Often people ask me – is it difficult to find grease to put into the BioBus fuel tanks? Well, Sunday I spent the day wandering around Columbus. Started out downtown, where I confirmed the rumors of good breakfast at First Watch, a nice relaxed joint in German Village. I then headed North to the Buckeye Hall of Fame, meeting Donovan and his girlfriend’s father to watch the Browns lose to the Steelers – the football waas bad, but the conversation was good. Next I headed to the COSI ScienceCcenter, a science museum in downtown Columbus, which was on my itinerary last year but was skipped because I was busy working on the grease system.
COSI is great, and busy too! One of the coolest exhibits was where you get to play with a real time digital effects processor – someone else stands on stage and you get to make them look grainy, gigantically big, and walking through a snowstorm. Big foot! Not sure if Werner Herzog would approve, but it was fun. Stopped by the museum shop to pick up a mineral set to look at under the microscopes on the BioBus, and talked to some of the staff about possible collaboration the next time the BioBus is in town. They were very excited about the idea.
Columbus is in the process of building a river walk, and they are making very nice progress. A neat new pedestrian bridge, nice paths, parks, and sculpture are coming together to bring folks to the water – something I love and that I admire a lot in a city. I hope that NYC continues its public redevelopment of water-front. It is bizarre that in much of NYC you can easily forget you live on a small island surrounded by water. I watched another nice sunset while sitting on the side of the river – Columbus seems to have an inordinate number of beautiful sunsets.
The only negative side of the river-front development in Columbus is that it adjoins the business section of downtown Columbus, which is, as expected, totally lifeless on a Sunday evening. So I hopped back in the van lent to me by the Farber’s and drove further north on High Street to a neighborhood adjacent to Ohio State. Seeing a cool looking Thai restaurant, I stepped in, and being alone, sat at the bar. I quickly entered into a conversation with what turned out to be two local business owners, including Chor, the owner of the restaurant.
The food was great, and Chor is very excited for me to come back for the 80 gallons of clean vegetable oil behind her restaurant. Score! I replaced a seal in the grease pump head, so that’s working again, and 80 gallons of veg should get me all the way back to NYC.
Can’t wait to see what progress Farber makes tomorrow, I’ll be sure to post the pics as they come in.
