I am not a fair weather fan, but rather I support the Canucks through the good and bad times. However, I doubt if I’ll be able to watch every game of the playoffs; I’m just too busy with things that should truly take priority. It’s likely that I’ll half watch a lot of them as small windows in the corner of my computer screen while I’m doing productive things like school work; but I’ll have to sacrifice even that if I’m not keeping up. As a true fan that has deprived myself for some time now, I did decide to treat myself to Game 1 of the first round of playoffs; as I have barely watched any hockey for a couple of years now and really wanted to catch at least one full game.

It turned out to be quite the game to watch. The two teams are so evenly matched in many different statistics, and as such the expectation was that the series would be very close. Addtionally, the low, close scores of the previous games had the paid and armchair experts alike predicting that we’d likely see a lot of games with scores of 2-1. Instead, we were treated to a game that was tied 4-4 at the end of regulation.

The teams were visibly tired in the overtime period, but the fatigue factor appeared to affect them equally and they remained fairly evenly matched. After a full 20 minute overtime period, the score remained tied and there was a 15 minute intermission until the 2nd overtime period. I went into the bedroom where Karin was already in bed. She was surprised when I left to watch the second overtime, as she was certain the game must have already been over. Her surprise became even greater as I kept coming back every half hour for 15 minutes, only to leave again. By the time the fourth overtime started, she was done watching her shows and I watched this period on the bedroom television.

The teams had become quite exhausted at the game ground on, but in the second half of the third and throughout the fourth overtime period the Sedin twins seemed to catch a second wind and were noticeably sharper than all the other players. I began to perk up myself each time they came out for a shift, and was rewarded in the final minute of the fourth overtime when Daniel fed his twin brother Henrik Sedin, who then scored the game winner.

If only I’d spent any money to watch the game, I could have said I certainly got my money’s worth. This was the longest game in Canucks history and the sixth longest game in NHL playoff history. Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo faced an NHL playoff record 76 shots, and his 72 saves was the second best in playoff history.

And while the score was higher than expected, there’s little doubt that the teams are pretty evenly matched.

So in the end I finally got to go to sleep happy and half past midnight. I’ll don’t know if I’ll manage to sit down and watch another full game, but I’m certainly glad that this was the one I did catch.

Last Monday Karin and I went into Vancouver for my second visit to the dental laboratory. The lab is making the crowns that will be mounted on the dental implants that were placed in my mouth last fall. My first trip to the lab had been for the colour matching, and this appointment was officially a “stain appointment”.

When I arrived, the technician had all six teeth sitting in front of her. Each looked like a pulled tooth without a root and was hollow inside. She used tweezers to hold each one up to my mouth to check the final colour, and had a palette of liquid paints in front of her to touch up the tooth. I had mentioned that they were surprised how white my teeth were last time, thanks to my diligent bleaching and avoidance of staining foods; and this time there were even more surprised that my teeth were now whiter. As a result, the technician had to use an even whiter shade as the final touch up. After painting each one, she put them in little oven to dry the paint; though I have no idea if it was heat, infrared, ultraviolet, or yet another option that dried the paint. I suspect it was just heat from the look of the device.

Just as the previous appointment had been rescheduled to give the lab more time, so had this appointment. I had been told on the phone that it was because of the need to make custom abutments; apparently the original delay had been while they waited for a part to make two custom abutments, but when they had called me last week to re-schedule they had already ended up making four custom abutments and needed an extra few days to make a fifth. I was naturally curious and asked exactly what was an dental abutment. The technicians were quite happy to have someone express an interest in their work, and the woman who was doing the colour matching was joined for the explanation by the technician next to her, who had done a lot of the work on my teeth.

I was shown the mold of my upper arch that had the gums removed and replaced with a pink waxy material. Since my last visit, hollow titaniuml tubes had been added in each tooth’s spot. It was explained to me that these were the abutments, which will be attached to the implants and then have the crown slide over top. Each abutment is shaved to narrow it at the end, almost making a sharp circle at the end. Of the six abutments, they had only been able to use one that was pre-machined, as my bite has my bottom teeth sliding behind my front teeth. Pre-machined abutments that stick straight out would hit my bottom teeth before the crowns were even placed over top, and they therefore had to make abutments that will allow my bottom teeth to slide behind them and the crowns over top without touching. This will be something new for me, as my bottom teeth have always hit my flipper, and my original childhood dentist had gone as far as to shave the top off of one lower canine. I will now have nothing hit when I close my mouth. They assured me when I asked that the custom abutments did not mean that they will be weaker in any way.

Both technicians were surprised when they looked in my mouth at the amount of gum growth as compared to the molds, and so I explained that it appears that I heal too good. Apparently a couple of abutments were very difficult to spot. They also warned me that with this many implants at once and the changes in my mouth both due to time and the pressure of the flipper while I was healing, there is a chance that all the crowns and/or abutments might not fit and I might have to come back again for them to redo some of them.

This afternoon I have an appointment at the 7Oaks Laser Dental Centre here in Abbotsford for Dr. Ajar to attach the crowns. It will be the first time since I was about 10 years old that I will be able to have a full toothed smile without a dental flipper. I guess I’d better go shave so that I can take some before and after pictures.

Well it’s Good Friday today, which is a holiday here in Canada; but when your job is working with Americans you then ignore the Canadian holidays. However, this is fine with me as it means I’m sitting at work, getting paid 2 1/2 times my normal wage times 10 as I work 10 hour days, and it’s a pretty slack day. I need it as the week has been pretty hectic until now.

So I’ve been a bad blogger lately, hardly updating; but it’s not just here that I am behind. Matthew has been having the financial troubles so many of us have when young, exacerbated by tendinitis in his arm that has messed up his employability. We have therefore had him move back in with us, which will be interesting in a one bedroom condo. Luckily it is a large condo with an area that we can give him as his own, other than the fact that we have to walk through it to get to the laundry/storage room. So far everything is working out.

There was a lot to do in order to get ready for him to move in. We had just done a major spring cleaning/purging a few weeks before; but now we had to make room for a third resident. I believe he appreciated the effort, because as soon as we were done he moved in; which was a week early. Next I had to buy and set up a wireless system so he could get his computer online, as he is on the opposite side of the condo from where our computer area is and we did not want wires running across our entire home. As soon as we were done that, Matthew’s computer began to act up. He had been complaining about issues for quite some time, but they would never manifest themselves when I looked at it for him. They finally did so for me, which was not necessarily a good thing, as after two days of troubleshooting I had to come to the conclusion that it was the hardware and not repairable. I therefore spent the next day building him a computer out of spare parts I have. The result is not a very powerful machine, but it will do him for now as we are all on a budget.

And that will be a large part of the theme for a while; we will be helping Matthew learn budgeting and other basic life skills. He is definitely not lacking in brains, but unfortunately he was brought up by his stepfather; who taught him that money grows on trees, work is not a 40 hour a week thing, do what you want when you want, etc. Matthew does realize this doesn’t happen in the real world, but the real world’s life skills are still not something that were ever taught to him, as our public schools leave that to be taught in the home. Luckily, we are poor… and so we can show him how to live poor but still get ahead.

Add in that work is busier than normal, I’ve had a lot of appointments to attend for my dental implants, school is ramping up for me again, and I never did get to finish the taxes or clean up my desk at home; and I begin to wonder if I’ll ever catch up. With regards to blogging; I have three posts that are all over half complete, and I plan to make time to finish them all this weekend. Hopefully I’ll get another couple out also, though I may hold them in reserve until I’m sure I have even more to say; I don’t want to make five posts in two days and then have writer’s block until next weekend. I’m also thinking that I need to reconsider the focus of this blog, as I had intended this to be part tech tips, but have really not had time for any so far.

So that’s my quick post for the moment…. more soon…..