Gordon Bombay

Ah, Trader Jake, I believe we have talked before over on KICentral.com

Rando, did you work on the Kin Cobra crew? If so, what years?

Thanks for the compliments guys, and yes I did know Lachey was from Cincinnati before the other night. I actually met him once while working at Kings Island. I agree Rando, the event was very well done, fountain square is really becoming a happening place. There is also a Chipotle down there now! (Although as I found out while trying to eat lunch there yesterday, it's not open till Dec. 5th.)

Went down to the lighting of the Christmas tree at Fountain Square tonight, was a good time. Took my friend Ali, glad I had some company. Had to shoot at 1600 ISO the whole time, but I think it all turned out ok. -Ice skating at the square. -An empty Tyler Davidson Fountain. -A bridge crossing over 5th street near the square. Seems Cincinnati has removed most of these "sky walks." There was a great article in the Enquirer a few years back about them. -Big crowd gathering at the Square. -"Team Lachey" from the television show "Clash of the Choirs." -Sheree Paello of Channel 5 and Jeff Thomas of Q102 with a scrawny Santa Claus. Look closely at Santa, any idea who he is? -It's Nick f*****g Lachey! You may not like his singing, but he's a Bearcat's fan and as dumb as his ex wife was, she certainly was hot! -I couldn't believe how many people were there tonight and how much fun it was. My best memory of the holidays downtown was going to see the miniature trains with my dad. I hope tonight was really special for all the kids who were there. -Kids ice skating. The line for ice skating was ridiculous. -The tree is lit! -Rozzy fireworks! -The tree. -Huddling for warmth behind some bushes in the lobby of the Westin Hotel. -5th street. They really put on a great event at the square, and if you're looking for something to do with your girlfriend/signifigant other/wife/whatever or your family I highly recommend heading downtown. It really is a good time. More on my blog at www.queencitydisco.com Thanks for reading!

http://talesfromadyingcity.com/photos/11282008/DSC_0136.jpg -Nice job catching the gulls! http://talesfromadyingcity.com/photos/11282008/DSC_0246.jpg -Wonderful!

Thanks for the comments everyone, and thanks for the blog comment Rando! Hopefully I'll have the story of our adventure up soon, work is killing me right now. I'll also update the site and clean it up a bit, put some links up to the cincy/ohio-centric blogs and websites of other users from this site. You guys here at Urban Ohio are a great community to be a part of.

Back home for seven weeks from school. Took some photographs this weekend: -Driving back from Athens to Cincinnati. -Can't remember the name of this park, but Seicer, Ram23 and I came across it yesterday: -Crumbling stairs in Fairmont. -An abandoned retirement community, more about this adventure coming soon. -One day, this tunnel may be host to a light rail system. Right now though it's just doing nothing, and it's a bitch to get to. - I-71 near that tunnel. Friday night for a friends birthday we had dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery at Fountain Square. Good burgers, the square was all decorated for the holidays (even though it's NOT even thanksgiving yet, sick of Christmas music already), but they were filming something down there so you couldn't get close. Seicer, Ram23 and I had a hell of a time exploring Saturday. Stay tuned to www.queencitydisco.com for more updates of our adventures soon.

I'd be willing to bet most of those people commenting, bitching and whining about all the "wasted Cincinnati money," don't even live in Hamilton County or even pay Cincinnati taxes. They're probably the folks who come down town a few times a year from Mason/West Chester to see the festival of lights or a Red's game and get frightened by seeing a bum on the streets.

Thanks for the comments everyone (and Seicer sorry about the pair of pants). I agree, Diamondback is going to be one amazing ride. jmecklenborg, unfortunately the Les Taxis gave their final rides in 2004. Which sucks, because the taxis were one of the nicest areas of the park but they had only been running one side since about 1997. In the winter of 2004 the Les Taxis and Flying Eagles were removed to make room for the Italian Job: Stunt Track, a highly themed family roller coaster based on the film the Italian Job. It's a neat little ride but the special effects never really worked right and the taxis sure were better. The eagles were moved to Carowinds down on the NC/SC border where they operate today as Danny Phantom's Phantom Flyers.

I had the chance to go flying with some friends and bring my camera along this past weekend. I've gone flying with these guys before, it's always a blast. I got sick and almost puked while flying over downtown. I do fine in commuter planes, but in these little Cessna's with the constant moving in the wind and sharp turns...my stomach gets all goofy. I didn't throw up though, but I had a barf bag just in case. You can see all the photographs and the full story at my website www.queencitydisco.com Here are some of my favorites: -Gabe, his dad Isaac, and my buddy Bill check the oil before we take off from Blue Ash airport. We took off from Blue Ash, I wasn't sick yet. -Large houses with goofy man made lake next to them. These wouldn't be the nicest houses we saw from the air though...more on that later. -Photo by Bill, houses with the blue tarps still have damage from when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan blew through in September. Gabe, Bill, and I all met through www.kicentral.com, a KI fan site we contribute photos to and do work for (it's now owned by Cox publishing and sometimes stuff gets published). So our main goal in the flight was to photograph Kings Island which is constructing a new roller coaster: Diamondback. This 22 million dollar behemoth will stand 230 feet tall. So it was North to KI first: -Bill photographing Kings Island. Not wanting to waste time switching lenses I decided to arm myself with two cameras: My Canon 40d and My Olympus E500 (had to use it one last time before I sell it). The Canon was equipped with a 200mm f/2.8 lens and the Olympus with a 14-44mm f/3.5 lens. This made switching from wide to tight very easy. -Kings Island's Eifel Tower and the Son of Beast roller coaster. The tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster on earth! Fun Fact: The Son of Beast is 218 ft. tall, I've climbed to the top of it twice, my legs have never been so sore. -Eifel Tower and Diamondback under construction. -The Racer roller coaster. After four circles around the park we moved on and the first wave of "tummy dragons" set in a.k.a. grab the barf bag, breathe slowly and pray for the best. We did a fly by over the pilot's friends house who lives in a "Gated Airport Community." Yes, this man has a large house, a garage for his cars, and a garage for his airplane. Yes, his airplane. And it all leads up to a private grass runway. We flew over his house, he waved to us, then radioed up to us and told us to meet him for lunch at the Clermont airport. That happened to be where we were headed next, Clermont County. In Batavia, Ohio there is a plant called Clermont Steel Fabrications. This company manufactures all the track for the roller coaster design firm: B&M. B&M just so happens to be building Kings Island's Diamondback roller coaster. So we flew over head to see if any track was laying around the plant: -Some track at CSF waiting to be shipped, laying on a flat bed. -East Fork Lake near Batavia. We landed at Clermont County's airport for lunch, meeting the gentleman whose house we flew over. Fun Fact: At Clermont County Airport they provide free hot dogs for pilots and their guests. We ate lunch and watched some T-6 Texan ww2 era planes take off and land. For any aviation nuts out there, these planes will be flying in formation over the Veterans Day parade in Mt. Healthy on Tuesday. And in case you were wondering: I ate three free hot dogs. Yeah, I know, not the best idea for the guy who gets sick in airplanes, but they were FREE HOT DOGS! Ok, I promise, now on to Cincinnati: We got back in the plane and headed for downtown Cincinnati. After getting clearance from Lunken Airport we entered Cincinnati's Class D airspace: -Passing over Lunken. -Ohio River and suburbs on the way towards Cincinnati. -Over Mt. Adams -The Banks making little progress. -The Center City -Queen City of the Midwest! -Queen City Square under construction. -Clifton and UC. -Suburban Sprawl and the one little glimpse of the sun we got. We headed North out of the city and landed back at Blue Ash. No puke, good times, and the best photos I've taken from the air. I lost my aerial photos from 2006 and my photos from last year were low quality. Hope you enjoyed these. If you'd like to see more or want to read about the problems I had with the hot dogs and flying over Cincy check out the latest update at www.queencitydisco.com P.S. Since posting these on other sites I've had a few people asking me about buying prints. If anyone is interested in purchasing a print of a photograph contact me at [email protected]. I'm still at school for awhile until break and able to use resources through my program to make high quality affordable prints.

Looking forward to the lighting celebration, hope to make it down!

Are you serious? Maybe HH Gregg, but Best Buy has had Circuit City beat in service, cleanliness, selection, and availability every time I've compared a product between the two and when I worked for each one separately.

If you could put up with leaving your car in a bad neighborhood, the squatters, the rusty stairs, the heights, the fact that trespassing is considered technically "illegal" and the terrible smell. . . . .then you would be able to take on the climb and reach the summit of these abandoned grain silos: But why? Why would you want to climb up there and deal with all that crap (no pun intended, because if you go to my site and read the full article you can read about just how much crap there was)? Because at the top was a unique, "postcard-ish" view of the Queen City rarely seen: Today though that view only lives on in the photographs of a view photographers who climbed up there. On tuesday the 21st I was driving home to Cincinnati to photograph the McCain rally the next day. A friend of mine sent me a text message saying this place was coming down, I called Seicer. Seicer went and got some great photographs! When I saw his I knew I had to stop by the next day before the McCain rally and get some photos for myself and pay my respects: -View from across the street at the Kahn's parking lot. The first time I went here was in May 2007 where I took the majority of my photographs from there. To see more and read about it check out the latest update at www.queencitydisco.com

No pictures of the concrete slide? Isn't there also one of those at Burnet Woods?

Rando, great photos! I think this is your best: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e33/UncleRando/Cincinnati/Downtown/Atrium%20II%20Terrace/IMG_8180.jpg Way to make me homesick.

Thanks for the compliments everyone and for checking them out. Definitely one of the coolest things I've had the opportunity to photograph. I'd disagree that it's a 'bad subject' though ;)

Senator John McCain and his running mate Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska made a stop at Lunken Airport the other day as part of a campaign stop: The full story, photos, and a brand new photo gallery all at www.queencitydisco.com I'd post more photos but I just stayed up all night screaming at Dreamweaver CS3, so I'll be back later.

My photograph I posted is from some time in 2007. I parked on the street and the only person who questioned me was a homeless man with a colt .45 back by the silos. I was down there this morning to grab a few photos and chatted with one of the security guards who didn't mind me taking photographs, very nice lady. Seems there has been a hold up with the implosion as they've been having trouble tearing it down.

Great photos Sherman! I'm gonna have to stop by there tomorrow morning before heading on to do "real work." I remember the first time I met you, you told me about this place and about a month later a friend and I went to explore it once it was warmer. If you didn't mind the hobos, human fecal matter, terrible smell of the moldy grain, heights, rusty stairs, and dead birds. . . then you were rewarded with a nice view once you reached the summit:

That's a sad article. If the exemption doesn't pass I hope something is done to place her in Cincinnati. I'd rather see a floating steam boat museum than an unprofitable freedom center. Anyone from here go down today and take photos?

Great photos Rob, that last shot is by far my favorite. http://www.robertpence.com/pa_lancaster/20080826-035.jpg ^That one reminds me of the opening credit sequence to "The Office."

Damn, I wish I was going to be in town this Tuesday to get photographs.

It would be nice to see a team come to Paul Brown Stadium. I believe the stadium is able to be configured for soccer and it be nice to have a team that could maybe win a game play there.

There are some on here. There was a post with a lot of old 80’s Cincinnati photos. Try the search function or maybe someone can point you in the right direction. Been searching for awhile, anyone have a link to the specific thread?