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BigRedEO
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Name: Eric
Country: United States
State: Ohio
Metro: Cleveland
Birthday: 9/14/1963
Gender: Male
Interests: Rollercoasters ; theater ; travel ; Disneyland/Disneyworld ; songwriting ; movies ; Ugly Betty ; Men In Trees ; Desperate Housewives ; Brothers & Sisters ; Amazing Race ; One LifeTo Live ; Lost ; Will & Grace ; Dead Like Me ; Wonderfalls ; Annie Lennox ; Linda Eder ; Anastacia ; Manhattan Transfer ; HEROES!!
Tuc Watkins!
Hugh Jackman!
Jason Statham!
Josh Turner!
Emma Kennedy and Suburban Shootout!!
Watching Britney implode!! YAY!!
Expertise: DEBATING RIGHT-WINGERS, ULTRA-CONSERVATIVES AND BIBLE-THUMPERS!!
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Business
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/2/2004
 True  Premium
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| Favorite Links |
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Please visit my Facebook page as well!
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Please visit my friend Adrea's webpage! Peruse her catalog! Buy something!
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Also visit my cousin Suzie's page - buy something - cool accessories made from "reclaimed" materials!
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My sister and her husband do a lot of painting in their spare time. Here is a link to photographer's page where she has posted some of my brother-in-law's paintings, available as prints:
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PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PROVIDE FOOD FOR ANIMALS IN SHELTERS! YOU CAN CLICK ONCE PER DAY!
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Following are my friend Nikki Hornsby's various pages. She was my landlady when I last lived in California. She is a fairly well known country singer and member of the Academy of Country Music. She's had #1 hits in Europe! Her music is country gospel style. First is her link page:
Next is Nikki's MySpace page. You can listen to her music here:
And finally, here's her Cafepress page where you can buy related Nikki merchandise!
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This is actress and author Emma Kennedy.
Following is the link to her website. She is a British actress whose website I discovered accidentally and she is very good about keeping in touch with her fans and keeping them up to date. She is also a writer and her blog entries are very funny!
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This is the website for the UK TV Show "Suburban Shootout", which is where I discovered Emma. Great show! But the site hasn't been updated since Series 2 was released. There has not been a Series 3.
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Pink Martini is a wonderful orchestra/big band. They are a bit hard to describe, so please visit their site and discover them like I did!
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One of my all time favorite TV shows. Only 4 episodes aired of the 13 episodes made. The whole series is available on DVD and definitely worth the rental or purchase!
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My new car!! She's mine now!! She looks just like the one in the stock photo below - gold with roof rails and sunroof! Click on the photo to see the models available. I got the LT2 with all the options I've ever wanted in a car - factory-ordered brand new - and I got her for $1,800 below invoice!!
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This is my favorite real estate company. They specialize in unique home and condo conversions, with things like churches, fire stations, and old warehouses that have been converted into homes:
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| How Pumpkin Pie Is Made
Happy Thanksgiving To All!
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| Technically, my vacation began on Saturday, but this is my first paid vacation day from work this week and it turned out to be anything but vacation! Woke up with a migraine! YAY! Took my meds, went back to sleep, but had to set an alarm to go over ALL my financials.
You see, I've been with American Express Financial Services for sometime. Then AmEx spun off their financial division and called it Ameriprise. My initial advisor stopped working for them and I was given to someone else with whom I've finally met. We are doing a "once every so many years" re-look at my retirement goals and had to do the "where is all of your money going" thing.
Do you know how hard it is to try and figure out where you spend every penny during the year?? Yikes! And it's kinda scary at the same time. Makes you realize where the money is going, but trying to take into account things like ATM charges, etc? Way too hard. But the advisor said, "Everyone has trouble filling this out. In all my years doing it, I've only had one person - an engineer - who was able to tell me every single penny she spent and where she spent it down to postage stamps."
The advisor's office was downtown and since I was there, picked up a book at the library that I wanted. Then headed back through the east side of Cleveland toward the doctor's office. Went past Cleveland Clinic on the way there. Let me tell you, that place is like the Winchester Mystery House! There was a woman who believed she would die if she didn't keep building on the Winchester Mystery House and Cleveland Clinic seems to ALWAYS be adding to or remodeling its many buildings. It is a campus with individual buildings devoted to individual body parts or maladies - the Eye Center, the Cancer Center. It's unbelievable - they now even have an "international hotel" on the campus, but no wonder they have such a great world wide reputation. President Obama made his first speech to kick off Health Care Reform Initiative drive from the Clinic because they are innovators when it comes to keeping costs down and showing how great medical care does not have to be out-of-this-world expensive.
Headed to my sinus doctor. This is the surgeon who did my septoplasty back in August '05. I want to see about getting a sinusplasty. He did the thing with the fiber optic camera that I HATE! It is literally "up your nose with a rubber hose". They spray a nasal spray with a slight numbing agent and look through your sinus with this long, very slender fiber optic cable. I just hate it! It doesn't take long, thankfully, but they get to a place way at the back where he looks down into your throat/vocal cords and it not only tickles like crazy, but you have to fight the gag reflex. Ick!!
Then headed home in time to rush off to another errand. On the way home got a call from Mike asking if I was going to the "Wicked" lottery that night.
"No shows on Monday Mike!"
"Anne Marie (his daughter) says there is and she's waiting for me!"
Turns out they're not doing a show on Thanksgiving this week, so they're making up for it by doing a Monday show. Mike said he and Anne Marie got in, but there was 80-100 people there for the Front Row Lottery. Unfortunately, Playhouse Square has been advertising the lottery this time around, which they did not do the first two times the tour came through Cleveland! Bastages! I want to see it at least twice while it's here, but only via the Front Row Lottery! I better get in!
Tomorrow I get to be leisurely most of the day, but I'm getting my sinuses scanned (CAT Scan) at 6pm. Only takes about 5 minutes, but that means I can't be at the Front Row Lottery tomorrow night - the drawing starts at 6pm!
I definitely want to hit the Cleveland Museum of Art this week - it's been completely renovated and they have a Gaugin Exhibit. I'd also like to hit the Museum of Natural History because I haven't been there in some time. And I want to try for several movies at the theatre, too! Will see if it happens, or if I just decide to be lazy and nest all week!
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| Yes! Our Saturday night performance was sold out before we even opened our doors, PLUS they sold extra seats by setting up folding chairs in certain areas. REALLY great audience made for a great show. My favorite was a line that I made up because I could not remember my line correctly. At 4 different points in the show, I have very similar lines. They all are some variation on "This guy is a proxy social member who just eats lunches, doesn't play tennis and spreads rumors." Each time I say it, it's slightly different with different parts left out. Well, I came to the 2nd line like this and got as far as "This son of a b*tch is a non-playing..." and then I thought, "Isn't tennis in there somewhere??" It was supposed to be "This son of a b*tch is a non-playing social member who just eats lunches and doesn't play tennis." Instead, it came out, "This son of b*tch is a non playing... lunch-eating rumor-spreader!!!" Thank God Jen, who plays my wife, was able to keep it together. She immediately turned upstage and just poured her Diet Coke like she was supposed to and went on with her line.
I am still debating whether I should audition for a musical at Hudson Players. The auditions are next week, but there's pros and cons. It sounds like a fun musical, sort of a men's version of "Nunsense" called "Monky Business", but I'm also a little burnt out. I've done 7 shows since January that were all one on top of the other. In fact, this show, "Rumors", is the first one I've done where I wasn't immediately rehearsing the next one while the previous one was running since I did "Doubt" back in January. It's been nice to have my weeknights free again. In fact, I need to try and start making myself get into bed by 9-9:30pm to take advantage of it so I get a full 8 hours sleep, which I haven't been doing yet.
I've also wanted for some time to have a sinuplasty done. Think I've already talked about it on here, but it's a procedure to open up all the sinuses I have that are permanently swollen due to sinus infections over the years. I have not been able to truly breathe out of the right side of my nose for at least 25 years. I did have surgery to have my deviated septum corrected about a decade ago and even though it did straighten the septum, I still cannot breathe properly. I'm thinking this might be a good time to take a break and get it over with. I have an appointment next week with the surgeon who did my previous surgery as he is one of the surgeons who is trained on sinuplasties. It it a relatively simple procedure in which I would be out with either twilight sleep (I don't like that idea since allegedly I might still be conscious of it) or general anesthesia and they go up in the sinus with a fiber optic camera on a guide wire and use a balloon just like in angioplasties to gently open up the sinuses. They also cauterize any areas that might need it and the whole thing is supposed to only take about 15 minutes or so. Minimal recovery. I'd like to have it done while there aren't any shows I'm overly interested in doing. The next show that I have any interest in isn't until May. It's a show that a friend is directing and the rehearsals would probably start in March.
Another bonus about not doing a show in winter is not having to drive in the snow as much. Driving all the way to Hudson and back 4 or 5 nights a week in the winter? I don't think I want to risk it that much. Plus, what with me going home to California for two and 1/2 weeks from December 19th through January 5th, that might just be too much of a conflict for a show that would be opening the first week of February. I'm leaning towards the "take a break" mentality right now.
I have next week off. Taking a "stay-cation." I had three more vacation days unscheduled, so I asked if I could take Thanksgiving Week, which they let me. Already on Monday, though, I have three things to do. Number one, meeting with my financial advisor to do an assessment at 1:30 in the afternoon, then meeting with the sinus surgeon at 4:30pm, then having a gathering at a friend's house - my friend's nephew's restaurant is being featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on The Food Network. His restaurant, Momocho, doesn't really qualify as any of those, but it is one of the most raved about Mexican restaurants in the country and it's where we had my birthday party two months ago. So we are gathering at their house to watch the show that night.
Then Thanksgiving was a toss-up between two invitations, so it was sort of a coin toss for me. I went with the invite that came first in my e-mail Inbox. Still maybe I'll get to see everyone at some point that day.
But for the rest of my "stay-cation", I think I want to do just that - stay home and sleep a LOT! Catch up on shows on the DVR and DVDs I haven't opened yet. Just cuddle up in fleece pajamas under a blanket and rest, rest, rest. Something I haven't really done for myself this year and maybe that's just what my body needs!!
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| So tired, but it's my own fault - I really wanted to sing karaoke last night!
There is this larger group that always arrives there later. Not the best singers in the world and a lot of the guys are in suits. One guy that I talk to, I asked him once about the suits and if they were coming for work. He claimed to own his own company that helps organize sporting events, so that's why he usually comes dressed up. And the karaoke DJ even commented once when this guy showed up in just a jeans and a regular shirt that he "wasn't dressed in his appropriate attire." So last night, when all the guys arrived in suits again, I jokingly teased the guy about the suits and he claimed it's because they are all Jehovah's Witnesses. Alllllrighty then. Whether it was true or he was making it up, I have no clue. But it would also explain all the suits. I didn't bat an eyelash and just said, "Oh, from the one in Bainbridge?" because I knew that was a Kingdom Hall there and he said, "No, from Twinsburg." I'll have to pay attention the next time we go there whether they are drinking alcohol or not. Don't JWs abstain?
But that is why I'm so dang tired this morning.
This weekend is shaping up very well for the show. We are 22 seats shy of a sellout for Saturday night!! This is very exciting to me because we REALLY want to sellout before the lobby even opens. I have been in a couple of sellouts for some shows, but not any that were sold out before the lobby even opened. It was, "We have about 30 seats left and we'll see how many walk-ups we get." That's why we as a cast have really been pushing this Saturday night. I put Post-It notes on all my posters for the show that I have up at work that read, "Almost sold out for this Saturday! Get your tickets now!" and it's gotten a couple of people to stop and ask me about it.
Fingers crossed!!
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| Dear Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook: I hate you for being so damned addictive. So much so that I can play for 2 to 3 hours without realizing that 2 to 3 hours have passed and therefore I have missed my goal of being in bed by 10pm.
And now I am paying for it by not only being dead tired, but I think it gives me arthritis in my right hand from using the mouse so much AND it makes my right shoulder muscle completely knot up, which I know is a migraine trigger.
I must stop. I must resist it. I must not CARE that everyone else is still playing it.
I must give Bejeweled Blitz a break!
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