Running functions in intervals

Running functions in intervals

I want to animate a set of elements (.col-n) in intervals. Let's say I
have four .col elements (.col-1 etc) and I want to animate each of them
class, but not after one is complete, but earlier.
I tried doing some for with setInterval, but it's not working (it's just
looping):
container.children('.col').last().on('click', function() {
for(var i = 1; i <= columns; i++) {
var int = self.setInterval(function() {
console.log('a')
},500*i)
}
});
I tried each from jQuery with this and it's not this also. Can someone
point me to right direction?
fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/s5DMe/
Please note that I don't want to run functions one after another, but run
one, wait (no matter if the first one has finished or not), run another
one.