Brent Pirolli's

Hey all…. I just want to support this cause…. PLEASE check it out… It’s really kinda cool.  IBM has partnered with a few other major companies…(Gateway, Intel, Microsoft) and they do research for cancer cures… Here’s how it works.  People across the world download this software that runs in the background of your computer.  Whenever you’re not doing anything on your computer, it goes to work doing thousands of mathematical calculations a minute.  The main company sends you information to process and then your computer acts as a part of a GIANT world-wide computer brain and processes the info then sends the results back to the company.  There are litterally MILLIONS of computers working on this worldwide and we need all we can get!

Trust me… it’s safe.  I’ve used it for nearly 2 years now and have seen it go through multiple stages.  When it first started it was seeing what chemical compounds COULD work as potential cures… then it took a break during the anthrax scare and found a cure for later stages of anthrax in under THREE MONTHS!  Then it started phase two of the cancer research where it further examines the positive results from phase one…

There are also other companies getting on board and conducting research… As I said before the US Dept. of Defense used it for finding 4-8 years worth of Anthrax research in just 80 days.  They’ve also started using it for a Smallpox cure.  Other companies use it for drug research to get cheaper costs for consumers, the ADA uses it for Diabetes research… As far as the Cancer cures go through IBM and the University of Oxford, there were over 80,000 computational YEARS of work done last year alone.  HOW’S THAT for power?

Here’s how you can help:  Download this software and then to humor me and let me know you are on-board, join a team I just created.  (People make teams to compete… you get points and stuff for your results…. kinda fun….)  PLEASE consider this… it’s completely safe and a GREAT cause.  It only runs when your computer is idle and you won’t notice any performance issues.  There are NO pop-ups or ads… it’s solely for calculations and NOT marketing… Thanks everybody…. hope to see you there!

Mood:  Feelin all good-samaritanish…..

So I picked up two anonymous subscribers….. I’ve never had one before and now I have two!  One on 4/23 and the other two days later…. what the crap is up with that?!?  Why would you subscribe anonymously?  Do I smell THAT BAD?

In other news, later today (Thrusday) Sarah and I are hanging out…. it should be cool…. we’re gonna try and go to Maumee Bay State Park when she gets off of work…. I’m gonna take my guitar and stuff…. yay for that!  I’ll let you know how it goes….   Then we leave Friday at 4pm for Texas… So somewhere in there I should pack… Cuz I’m pretty sure that clothes are a requirement for this conference… … … I think…

OK…. So I’m addicted to GTA Vice City now… I know it’s like crack… You KNOW it’s bad for you, but you just can’t stop using it!  ::sigh:: oh well…. the quicker I get through it, the sooner I get sick of it…. ONWARD!

Mood:  Tired… time for BED!

So I just typed this once…. only… MUCH longer… and it was deleted cuz Xanga hoed me hard…. GRRR!  TAKE 2!

OK… So I’ve been home for the summer for a week now… and you’d think that would mean I’m chillin in the sun soakin up some rays and sippin some iced drinks… but alas it’s been around 50 degrees at some point each day still…. So what have I been doing in the mean time?  GLAD YOU ASKED!  I’ve been workin my butt off at the Creek… I put in 39 hours this week, (too bad I only get paid for 20 of those!   But what do you expect in ministry…) and hopefully that will continue over the summer so that by next summer they can think, “hmmm… we really COULD use Brent full-time…”

So how have I been that busy?  Well, we just got a new computer system purchase through Dell… 32 stations and a server, tape backup, and a bunch of Mac stuff for the digital/visual crews…. So yes… finally in the 7 years of our existance, CedarCreek has computers that DON’T go slower than a one legged hampster crawling in the sand…. ….. ::pauses to reflect on the previous analogy::  …. …. …. ::teary eyed::  GO BOY!  You’re free now!  GOOOOOO!!!!  … ….. oh …. right…. ::realizes he’s on crack::  SO ANYWAY, now we’ve moved on from our Power Packed Pentium 133 Mhz machines and moved to 2.2 Ghz Pentium 4’s…. ::drools a little::  So now I’ll be the System Administrator (another perk for full-time candidacy)… …. Candidacy… is that a word?

So this weekend what am I doing?  AGAIN GLAD YOU ASKED!  I’m spending a weekend in Texas…. Yes… Texas…. It’s going to be the farthest away from home I’ll have ever been.  And STILL not on a plane… I’ve never stepped foot on a plane!  Not that I’m afraid of or against flying, but I’ve never had the opportunity to do so!  In Dec. of 2000 I was scheduled to go to a conference with CedarCreek Staff in Orlando…. via a plane… but it was cancelled due to lack of funding…. BAH!  Oh well…. so why am I going to Texas?  I am going to the… dun dun dun… Passion One Day ’03 conference!

Yes… tens of thousands of College Students… gathering and camping on a field in Texas… for a three day event… with a final day of praise and worship like no other… 40,000 people pouring their hearts out to God… with their faces on the ground…. their hands raised high… their knees in the dirt…. their hearts in worship…. Man… that’s gonna be so awesome… It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to fully dive into worship and to reflect on God’s presence in my life… you lose that ability when you are the one running the service for others… and even when you’re not running it, you’re worried about those who are… and that it goes smoothly…. but now I can take three whole days and do nothing but focus on Christ and his love for me…. on my repentance… on my relationship with Him… I’m geeked.

Then on the way home Sarah and I might break off from the pack-o-people and travel 5 hours north and stop in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and stay with her grandparents for the night…. Get a shower, sleep in a real bed… (Seperate of course!  We’re not married yet!)  Then we’ll make the 15 hour journey home from there the next day….  But that’s not set in stone yet… still plans in the making…

SO with that, I don’t know if I’ll update before my trip…. I probably will…. not leaving for 4 days yet… we’ll see!   If not, I’ll fill ya all in on Tuesday or Wednesday…. probably Wednesday since Tuesday will involve 15 hours of driving…   So be praying for our safe travels and broken hearts before God…. Until we return, keep your stick on the ice.

Mood:  Geeked about the conference!

OK…. so I’m halfway unpacked after being home for nearly 5 days… It’s kind of pathetic, and kind of totally understandable… CedarCreek has kept me quite busy this week and I have TONS more to do there….

Sarah and I have been spending a lot of time together still… which is good… it just takes a lot of driving (which lately has been on her part due to my schedule)… I still haven’t seen the new X2 or the Matrix Reloaded movies yet…. BUT I hope to see Matrix Reloaded tomorrow morning after I work a bit and before Sarah has to go to work…

As you can see, I have my PC back and running…. YEE FRICKIN HA!  I had it up for 2 days without internet…. Strange thing I learned… If you plug a Linksys WAP (Wireless Access Point) directly into a NIC card on a PC…. it won’t work…. UNLESS you have a crossover cable.  But it WILL work on a Mac with a normal cable…. ….. ….. Man…. Apple has some good thinkin behind them… but they always manage to screw it up somehow… like the “round” mouse they made a few years back…. or the way they glue the protective plastic sheeting onto the 23″ flat panel LCDs so strong that it takes two full-grown men to rip it off and then you have nasty sticky goo on it for a year…. Come on guys!  Get something 100% right and the world will celebrate… but until then, you get the “DUH!” award from me….

OK… nuff talking bout nerd-dom.  I must now go and celebrate in my new found glory of broadband internet in my house….

Mood:  FINALLY almost done unpacking  (I HAVE A PHONE NOW!)

OK, so I’m back at home now… and I’m typing this entry on my … dun dun dun…. new laptop! YEE HAA! Well… it’s not really new…. it’s 6 months old… and it’s not really mine…. it’s the church’s but I am the sole user of it for….. uhhh…. ever?

The downside is, Xanga doesn’t make an xTools tool for Macs so I have to type this plain and beef it up later… once my PC is put together again and I’m unpacked.

So Sarah made it back safely. She and I went to Maumee Bay State Park on the outskirts of my town this morning… It was fun. We walked a nature trail and looked at the lake for a little bit…. Yay for sunny but cool days. We watched a deer in the woods for a bit too… it was only 100 feet away or so… A BIG white-tailed doe…

Before that we had gone a few other places… we have a contract that we follow that helps us keep pure before marriage… one of the points is that we are not in a house alone…. so since my mom, step-dad, and both sisters were at work/school/whatever.. we had to do stuff outside…. SO, first we went and picked up her contacts from the eye-doctor… then I went and ordered my glasses…. yes… I am getting glasses…. I haven’t worn glasses since 5th grade…. I got contacts in 6th-8th… then I stopped altogether… Now I realize that my left eye sucks… so I’m getting them for reading…. man… I feel old…

AND to finish the day, I taught Sarah how to tie a tie… she works at a country club and has to wear ties…. man… that sucks… Then she went to work and here I am messing with my new laptop that I have programmed voice activation commands on…. It’s great… I talk and it talks back… I tell it to open, close, switch applications… it does…. It tells jokes… the time, the day…. it’s great…. I play entire games of chess by calling out the moves…. VERY creepy…. heh heh… fun.

Mood: GLAD to be home, but not wanting to unpack!

So it’s been awhile since my last post… mainly becuase I’ve been OWNED by end-of-year duties… I spent about 30 hours tuesday-thursday on a CD-Rom design/build that is my portfolio for a Final Project in my Multimedia class…. It’s very cool… but was WAY more involved than I suspected!  I’m BEAT!  Friday I spent making slides for the Creek…   Then I spent time inventorying and packing all of Offenhauer’s movies, games, sporting goods, and kitchen supplies…. that took about 5 hours… SUCK!  But on the plus side, I got to put 13 random wooden, metal, and plastic spoons in-between my fingers and run around screaming the “Spoon Man” song….

It’s weird here… all the residents are gone.  We have 21 floors with 21 people…. it’s SO quiet that it’s kinda creepy…. it’s just like the beginning of the school year last august… Very creepy overall… I like the freedom it brings though… like… I know I can run naked around my floor of 26 rooms and it’s cool cuz no one is here… …. … not that I’ve ….. done…. that…. But I could…

This morning I took stuff home… a full car-load… My TV, VCR, Nintendo, Fridge, Microwave, Scanner, Guitar, …. books… other misc. stuff… SO now I have my clothes, computer, and random little things left… in theory it should all fit in my car!  I decided the best way to pack clothes… is in garbage bags…. it’s fast and great!

Then I went to the Creek… I didn’t run anything for the services, but I set up everything and showed the people what to do… so now they’re trained for tomorrow and I’m not going in!  YAY FOR A DAY OFF!  Although, it’s not a day of relaxation….   Instead, I’m packing my stuff, cleaning the halls of Offenhauer, driving home, and unpacking/doing laundry all night…. BUT…. It’s got to be done and I’m so glad that classes are over for another 3 months!  Hopefully I’ll be able to graduate this time next year and all will be well in the world…. I could be getting married shortly after too…

Speaking of… Sarah… I miss you like crazy… get back up here!   K… I gotta start packing tonight cuz my room…. is a disaster… and I have plenty to do tomorrow without dealing with all this mess!

Mood:  Cleaning and moving SUCKS!

So you know the scene in the Matrix where Neo is dodging the bullets in slow motion with the revolving camera around him?  That’s how I felt today…. I realized at 5:35 that I had a 6:00 final…. WOW!  GLAD I REMEMBERED!  whew… bullet dodged…

THEN I realized that no… this final was last night…. I missed it…  So I started flippin out… I wrote an email to my prof and called him at his studio…. He was there…. bullet dodged…

Then I told him what happened and asked him if we had anything that was important becuase I knew there was no written test… We had already turned in our final project and were just meeting to get them back and to critique other people’s projects.  He said, “Yup…. 100 points.”  AHHHH!  I said, “OH NO!  Are you kidding me?”  He said, “Yup…”  whew… bullet dodged…

So in the end I was a little on edge with my nerves but alive and still able to breathe…. thats always a plus… So now how did I forget about a final???  I HAVE NO CLUE!  I had one written test which I did Monday and then I kept saying that I was done till friday’s project was due… but I wasn’t…. I had tested out of taking the final in my Astronomy class… and my Photo class just slipped my mind!  I guess I knew that there wasn’t a written final to study for and so I erased it from memory!  OUCH!  I’m NEVER usually that careless…. freaked me out…

In other news, Luke, Sara, Drew, and I went disc golfing yesterday… I threw a +5 on my first game of the season… not too bad… I was +2 after the first two holes and +3 going into the 17th hole… The 15th hole was underwater so that was fun… I bogied it… stupid lake… and somewhere in there I had 2 one-stroke penalties for throwing out of bounds… stupid 17mph winds…  But overall a +5 for the first game of the year isnt’ bad… I’ll take that in BG’s crazy wind.

Sarah went home for 5 days before she comes back up and moves into her apartment for the summer…. Summer’s gonna be odd since Sarah and I won’t see each other every day like we did all year.  She’s gonna be working full-time and living in BG… I’m gonna be working full-time and living in Oregon… 30 min. apart.  We’ll still see each other probably 4-5 days a week I’m sure… but it’s gonna be kinda tough when transitioning from seeing each other every day… eating almost every meal together… all that… OH WELL… absence makes the heart grow fonder…

K… I must go finish the VERY long project I’ve been workin on… it’s due Friday morning…. ack!

Mood:  Sick of the project!  Wanting school to end!

So Luke posted a song he wrote for me on his site…. you can actually hear it… ….. and I’m not QUITE sure how to feel about it……. …. but I DID clean up the audio a bit and remaster it for him…. I think I’m just…. …. disturbed…. overall….

Mood:  I feel slightly violated… yet slightly flattered…
Music:  The song Luke wrote for me…. awaiting a title…

So I got this emailed to me and thought it was cool…. check it out:

Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan… what we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message.

“I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here’s one plan”:
  
1) The US will apologize to the world for our “interference” in their affairs, past & present. We will promise never to “interfere” again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting  with Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don’t want us there. We would instead station troops at our borders. No more sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We’ll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 day visits unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would be allowed in. If you don’t like it there, change it yourself, don’t hide here. Asylum would not ever be available to anyone. We don’t need any more cab drivers.
 
5) No “students” over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don’t attend classes or get a “D” it’s back home, baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort to become self sufficient energy wise. This will include developing non polluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan  wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

 7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a  barrel for their oil. If they don’t like it, we go someplace else.

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world,  we will not “interfere”. They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give  them gets “lost” or is taken by their army. The people who need it most get very little, anyway.
 
9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an island some place. We don’t need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, it would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.
9b) Use the buildings as replacement for the twin towers.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us “Ugly Americans” any longer.

Now, ain’t that a winner of a plan.

“The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and she’s yelling, ‘You want a piece of me?'” – Robin Williams

OK…. so it’s been a LONG time without a meaningful entry….  Well, I’ve been pretty crazy-go-nuts busy lately… and now that it is finals week, I should…. (and I use the term lightly) be around more.  I’ll give you a brief synopsis of the past few days…

I filmed some interviews with some parents and kids over the day on thursday… then learned that it WASN’T due Saturday… in fact, it isn’t due for a week or two more yet…. so sweet props to that…

On Friday I was on duty… I totally feared the reaper… Like… I did NOT want to be on duty the last night of classes… I figured it’d be party-fest ’03…. It was.  BUT, I decided to just go light on knocking on doors till quiet hours at midnight… when that hit, I was braced for the worst… I knew which rooms were most likely gonna call us to them and I knew what to expect…. nothing but full fledged disobedience and rudeness…. So I debated calling a police officer to go with us before we knocked on one of the rooms… …. but when we got to the room… it was silent!  I was shocked…. then the oddest thing happened… the entire building was silent… …. I knocked on ONE door and talked to two people in the halls…. man… for having 900 residents it was pretty dead!  I was EXTREMELY grateful…. course, then I found out that at about 3am there was a fist fight on 7E…. One of the girl residents litterally punched her roommate in the face… Thankfully the RA on that floor handled it and let me sleep…. THANKS ADAM ARP!  YOU DA MAN!

On Saturday I woke up and ate lunch with my wonderful and ever beautiful woman….   (suck up points go here.)  Then I went in to the Creek for a night of work.  I came out of that and feeling exhausted I crashed and watched the end of Gladiator on TV with Sarah.

Sunday morning at 7:50am I woke up and went to the Creek again… left there at 1:45pm… went to my home in Oregon… It was my step-brother Taylor’s birthday… The party wasn’t till 2:30 but I had to leave at 2:45 so I figured I’d go early and hang out with him…. I suspected he’d ask me to play hockey with him… he did… so I did… We took shots on each other in a net and I showed him some goalie tips and some shooting tips…. cute kid…   I went back to the Creek at 2:45 and worked till 8:30 doing a service for Main Street Church out of Walbridge, OH… It was kind of a special…. building campaign launching…. major… dealie… thing… for them… and I ran all the live video/switcher stuff… THEN, I came back to BGSU…. watched the end of Ghost on AMC with Sarah and then cut my hair…. took a shower… walked downstairs (where Sarah was working) and hung out with her and the other desk clerks/RAs that were down there…

Now it’s 2am and I have a Final Exam at 10:45am tomorrow…. so much for studying!  Time for sleep…. no worries…. I’m a sponge… I should be fine on the test…    

Mood:  EXHAUSTED… but happy!