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[patter]

Point of information - the Columbus Museum of Art is undergoing renovation, and many of the permanent exhibits are unavailable.  The Chihuly stuff (special exhibit) is open, though.  It's just not as much as usual right now.

And another vote for Katzinger's - good deli stuff, although my son prefers Best of the Wurst in the North Market.

[dellaroux]

dellaroux,

I'm honestly not usually into overtly eccentric flavor combinations, but Jeni's surprised me -- the flavors are very immediately accessible.  They'll also let you taste any flavor, as many as you like, so you won't get stuck with a dud.

If you like more traditional fruit varieties, Jeni's is still spectacular--such intense, fresh, real fruit flavor.  Maybe the sherbert isn't their strength?  I really recommend giving it a second chance.

Graeter's black raspberry is definitely a favorite for me, too...

Well, OK, maybe...next time I'm home...

It's not like you have to talk me into trying out ice creams, you understand...

:--}

[big_giant_head]

It's chilly and rainy in Ohio, so I'm not really in the mood for any ice cream.  However, I thought German Village was really cool.  I went to the giant bookstore there. We also drove up the Short North and found some good Asian food.  Tonight I hope to convince my colleague to help me spend some time at a good German restaurant, but we'll see how that goes.

Oh, and the conference is good, too. 

[designmfa]

It's chilly and rainy in Ohio, so I'm not really in the mood for any ice cream.  However, I thought German Village was really cool.  I went to the giant bookstore there. We also drove up the Short North and found some good Asian food.  Tonight I hope to convince my colleague to help me spend some time at a good German restaurant, but we'll see how that goes.

Oh, and the conference is good, too. 

If you have time and like Indian, try New India Restaurant in the shopping plaza at the corner of Bethel and Kenny Rds. It's NW of campus by a few miles, but in my opinion, it's worth the trip.
www.newindiarestaurant.com

[yellowtractor]

There used to be (~2 years ago) a very good sushi restaurant in Short North.  Trying to remember the name of it....


(upon preview):  Perhaps it's not as good as it was, but here it is:
http://www.haikupoeticfoodandart.com/

[dellaroux]

Hey, YT, I bet you had fun tooling around in the experimental lab cornfields on the other side of the river--what's left of them, anyway...!

[big_giant_head]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone: we got back home on Saturday.  We had dinner at Schmidt's in the German Village, and I have to say the food was perfectly fine (but more northern than southern German), and the beer was outstanding.  I chose a local beer that tasted so much like what I used to drink in Germany that I actually cried a little bit. 

We also had lunch one day at an Asian place in the Short North that was very good.  I wish we could have had the time to eat at more restaurants and visit more of the sights, but we just didn't.  NADE provided breakfast and lunch most days, and the conference food was perfectly decent (except for the coffee, but my hotel had excellent coffee in the downstairs coffee bar, and that came with the room price).

The conference was at the Hyatt downtown, and lots of attendees stayed there--but I stayed at the Crowne Plaza, and the overall consensus seems to be that those who stayed there got by far the better deal; some even changed over once they saw the difference.  Since the two hotels are connected by a skywalk, there was no logistical problem involved with moving hotels and still being able to walk to all the conference sessions.

The conference itself was outstanding.  It's interdisciplinary between math, reading, and writing faculty, plus a lot of administrators.  I filled the "padfolio" they gave us with notes from the concurrent sessions, most of which were excellent.  I came home with a lot of tools and ideas that will help my students. I think my college got its money's worth out of me and my colleague. 

Someone said a few months ago that he or she had attended (or had known someone who had attended) the 4 C's conference a couple of years ago and found it depressing, because so many writing faculty don't really believe they can help students improve their writing and thinking. This conference was not like that at all.  It sent us in the other direction: starry-eyed and filled with hope for how much better we can be in the classroom.  I know some of that will wear off, but I really do think I learned some things that will make me a better instructor and will help my students to become better writers.

Finally, I learned how good I have it. My administration supports developmental education and they support faculty.  Our students are not all, shall we say, "Ivy League" material, but they're a lot more prepared than the students some campuses have to work with.  Those who complete our programs actually do just fine when they transfer to universities.  I met people at this conference whose administrations actively sabotage their work, who have no Instructional Technology staff to assist them (and thus are using software packages from the 1980's), who work with students whose ACT scores are in the single digits...  I actually saw a set of course outlines from one college whose students can complete two semesters of "college level" writing and never do a library assignment, never learn MLA or APA, and never learn how to do research online.  These are students who have been set up to fail when (or if) they try to transfer to a 4-year school.  I think the administration of that college is just trying to "prove" that there should be no developmental/ESL classes offered there. 

Anyway.  I highly recommend this conference and this organization to anyone who works with Developmental Education in any way.