One good thing about the internet is that you can make some excellent online friends. One bad thing is that you can go years without ever seeing them in person. Yesterday my brother and I finally met a friend of ours we had met on the internet over five years ago. He is a regular contributor to our website. Since he was staying in Indiana, we met in the university town of Oxford, Ohio where Miami University is located. It just happens to be the rival of my Alma Mater, Ohio University. However, I don’t really get into rivalries like that anyway.

Oxford is clearly a college town, something that always gets me a little sentimental for my undergraduate days. There’s nothing like limited parking, jaywalking students, bars as far as the eye can see, and hippy oriented stores to take me back about 6 years. I did feel a sense of excitement being back in an academic environment. It’s just a different world. For one, life is definitely more relaxed and I like that. I miss being a student and visiting Oxford deepened that feeling.

On the other hand, sitting in Wendy’s next to a loud, obnoxious guy who was almost certainly drunk at 3:30 pm reminded me that there are some things about the university scene I most certainly do not miss. However, I still miss a lot more than I don’t miss.

I went to St. Mary Church (Catholic) to pray and later that evening went to the student center for the Saturday evening mass. The style was more "contemporary" with guitars, drums, etc. but also included violin and flute. It was quite well-done and didn’t offend my more conservative liturgical and musical sensibilities. I was impressed. I was particularly happy to see so many young Catholics in one place participating in the mass and worshiping God.

It was a good day.

David has blogged more extensively on our day here.