I had a bad experience at Naperville's Ribfest tonight and this is the e-mail I just sent them: Dear Ribfest, I am writing this e-mail because I am very unhappy with this evening's Ribfest "experience." All week I was looking forward to coming to Naperville and listening to Sammy Hagar perform. I paid 12 dollars to get in and then dropped another 22 dollars in food and drink. When I went to to find the Miller Stage, there were massive amounts of people waiting to get in because the policemen were not letting anyone in. I then waited for about an hour hoping to get in and the whole time trying to figure out what was going on. Only the people that could get close enough to the policemen were given an explanation. After standing for an hour, a policeman finally made it clear that probably no one else was going to get in. I don't understand why they could not have somehow explained to the crowd what was going on because everyone was confused. It was basically a mess with no lines or anything, just a bunch of unhappy people including me. I then proceeded to the admission tent to ask for a refund and first, I was told no refund. Then the woman told the cashiers to start letting people know that Sammy Hagar was sold out. I almost fainted trying to figure out why they didn't start telling people that hours before. Let me make this clear, Sammy Hagar was the only reason I came to Ribfest and I believe that it was very wrong to take my money without letting me know that I was not going to be able to see him. I would have been somewhat satisfied if I at least was given a free pass to come for another day. I would say that I would compare this experience to a scam. I spent 34 dollars before finding out I couldn't see what I came for. I also want to let you know that I will never attend another Ribfest and I will tell everyone I know that Ribfest is a scam. I am also forwarding this e-mail to Channel 2 in hopes that they will do a story on this. I know that I wasn't the only one that was upset and I would not want this to happen to anyone else. Sincerely, Stephen J. Sundberg

Wow, I really haven't posted to my blog in a long time. I think its about time I start blogging more often again. I now have two blogs, one at Wordpress and one at Blogger. I was originally going to phase out my Wordpress blog and continue at Blogger. However, over the last few months I have decided to maintain both of them. They will pretty much be the same except the one at Blogger may have more content because Wordpress does not allow most 3rd party widgets. I have some readers that still post comments to my blog at Wordpress so there is no sense phasing it out. Hopefully I'll have more readers with two blogs! So what have I been doing since I haven't been posting? Well in the last year I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, I quit my nasty smoking habit, and I have been taking walks and exercising more. Other than these things I have no excuse. So keep watching this blog for more content soon!

Its been a while since I have posted to my blog and I thought it was about time.  Since my last post, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea.  With the help of my new CPAP machine, I am sleeping better and feeling better. However, I have been thinking a lot about my nasty habit of smoking, how it is probably not helping my sleep disorder, and I think its time for me to terminate it for good.  I want to feel even better than better.  Today, I have downgraded to Ultra Light cigarettes and by the end of the week I plan to stop all together.  Its depressing to think about how good I could feel without cigarettes but still be so addicted that it seems impossible to quit.  I hate being dependent on them and I hate the fact that the tobacco companies have me trained well to go and shell out over 5 dollars every day for a new pack of cancer sticks.  Enough is enough. Anyway that's the end of my rant.  I needed to write this to share my frustration and I hope my words can inspire other smokers to quit for good.  Smokers everywhere please join me in quitting this nasty habit. So this is now the part where invite whoever took the time to read this to leave me comments.  Do you have thoughts about smoking or any words of wisdom?

Its been a while since I posted anything but that will be changing.  Since its been a while, I should update you, my readers, about what has been going on in my world. First, about 4 weeks ago, I finally quit smoking.  I started taking Chantix about six weeks ago and kicked the habit.  Its been a rough road to being a non-smoker but I am finally there.  Now I am counting the days until I can stop taking this horrible drug.  I hate the way it makes me feel, but right now its the only thing between me and a cigarette.  Chantix is definitely the lesser of the two evils, but it doesn't seem to mix with the Chicago summer heat and humidity. Next, I have finally purchased a new HP Pavilion Desktop Computer, the a6430f.  This means that all of my computer issues I was having before have been erased.  Now I can spend more time blogging and enjoying the social part of the internet instead of troubleshooting hardware problems.  I absolutely love my new desktop computer, which now has Windows Vista and Ubuntu 8.04 installed. Finally, I can now say that my ankle is pretty much back to normal.  Or at least as normal as it will most likely get.  Its slightly bigger than it used to be but all that hardware takes up space. Well, stay tuned for more soon!

Well, Sunday marked the two week anniversary of my surgery on my ankle and let me just say that it has been two weeks of pure hell.  The hardest thing for me is going downstairs to smoke.  I basically have to slide down the stairs with my walker, put my coat and crap on, and finally go outside.  When I get out there, I have to sit on a towel so my butt doesn't get cold and put on a blanket so my foot doesn't get cold.  When its snowy and/or wet, I have to put a plastic bag on my foot.  All this just for a few cigarettes.  I have tried to quit like 3 times since I broke my ankle but my problem is just that I don't really want to cope with not smoking at the same time that I am trying to cope with my foot.  Even though I am going through hell and everything takes 40 times longer with my foot, it has not all been bad.  Sunday I went with Jeff and James to the mall and got pushed around in a wheel chair.  Well, I sure hope another few weeks goes by quickly because I am very anxious to get into a walking cast!

Well folks, it appears as if I have landed myself in the hospital. I slipped on some snowy ice this morning and I broke my ankle in 3 places and also dislocated it. This is the first time I have ever done something like this. I was in lots of pain earlier and they had to knock me out to re-straighten my foot since it was basically off the ankle. I know, its a painful thought, but its even more painful to have it. When I woke up, the pain was gone and I was moved from the ER into a room to await surgery tomorrow morning. I basically will have screws in my feet tomorrow. I also will probably get arthritis when the weather changes. Fun stuff. Anyway, I'll provide an update tomorrow. Feel free to wish me well and leave a comment. Peace!

Well folks, I have taken a huge step towards a healthier life today.  Today is day 1 of my endeavor to quit smoking.  I am using the Nicorette gum 4 mg and let me just say, I have not had a huge urge for a cigarette all day.  Unlike the patch, I am getting the nicotine in a similar fashion as with cigarettes.  Nicorette is definitely making my life easier today.  Anyway, I'll blog more later to update my smoking status.

Please check out my blog at http://smanofsteel76.wordpress.com/!

I wanted to share my experiences from jury duty with those of you that would like to know what it was all about. I contemplated writing a huge narrative of what happened with different names, and I still may, but I think for now I am going to share a link to an article that I found on the internet that has details about the case. Here is a link to a story from the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-adamo_31may31,1,397793.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed I hope this will give some of you an idea of what I heard in court.

Well, after 4 weeks of jury duty and tons of Windows installations, I'm back.  I will be updating this blog more often now that I am done being so busy.  This coming weekend, I am going to write about my jury duty experience so come back and read all about it.  It was a murder trial so it was very interesting.  Until then, check out my other blogs.