounts on Admission and Ride Wristbands

Save on gate admission prices with $6 tickets available through August 8 at Kroger, participating AAA locations and Ticketmaster outlets. Purchase ride-all-day wristband vouchers (to be redeemed at the Fair for a wristband) for only $19 at Kroger Stores and Ticketmaster outlets through July 27.

Special Discount Days

Wednesday, July 28

Ohio Lottery Day

WBNS 10 TV & ONN Opening Day

$3 admission until 3 pm.

Thursday, July 29

Kroger Day

Kroger Plus card members: Present your card at a booth outside entrance gates to receive $4 admission vouchers for every member in your party.

Friday, July 30

Ohio Lottery Admission Discount

Present a non-winning Ohio Lottery ticket at a booth outside entrance gates to receive a $4 admission voucher.

Sunday, August 1

Time Warner Cable Day

Veterans & Military Day

Free admission for veterans and active military with appropriate identification.

Monday, August 2

NBC4 Family Value Day

Until 6 pm, adults will be admitted for the kids’ admission price of $8, and kids 12 and under will be admitted free. With the purchase of one wristband, a second rider can ride free until 6 pm with a handstamp. After 6 pm, all riders will need either a wristband or vouchers to ride.

Wednesday, August 4

QFM 96 Fair Attitude Wednesday

Fairgoers will enjoy $5 admission all day.

Thursday, August 5

AAA “Show Your Card and Save” Day

AAA members: Show your membership card at a booth outside entrance gates to receive $4 admission vouchers for every member in your party.

Friday, August 6

Meijer Day

Meijer customers: Purchase $25 or more in Falls Creek merchandise in Fashions at Meijer and receive a voucher in store good for $4 gate admission at the Ohio State Fair to be used on Friday, August 6, 2010 only. Offer available in-store 7/22 – 8/5/10.

Saturday, August 7

AEP Ohio Day

Sunday, August 8

Printer’s Day

Pepsi-Cola Day

Bring your specially marked Pepsi-Cola can or any Pepsi-Cola product to a booth outside entrance gates for a $3 admission voucher for every member in your party before 3 pm.

All special days and discounts are not valid with other offers.

Stroller, Wagon, Wheelchair and Locker Rentals

Stroller, wagon, wheelchair and locker rentals are available at the Cardinal and OHIO gates only (these are the two main entrance gates). Strollers, wagons, wheelchairs, electric wheelchairs and lockers will be available for rent on a first-come, first-served basis.

Stroller:  $9 per day

Wagon:  $13 per day

Manual Wheelchair:  $15 per day

Electric Wheelchair:  $50 per day, or $30 after 5 pm

Lockers:  $1.00 per locker per day

(12″ wide x 12″ high x 15″ deep)

Parking

$5 per vehicle. Easy access to AAA Parking Lots from I-71 at the 17th Avenue exit and the Hudson Street exit at Silver Drive. Handicapped parking available. Ride the AAA Road Service Shuttles to and from the main entrance gate and your vehicle.

On-grounds Shuttle

Makes frequent stops around the perimeter of the grounds, 10 am – 8 pm Sunday – Thursday, 10 am – 10 pm Fridays and Saturdays. Free.

Fair Information and Special Services

Address

Ohio State Fair

717 E. 17th Ave.

Columbus, OH 43211

Contact

614-644-3247 (Recorded Information Line), 1-888-OHO-EXPO (646-3976), TDD: 614-644-4009

Edition

157th Ohio State Fair

Website / e-mail OhioStateFair.com; info@expo.state.oh.us This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more information, call 1-888-OHO-EXPO or 1-614-644-FAIR. On the Web, visit us at OhioStateFair.com.

The Ohio Expo Center is proud to host the Ohio State Fair. With a spectacular midway, big-name entertainment, hundreds of exhibits and one of the largest junior fair shows in the nation, the 2010 Ohio State Fair will run July 28 – Aug. 8.

Posted March 11th 2010

A Canadian liquidator that sells surplus industrial equipment offered the top bid for a Chrysler plant in northeast Ohio.

Maynards Industries Ltd. of Vancouver bid $45.5 million in Wednesday’s auction in New York for the Twinsburg stamping plant southeast of Cleveland.

The offer faces a review at a bankruptcy court hearing Thursday in New York.

Proceeds from the sale will help repay creditors.

About 1,000 people worked at the plant when Chrysler announced shutdown plans last year, but retirements and buyouts have trimmed the work force. The factory takes steel sheets and presses them into door panels and other parts. It is scheduled to close in June.

Posted February 8th 2010

Getting a good deal on flowers this Valentine’s Day requires that you not linger too long when you stop to smell the roses.

Valentine’s Day is the biggest holiday for fresh flower sales, accounting for 40 percent of annual revenue, according to the Society of American Florists, a trade group. Prices can easily top $60 for a bouquet of a dozen long-stemmed roses, with fancier arrangements well above $100.

But wait much beyond the start of February to order, and you can expect to pay a premium. Many florists and other companies that sell flowers use complex algorithms based on their supply and demand gauged from early orders to set pricing, says Jon Strom, the vice president of floral and lifestyle merchandising of the Price Chopper Supermarket chain based in Schenectady, N.Y., who has also worked on the wholesale and online sides of the floral industry. As the holiday approaches, they may offer sales on arrangements that haven’t sold well, and pump up prices on those popular bouquets with dwindling supply.

A cold snap in Colombia, which supplies many out-of-season roses sold commercially, may also affect pricing this year. “It didn’t damage anything, but it slowed production down,” says John Dole, a professor of horticultural science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C. The Colombian Association of Flower Producers estimates it may have lost as much as 30 percent of the crops in affected areas near Bogota. If florists must compete for last-minute supply, consumers who procrastinate on ordering could face heftier-than-normal premiums.

Ordering early is a good start, but consider these seven strategies to get the most bloom for your buck:

Get a weekday delivery
Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, and if you want the flowers to arrive during that weekend, expect to pay a premium. Delivery on Friday or earlier in the week will be far cheaper because it allows florists to spread out the work, says Jennifer Sparks, a spokeswoman for the Society of American Florists. At Proflowers, standard delivery costs $5 to $10, depending on where you live. Have your order delivered on Friday, Feb. 12, and you’ll pay an extra $5. On Saturday (Feb. 13) and Sunday (Feb. 14), you’ll pay and extra $10 or $15, respectively.

Slash stem length
“Usually, the longer the stem, the more expensive [the rose],” says Janice Cutler, the owner of North Raleigh Florist in Raleigh, N.C. Arrangements in a shorter vase or bowl let florists start out with stems of shorter lengths, and so cost less. For example, a dozen long-stemmed red roses from the shop delivered on Valentine’s Day would cost $98; slightly shorter stems, $85.

Think pink
Or any other color that isn’t red. It’s the most in-demand color, and so can command a premium, Strom says. At FTD.com, a dozen long-stemmed red roses are $80. The same quality bouquet of white or yellow roses costs $75. Lavender roses are even cheaper on the site, at $50 — but there’s a catch. Growers haven’t yet figured out how to breed those blooms for longevity, so the bouquet won’t last as long, Strom says. On the upside, that also means purple roses are more fragrant than those of other colors.

Mix blooms
It’s a hard sell for customers, but limiting the number of roses in your bouquet can cut costs significantly, Dole says. Roses are out of season and in high demand, which keeps prices high. Everything else is cheap in comparison. His picks: tulips, Oriental lilies and carnations. “They’re in season, and they’re gorgeous,” he says. At Teleflora, 10 red tulips in a ribbon-tied vase cost $42.

Check for quality
In times of high demand, not all flower sellers are created equal, says Scott Testa, an assistant professor of business administration at Cabrini College in Radnor, Pa. Before you order, read both recent consumer reviews and ones from Valentine’s Day last year. If you’re buying online, be sure to check the fine print to see if the bouquet will come pre-arranged by a local florist or shipped in a box from the grower, he says. The latter can be cheaper, but it usually entails do-it-yourself arranging and may not include a vase.

Use coupon codes
There are plenty out there at sites like RetailMeNot.com and CouponShack.com, although deals start disappearing in early February. At FTD.com, code COUPONCABIN20 from CouponCabin.com gets you 20 percent off at checkout through February. Shoppers linking to Proflowers through PayPal get 20 percent off and a free glass vase through Valentine’s Day.

Order a single stem
You’ll pay just $3 to $5 for a single, long-stemmed rose, Strom says. It’s a romantic and economical gesture that leaves you plenty of room in your budget for a fancy dinner out or more long-lasting gift.

By Mandi Bierly

Posted January 24th 2010

Betty White, Frasier’s Jane Leeves, Just Shoot Me’s Wendie Malick, and One Day at Time’s Valerie Bertinelli have been cast in the TV Land comedy pilot Hot in Cleveland. The show, the network confirms to EW, follows three fortysomething best friends from L.A. who, after getting stuck in Ohio, decide to stick around because the locals find them glamorous. White, according to The Hollywood Reporter, will play “a grumpy and opinionated lady who has lived in the cottage of the trio’s Cleveland house for 50 years.”

I’m loving this, particularly the idea of watching what I’m guessing will be a sharp-tongued Malick (she does it so well, she’s got to be the Dorothy) face off against White. Are you?

by Warren Riddle

Posted January 17th 2010

The whining and gnashing of teeth that immediately greet any changes to Facebook have become a cliched social networking punchline. The site, though, is currently being hammered over very real and pertinent concerns that go far beyond mere member tempter-tantrums.

The brouhaha began early last year when Facebook implemented, and then almost immediately retracted, new Terms of Service that many believed would give the site perpetual ownership of member information (like photographs). Over the course of the last year, despite the reversal, those concerns over privacy have only escalated, and some recent revelations by an anonymous Facebook employee should only serve to intensify the cacophony of complaints.
The spike in Facebook vitriol has amplified primarily because of December changes to Facebook’s privacy guidelines. The new user settings were initially described as a method for members to completely control their profile activities. People steadily identified some glaring holes in the supposed security measures, though, including the inability to securely lock down profile pictures, fan pages, and friends lists.

According to the unnamed snitch, those aren’t the only issues, as the employee claims that everything you do is not only permanently stored and saved, but completely available to Facebook staff and associates. The site All Facebook has expectedly and deservedly retaliated to the whistleblower claims, and has dismissed the supposed revelations as common knowledge with which all Facebook members should be completely familiar.

Speaking to the Rumpus, the Facebook worker asserted that when a member makes “any sort of interaction on Facebook — upload a photo, click on somebody’s profile, update your status, change your profile information,” that activity is stored on Facebook’s servers. In order to identify a member’s “best friends,” a feature which quietly debuted recently, the site tracks and stores (at one of four massive data centers) every possible interaction. All Facebook countered by saying this practice is “widely known,” and that “if you don’t want Facebook collecting information about you, don’t give it to them.” (Excellent customer service — MySpace would be thrilled if Facebook adhered to an official “take it or leave it” approach.)

One of the most troubling revelations in the anonymous interview is the claim that any Facebook employee could log into any member account with a single master password (which was some derivation of Chuck Norris — not so funny in this scenario). The shadowy interviewee also said that various employees (at least two of whom were terminated) were caught inappropriately using that password to gain access to accounts. But, according to some, that password issue “isn’t really that big of a deal.” That may not sound comforting, but the site says it has a zero tolerance policy for snooping and it has also created a Chief Privacy Officer position.

The comprehensive interview covers even more topics, including fascinating discussions on developments in “psychological analysis,” incredibly creepy Facebook interactions, the low-down on the huge programming nerds, and Facebook’s international future. Lastly, make sure to check out All Facebook to get both sides of the story. [From: The Rumpus and All Facebook]