Saturday I took a day trip to Columbus, Ohio to check out Ohayocon, a fast-growing anime convention ( http://www.ohayocon.org ). I went last year, and if I go again I'll have to pre-register, as the standard reg line stretched for miles. It moved briskly, but it still took over an hour to get through (compared to about twenty minutes last year). I'm not that much of an anime fan, so I mostly go to shop for various Japanese merchandise, and observe all the cosplayers of differing levels of attractiveness wearing the revealing and/or form-fitting garb of their characters (half of which I don't recognize, but look impressive anyway). I managed to all but totally wreck an ankle after hours of standing and walking the area, and left after some time sitting down.

I went to college in Columbus, so this year I decided to explore and revisit my past a little. I drove around my old school, the Columbus College of Art and Design. There used to be a lot of distance between CCAD and the nearby Columbus State community college, but both schools have grown a lot since I went there, and are now butted up against each other. The CCAD campus has more buildings now, and the ones that were there before have different names. I also tracked down the old apartment building where I stayed for three years during college. It looked almost exactly the same, though the nearby area now sports a library and hospital that weren't there before. For an earlyish dinner, I went to Columbus' German village (saw Schmidt's Sausage Haus, as seen on the TV show "Man Vs. Food") and ate at an old favorite, Katzingers deli (http://www.katzingers.com - free pickles!). It's a real city delicatessen, as opposed to a sandwich shop calling itself a deli, which is something I don't see much as a suburban boy. I was glad to re-connect with a few bits of my past, and a tiny bit frightened to think that it's been over fifteen years since I last visited a few of these places.