Brent Pirolli's

7 Weeks.

In 7 weeks I’ll have a degree in my hands.  I’ll officially be out of college.  In 6 weeks, classes are over, the following week is exam week, and the week after that I get married and will be magically whisked away to Destin, FL. to chill on white sand beaches for a week.  I’m SO looking forward to being married.  We’re going to have so much fun living together.  Besides the obvious, married life is going to be a blast…. I know it’s going to be a ton of work, involve a lot of sacrifice, and be harder than I imagine now, but I can’t wait…  To live with my best friend…  To be with Sarah through the night…    Fun fun.

The honeymoon should be fun too… we’re going to go parasailing and snorkeling…. and ….. uhhh…. play cards…

Anyway, here we are, back at school from Spring “Break.”  I didn’t really have much of a break-ish time.  I worked 62 hours that week.  Unfortunately on a salary of 20 hours a week too…. ::sigh:: Oh well, it’s all a means to an end.  I’ll be full-time in June.  We installed a $75,000 upgrade to our video system at church.  We now have 5 screens and projectors and two switchers to change images from the cameras, computers, etc… The center three screens are angled and retractable so they can be put away when not needed and used when they ARE needed (like during worship) for showing everyone in the 1,400 seats a good view of the lyrics, verses, etc…  And the side two screens are on the walls next to the stage and are always on to magnify the images of the stage for those who sit in the back sections.  I’m just glad we got it all working in the short amount of time we had to do it in!

Friday night was New Community.  It was one of the coolest New Community services we’ve ever done.  It was just four people on stage.  Mark Bernard on bass and bongos, Chad Sattler on congas, Kyle Gray on accoustic guitar and vocals, and Lauren Miller on vocals.  All four were sitting on stools up on the front of the stage.  There was no massive stage setup, no super cool lighting, no outrageous videos…. just accoustic worship.  They took turns telling about how they wrote some of the songs we sing, how God influenced them, how they came to CedarCreek, and other cool stories about how God has moved in the music team at CedarCreek.  It was such a great night of worship and calming down before God to hear the meaning behind the words we often take for granted.

God is so freaking cool.  I remember six years ago praying for God to use me.  I didn’t know how.  I just knew that I wanted to be used to impact the world for Him in a way so big that it had to be from Him.  I wanted to do something so great, that it couldn’t have been from me no matter how hard I could’ve tried…. I wanted to see God use me… a 15 year old kid… my only desire was to serve a purpose worth serving.  My legacy…. I wanted my life to be one that when I was gone, people would say, “Man…. I knew what he was about.  If it wasn’t for him… I wouldn’t have ever have known God in that way….. or learned this about life…. or been able to impact the world for God in this way…”

Funny how after 6 years I find myself looking back on the ways God has used me.  I see the tremendous multimedia setup we have at church…. I see the volunteers we have laying down countless hours of their lives to serve others… I see the videos being played impacting thousands… I’ve been able to be on stage in a drama that has had multiple people come up to me in tears and tell me how it hit home with them… I’ve been used by God in ways that I never imagined possible.  There I was, a punk 18 year old kid when they brought me on staff and said, “Your job is to learn this equipment inside out… and then make our ideas come to be a reality.”  I was cocky, prideful, lazy, and still struggle with a lot of those same issues today, but I’ve grown SO MUCH through this job… this priviledge…. God, it’s so amazing to see how You love me…  The team I get to work with is great, the job is so rewarding, the work is fun…  I love it.  If it wasn’t for school and a conscious effort to NOT live at work…. I’d never leave!  Thank You Lord…. for giving me such a great opportunity.  God rocks.

Currently Playing:
CedarCreek Live Unplugged
“Broken”
Kyle Gray

So…. Much…. Work…..

Must…. press on….. Can’t…. quit….. Stupid….. busywork…..  Shoelaces….. untied….. Period key…. …. stuck………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …………………………………………………………………………..

Two Years and Running

It was two years ago today that I met the woman of my dreams…. you may all know her as DW.  DreamWoman.  Yes, Sarah Beth Kuntz (soon to be Pirolli), you are the winner.  Unfortunately, the prize for life…. is me.  To quote Adam Sandler…… “I’m sorry I’m…. not better lookin….”

I LOVE YOU SARAH!

President’s Day Professionalism

Hokay…. So….. Last Monday was President’s Day.  Normally this means you have off of work, and we all watch other students not go to school…. but when you’re in college at BGSU, we don’t have off school.  Why?  Because President’s Day is the day that BGSU uses to suck potential students (that are enjoying their day off of school) onto the campus for a tour and to suck up to them (which in the end is only to get tens of thousands of dollars from them in return).  So BGSU puts on their best performance.  The food is all great, 4 or 5 shuttles run at a time (as opposed to 1 or 2) so that there is hardly a wait at the bus stops… it’s kinda pathetic really.  Why am I telling you all of this now?  Becuase… it sets up the following story…

So Monday I’m in my Screen Printing Lab, and I’m walking around working on my screen.  Tours of students keep popping in the lab to see what the Tech Building has to offer.  So I decided to have some fun and I put on one of the masks we were given to protect us from one of the many harmful vapor containing chemicals we use…  But only after I decorated it.  Then I walked by a tour of about 20 students who were all staring at me… and I was making noises like a Tazmanian Devil…. The best part was that the tour guide just got done saying, “And this is where a lot of our professional quality work gets done…”  Then I turn the corner making all my noises and looking like this:

And I just kept on walking…. right through to the next room…. and the tour guide stopped and was all confused on what to say next…. heh heh…. I think I scared the kiddies….

Crazy Sidewalk Chalk

So these pics were emailed to me.  Keep in mind that these surfaces are FLAT!

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I really dig the dude in #5.  It took me two times looking at it to realize that the image was the guy on the left!  I just thought it was two dudes drawing!  Crazy… It’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t.

We’re in the money… We’re in the money…

So a lot has happened in the past few days.  My mom’s birthday was Tuesday.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM!  And I have done a ton of work on school stuff lately…

AND…

Sarah, my wonderfully smart and intelligent soon-to-be wife just got a job offer for an internship at Owens Corning’s World Headquarters in Toledo starting at $16.92 an hour full-time for the summer…. WOOT FOR MONEY!

So, it’s only a guaranteed position for 12 weeks, but it can be extended based on whether or not they like her, and the need for employees, etc… Plus she’d have to go part-time come next school year anyway…. so who knows if it’ll last…. but if it did… she’d graduate and go full-time again at a starting pay of like… $36,000 a year…. THAT’S FREAKIN SWEET!  I laughed cuz normally a guy would be upset that his woman is making more than him, but I’m a college student in ministry, so any money is good money!

On a sadder note, Luke and Sara left our small group.  They’re in a crazy busy world of time committments and work and such that just wasn’t working out with the schedule of the group and a couple of other reasons… Nothing bad, but just logically it was the best thing they could have done at the time.  We’re all going to miss them….   But it’s not like we’ll never see them anymore.  Most of us work together!  And who knows, a year from now, they may be back in with us.

Now for the pic of the day.  Here’s something I made for class…  Whatcha think?

(Click the photo to see a larger version)

Penguin Smacking

So…. I got this link from my friend Ben… and I’ve been addicted lately.  Give it a try, it’s fun.  The key is not to hit it high, but right in the middle…. that way the penguin doesn’t do a nose dive, but instead bounces off it’s belly and slides farther.  My record is a 593.5.  Ben got a respectable 593, and Sarah’s friend also got a 593.5.  I think that may be the maximum possible… let me know if you accomplish otherwise!

Now You See It, Now You Don’t!

So, back in my photo class, we did an assignment where we had to make images appear or dissappear from a photo… That’s really not the hard part.  The hard part is making the lighting, shadows, etc, still appear real.

So I found this image online and decided to remove things.  An hour later, I have 5 items removed, shadows adjusted, light sources accounted for…. Looking pretty good…. So I got back to my room and decided to make it an animation and to put it on Xanga….  Cuz…. why not?

One problem.  I have no idea how to make it an animation with enough quality to see a decent picture, while still falling under xanga’s 100k size limit on non-jpg images.  Enter Adobe ImageReady.  I’ve never used the stand-alone program, only the Photoshop plug-in…. But sure enough, I figured it out in about 3 minutes and made this wonderful file…. Enjoy.

Oooooohhhh Aaaaahhhh….. Wasn’t that loverly?  Ok…. Off to sleep I go, then Curling class.  WOOT!

Creative Attempts

So I’m in this class (VCT 460 – Digital Photogrpahy) where I have an assignment to take 5 images, then use those same 5 images to create 5 ads, that all sell the same product, but look completely different.  It’s called “stylin.”  Anyway, here’s what I came up with…. thoughts?  Likes, dislikes, complaints, comments, suggestions… … pick-up lines?

Courtesy of OutOfTheFire‘s site…

create your own visited states map

The kicker is… I’ve never stepped foot on a plane…  All that is driving.  Not that I don’t WANT to fly, just haven’t ever had the opportunity!  BUT, I will come May 15th!  I’ll be flying to Destin, FL for my honeymoon!!!