I finally got a Honda Ruckus on 05-11-2011! It has been awhile since I waited so patiently for something I wanted to bad but it ended up paying off big time! I purchased the Ruckus used from a guy in Sellersburg, IN and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I saw the Ruckus on Craigslist and text’d the guy to see if he still had it which he did so I headed right over to Sellersburg which is about 20 minutes from the Highlands in Louisville. When I got there I could tell that the guy had been struggling to get it started but I went ahead and took it for a test drive. Sure enough the Ruckus was missing pretty bad however I knew the engine compression was good and the rest of the Ruckus was in great shape with only 1750 miles on it. The guy was only asking $1750 and I was able to talk him down to $1625 and I could not be happier with the deal which I will try to describe below.

Alex’s Honda Ruckus Photos

Some other facts about the Ruckus and everything that the guy gave me with the purchase. First off the Ruckus color is gunmetal which was only made in 2008 and I have never seen another gunmetal color Ruckus in Louisville. It also came with a ton of performance parts and tools that he just threw in with the deal! The items included were a Leo Vince exhaust ($325), a under seat bag ($100), a modified air box ($100), a new rear shock ($125), a racing coil and plug ($75), a new carburetor that is not installed yet ($225), Ruckus manual ($50), racing clutch spring ($20), upgraded variator + weights ($75), new mirrors ($35), kevlar drive belt ($35), digital tachometer ($50), 2 x carburetor jet kit ($70), variator tool ($35), various air filters ($30), and all of the original parts.

Once I got some time I reshimmed the valves in the engine and rejetted the carburetor and the Ruckus is running pretty smooth at this point! I could not be happier with my purchase. Plus Martin just got a Ruckus two days ago so the posse of Ruckus owners in the Highlands is growing pretty quickly! I think I know of 10 Honda Ruckus owners in the Highlands and 4 of them are friends of mine. We have a couple other friends outside of the Highlands all the way out to Taylorsville, KY who come and ride with us.

Other than working on the Ruckus I haven’t been doing much else but working like crazy! I could not be happier with my job to date and look forward to some of my side work slowing down so I can 100% concentrate on my new job and getting my load balancer skillz up to par with everyone else on the team which should be a challenge since we have some really smart guys on our team. It is really nice to work with a huge group of guys that are top notch at what they do!

Amy and the kids are great! Alba has been going to “school” twice a week and she loves it. Seems she is much better taking naps there than she is at home! Also Haley and Amy had a gymnastics banquet tonight and Amy got voted “Coach of the Year” which is a huge honor for her. I know she deserved it so that is really cool she got recognized for that. Also I finally got Amy a new Macbook Pro and a iPhone to boot so she is all decked out with the latest Apple products. It is nice to finally be able to get the family some of the things I have been promising them.

May 22nd, 2011 by alex | No Comments »

Amy and I had a blast in California. We pretty much didn’t plan a single thing except for the baby shower we went to on Saturday (03-26-2011) and the rest of the time we both got to see a bunch of our friends around LA. The first night we were in California the NCAA Sweet Sixteen was on TV and UK played Ohio State and beat them so that started the trip off the right way!! That night we also went to eat at a Mediterranean restaurant near the hotel and then went to a bar with Jared. The next day we went to breakfast at a really cool breakfast in Venice with Andrea, Andrea’s Mom, Chad, and Amber and then headed to the baby shower where we hung out until around midnight. Sunday UK played North Carolina in the Elite Eight and won which rocked! Back to back upsets for the Kentucky Wildcats! Sunday night we went to dinner with Andrea, Andrea’s Mom, and Chad at an awesome restaurant called Cha Cha Chicken. The food was really good and it was BYOB which I didn’t take advantage of but it made the environment really cool. On Monday we met my friend Jared at his office in the Hollywood hills and then drove to lunch. He is a partner in a company called  Haus which does video production and web identity projects. They went all out on their office which you can check out in my photos section here. Then Monday night my friend Lance who recently moved to Thailand met us at our hotel and we spent a couple hours catching up which was awesome. He is doing really well and I hope that I can go work in Thailand with him for a week sometime in the future.

As great as the trip was it was equally great to get home and see Alba and Haley. This week is Spring Break so its fairly relaxed around the house. Amy and I are celebrating our third anniversary today! The past three years has been amazing and as time goes on things seem to just get better and better. Amy and I are going to have a night on the town to celebrate in the near future. I am headed to Las Vegas tomorrow night and won’t be back until late Monday.

My little sister Abigail had a baby shower on Saturday which meant that my oldest sister Lisa was in town from Atlanta. On Sunday night we all had dinner at my Mom’s house which was a lot of fun. It was the first time that I had been together with all three of my sisters at the same time in  way too long!

Also great weather in Louisville recently so hopefully it will last for Derby time! I promise to continue updating on a much more regular basis! Don’t forget to check out the media gallery located in the right hand navigation menu! Over the past couple weeks I have uploaded thousands of pictures… mostly of the girls but also of some trips, my office, and some other random stuff.

April 5th, 2011 by alex | No Comments »

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post on this site. In fact the last time I wrote a post was three days shy of one year when the NCAA tournament was going on. I hadn’t even uploaded any pictures to the site in over a year as well and it wasn’t because I wasn’t taking any pictures because I was. I had taken thousands of pictures and the longer I waited to upload any the more it seemed like a headache which is why it took so long. Over the past two weeks I have been organizing the pictures in my spare time and finally got a system down where I synchronize folders on my computer with Google Picasa and then display those Picasa albums dynamically on this site.

To catch up with what Alba and Haley have been up to check out the Media gallery by clicking the link in the right column. Haley is still a Cheerleader for the Hawks, doing great in school, and sending more text messages than the rest of our extended family combined. Alba has developed quite a personality and enjoys doing everything she can by herself.

It has been an awesome year. I worked for Halo most of last year but scaled back hours right at the end of last year and now I am working with HP Enterprise Design Services which is awesome so far. Martin and I turned the old computer shop also know as Computer Rehab into the Question Defense offices. We basically made a living room on Bardstown Rd. in the Highlands and now we both work from there. So work wise things haven’t been better than they are now in years if ever.

The past year I have also been lucky enough to go on a bunch of trips which included Wilmington, Las Vegas, St. Augustine, Disney World, Nashville, and Huntsville. There are tons of pictures from many of the trips in the photo gallery which can be reached by clicking the Media link in the right column.

Tomorrow Amy and I are off to California for our first solo trip in almost two years so we are super excited for some solo time. Hopefully it won’t be so long until my next post.

March 23rd, 2011 by alex | No Comments »