Apartments in Columbus, Ohio For OSU Students

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Living in a dormitory at any university can be tough, but living in one at Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in the United States can be unbearable. Getting an apartment in Columbus can be liberating and surprisingly affordable. Columbus, Ohio is the largest city in the state, so finding apartments should be a relative breeze, but knowing some of the in and outs of finding the right apartment, in the right area of Columbus, can make all the difference, especially if you are a student at Ohio State University.

Ohio State University, or OSU, is the largest campus in the United States, and sprawls just north of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Finding an apartment around the area is not altogether difficult. Finding an apartment that is cost efficient right next to OSU campus, however, can prove to be a challenge, so try looking for apartments in the Columbus downtown area or Arena District.

There are several neighbourhoods in Columbus that have affordable apartments both close and distant from the Ohio State University Campus. The Short North, the German Village, Franklington (also called "the Bottoms") and "The Hilltop" are all located around the Columbus downtown and Metro area. OSU is relatively close to small towns such as Clintonville and San Margherita as well, which are accessible by bike and public transport.

The Central Ohio Transit Authority, also known as COTA, which is a great way to get around the city if you do not have a car or are on a budget, serves those living in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State University students, who are living in apartments off campus in the greater Columbus, Ohio area, can take advantage of the bus system by participating in the Park and Ride locations scheme scattered around the city. Park and Ride allow you to bring your car into Columbus, park, then ride a bus onto the OSU campus. This saves you on parking fees, and makes the inner city a little less congested. Bike and Bus is another option available on the COTA service. You can bike from your apartment into the greater Columbus area to a Bike and Bus location. Here you can attach your bike to a rack on the bus. As winters can be quite cold in Columbus, Ohio, this is a great way to get a little exercise, and then let the public transportation system do the rest of the work. COTA gives a special education pass to OSU students called a Buck-I-D, which a student can flash to the bus driver whenever he or she needs a ride.

To find the right apartment in Columbus, Ohio as an OSU student, have a look at apartment search sites. Visit the OSU campus and get an understanding of the city, and get a feel for how easy it would be to get from the places you are interested in, the campus, and local amenities.

Columbus apartments are great to live in. It is a vibrant city with amazing apartments starting at affordable prices. Nothing beats getting out of the dormitory and into your own space. You can find peace while studying, and a life outside of student affairs. You may even find that you want to stay in Columbus after university has ended. Stranger things have happened.

Copyright 2009 Matt McWilliam and Columbus Apartment Finders.

Visit Columbus apartments for help finding apartments for rent in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus Apartment Finders is a free Columbus based apartment locator service. Looking for OSU apartments? Visit our website for the following: Columbus apartments, Ohio State apartments, OSU apartments for rent, Arena District apartments, Victorian Village apartments for rent and more!

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All Aboard! Train Travel Around the World

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Everything about trains evokes the true essence of travel. You not only see the landscape passing by, but can feel it rattling under your shoes. Trains are the best way to experience a long distance journey. Air travel is an abstraction; you're seated in a pressurized metal tube, and after a few hours of being out of touch with the world, land in a different continent. To go by bus or car means being strapped into a seat and left to the mercy of a driver. Train travel gives the passenger the freedom to roam the rumbling wagons while gazing out the window at the passing scenery. You can eat and wander about, snooze, and stare out the window. Train travel is freedom.

There's nothing like the moment when a train departs a station. Unlike the roar of a plane's take-off or the gunning of a bus's engine that marks the beginning of a journey, the departure of a train is a peaceful, unassuming start. Outside, the world begins to slowly roll by - baggage handlers wheeling their carts, travelers fleeing for their connections - and then the engine picks up momentum, the rhythm below your feet keeping pace with the passing scenery. Pedestrians wave at you, dreaming of where you could be bound. The wagon, your world, sways around you as the train takes a tight curve. Outside the clanging of a passing crossing signal grows loud, louder, before changing pitch as it quickly disappears.

Trains around the world are microcosms of the countries they serve. They reflect the economy and cultural norms of the nations they ply. To enjoy America's Amtrak you need to have money to afford the dining car and a private berth. England's train network, once the pride of the nation, is in decay, expensive and grungy. Russian trains, with a steaming samovar in each wagon, still harbor a bullying Soviet air of authority; an attendant is assigned to each wagon to scold passengers . Egyptian trains are manned by soldiers guarding against attacks by Muslim terrorists. The hustlers and touts found in every Indian city are concentrated on the nation's Taj Express that runs between Delhi and Agra eager to scam tourists out of their seats.

Train travel is slowly disappearing, a victim of the world's reliance on buses and taxis. Up until a half century ago Americans were able to reach the most remote of towns through an intricate network of spur lines. My mother could arrive to her tiny Kansas hometown from a distant college without relying on a vehicle. Now the spur lines are gone, torn up, or overgrown with weeds. Until recent years, Canadian trains allowed affordable transcontinental access, until the lines were privatized, and now a train trip through the Canadian Rockies is an expensive endeavor. In Mexico the passenger train network has disappeared, replaced by modern bus stations and affordable buses.

To enter a train station is often like stepping into a museum setting. Britain's smaller stations still harbor ladies' waiting rooms, a relic of earlier Victorian times, while in Thailand a uniformed officer in starched white linens bangs a large gong to announce an approaching engine.

Staring out a train window at the world speeding by is a hypnotizing experience. You experience the gradual cultural shift that occurs while traversing countries during a long sojourn. As a Russian train departs from Western Europe en route to St. Petersburg, the 21st century disappears somewhere in eastern Poland. Looking out a dirty window I spied leather-skinned farmers navigating horse-drawn plows. In the border town of Bialystok a gaggle of Slavic women, squat, toughened babushkas in head-scarves and heavy boots, gossiped amongst each other, or hawked snacks to passengers. Soon all sense of time disappeared as the train was swallowed into the vast birch and pine forests of Byelorussia.

Staring out the window of an Indian train, I grew fascinated with the traffic that lined up at the road crossings, waiting for our procession to pass. The train rumbled by a striped pole behind which waited bicyclists and idling motorcycles, farmers with their ox-carts old schoolbuses, the roofs crowded with sun-darkened men. A few smiled and returned my cheerful wave.

In Eastern Europe the numerous nations released under the yoke of the USSR now post their border guards and customs officials at every frontier crossing. The Russian train bound for St. Petersburg constantly stopped and started as it traversed the borders of Byelorussia, the Baltic states, and finally Russia. I studied the uniforms of the guards, the official colors, the missing buttons and frayed collars. From a neighboring compartment I could hear the protesting of a smuggler whose large stash of vodka and cigarettes had been uncovered. Later, when escaping Russia, a pair of strapping young Ukrainian guards eyed my passport curiously. 'Amerikanyets'. I had no transit visa for their country. Did I need one? They shrugged their broad shoulders. 'I dunno.'

I recall everyone who I've ever met on a train. I remember the two Norwegian girls and the young Czech man I met on a trip to Kansas. I sat in the dining car with an elderly woman who in an astounded whisper announced how she had been seated with a black man that very morning for breakfast. A dour old man still grieving for his long dead wife stared out the window as the Texas prairie rolled by outside.

In India a pair of teenaged girls stared amazed at a huge map of their country that I showed them. An Indian father traveling with his family to a wedding in Delhi tried to engage me in conversation, but his thickly accented English was incomprehensible. "What? Huh?" After a few conversations like this he finally grew frustrated at my puzzled looks and stared out the dirty window.

On a Russian train I shared a compartment with an obnoxious volleyball coach accompanying his team to a play-off in Byelorussia. When I had trouble closing the sliding door, he smirked. "Weak American."

I pointed at the stubborn door. "Russian door."

"It's an East German door. This is an East German train."

"What's the difference?"

And in northern Italy my brother and I shared a compartment with an elderly nun who resembled Mother Teresa's older sister. She was a wizened old creature, a mask of fury chiseled on her face from decades of punishing pupils. My brother grabbed my phrase book of various European languages, and began reciting random excerpts of Italian, and began asking the nun for her phone number. "Please . . . give me . . . your . . ."

The nun gave me a puzzled look as I quickly snatched the book from my brother's hands.

As the cost of fuel continues to rise, perhaps there is some hope for the future of train travel, which has proven to be an energy efficient means of getting from point A to point B. Amtrak reports increased numbers of travelers in recent months. In this world of break-neck speed communications and hyperactive schedules, a slow train ride across the frontier may be enough to save our sanity.

CTA's 2004 NABI Articulated LF bus(60-LFW) #7646 (RETIRED)

Here is a short ride on CTA's NABI Articulated LF bus #7646 on Michigan street at Downtown, Chicago. This bus has the Detroit Diesel Series 50 EGR engine and the transmission is the ZF ECOMAT-2 6HP-602C transmission. Correct me if I'm wrong... Oh, and this is my FIRST time on an Articulated bus here in Chicago since D-dot of Detroit, Michigan had retired all of the 1989's Neoplan AN-460s Articulated buses with the 6V92TA engines. If you know what transmissions that the 1989's Neoplan AN-460 buses that D-dot used to have, then please notify me ASAP! BRAND NEW UPDATE: All of CTA's NABI 60ft LFW Articulated buses have been withdrawn and retired from the service due to structural problems so as of April of 2009, all NABI 60-LFW buses are now permanetly retired and were either sent back to NABI or sent to a scrapyard. And please note that this is the ONLY video of a 60-LFW ride available on YouTube.

CTA-UNION-Meeting-2-1-10_0001.wmv

UNION Meeting

CTA Orange Line Passing The Loop

CTA Orange Line Passing The Loop

Chicago BusTracker for webOS

A webOS client for the Chicago Transit Authority Bus Tracker system. Conveniently access routes, stops and estimated arrivals directly from your webOS device through a quick and elegant interface. Streamline your commutes by storing and managing all your favorites stops.

Makes Me Smile Suite (truncated) Another Day Reunion

Chicago Cover

Guerrilla Art Action 2007 Exhibition

Guerilla Art Action was a course designed to introduce secondary students to activist art and street theater; in it, the students collaboratively created and performed a conceptual piece. The first Guerrilla Art Action class in 2003 developed The Committee for Better Labeling, a satirical organization whose mission is to facilitate snap judgments and promote stereotypes. The students produced packets of stickers that mock the stereotypical labels people assign to one another. These labels were handed out as part of the performance on a busy downtown street in Chicago. The labels and other paraphernalia from the street performance were featured in an exhibition at Marwens main gallery in the spring of 2003. The second incarnation of Guerrilla Art Action in 2007 yielded the Transit Youth Movement (TYM), an organization of concerned teenage citizens critical of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Chicagos public transportation agency. Students in this class implored CTA riders they encountered outside of train platforms and bus stops to try their alternate form of public transportation, a customized toddler play vehicle they claimed could beat the CTAs painfully slow commute times. They also handed out literature that mimicked CTA fare cards to individuals outside of train stations and bus stops. The performance was documented and exhibited in Marwens main gallery in the summer of 2007.

Chicago - I´ma man

Chicago Transit Authority live in TV from 1970 !

Grand Theft Auto (GTAIV) on PS3

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Grand Theft Auto IV (GTAIV) on PS3 is a game with an amazing and nonlinear storyline, a game with a great protagonist who you can't help but like, and a game that boasts a large selection of online multiplayer features in addition to its lengthy story mode. Of course, it is not without some flaws, but GTAIV is undoubtedly the best Grand Theft Auto yet.

The Grand Theft Auto IV on PS3 story starts with Niko Bellic stepping off a boat in Liberty City, which is modeled after New York City. Right away, you get the sense that Rockstar North's latest GTA offering is something very special. Yes, this is another Grand Theft Auto game in which you'll probably spend most of your time stealing cars and gunning down cops and criminals, but it's so much more than that. You will find that Niko decides to help out Roman with his rundown cab stand and keep thugs off his back until he can figure out how to make money and connections in Liberty City. You also get to discover the real reasons that Niko left his homeland.

So begins Grand Theft Auto IV, the newest - and easily the best - entry in the wildly popular GTA series. The game manages to take the tried-and-true already successful game experience , which involves taking missions to earn cash and climb the corporate ladder of a criminal operation or sightseeing in Liberty City, and turns it into something that feels completely new and updated. Some even claim that it a gaming masterpiece that is a picture-perfect snapshot of the underworld of today's big cities

When the pedestrians, cars and buildings became repetitive in previous GTA releases it was always tempting to get bored, steal a cop car and end up in your own North Hollywood shootout. There are many more times as many distractions in GTA IV, including working cell phones, televisions that can flip channels and the Liberty City version of the Internet. This time, the mundane is as interesting as the some of the unsavory elements of the game.

But that's not to say it's empty of meaning. GTA IV is a crass cultural commentary that mocks the American media's obsession with sex and violence and money. This is the reason why so many people in the media and government are bothered by the Grand Theft Auto games. For example, the Chicago Transit Authority pulled 385 ads for the game from its subways, but the same organization has no problem letting violent films advertise in the same places.) If these people actually played GTA IV, maybe they would realize that not all videogames are for kids and ultimately get the joke - that the game also rejects the violence, sexism, and consumerism it appears to embrace. It is worth mentioning that Grand Theft Auto IV is definitely for a mature audience.

In case you haven't guessed already, Grand Theft Auto IV on PS3 is a game that you will have to play to appreciate it. The single-player game, which you can still play long after you complete the story, is the series' best by far, and the multiplayer features are good enough that you'll likely have no problem finding people to play with you for many months into the future. The minor flaws that you'll experience are no different than those in previous GTA games, and they're greatly outnumbered by the new features that will amaze you anytime just when you think you have already seen everything that the game has to offer.

You can avoid the long lines waiting to buy Grand Theft AutoIV (4) on PS3. Besides, it is sure to sell out at your local store. Why waste your time? Where to find the best deals on Grand Theft Auto?

Visit Grand Theft Auto 4 PS3 at www.PlaystationHookup.com