Wow.. well… the original plan was to head to a nice Italian restaurant downtown, but the concierge drew the location of OSU on the map along the way, and, well, let’s just say I never made it downtown.
OSU’s campus is just gorgeous, especially the architecture. Tons of brick and stonework. Made UVic seem quite quaint in comparison. I’d say it was maybe even a little nicer than Cornell — and Cornell is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve thrown a bunch of photos up in the gallery; go have a look!
I think this was the first time I’ve felt positively old on a university campus. I’m not sure if only the new students are here this week, or what, but I’m telling you, practically everyone I saw looked like they were in highschool. That was kind of weird.
I ended up eating at a sandwich place called Jimmy John’s — $6 something and probably as good as anything I would have gotten at the Italian place. Mmmm.
Around 9pm, I headed back home with the intent to call Mom. That call was doomed from the get-go. Trying the calling card access number from the hotel phone gave me “all circuits busy”; trying from my work-cell got me through, but then I discovered my card had expired; trying to buy a new card at 7-11 didn’t work because new cards were “unavailable until monday”; trying a different 7-11 I found out that 7-11 corporate just switched management and as a result wouldn’t be able to activate any new cards until Monday. And she wasn’t on iChat, so no audio-only chat, either. I *did* end up making her a video-card though 🙂
Guess what I found on the way back from 7-11?

So, I made it in, safe and sound. Total travel time, from my front door to my hotel room: 7 hours, 15 minutes. Seems like a long time but it didn’t feel that way at all. And I’ve gotta say the Charlotte airport (where I had a layover) is one of the nicest looking airports I’ve ever seen (though at times it was kind of hard to find the flight information screens).
I’m staying at the Fairfield Inn & Suites — a division of Mariott. I’m really happy with the room I got. I took a little video clip so you could see what the place looks like. It’s 10 mb, so it might take a little while to load in.. but yeah. Nice eh? And I get the feeling I won’t have shampoo troubles. 🙂 The icing on the cake is that the in-room internet doesn’t even make you jump through any funky authentication hoops — you just plug in the supplied ethernet cable and boom you’re online. I don’t see any wireless networks, though.
Anyway, off to see some of the OSU campus and find dinner. I’ll check back in a little later and let you know what I found.

How about a little stream-of-consciousness blogging?
So, I’m just doing the last load of laundry here, then it’s off to the pool to meet Cam’s dad. I was trying to remember what I did last night, then I remembered: I was at work until 8pm.
Worked another five hours today, then got a haircut. Now everything’s neat and tidy up top. Even the white hairs.
Don’t forget to phone your mom tomorrow.
All that remains is a little bit of packing and I should be ready for my trip to Columbus, which, although I’m looking forward to, I’m somewhat nervous about. I can’t exactly say why here, but with any luck the planets will align, the improbability drive will kick in and I’ll be fine. Okay, okay, it’s not that bad. There’s just a lot of variables floating around right now… I’m sure I’ll have a much better idea how things are going to go by Monday night. </windtalking>
Random link-o-the-day: I found these reviews pretty entertaining. If anyone would like a postcard from Ohio, just email me your address. 🙂