Invasion of busses planned May 5th

Wow, what a dump of snow yesterday.  It kinda sets the invasion of the busses and bugs on the streets of Calgary back a little bit.  Probably only a few days though.  Speaking of an invasion, if you are reading this and in the Calgary / Southern Alberta area mark May 5^th @ 2:00pm on your calendar.  Thinking of an informal get together / flash mob of busses at Mckay’s ice cream in Cochrane, AB.   I’m just putting the word out now and I don’t know who or how many will show up but I think it’s be kind of cool to have an army of busses show up at a Southern Alberta landmark for an afternoon.  I’ll keep you posted as to level of interest and how it all works out.   Posted it on the local VeeDub club forum. 

http://www.clubveedub.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45721

Other than that, not much is going on this week.  I’m heading to Vancouver for a couple of days for work and in a really geeky kind of way I’m hoping to see some busses while I’m there.  I’ll take my camera and post pictures if I happen to see any. 

After some initial spring pains I am back on the road.  I do want to take the old girl out for a bit of a longer run this weekend if I can.  Maybe I’ll trek out to Nanton and check out the antique stores.  It’s about an hour drive down the highway from Calgary.  Not a lot of hills and no snow.  I figure that it’s a better what than heading West into the mountains. 

May long weekend is typically the start of the camping season here in the Great White North but with the unseasonably warm winter we’ve had here maybe it’ll start early.  We’ll see.  Maybe I’ll even get into the water diving this month. 

Other than getting to work on the heat issue it feels like she’s ready to go for the summer.  Just a couple of spring cleaning things to do like get the upholstery cleaned professionally.  It’s original and there are some stains that I am just not comfortable with.  I’ll be a little happier once they are cleaned.

Other than the odd adventure around town there won’t be too much going on.  Maybe I’ll post something on the Vee-dub club of Calgary’s webpage and see if we can all descend on one location in and around the city like Peter’s Drive in or Mckay’s Ice Cream in Cochrane…. Hmmmm   I’ll let you know how that shakes down. 

Pleasure, pain and click…

Who knew something that is so much fun can be so frustrating.    I went down to the registry a couple of days ago and re-newed the plates for the Green Monster.  It was a beautiful spring day, I had just seen the first Robin of the year, it was a balmy 14 degrees.  It was time.  After a long winter in hibernation it was time to get the van rolling.  I put the little sticker in the bottom right hand corner of the license plate  and I was good to go.  I have to admit I was a little excited as I put the key in and turned for the first time.    It took a couple of cranks as the fuel worked its way through the system and the engine started quickly and easily. 

I backed it out of the drive way and hit the road.  Not much of a drive but enough to work out any of the winter stiffness.  It was great cruising down Deerfoot at 100kph watching the world rip past me .   After about a 45 minute drive I headed home. 

The next morning I had a couple of errands to run so I thought I’d take the van out.  Perfect.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing etc, etc, etc.  I decided on the way home that I’d stop at the gym.  Once I was done I headed out to the van with a big grin on my face knowing that cruising the afternoon away would be my reward for working my ass off at the gym.  I put the key in, turned it and “Click”.  Click…. WTF ?!?  It was running great about an hour ago and now “click”?  Not even engine cranking but click…. SIGH.  Tried push starting it, tried a boost but nothing….. click.

So knowing I didn’t have the time or the tools ( yet) to replace the starter I had it towed.  I know I am going to get shit from one of my friends for this.  He’s going to tell me that we could have done this ourselves and he’s  probably right.   So at the very least the a rebuilt starter is going to be about $200 

http://store.concept1.ca/store/product/53345/Bosch-Rebuilt-Starter-T2-72-79/

So, yes it’s in the shop, and yes I’m gonna have to pay for it (again) and yes my friend is going to give me shit for it.   No estimate yet but I’m hopeful that it’s not going to be too bad.  I’ll keep you posted.