For the longest time, I’ve been avoiding the Bluetooth technology. The single earpiece headsets never really sat well with me. I had one for an older phone and I just didn’t like it.

Well, a couple of weeks ago while I was riding my bike, I was wearing a set of ill-fitting ear-buds. The ear-buds themselves annoyed me because they never really fit in my ears. But it was one of the better sounding devices for my headset. The only problem was that when I was pedaling my bike, my knee would come up and yank ‘em out of my ear.

This proposed a dangerous situation because the ear-buds could get caught in the chain or the spokes of the bike. So I started looking around for a wrap-around stereo Bluetooth headset. I found one made by Samsung and bought it. Last week it came in the mail and I set it up.

This is where I encountered the problem… I had no problem receiving or making calls from it, but when I tried to listen to my MP-3 player, it was of absolutely no use. So, today, I started rooting around on the interweb to find a solution. Apparently the AT&T does not support the technology for this type of headset. So I grabbed some 3rd party software and now I’m wired (or more accurately not wired) for sound.

Yesterday Kristi and I attended the sentencing for Jeffrey Pelo. He received 440 years after being found guilty of raping 4 women and stalking a 5th.

For those who read this and don’t know, Kristi was one of those women.

I know it sounds like a clichè but I literally felt like a weight was lifted off my chest the moment the verdict was read. And trust me, after being diagnosed with acute sleep apnea, I know a thing or two about the sensation of being able to breathe better.

After we left the court room, I called my Mother and my Father. Kristi called her parents as well. While we were on our way out of the courthouse, we stopped to answer some questions to the press. Kristi and the other victim Sarah Gliege did most of the talking while Sarah’s husband and I answered a question directed at us.

As horrible as this experience was for those involved, there are several lessons to be learned. I’ve watched Kristi as she was interviewed this weekend for an upcoming episode of ABC News’ 20/20. I hope I can do her messages justice here, but these are what I feel are the important aspects of Kristi’s message…

1) Come forward!
If you are a victim of sexual assault, do not hide in the shadows ashamed of what happened. The path to healing and justice begins with reporting this crime to the authorities.

2) It is NEVER your fault.
Kristi doesn’t know why she was targeted. But she does know that nobody has a right to put anyone through the indignities that he put her through.

3) Your life will be changed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still thrive.
I’ve spoken several times about my wife’s strength and how she’s thrived despite experiencing something that would tear apart other people. Today I heard an impact statement from another woman who had a very difficult time with what happened to her. She couldn’t cope and it tore her life apart. She turned to drugs to try and cope with it, and that just made everything worse. Now she’s working to get her life back on track. I wish her the best.

4) Be aware of your surroundings!
There are times that I may think that Kristi is a little too anal about locking doors and such, but she really has a damn good reason to be. If you are aware of your surroundings and take the proper precautions you diminish the chances of you becoming a target.

I can’t say enough about how proud I am of my wife. She read her impact statment and pretty much faced Pelo’s direction the entire time. He, like the coward he is, did not look at her.

How do I know? I stared him down the entire time. My jaw and fist clenched, I was shaking with the utter conflict in my mind between my sense of revenge and my sense of justice. Tears of frustration and anger were running down my face as I heard my wife painfully recounting the negative impact his actions had on her life. To say that I wanted to exact some bloody revenge is the understatement of the millennium.

I was lucky that my logical side had better control over my emotional side. Emotionally, I wanted blood. Logically, I need to be right at my wife’s side to help her back on the path of healing. I would be absolutely no good to her if I were behind bars for the murder of her rapist. But a line from a song by I Mother Earth puts it damn near perfectly… “The thought was entertaining me”

So now as I type this I am looking forward to getting some sleep. With the nightly aid of my C-PAP machine (Constant Positive Airway Pressure), I look forward to breathing easier from here on out.

Well, I added a new item to the Guitarsenal.

A Jackson Concert V. It’s a Japanese-made 5-string bass. It kicks much ass. My fingers hurt. Pics later…

I must be settling into old-age early. This weekend is Lollapalooza here in Chicago’s Grant Park and all I can think about is the way it’s going to affect traffic going in and/or out of the city.

I can’t say that I’ve ever really been interested in Lollapalooza since it’s inception. While I think I have a diverse taste in music, there are certain forms of popular music that I really can’t get into. My tastes lean heavily towards heavy metal/hard rock splashed with quite a bit of guitar vitruosity. (As I type this on my MP-3 player is George Lynch/Lynch Mob’s version of Goin’ Down… and it’s a great version!)

Looking at this year’s lineup, I can honestly say there is nothing there that interests me. Ok, maybe Rage Against The Machine, but that’s pretty much it. What’s interesting is that there’s a concert out in the suburbs that is probably more my speed than Lollapalooza would ever be. Poison, Dokken, and Sebastian Bach might be something that I would go see, but I’m really averse to driving out to the suburbs for just about anything anymore. Especially when the show is on a Sunday and the Cubs are in town. Maybe Lolla would do a little better if they had a “Hair Metal” (never really been crazy about the term, but it seems to be the standard) stage?

Hmmm… maybe I am really just getting old… If you see someone driving on Lake Shore Drive with their turn-signal on the entire way, that very well may be me. I better get my walker before I turn 36.