One of the unexpected benefits of Kitchener’s 11 days of KWAWESOME is that I’m getting in some pretty good cardio biking from northwest Waterloo to DTK on a daily basis. Thursday night was Tame the Lane with a short lineup of great bands playing in Hall’s Lane. I shot a few photos…
I rode down to DTK last night for a meeting at Imbibe with Meg Leslie and Martin de Groot, and then shot Maker Club in THEMUSEUM, and then there was this great light beaming down King Street. But only for a moment.
This is Kitchener.
DW
A few Fridays back, I found a whack of yellow bikes locked to the rack (rhyme!).
At The Tannery, this is Kitchener.
DW
At King and Francis Streets. Laying the second floor for the new Beer Store. A great thing about a gas-powered saw with an abrasive blade is that few things in the world can resist it.
This is Kitchener.
DW
This guy was shredding with max distortion on King Street in DTK on Friday. Sounded so good echoing off the buildings. “Who do you shoot for?” “I shoot for myself.”
DW
Downtown Kitchener was rockin’ Friday night. King Street was packed with people of all sizes for the Night Market. Seems like everybody is getting the hang of a pedestrian mall in the core. This type of gig is so chilled out. I love it.
Rode my new bike from McPhail’s (yeah!) down to Kitchener and just strolled the street. Serendipitous chats with Mike Morrice, Jon Johnson, Jen Gough, James Bastow, Matt Scobel, a whack of perfect strangers, and saw my favourite Princess Cafe+Cheeses Murphy operator Marc Lecompte with family. A big shout out to Cory Bluhm who I saw setting up the event at lunch on my way to the Yeti Cafe, and he was still there tonight gettin’ ‘er done. More details on the ongoing Days of KWAwesome here.
It should always be this way.
DW
It’s been a couple of weeks since the Grand Porch Party, but I still have that slight post-GPP buzz from the mash-up of music and mid-town community. I had to bail out of the afternoon at 4:30 to get to the airport for a week-long work trip to the UK, hence the delay in getting these photos up. Despite the early departure and with a fair amount of regular towelling of camera gear, I did get the shots. It is a truism that bad weather makes good photos, and the GPP was no exception. I was on the lookout for wet streets and umbrellas and found them aplenty in mid-town west Waterloo.
I found this fellow above on Menno Street showing the resolve of an engaged community. Rain/shine, low/high attendance, no/money: we show up…
I work Fridays down at the BlackBerry space at Communitech. It’s a good way to stay connected. And this particular Friday, I connected (at least optically), with The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada. Mr. Harper (third from left above), along with Kitchener-Waterloo MP Peter Braid (centre), dropped by today for a tour with Communitech CEO Iain Klugman (right). The tour included short chats with a number of Communitech-related companies, including Structur3D Printing’s co-founder Charles Mire (his back at right) who briefly explained his Discov3ry 3D printing paste extruder cranking away here in the foreground.
During the visit, the Prime Minister announced four local technology accelerators in WR were in line for a multi-million dollar injection of cash. Get the full scoop from Tony Reinhart’s post on the Communitech blog.
It’s all pretty darned exciting, and further validation of the ever-growing gravity and success of the Waterloo Region. A semi-reasonable number of pics follow…
You wouldn’t know it was raining except for the umbrellas. Music lovers showed up in force for Sunday afternoon’s Grand Porch Party in mid-town Waterloo. The TL;DR: great bands, great crowd, great music. Another GPP win. More pics later.
This is what community looks like.
DW
A couple of Saturdays ago, I was heading to Tony and Tenille’s for porch beers and thought I’d bring something novel with me. I’d been following Steve Innocente on twitter for a couple months as he was setting up his new brewery in Waterloo. When I rolled in to the Innocente Brewing parking lot at Northfield and Bridge at 5:30pm, I was dismayed to find them closed. But as I cursed and pulled away, this guy came busting out of the door, flagging me down, and that guy turned out to be Steve Innocente himself, who welcomed me in so I could get a sampler pack for the party.
Innocente (say IN-no-CHENT’-ay, thanks to Louie Palu and Steve’s mom Linda for the pronunciation guidance) had only opened to the public a week before, so I was pretty sure I had something new to bring to the party. The TL;DR: the beer is awesome, I can’t decide which is my favourite one, Steve is a super-nice guy with a super-nice family getting something interesting off the ground in our fair city.
So I said, hey Steve I have this arts/tech blog and I’d love to come around to the brewery some time and take some shots. There’s so much awesome (and expensive) stainless steel and tech, along with the awesome smell of beer. He said, sure, we’re brewing on Tuesday so come by any time. I did, and here are the pics. Thanks to Steve and the guys and his family for letting me come into their world for a couple of hours. I look forward to drinking the fruits of your labour all summer long and then some.
