Favorite Waterloo Moments

[Sameer]

I will be the first to post a Waterloo moment:

I was on my rollerblades in Waterloo and it was late in the afternoon on a summer's day. I had reached the intersection of Columbia and Westmount, approaching from the east. I turned right so I could rollerblade past Columbia Lake. The sun broke out of the clouds that very moment and I was playing "A Certain Romance" by Arctic Monkeys on my MP3 player. It had reached the climax of the song and I sped up. And while the song was blasting along, I looked to my right and saw the gorgeous lake area, with geese couples running around in it. On my left, I saw rolling yellow fields of some kind of cultivated crop. And straight ahead, I saw open pavement. No cars. I looked behind, open pavement. No cars. I must have been the only person there at that time. And as I whizzed by at speed, the song chugged along with me, and at that moment, I felt, I don't have any obstacles that I can't defeat, at least not anymore.

Waterloo really is wonderful.

[Sameer]

And here's another one:

The first time I properly explored Victoria Park in Kitchener, I was on a date with someone. It was a clear night and quite warm. There was no one in the park, which we joked about, because that meant that the two of us were alone and that either of us could have been a creeper luring the other into the park. After we finished joking about that, we walked around and found a building called "The Boathouse" or something like that. It was really nicely made. We walked a little further and found some buildings that probably were used as wedding halls. We walked a little further and found a bridge. And we crossed it. Then we found another bridge. And we crossed it. And when we realized the metaphoric meaning of coming across a bridge and crossing it, we turned and kissed each other in the dim moonlight.

That was the best introduction to a new place I'd ever had.

[Urbanomicon]

One of my favourite moments was several years ago when I was parking near Charles and Queen. I noticed, to my surprise, that there was a car inside the hair salon at the strip mall there. Not just a little ways in, but fully inside. Upon closer inspection, the car was from "Mary's Driving School" which has offices above the hair salon.

You could cut the irony with a knife.

It lead to what I consider one of the funniest CKCO news reports ever. The car was driven by none other than "Mary" from "Mary's Driving School". She refused to comment on camara.

[Sameer]

One day, I went to Phoenix Games and Hobbies in downtown Kitchener. They were celebrating the release of a certain Dungeons and Dragons rulebook (it was the 4.0 PHB2). The celebration involved playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons 4.0

We were a bunch of strangers really, gathered together, playing a table-top role-playing game. Some folks had come from Guelph and they knew each other. The gamemaster was a professional actor. I played a female halfling. It was all a bunch of nerdy fun. Well, that afternoon, Phoenix was closing early, so we moved the game to Exhibit Cafe. I had a delicious vegetarian burger there, and we kept playing D&D in a corner table, laughing at comedic moments and cheering our victories. In the end, I made a few new friends while being introduced to a new version of D&D. And the whole time, the city of Kitchener served as the midwife of my geeky day out.

[Sameer]

Here's another one which I mentioned in the Club Abstract thread:

This happened on a Saturday night. I went to Club Abstract with some friends. They play alternative rock on that day. We were chilling out after dancing for a while. I was drunk as hell and I really started feeling the music at that moment. I forget the name of the song, it might have been something from Kings of Leon. I sat on a chair, closed my eyes and then closed my hands together in the style of the Namaste greeting. I closed my eyes, and let my drunk and alcohol soaked brain swim in place, melding with the music. I breathed in. I breathed out. I swam there for what seemed like an hour. But a minute later I opened my eyes and I saw one of my friends sitting there. She said to me, "You feeling okay?". And I said to her, "I've never been better". At that very moment, the song changed to "Guerilla Radio" by Rage Against the Machine. I immediately transformed from a serene peaceful drunken Yoga-enthusiast to a wild crazy "psychosomatic-addict-insane" (to quote Prodigy).... I dragged a whole bunch of my friends onto the dancefloor and we began round 2 of some really bad-ass dancing, surrounded by girls dressed in Goth.

That club is so full of win. Most excellent, indeed.

[Shawn]

OK, this doesn't qualify as a "Favourite" Waterloo Moment, but it's certainly a moment you'd probably have difficulty experiencing outside of Waterloo Region.

Any true blue Waterloo Region person has seen horse and buggy parking in many northern Waterloo Region retail outlets, even Conestoga Mall & Home Depot you'll find sheltered buggy parking. As a student I worked part time as a teller at the Elmira Canada Trust (now Bank of Montreal) which has 2 hitching posts at the end of their parking lot for the Old Order Mennonite customers.

Many times, my job duties included shoveling the horse manure that had accumulated around the buggy parking. These lovely horsey bombs come in many varieties, ranging from the dry and lumpy variety (preferred) to the hot and steamy variety (definitely not preferred), complete with flies! Imagine my surprise when I found that that my "other duties as assigned" as a bank teller included shoveling horse droppings wearing dress pants, dress shoes and a shirt & tie!

[KayDubya]

OK, this doesn't qualify as a "Favourite" Waterloo Moment, but it's certainly a moment you'd probably have difficulty experiencing outside of Waterloo Region.

Any true blue Waterloo Region person has seen horse and buggy parking in many northern Waterloo Region retail outlets, even Conestoga Mall & Home Depot you'll find sheltered buggy parking. As a student I worked part time as a teller at the Elmira Canada Trust (now Bank of Montreal) which has 2 hitching posts at the end of their parking lot for the Old Order Mennonite customers.

Many times, my job duties included shoveling the horse manure that had accumulated around the buggy parking. These lovely horsey bombs come in many varieties, ranging from the dry and lumpy variety (preferred) to the hot and steamy variety (definitely not preferred), complete with flies! Imagine my surprise when I found that that my "other duties as assigned" as a bank teller included shoveling horse droppings wearing dress pants, dress shoes and a shirt & tie!

That's funny.

I was thinking of the same sort of thing when I saw this thread.
Many mornings when I take my wife to work on the U of W campus I find my self driving in heavy traffic back up Erb St. and that traffic often includes a horse and buggy or two.
There are not to many urban areas of 500,000+ where you see that on a regular basis in the uptown/downtown core.

[IEFBR14]

In the same vein is the stable in the Home Depot parking lot. I wonder who "maintains" it.

[Greg Moore]

In the same vein is the stable in the Home Depot parking lot. I wonder who "maintains" it.

I think his name is Schlep.

[Shawn]

I think his name is Schlep.

I like this Schlep guy..... thanks to him it's not part of my job description anymore !! Besides, I've got far bigger piles of virtual ____ to shovel in my current job.

[Sameer]

I was walking down King Street next to the Walper Hotel about 2 days ago, and a funky looking Asian girl with a Torontonian flair and an acoustic guitar and this very animated guy in a funny shirt and crazy hair were busking on the side of the street. They were singing a sort of song that could be considered part folksy, part musical theatre. The girl kept playing and singing while the guy started doing some interesting Charlie-Chaplain-esque activities on the sidewalk, like walking beside people in a funny way and singing along, doing funny dance moves and jumping on benches, trees, ledges and being very free-spirited. The whole thing made me smile and I remembered that the Magnetic North Theatre Festival is on and maybe these two were performers who had just got into town but their show would have been later in the evening so they were spending the morning and afternoon fooling around in downtown Kitchener.

I loved that moment. It made me think I was in wacky funny unpredictably-exciting place. I hope this kind of energy keeps up while the downtown core construction finishes up.

[Sameer]

I was at The Flying Dog one night, for those free Salsa dancing lessons. Well, as luck would have it, there were so many people interested in that salsa lesson that night that the dance floor was packed. There was no room at all and there were more boys than girls. So I decided to just chill and let my friends dance, while I got some food at the bar. I sat there, watching the fun, browsing the internet on my phone... and I flicked through their menu... they have this interesting appetizer-category dish, i forget what it is called, but it is basically a platter, where they give you some nicely cooked chicken breasts, some attractively shredded vegetables, three delicious Thai-style chutneys, and lots of curvy lettuce. The idea is to make little lettuce fajita rolls with your hands, with all the stuff they've given, and eat them. It was such a fun thing, in that moment, watching the people dance, listening to the music, and assembling absolutely delicious globules of awesomeness in my hands and popping them into my mouth.... I felt really good, mostly because that menu item filled me up really well, tasted great and didnt cost that much, and i got to enjoy it at the bar, in a fancy place, with beautiful dancing happening right in front of me... and i didnt have to go very far to find awesomeness like this.... Another wonderful waterloo moment, eh?

[Sameer]

Went to a party on Albert Street, in one of those massive houses rented out by 6 students. There was dance music playing but no one was dancing. Then suddenly, on the disproportionately massive speaker system, someone put on the Steve Aoki dance remix of Kid Cudi's Pursuit of Happiness. There is an intro bit, in the first 45 seconds, which starts with a good progressive beat. There is a part of the song, exactly 45 seconds into it, when the beat absolutely explodes in this powerful series of four electro-bass sounds that absolutely blows you away, repeated in four sets. So during the first 45 seconds of the song, I moved real sneaky towards the dance floor, taking little steps, inch by inch, making my way to the dance area that the party organizers had set up. A couple of people had the exact same idea, and had already started swaying around to the beat on the dance floor. Now when the 45th second hit, I jumped onto the middle of the floor, and gave out one freeze-pose for each of the four-by-four sounds that suddenly blew up into the room, sixteen in all. Then when the beat jumped up, I joined the other folks on the dance floor in going absolutely wild, dancing like crazy, feeling every powerful beat, doing some fun amateur pop-and-lock dance moves and being generally very proactively merry.

The non-dancers in the room just stood and stared at our collective awesomeness.

"Tell me what you know about dreamin'? You don't really know about nothin... You don't really care about the trials of tomorrow, rather lay awake in a bed full of sorrow" - Kid Cudi

[Shawn]

A (Wonderful) Waterloo Region Moment

This just happened tonight on a trip to Dairy Queen... I was driving down my street and up ahead I see a couple cycling. The person in behind all of a sudden hits the curb and goes face first over the handle bars, doing a face plant on the ground. The person in front didn't even notice it happened and kept cycling! I immediately pulled over and jumped out of the car. The person was an elderly woman, probably close to 70 years old and the front cyclist was her husband, who by this time had noticed something had happened and was slowly making his way back.

As I untangle this poor womans legs from the bicycle I'm quizzing her about how she feels.. is she dizzy, can she feel her toes, her fingers, can she move them? Not wanting to move her too much I have her lay where I found her while her husband wanders over. She explains to me that he has alzheimer's and wouldn't even be able to find his way home (which explains why he was acting disconnected to the fact his wife was laying on the ground). Soon after a couple neighbours come out to see what's going on. I call 9-1-1 to get an ambulance as more people arrive. Pulling out my fabric shopping bags to form a make shift pillow to comfort her, another person brings a blanket. We're beginning to get worried because we think the woman is going into shock. She begins to tremble all over and moan in pain from her injured shoulder.

Now this is the Wonderful Waterloo Part -- by the time the ambulance arrived there must have been 10 of us directly assisting this elderly couple! Not to mention several cars that either stopped or slowed to ask if we needed any additional help!

It was really nice to see the amount of concern for these people and the amount of friendliness and teamwork from a group of 10 strangers who only just met moments before!

Once the ambulance arrived and the paramedics performed their examination, they were able to get her standing (barely), but she seemed improved from earlier.

Bravo Waterloo Region... bravo!

[Sameer]

I was at "The Boathouse" with a friend one evening. This is a very charming live music bar in the heart of Victoria Park. We had been pub crawling for a while that evening and The Boathouse was the final stop. We ended up sitting on their patio, which literally, faces a large pond, with swans and ducks in it, who were hanging out near the patio. We sat there, sipping on our beers, with our feet up on the railings, watching two swans wallow about on the shore, about 10 feet away from us. Being drunk on a patio at night while staring at swans is something that I would highly recommend. There is a certain peacefulness about such an arrangement. One of the swans was a bit of a weirdo and kept standing on one leg. The other one decided to call it an early night by sitting on the ground, turning its head towards his tail and stuffing it into his back. He looked literally like a bundle of wrapped feathers. We noticed a duck who was probably afraid of all the other ducks and decided to hang out with the swans. He stayed with them for a while, staying sober. We stayed with them for a while, staying drunk.

Excellent waterloo moment

[Sameer]

This waterloo moment is described by one sentence, since so many people were there to enjoy it and probably know it well already:

Fireworks at Columbia Lake

[Urbanomicon]

This waterloo moment is described by one sentence, since so many people were there to enjoy it and probably know it well already:

Fireworks at Columbia Lake

Indeed. That has to be one of the most perfect venues for a Fireworks show.

[Sameer]

I was heading over to the Goodlife gym on Weber street, the one near the corner with University Street. I was heading there for my BodyJam urban dance class. I noticed that the class had already started and was being conducted outside infront of the doors, on the parking lot, in the sun. The music was booming out of the instructor's car and all the gym workers were sitting on the sidewalk watching the class. I joined in, and we did some really fun and amazing dance moves with an audience right there! It turns out that the power in the gym had gone out and there were no lights on. So instead of cancelling the class, the instructor decided to have it outdoors! The sun was shining, there was a nice breeze and we totally tore up that parking lot with our kickass dance moves. I was the only guy in the class and several of the females watching were cheering me on. I felt like a total hero myself and the other students were total warriors too, dancing it up in the sun for a whole hour.

Definitely the highlight of the summer for me.

[RoadRunner]

"the instructor decided to have it outdoors!"

Doing anything like that outside is fun