The vehicle issue saga continues.

On Tuesday night at 11:15 PM, the police showed up here asking for me. Turns out that someone reported my then abandoned truck to the Agassiz police. So they had been dispatched to get "Proof of Well Being". Totally caught me off guard, but I got a good chuckle out of them when I said I never really thought to call and report the truck un-stolen.

Now, on to Wednesdays Stanley Cup opener. What a great day to be a Canucks fan. Big hits, great goal tending on both sides, a whole lot of hate for each other right off the bat. Even a little bit of old school, get your glove out of my mouth finger biting.

It seemed that every Bruin had visions of stealing home ice advantage from us right off the bat. Thing is, they all seemed to try to impose their will one player at a time. Andrew Ference throws a couple of hits trying to turn the tide, and Hansen crushes him in the corner, effectively silencing him for the rest of the night. Krejci manages to get a little bit of offensive momentum in the 2nd period, and Luongo stones him. And so on throughout their line up, one at a time. The best player of Boston was Thomas, stopping pretty much everything to keep the Bruins in it. Then with half a minute left, Kesler somehow turns his leg in a way that doesn't look humanly possible to stay on side and feather a perfect pass cross-ice to Hansen. Jannik, who seems to be not at all intimidated my Chara and has been causing him non-stop fits every time he challenges him, feeds a perfect pass through him to give Torres at tap-in to take game 1. Just WOW.

Fast forward to Friday. My mom calls me up, and asks me to take a look at her brakes because they are making a grinding noise. Enter to new mega pain in the ass in her life and mine. Started by trying to crack the lug nuts on the front driver side wheel... not happening as they are rusted on almost as strong as if they were welded. I could see the rotors and pads though and at first glance nothing looks out of the norm. I decided to take a look at the back before sending her to a tire shop to get them taken off. The problem was clear as day without even taking off the rear wheels. Her rear brake pads were completely worn out and had carved rings into her rotors a quarter centimeter deep on both sides of the rotor on both rear wheels, ouch. Bad news, as now it needs new pads and rotors. Price for the parts $300. Generally though, not an overly difficult job. When doing similar work on Lina's car a couple months ago, it took around an hour a side, and wasn't too complicated. My mom's car is a 2005 Mazda 3, but she bought it in Saint John, New Brunswick and had it there for a little while before driving coast to coast moving back here. Thing is, they have an actual Canadian winter there and deal with it by dumping mountains of salt on the roads. Due to the large volumes of salt, cars rust out at a ridiculous pace there. After failing at getting even a single lug nut cracked on the front tire, I sent her for a loop. First to Kal tire to get the wheels taken off and put back on cause it was clear that I didn't have the tools necessary to break them free. Then, off to Lordco to get the new rotors and pads. She got back, I jacked up the car, and couldn't get the tire off. I kicked it a few times, missed by a little bit once and kicked nothing but tire and burst the valve. "Shit". Well, continued to try and bash the tire off with no luck. Turns out that Kal tire didn't take the wheels off, only the lug nuts, and they broke a wheel stud in the process. Our neighbor Scott came out and tried giving us a hand. I held a 2x4 on the inside of the rim and he commenced smashing it with a semi truck style jack stand. Nothing. At this point, all the tire shops are closed, so have to drop it for the day, call for a tow and pick up where we left off the next day.

Also on Friday, Lina's dad and a couple of his friends went up Lookout Lake way to take a look at my truck and see if they could get it down. Well, one of their trucks got a busted transfer case, or so I would assume because he said that they lost 4 wheel drive. But my truck was up there, an not vandalized. They did manage to move it off to the side of the road so that the road was accessible again. Though the truck was still up there, I still call that a win, as at least I know that the truck is still viable.
End Friday.

Saturday morning, my mom wakes me up stupidly early wanting to get started. 30 seconds after walking out the bedroom door Cleo comes up to me wanting a some attention. 5 seconds later, her ears are itchy and she shakes her head. Yeah, she stands waste high and I got sacked a half dozen times in less than a second. Some days it just isn't worth getting up in the morning. My mom had already called the tow truck, and we were using my BCAA card so I had to shake it off and get too it. The send a normal truck first to assess the situation and see if he could get the wheel off and the spare put on. He realized in a moment that the car was from back East, due to the fact that nothing out this way, that new is that rusted. He tried smashing it for a while without getting anywhere before calling a real tow truck to deal with it. The second tow truck driver showed up, and again wanted to just bash it off. This time he decided to use his 4x4 piece of lumber to try a break it free. And after a few swings he managed to do it and split the piece of wood down the middle, lol. I guess victory really does go to the man with the biggest stick. So, we put the spare on and went to OK tire this time. Yeah, don't go there. They charged my mom $130 to take the wheels off and lube up the lug nuts, and install a new valve stem on the flat tire (only $4 for the valve stem), Uber scam. Then it was off to Canadian tire to get a new wheel stud to replace the one Kal tire snapped off. I did kind of expect one or two wheel studs to snap due to the amount of rust. Now jacked the car back up. Took off the caliper, removed the chewed up rotor, punched out the broken wheel stud, seated the new wheel stud, slid the new rotor into place, popped the dead pads out of the caliper. I was finally feeling like I was making some progress. That feeling was short lived. Went to compress the piston on the caliper, and it wasn't moving. I opened the brake bleeder valve to get rid of any pressure in the caliper. It still wouldn't compress, and I was starting to get frustrated at this point, as well as a decent sun burn. Back into the house we go to do some research and see if I was missing something, or if the caliper was seized and also needed to be replaced ($300 a caliper for that car, F'ing Mazda's). After doing some research, it turns out you need a custom tool to compress the pistons in them because they need to turn while being compressed kind of like a screw. We called Lordco, they said they had the tool for it, one in stock, and for only $13. Lina went down to get it for us, got back, and I guess that tool was for different imports, probably VW's or something, because it didn't fit. So we called around looking for the right tool. The only store that had it was KMS tools, and it cost $90, ouch again, the bill just keeps climbing, but seeing as how I was doing the work for mom for free, it would still save her some money by buying it. Lina and mom went down and got the tool, and they neighbors laughed at the situation a bit more when they saw me still sitting out by the car. They got back with the tool, and after a little bit of fiddling around with it, I managed to get the piston compressed, the new pads on, and everything back in place. All that was left was to bleed the brake, then do the other side. Of coarse this was a day that wasn't going to go in my favor, or just smoothly in general. While tightening the brake bleeding valve, it stripped. And wouldn't come out or go in, AKA F'ed. Lina and I still needed to head out to Langley to do a few things for her grandma. So I put the wheel back on and we headed out knowing that we still needed to deal with the other side of her car and the now stripped brake bleeding valve.

Stanley Cup Final Game 2. What a great game. The refs laid off the whistles and let them play. Burrows opened the scoring with a power play goal in the 1st period. Boston managed to get an even strength goal then an ever illusive power play goal for them in the 2nd period. They finally figured out how to do what San Jose couldn't which is dumping the puck in to a spot where they would have an opportunity to compete for the puck, and allow them to play to their strengths a bit. However, the Canucks doing what they do, continued to push the tempo. In the 3rd period they took over and started to dominate again, and within the first minute of play you could feel the fact that the Nucks were going to tie it up. I let out a cheer so loud, it scared the crap out of Lina's grandma. On a knocked down point shot, Burrows reflex reacted and laterally fed the puck over to Daniel for not much more than a tap in, to tie it up at two. Moments later we got a 4 on 1 break down the ice. We didn't score the go ahead goal in it, but it made for a great post whistle scrum. LaPierre got into Bergeron's face, (the guy who stuffed his finger into Burrows mouth just to have it bitten, lol), and got to agitating.
"You want it", "Wanna bite", "You sure", "Oh come on, you know you want a taste of finger", it was too funny. The grin on LaPierre's face was priceless, and the anger on Bergeron's was more than apparent. Agitation Success.

To overtime we go. On the puck drop, Edler intercepted a dump in and chipped it up the boards. Daniel threw it into the center of the ice without hesitation to send Burrows away 1 on 1 against Chara. Burrows cut to the outside around Chara and the challenging Thomas. Lost the puck off the end boards behind the net but followed it, completely getting around Chara, who tripped over Thomas taking them both out of the play, Alex picked up the puck off the carim and pocketed the wrap around, winning the game just over 10 seconds into the 1st overtime. Again I let out a cheer scaring the hell out of Lina's grandma. Home ice advantage remains un-stolen, and now the Canucks just need to win 1 of the next 2 games in Boston to take a strangle hold lead in the series.

Back to work, went out and spent the next 2 1/2 hours pressure washing her driveway. We got home around 11:30 that night feeling pretty good.

I almost forgot, scrolling up to add this. Congratulations to Winnipeg for selling out the 13000 season tickets needed to get an NHL club back, in 1 hour of online sales.

Sunday morning, a little later in the AM, (finally a decent nights sleep). Went out to go do the other side of mom's car before sending her to a brake shop to get the bleeder valve issue fixed. This time, shit finally went the way it was supposed to, the way I thought it was supposed to go when I told her I would do the work for her. An hour later every thing on that side was finished, new rotor and pads installed properly. Came back in, and unfortunately there weren't any brake shops on on Sunday. Boo, was already day 3, of the Mazda brake nightmare. Lina and I then went to Lina's nanny's (other grandma) place to pick up a china cabinet that she was giving to Lina's aunt in Texas. After trying to wedge it into the back seat unsuccessfully, we ended up just strapping it down with bungees it half into the trunk. Across the border to Bellingham we went. Was a great day for a drive, and the boarder wasn't at all long. We got down there, bubble wrapped and card boarded it up and sent it on it's way. Stopped in at a restaurant with a name neither of us could pronounce, and consequently can't remember it's name, for an incredible meal that beats out every steak house we've been to in the lower mainland. We had blackened (Cajun) NY steak, garlic prawns, smoked salmon, onion soup, the best carrots I've ever had, rice with spelt and some other veggies. And all for less than $50. I really wish I could remember what the place was called now, cause I'd like to go there next time, and every time we go down that way. Coming back across the border was nice and easy also. Back to grandma Janet's to finish off the pressure washing I started the day before but had to pack it in due to it getting to late at night, and finished that off. Finally a productive day where we weren't just spinning our wheels.

Lina's dad went back up Lookout Lake way again Sunday morning. This time with it's own bag of mixed results. The good news, and by good I mean great, is that they managed to get my truck towed off the mountain and to a friend of his place in Chilliwak. Awesome, I can finally make some strides towards doing something with it. The bad news is that at some point on Saturday, somebody "ransacked it", though I don't know what he means by that yet. It could me that they shot it full of holes, or torched it or something in which case it's all over for the truck. But it could also mean that they beat it up, put some dents in her, broke some glass, tore up the interior, etc. That would still suck, but at least I could fix it on the cheap, there is a Pick N Pull in Chilliwak after all, and I didn't want the truck because it was pretty, but instead because I caned a good 4x4 that could take me away from the heavily populated fished out lakes, and give us some piece and quite here and there. We haven't talked to her dad yet, so we will still have to see what the additional damage is.

Now it's Monday, we got mom sent on her way with the tow truck to a brake shop. Some good and bad news there. The bad news is that the caliper with the stripped brake bleeder is screwed and needs to be replaced (another $450, OUCH!!). The good news is that they will be able to do it today. When calling around on Sunday to see what one would cost, everywhere we called would have had to order one in, and it would have taken a week to get it in. So her total bill all said and done is about $900. Bloody brutal. Lesson of that story though is to never let your brakes get worn down to the point where they chew through the rotors, and oh, don't buy vehicles from back East because they tend to be ridiculously rusted even when they are pretty new.

Tonight Lina and I are off to GM, I mean Rogers Arena to watch game 3 against Boston on the big screens and soak in the atmosphere.

GO CANUCKS GO!!!