When on the Westside do as Westsiders do...

...and drink bad coffee?

Every year local radio personality John Corby and his radio station (newstalk 610) host a big indoor garage sale at Westland Mall. We'd never been and were curious about the event as it takes place quite close to our neighborhood. The area we're talking about is just west of Hilltop (where we live) and can be reached by coming south on 270 from the comfortable subburbs of Powell, Dublin, Upper Arlington and Hilliard (and before you get to Grove-Tucky). Our once spotty neighborhood is going through a transformation, but the business climate along the main thoroughfares is taking longer to catch up. Westland Mall is about 4 or 5 miles away from our house and used to be the pride of the west side of Columbus. Before there was a Tuttle Mall or a Polaris Fashion Place or the mecca we call Easton, this was it. Now, much like Southwick in Toledo, its all gated up - unlike Southwick however the local Mexican presence dominates the interior. There are at least 3 places you can get a burrito inside and 75% of the store signs are in all spanish.  

The weekend situation was as follows. For the 4th or 5th straight weekend its rained here in Columbus and while this is great for the grass, its not good for the golfer. This morning could have started better even on a wet day. Kate and I were exhausted from a late night of work on Friday and with no coffee in the house we make our way to BK for breakfast. BK's coffee, we learned, is not quite as pleasing to the oral senses as roughly 99% of all other coffees on the market. This was my call and I take full responsibility for Kate's lack of caffeine intake.

As we arrived at the site of our morning expedition I realized why there is a thriving dental community here on the westside - between all the people at today's sale you may have made one full set of teeth!

Here are some pics from the outing...

Below are two political campaign pins I bought at the Garage Sale of the century...

This concludes our post on this matter...I did forget to take a picture of our most valuable (and only other) purchase of the day: An orange handled set of pliars. I bought this tool for 75 cents and am excited to use them. The background here is that my current blue handled pliers are atrocious and small and are always falling apart - literally. So, when you add up the $4.00 entry fee with the 75 cents you get a solid purchase ---- I'm not counting gas since no tool should be held liable for transportation costs.