I apologize in advance the for obnoxious local advertising on the lead-in to the actual video. Meh, my mind is not for sale or rent to any god or government.

If this interests you at all, you should definitely come visit us on a tuesday for our weekly meeting. 1930 hours sharp (7:30 PM for you normal people) at 2929 spring grove avenue. Did I mention there’s pizza?

Learn more about Hive13 at Hive13.org!

Christmas morning had passed and we were an hour away from the Day’s end. All the presents had been unwrapped and the paper strewn about the living room. All was quiet, save for we three intrepid explorers: the best present was yet to come.

As we ascended the first of 35 flights of stairs, my heart is pounding out of my chest. The smallest of noises had my cohorts and I stopping dead in our tracks and listening for what could be signs of our impending doom: someone trying to find us. We are uhhh, unauthorized visitors. The wind tore at the fabric wrapping the building and at our hands, there was no staying warm. We could hear the drone of equipment above us, not knowing if there was someone supervising it. We didn’t care, the adrenaline coursing through our veins reminding us that stealth and personal safety were just as important as phenomenal photography. “Life before limb” I thought, except Life in this case was telling my fear to sit down and be quiet — now is not the time.

We passed through the mostly-complete annuls of the building, still missing the earmarks of a corporate megastructure: white drywall, industrial carpet, drop ceilings and cube-farm partitions. The architect had thoughtfully placed the toilets close to our ascent stairs, but they weren’t ready yet.

About halfway up the 35 (thirty five!) flights of stairs, my fellow photographers demanded a cigarette break. Being without a tripod I stopped for a moment and steadied my camera, but did not pollute my lungs with smoke that would only make the run to the top harder.

Our fears subsided when we arrived at the first “dark” floor: we would be shrouded in bitter-cold darkness from here to the top. This foor and all floors above it were “dark”, work lights powered by a temporary electrical system that the builders use during construction had not yet been installed.

The drone we’d been hearing was coming from the propane fired heaters placed to accelerate the curing of the newly poured concrete floors. We took another quick break to thaw our hands and popped off a few frames before proceeding upward, thankful that it had rained the night before and that they’d left the heaters running for us.

We were nearing the top – the concrete had not been poured yet on the steel stair frames or, for that matter, the rest of the floor. We stopped for a moment and discussed further ascent. Being without my tripod, I steadied my camera on the steel frame of the stairs and snapped a picture of the iconic Carew Tower. We decided since the construction guys had been using the stairs, we could too. We proceeded upward.

We topped out, there were no more stairs from here – only ladders. We decided with the 30+ MPH wind gusts that leaving the ladders alone would probably be best. We fanned out across the floor, each of us mindful of the fact that the only thing between us and *splat* some 30-odd floors below were two 1/2″ wire ropes placed around the perimeter. I approached the edge on my hands and knees and lined up a shot of Sycamore Street with guest appearance by the Proctor & Gamble towers.

From my perch high atop the city I began to relax and wonder about the folks below us. None of them would ever see their world from my current viewpoint. Everything was still on the Covington waterfront, and the Reds would play ball, just not in the dark.

We were in the dark, and had been for over an hour. Nobody was coming for us. We couldn’t be see even if you were trying… probably. Now I wave hello to my friends at 3z.net on the 3rd floor of the building to the left of the south tower of the Roebling Bridge.

We continued to roam the open expanses of concrete floor. To our west the iconic Carew Tower and PNC Tower dwarf the U.S. Bank building in Fountain Square — from up here, it looks small.

To our east is my favorite apartment ever in the Phelps Building as well as the headquarters of Western & Southern, both looking out onto Lytle Park.

Metaphotography over Lytle Place and the US 50/I-471/I-71 interchange occurs as I catch an urbex photographer in the act.

Immediately fronting the tower is Fort Washington Way, the meeting of I-71 and I-75 as well as the busiest interstate junction in Cincinnati.

Having satisfied our collective photographic curiosities, we began our descent. It was much more relaxed going down than going up, not to mention a whole hell of a lot easier. We hit the bottom and split like a log, heading back to my apartment in The Phelps and finally up on to the roof. We cracked open a few cold drinks and toasted to the success of our conquest. The Square was the best Christmas present ever.

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 23 photos.

Or view the slideshow here:

And now that “the heat” is off, check out Queen Discovery’s version: Porkopolis Square and LocalArch’s version: Porkoplis Square of the night’s exploits. Thanks for the company, dudes.

Then the lightbulb turned on in my head! Why not just create the tablespaces in the Oracle Instance shell myself prior to running the installer and pointing it at the Oracle Instance. We are using Oracle 10G R2 RAC with 11G R1 clusterware on ASM storage. OMF (Oracle Managed Files) are enabled:

SQL> show parameter create_file
NAME                                 TYPE        VALUE
------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------
db_create_file_dest                  string      +ASM_DBARCH_DATA

So after you execute Blackboard’s required grant step in SQLPlus as oracle:

@$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/rstrconn.sql;
GRANT create session, create table TO CONNECT;
commit;

…

Then execute this SQL to create the “base” set of Oracle Tablespaces for Blackboard:

CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "BB_BB60_STATS_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "BB_BB60_STATS_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "BBADMIN_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "BBADMIN_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "BB_BB60_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "BB_BB60_INDX" LOGGING; 

note that these SQLs do not cover the CMS tablespaces needed if you’re running the Blackboard (Xythos) CMS.

Here’s the SQL if you’re running the Blackboard (Xythos) CMS:

CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_USERS_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_USERS_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_COURSES_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_COURSES_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_ORGS_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_ORGS_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_INST_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_INST_INDX" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_LIBRARY_DATA" LOGGING;
CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "CMS_FILES_LIBRARY_INDX" LOGGING;

Note that this may not be an inclusive list for all installs, but for our work here with Blackboard 7.* through 9.0 SP1 HF2, this has been sufficient. If your installer still errors out after you’ve pre-created the tablespaces, you should investigate the log file that the installer creates and find the name of the tablespace that the installer is failing on. Then , using SQL like what’s above, create whatever tablespace you need.

I found out about all of this when we migrated from OCFS2-backed 10G R2 RAC without OMF (Oracle Managed Files) to ASM-backed 10G R2 with OMF on 11G R1 clusterware, but the solution is actually very simple if you look in the bb-installer.log that the installer creates when you run the jar like /usr/local/jdk/bin/java -jar bb-as-linux-9.0.505.15.jar. When I ran the installer with a /fakepath for the database install path, I saw the failing CREATE TABLESPACE statements referencing the /fakepath. I didn’t want BB to try to name files for the tablespaces, that’s why I’m running Oracle Managed Files. Once I pre-created the tablespaces, everything ran great and the install completed successfully. Detailed solution with example SQL after the break!

I have seen a lot of solutions come across the BBADMIN-L list out of ASU involving complicated solutions where one installs Blackboard 6,7,8 or 9 on non-ASM storage and uses RMAN to migrate the database. Another workaround involved creating a non-clustered database in a RAC environment on local storage and then moving that to the RAC clustered Oracle DB and ASM storage. Both of these solutions time consuming, fraught with places to make mistakes and hose the entire process, and generally a royal pain in the ass. I have a feeling Blackboard already knows this trick and if we’re lucky they’ll eventually publish their version of this article, if they have one.

I hope this helps all my fellow BBAdmins out just a bit. If you’ve got questions or this process blows up on you, please leave me a comment and we can try to figure it out! I have tested this on Oracle 10G R2, both RAC and non-RAC and with Blackboard 7.3.230.0, 8.0.375.0 and 9.0 SP1 HF2, all of which worked AOK.

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 4 photos.

Standing quitely behind a snow-blind sledder in Mt. Echo Park, the Crosley Building was once home of WLW radio (better known today as 700WLW.) The radio tye-in doesn’t stop there though, previously Crosley Radio Corporation used the building to manufacture low-cost table top radios until 1942 when World War II operations within the Crosley Building demanded that manufacturing operations be moved elsewhere.

Consolidated Grain, abandoned in 1993, watches over Sledders in Mt. Echo Park.

Much thanks to Sherman Cahal for his wonderful resource of Abandoned Online where I pulled the links and quick history for these two abandonments. Your 10+ years of cataloging abandonment and infrastructure is quite an accomplishment.

Want More?

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 4 photos.

Or simply watch the slideshow in your browser now:

Hive13 from Soapboxmedia.com on Vimeo.

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 55 photos.

Arlequin

Now she’s out of the straight jacket

Roxanne in Hookah Lounge Wonderland

Dante’s Gypsy Circus

The Fred Astaire of Practice Poi

High Class Bearded Lady

Feathers (Oh how I love feathers)

Want More?

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 55 photos.

Or simply watch the slideshow in your browser now:

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a Slideshow of all 32 photos.

Sue’s Handiwork

Beautiful Decay

I love you

Seth’s Scribbles

Comedy/Tragedy

Weighing The Risk Of An Impeachment – 3 photos

View all 32 photos.

Location: near State College, PA

View a slide show of all 16 photos

The bathroom is warm and inviting and features radiant floor heating, towel warmer, fifty gallon cast-iron bath tub, and airy glass shower. I’d say the icing on the cake is the HDTV on the swing arm above the bath tub.

The bedroom is the perfect place to crash after a wonderful day, or just to take a nap. My father always said that my mother was a fantastic napper. Our first dog, Boris, would run up the stairs to the bedroom if you asked him “Where’s Mommy?!” Why? because that’s usually where she was!

I love you Mom, you did a wonderful job… and you’re not even done yet!

View a slide show of all 16 photos

View the 16 photos in this set

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a Slideshow of all 37 photos.

You, You’re Awesome at the Southgate House

You, You’re Awesome at Northside Tavern

Abandoned Loch #5, Bowling Green, KY

Arsclan Jesus Respawns 9 Mug Shots

Sunset over Louisville,KY Rail Bridge

Unammed Boy, Sedamsville, Cincinnati, OH

Impromptu Portraits

Abandoned Hudepohl Brewery

Life in Downtown Cincinnati

Urban Decay in South Fairmont

Life as we know it:

And that’s just the beginning, trust me. I’ve come this far in a year, and the next year will be even more of the same. More shots, more exploring, more photowalks with those near and dear in Goettaville, Cincinnati, OH. I look forward to getting into my visual groove, feeling the world fall away, and creating wonderful pictures.

Much Love,
–Matt