Where there's smoke: The iconic post office in Uptown Waterloo is obscured as an adjacent building, home to some apartments, famed eatery Ish & Chips and a vacant convenience store, burned yesterday afternoon. The City of Waterloo reports that the fire, which broke out just after 3:00 p.m., caused damage in excess of $500,000. There were no injuries reported, and the investigation into the causes of the fire will continue today.

The iconic building next door to the scene of the fire was once home to a clinic run by the School of Optometry, after its move from Toronto in 1967. The building was also the scene of a fire in 1969 that caused the clinic to seek temporary shelter across the street, before its eventual relocation to the university's north campus in 1973.

Photograph by kdub.ca.

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Flash your "Glad to be a Grad" sticker, win prize

A message from the Office of Alumni Affairs.

Are you a Waterloo grad working on campus?  Does it feel like only yesterday that you arrived on campus for the first time? Well get ready to relive some Orientation Week excitement by sharing your school pride with Waterloo’s newest students and win some great prizes in the process!

How can I win?

On September 4, more than 6,000 new students will arrive on campus for Orientation Week. From September 4- 7 show these future alumni your Waterloo pride by wearing one of the “glad to be a grad” stickers you received in the mail and:

• Get spotted around campus by an Alumni Affairs professional wearing the sticker,
• Upload a photo of yourself and/or other Waterloo alumni wearing a sticker on the uWaterloo alumni Facebook page or on Twitter using #uWOWalum,
• Share a “glad to be a future grad sticker” with a student for a chance for you both to win!

Waterloo is a great place to be a student, and an even better place to be an alumnus. Don’t miss this fun way to share your school pride!

Additional stickers can be obtained by contacting echuxley@ uwaterloo.ca.

 

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Men's Basketball coach named to national team

With material from an Athletics department news release.

In case you needed another excuse to wear black and gold this Friday: Head coach of the Waterloo men’s basketball program Greg Francis (right) was named an assistant coach of the Canadian men’s Basketball team yesterday at a live press conference at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Francis, who has yet to coach his first Warriors game, has earned his spot on the coaching staff through his tireless dedication to basketball in Canada.

On top of his Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) coaching experience where he guided the Alberta Golden Bears to a CIS silver medal in 2011, Francis also carries with him a lengthy resume of Canada Basketball experience. He has been the head coach of the Canadian Junior Men's National Team from 2005 to 2011 and National Elite Development Academy (NEDA) from 2007 to 09.

Francis joins a staff of high pedigree with Steve Nash earning the spot as general manager while former Toronto Raptor’s coach Jay Triano takes the position of head coach. CIS counterpart and head coach of the Carleton Ravens, Dave Smart joins Francis as an assistant coach while Houston Rocket’s assistant coach Kelvin Simpson also joins the staff.

Triano was quoted as saying “five of his staff were members of the last Olympic team” in 2000, including Greg Francis, who played alongside Nash in Sydney, Australia.

“What a day. Let's get back to the Olympics," Francis tweeted after the announcement. "Feeling blessed to represent Canada again.”

 

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Utility shutdowns this weekend, other notes

Denizens of the Student Life Centre, Engineering 2 and Engineering 3 should ensure that they shut down their computer equipment in an orderly fashion tonight as Plant Operations does some electrical work on Saturday, August 25. The SLC will be without power from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. as Plant Ops ties in a breaker for a high voltage cable to Health Services (which was shut down for an hour Thursday morning for the same reason), and the engineering buildings will be powerless from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. as power is tied in to a new lab in Engineering 3. Health Services computer users should also be prepared for an outage on Monday, August 27 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. as work on that high voltage tie-in continues.

The monthly report from the University of Waterloo weather station has come out, and surprise surprise, July was a hot one. How hot was it? The maximum temperature topped out at 34 degrees, with a low of 10.3 degrees. The average daily high was 28.9 degrees, about 2.67 degrees higher than last July. The pattern of dryness we've experienced so far this summer continued, with the 37.3 mm we accumulated coming in well below the average of 92.9 mm. "It always seemed that the storms in the area would hit other parts of Southern Ontario but we only had 2 days of really significant precipitation," reports weather station co-ordinator Frank Seglenieks. The region has now seen the driest first 7 months of the year, at 353.6 mm since 1963, which had 333.7 mm. The average for this time of year? 509.0 mm.

Finally, the Tim Hortons in the Student Life Centre will be closed the week of August 27 to 31. If you're like me, this news has given you the caffeine shakes. So, where else can you grab a cup of coffee on campus? Well if Tim's is your thing, you can still mainline it from the South Campus Hall and Davis Centre locations. Browsers Café in the Dana Porter Library is also open. The Turnkey desk in the Student Life Centre does a brisk trade in the dark stuff,  and Brubakers and Subway in the Student Life Centre are re-opening Monday, August 27. The Engineering C&D is open as well. Did I miss anything? If so, clearly I need to get out of my office more. Send me an email or hit me up on Twitter and I'll add your location to the list.

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