Tag: Waterloo Life

I’m a bit of a jazz fan, and I was excited at the news last winter that Waterloo Region would soon be home to a jazz club. Even better, the Grand River Jazz Society (GRJS) planned on presenting weekly live jazz events.

By September the society had opened The Jazz Room at the Huether Hotel in Waterloo, and had generated some real buzz around a musical art form that has been around for a century. They have performances planned for every Friday and Saturday for the next several months.

The venue has been open for a few weeks now, and I finally made it out this past Saturday night. I’ll note here that I’m no music critic, and I won’t try to review the music in any way, other than to say that it was terrific — having been to many jazz performances over the years, I do believe that jazz really is an art form that is at its best when experienced live.

My friend Michel and I arrived for our evening of jazz at around 6:30pm, getting supper and enjoying a set of solo piano by Glenn Buhr. Having arrived early we had great seats in front of the small stage, which made it easy to get immersed in listening to the music.

The headliner for the night was Kollage, represented in a quartet form — it’s usually a sextet — by its leader Archie Alleyne on drums along with pianist Stacie McGregor, bassist Artie Roth, and trumpeter Alexander Brown. Again, the music was terrific, and listening to Archie’s stories drawn from his decades-long career was a real delight. The three sets of great music from Kollage were enthusiastically received by the audience.

On a final note, the venue itself is warm and inviting, and has a great small club feel. Of course, that’s what The Jazz Room is, but getting the vibe right is still a tricky balance. GRJS has done a great job in preparing an intimate space for live jazz. There isn’t a bad seat in the house, and the experience is enjoyable all around.

Waterloo life has gotten better with the arrival of The Jazz Room, and I’m looking forward to returning there soon.

This past weekend was a busy one, with lots going on in Waterloo Region. The highlight for me was Sunday’s square2square event, during which much of King Street was closed to motor vehicles between Kitchener’s Civic Square (in front of City Hall) and Waterloo’s Public Square. My two youngest sons and I bicycled from one square to the other, and the boys enjoyed the thrill of the (mostly) open road.

There was a lot to do between, and at, the two end points. My favourite discovery, though, was the remote-controlled model boats cruising the water in Kitchener’s Civic Square, courtesy of Golden Triangle Marine Modellers (no website, alas). One of the modellers, Paul, was kind enough to let both my boys pilot his tugboat for a while, and both did so without crashing into other boats or the concrete sides of the pool.

The next square2square event is Sunday, August 14, and we’re all looking forward to it at our house. Thanks, and congratulations, to the cities of Waterloo and Kitchener for organizing these events this summer.

It’s been too long between posts, and may stay that way for a while. Here’s one that marks the recent Canada Day holiday with pictures of our fireworks from July 1 (and its aftermath), posted on the day that our neighbours to the south celebrate their Independence Day. Enjoy.

My family and I went for a tour of the Region of Waterloo’s Erb Street landfill site over the weekend. It’s the kind of thing that my sons and I usually enjoy doing, and this time my wife went as well.

There were many interesting sights and a lot to learn; I feel like I should have been taking notes! For example, the scale of waste management that goes on at the facility is eye-opening. We learned that while power generations isn’t the focus of the facility, methane that is produced by the waste is enough to fuel the on-site generation of electricity that is sufficient to power 4,000 homes.

A message that our guide repeated a few times is that the landfill site has a finite lifespan. Everything that we, as individuals and families, can do to divert waste from landfill helps lengthen that lifespan.

For me, though, nothing conveyed the scale of operations and the importance of diversion as much as seeing the bales of plastic or the mountain of corrugated cardboard that filled the building where processing of recyclable materials happens. The reason to reduce, reuse, and recycle becomes visibly obvious when seeing these sorted recyclables.

On a final note, we were delighted to replace our curb-side green bin while on the tour. Our old one has been in use for quite some time and has an impressive hole gnawed through it as a result of squirrels trying to get at the contents. Thanks to the Region for that, and for the opportunity to see the final destination of the stuff that we put out by the curb for collection every week.

kwartzlab is a society and hackerspace that launched in the community last year. From all accounts the enthusiasm and commitment of its charter members got the group off to a great start and kwartzlab is thriving. After all this time, though, I hadn’t been able to visit the space.

That changed on Tuesday as I finally managed to make the trip to the Duke Street location, along with my three boys. My friend Darin was kind enough to give my sons and I a tour through the space, and everyone we met was enthusiastic and generous with their time. A highlight of the night was seeing a Dalek built by local Doctor Who fans Pete Nesbitt and Rob Green. I’d read about the builders previously, but seeing their creation up close was even more impressive. That’s Pete in the accompanying photo, while Rob is inside the Dalek.

What’s so cool about the denizens of kwartzlab is their passion for designing and building cool stuff, and their dedication to sharing what they know and do with anyone who’s interested.

A community that’s great to live and work in is built upon the initiative and energy of the people who live in it. Even though I’m unlikely to be able to devote time to kwartzlab, I know that Waterloo is that much better for its presence.

My sons and I attended the Waterloo Aviation Expo and Airshow on Sunday, organized by the Waterloo-Wellington Flight Centre.

We’ve attended various aviation events at the local airport over the years and always enjoyed ourselves. This year was every bit as fun, though the drive to the event was tough going. The announced crowd of 30,000 was easy to understand after enduring the heavy traffic. Having said that, the slow-going drive was mitigated by seeing several planes flying overhead. The Sabre, MiG 15, and Corsair all looked impressive from our vantage point stopped in traffic on the road. At the site itself, four vintage Harvards made an impressive roar as they flew by, and we viewed the improbable spectacle of a plane landing on top of a small truck!

While the aerial displays are exciting, we’ve always enjoyed the ground displays as well. Over the years, my boys and I have been inside several historic aircraft, including a Lancaster, a Flying Fortress, and a Catalina, and have talked to a few pilots about their experiences. This year it felt like we saw fewer planes up close on the ground, though the Silver Star, Sea Bee, and Jet Provost were all cool.

Alas, we didn’t see the Snowbirds perform (though we saw them on the ground), as my youngest two sons made it clear that they were ready to leave before they flew. We headed home, with me feeling somewhat like a dad who leaves a baseball stadium after the seventh inning stretch in a tie game, just to beat the traffic!

I know that there are larger and more impressive air shows in the world (some of which I’d like to get to some day), but the Waterloo show is a real treat and it’s just the right size for my young sons. What a great way to have spent Father’s Day this year.