Columbus, Ohio

Hey! How did I miss out on there being a Jazz and Rib Festival in Columbus?

I have got to keep up on this sort of thing. I would have missed the Chihuly exhibit if it hadn't been for my friends at a gardening site. That Setanta!

Oh sure, blame me . . . Soz, the most important cultural aspect of Columbus is the Dr. Demento show, but you have to be dedicated--it comes on at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, on "QFM96." Definitely worth the effort . . .

Er...

(Looking forward to captioned radio, though [which is actually in the works.] Or maybe transcripts?)

Hm...Do I smell a Columbus Gathering brewing?

Dr. Dememto, late of ...., I forget the letters? Sheeshhh.
Well, more power to him.

I was just bein' silly, Soz . . . i'd say that for you and the Sozlet, COSI could be a great deal of fun, as well as the Columbus Zoo. The Hanna's are an old, extensive family in Ohio, and one of their number, Jack Hanna, is the doyen of the Columbus Zoo. Perhaps you remember his from Johnny Carson (and Jay Leno, for all i know--i don't watch tv in recent years), he's the guy who always brings exotic animals to the show. He may have appeared on Letterman as well.

COSI has lots of fun "to do" things for the kids.

well .... .... ....... ?

Still there!

Goin' pretty well. Full story when I'm home. Zoo tomorrow should be good. ("mama's gonna take me to the zoo tomorrow, zoo, tomorrow, zoo tomorrow...")

Zoo today! Zoo today! Zoo today!

Well, it'll be balmy at least, comparatively speaking--it was in the 50's yesterday, which is not bad in winter. Course, it rained most of yesterday, too.

Yeah, the rain was... icky.

Weather on Sunday and today was/ is bootiful, though.

<waving enthusiastically at Set from not far away 'tall...>

Waving back . . . it's been mostly sunny today, and very warm. It's been almost 15 years since i was last at the zoo, but i recall that in the North America section, they had this otter who was a pure, professional performer. He/she would jump in the stream, swim around doing rolls and spirals, and then run up to the "treat" dispensing machine, and look at you meaningfully. If you didn't cough up the quarter and get some treats from the machine quickly enough, he/she would write you off and run down the fence to the next bunch of suckers . . . er . . . i mean, visitors. Don't know if that otter is still there.

He was in hiding -- they are putting finishing touches on some way fancy new exhibit, including the otters, and the animals were out of sight. Including the orangutans, which sozlet really wanted to see, but we did see the Komodo Dragon (eeevil lookin') and the manatees (total opposite of evil -- just big globs of sweetness.) They also have a way-cool carousel built in 1913 (orginally in Clintonville) that was completely refurbished and unveiled in 2000. AND an amazing climbing area that looks very new indeed, covered tubular slides in the shapes of giant caterpillars, great stuff. Sozlet LOVED it and really wants to go back.

<Rubs hands together and snickers as backlighting gets brighter and garish lettering appears; "The Mommy Plots...">

Really, the visit went well, pretty low-key, got some good info, took lots of pics, plan to put them together into a "Columbus" album and look at it a lot and encourage sozlet to pine for it.

The realtor experience was kind of annoying... Upper Arlington, Upper Arlington, schools, blah blah, Upper Arlington... I'm just kind of categorically opposed to Upper Arlington even though there were pockets that were more interesting than I expected. Visited a professor who lives there (UA) in a gorgeous 1923 house, not too ostentatious, just very cool, an attic with a fireplace and ceramic tiles around it, that sort of thing. However I'm skeptical that we would be able to afford anything like that. (He bought it 12 years ago and thinks we can -- realtor gals barely contained their guffaws. ) They (two realtor gals working in tandem) showed us some perfectly horrible (IMO) boring boring boring BLAND 1950's places in UA. "School" came up every other sentence. Yes, I know, but...

This in contrast to Clintonville, where we saw several absolutely kick-ass houses (HUGE, gorgeous old oak woodwork everywhere, fireplaces, ceramic tiles, 1915, attic, giant [100 X 150] yard) for the price of a dinky boring ranch in UA. Grandview was way cool, but small, and houses kind of on the expensive side. Worthington more interesting than I expected -- had lunch at Le Chatelaine (?) on High St (Rd?) and New England -- nice and laid back, cool vibe.

Short North rocked.

Anyway, I am sticking to my current impression that Clintonville is on its way up and the difference in schools is not worth the enormous differential in housing prices. Need to find out more about the school situation, though.

Didn't get to Bexley, this time, another one I'm sort of interested in (based on the houses available.)

Ah, got to get to bed, but will have many many more questions for ya Mr. S....

I think yer on the right track with Clintonville--i am not much a fan of UA. I like your comment about yards--the postage stamps which pass for yards in most cities appal me, i always automatically think: "Yeah, but what would you do if you had kids?" The Short North would be no place to live, that's for sure--and the property values have gotten just astronomical in the last ten years. Lemme know what you decide.

La Chatelaine was started by the father of a gentleman i know a little, a Frenchman who was born in Agadir, Morrocco. Although the employees tend to be snooty, and try to cultivate a cachet of European high culture amid the American savages, the owner and his son are the salt of the earth. I've not been there in ages, but when they began, about ten years ago, their stuff was first class, up before dawn to bake the bread, etc. The restaurants in Columbus are very good--there was just a program on restaurants on the local AM talk radio yesterday (WOSU). I was at work, though, so only had time for a few mental notes--they particularly mentioned all the new, good Mexican restaurants in town.

The un-snooty staff was what particularly came to my notice, actually. VERY nice. The bread was delish. We heard that it's really great for breakfast, lunch not so much, but $6 bought a good, satisfying, tasty meal.

Yeah, wouldn't live in the Short North district, but happy it exists.

Generally, even at a really fancy place we went to, people were just so nice, it was great. That's something I liked a lot, Columbus felt very friendly and Midwestern.

It is mid-western, isn't it? or is this another one of those weird u.s. geography language i just don't get?

I'm glad the sozlet had a good time, and that you had a chance to sorta get a sense of the community vibe. Columbus is a decent place, not the kind of place you need to be afraid of (remember the first post?).

I was thinking of the "back of the house" staff, Soz--i've known a lot of people in the chef business in Columbus, and their original back of the house staff was insufferable, which is odd considering what nice guys the owner and his son are. I suppose people are very friendly here, but as i grew up in the South, when anything else would have been unusual, i take it for granted--and am deeply offended when people are not friendly in their dealings with you.

You came with very lucky timing. You were here when the weather was in the 50's and mostly sunny. It's gotten chilly again, and the sky is clouding over as though it might rain. Glad the Sozlet had a good time, i am impressed with the quality of the zoo. COSI failed to get a property tax levy passed during voting yesterday, so i don't know what that will mean for the quality of the exhibits and the admission charge, although i suspect the latter will rise.

Yeah, I saw the "Free COSI" signs. (As an aside, was interesting to be in OH for Super Tuesday -- saw my first Kerry ad on TV, etc.)

The weather on Sunday and Tuesday was just wonderful, and while the rain was annoying on Monday, still nice that it was warmish. I checked Yahoo weather before we left and the forecast was actually quite accurate, and that was why we spent Monday driving around (sozlet napped in the car) looking at houses, and Tuesday at the zoo. So worked out nicely, all around.

ehBeth, Ohio is sorta Midwest, though it's kind of easterly. I think of Minnesota-Wisconsin-Iowa-Michigan-Illinois-Indiana as being the heart of the Midwest, then states beyond that getting into South, or East, or West.

And yeah, not afraid of it anymore. :-) Many more trees than I expected, MUCH hillier than I expected. The part of Clintonville I like best (and I just found out there is a really good school right in that area!!) is just a little hilly, reminds me of one of my favorite parts of Minneapolis. (For Set, the area I'm talking about is just North of Broadway, East of High St.)

Setanta, I thought of the friendliness thing as being kind of like accents -- you never notice the accent of the place you grew up, you just notice other ("weird") accents. I too kind of took the friendliness for granted, that's how it's supposed to be, then stepped back and compared with L.A. or even where we live now. Columbus is more like Madison-Minneapolis.

So actually, you were looking at a place north and east of East North Broadway. It came to be known as North Broadway to distinguish it from Broad Street, which is the north-south divider in Columbus. High Street is the east-west divider, so any part of North Broadway east of High Street is East North Broadway. I've always enjoyed the casual goofiness of street designations in Columbus. If a street does not extend beyond High Street or Broad Street, then no direction is attached to it. Highland, which is more of an alley than a street, is nonetheless a named street. It runs for miles (intermittantly, for example, it does not exist on campus, but begins again north of Lane Avenue), but as it is all north of Broad Street, addresses are simply given as Highland. Broadway crosses High Street, so addresses there are either East North Broadway, or West North Broadway. We take great pleasure in confusing the out-of-towners.